Ralo Mayer

»Etwa mit geschlossenen Augen, Phosphene, Blue Arc, Haidinger-Büschel, dergleichen, Formkonstanten einer politischen Ökologie; ja, in der Art lässt sich der Gebäudekomplex darstellen, als Vorstellung. Archäologen entdeckten diese entoptischen Phänomene an den Wänden gewisser prehistorischer Höhlen. Da spricht nichts dagegen, dies auch hier zu blicken, als Widerschein der Zukunft.« (p. 217 f.) That said, serendipity has been voted the third hardest to translate word, 2010

exhibition period:

June 3  - September 26 2010

exhibition space:

OK Offenes Kulturhaus

born in 1976 in Eisenstadt, lives in Vienna

Winner of the Price of the Triennale Linz

»Proposal for a Monument at Lagrange 5, Dedicated to the Lost Space Age«, Ausstellungsansicht / exhibition view »(...)traveling through Biosphere 2, or: Anastylosis of Follies«, Argos, 2010

Foto / Photo: Maxim Surin

»Proposal for a Monument at Lagrange 5, Dedicated to the Lost Space Age« Geschlossenes Ökosystem aus Garnelen, Algen und Mikroorganismen in Meerwasser, graviertes Glas / Closed ecosystem consisting of shrimps, algae and microorganisms in sea water, engraved glass, 35 cm, 2008 (Installationsansicht / installation view Secession)

Foto: Pez Hejduk

Ralo Mayer’s work deals with a wide range of themes ranging from post-Fordist realities and the history of space travel to polydimensional geometry and other science-fiction concerns. His artistic practice is heavily influenced by the concept of performative research and addresses the extent to which, when we construct and interpret model worlds, we are not simply engaged in descriptions of reality but in fact in the performance of speech acts, which of course constitutes a form of acting.

This process- oriented approach enables Mayer to transcend documentary strategies. The result is »unruly translation monsters situated between media such as film, performance, spatial installation and text.« Mayer presents an installation that refers to his studies on »Biosphere 2«, which he has been carrying out since 2007. A glass structure erected in Arizona between 1987 and 1991, this was built as a closed ecological system in which eight scientists spent two years living the vision of a miniature world. The huge, privately financed glass complex, designed as a scientific laboratory to test global ecological interdependency and the potential for setting up autonomous colonies in space is now a space-age ruin. Using the »translation« of an imaginary science-fiction novel as a literary device, Mayer describes »Biosphere 2« both as a hinge in time around 1989 that connects the 1960s and 70s sense of change and the related search for alternative lifestyles with the most recent global changes and as a laboratory for a new »political ecology« in the sense of Bruno Latour.

(Sandro Droschl, Ralo Mayer)