Schering Stiftung

Project 

Common Ground

Elín Hansdóttir and Matthew McGinity

Common Ground

Elín Hansdóttir and Matthew McGinity

Date:

2021-2023


Within the framework of the Common Ground project, the Icelandic artist Elín Hansdóttir and the media computer scientist Matthew McGinity were brought together as cooperation partners. The junior professor and director of the Immersive Experience Lab (IXLAB) at TU Dresden and his scientific team, consisting of cognitive psychologists and computer scientists, plan to investigate questions such as the reality and structure of phenomenal perceptions, embodiment, and the connection between reality, agency, and memory. By studying these, the team hopes to contribute to the understanding of mental illness and the application of AI systems for use in psychotherapy, education, art and entertainment.

Elín Hansdóttir works in numerous disciplines, including installation, sculpture, and photography. She often creates immersive in-situ installations that address one’s perception by moving through unfamiliar and seemingly out-of-place locations. In doing so, the installations offer an orientation system for self-reflection. This redesign of spaces vacillates between the physical and psychological effects of uncertainty, disorientation, sensory limitations, or visual illusions. Hansdottír plans to use the collaborative project to tap into technologies such as VR, which she has long wanted to work with, as part of the joint effort.

Matthew McGinity and Elín Hansdóttir are currently in the process of defining the framework for their joint project with mutual visits and in personal conversations, which will culminate in an exhibition in the project space of the Schering Stiftung in spring 2023.

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The project partners 

Elín Hansdóttir (b. 1980) works in numerous disciplines, including installation, sculpture, and photography. She often creates immersive in-situ installations that address one's own perception by moving through unfamiliar and seemingly out-of-place locations. In doing so, the installations offer an orientation system for self-reflection. This redesign of spaces vacillates between the physical and psychological effects of uncertainty, disorientation, sensory limitations, or visual illusions.

The Icelander's work revolves around confusion, the manipulation of the senses, and the concomitant deception of perception. In her installations, for example, Hansdóttir uses altered and reduced lighting conditions to create alien environments. The architectural system within which we usually move is manipulated and we ourselves are deprived of reliable constants. In this way, the artist subtly dislocates the spatial structure by means of dissolved contours and causes feelings of irritation, uncertainty, and disorientation.

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Prof. Matthew McGinity

Junior Professorship for Immersive Media Design at the Institute for Software and Multimedia Technology of TU Dresden

Since 2020, Matthew McGinity has held the Junior Professorship for Immersive Media Design at the Institute for Software and Multimedia Technology of TU Dresden. His teaching and research interests include various aspects of immersive media, ranging from the perceptual and cognitive foundations of immersive experience, to development of novel immersive multi-user systems, and applications of virtual and augmented reality in the fields of data visualisation, archaeology, museums, education and the creative arts.

Originally from Tasmania, Australia, Matthew McGinity received a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Melbourne in 1996 and a Bachelor of Computing Honours degree from Monash University in Melbourne a year later. He received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 2014. He has over 20 years’ professional experience creating immersive and interactive systems in industry, academia and the creative arts, from creating computer games or immersive museum exhibitions, to developing astronaut training simulations at the European Space Agency. He has taught at the University of New South Wales, and more recently at the University of Würzburg in the field of media informatics. His creative works have been exhibited world-wide, in such venues as the ZKM, the Sydney Biennale, the Festival d’Avignon, the Seville Biennale of Contemporary Art, Chronos Centre Beijing, and the Roma Europa and Shanghai eArts festivals.

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Unter den Linden 32-34
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Email: info@scheringstiftung.de

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