Elín Hansdóttir: What happens when nothing happens?

On April 19, 2023, the exhibition What happens when nothing happens? by the Icelandic artist Elín Hansdóttir opened at the Schering Stiftung. The exhibition presents new works by the artist, including photographs and a VR installation created in cooperation with Matthew McGinity, professor of Immersive Media Design at TU Dresden.

The exhibition first takes visitors into a dark, seemingly impenetrable space. The floor and the walls are painted deep black, making it difficult to perceive contours and shapes. But when you look up at the ceiling, the space becomes brighter. This impression is caused by a black to white color gradient that directs the visitor’s gaze, gives the space more structure, and produces a light/dark contrast that is a variously recurring element of the exhibition.

This color gradient also appears on the four photographs which are the only objects in the room. The photographs show the corners of a black room, in front of which stands a windowless cube constructed from wood and mineral wool. Upon closer inspection, parallels open up between the space on the images and the exhibition space: The walls of the space depicted in the photograph also show a color gradient. But how are the spaces related to each other beyond this design element?

Walking past the photographs one by one, the cube, with each new image, seems both to multiply and to become more detailed. Its material structure is becoming clearer and clearer, making it seem as though the series of images is an analog reconstruction of a digital technology: With every image, it seems as though we are further zooming in on the cube.

Perception and recognition, the different points of view and the movement required to both position and lose yourself in space define the immersively designed exhibition space—and carry over into the digital space visitors see when they put on VR headsets. The virtual space offers a strong contrast: it is bright and white, and initially seems to be empty and orderly.

However, by moving through the space, rooms, tunnels, chambers, and the occasional passage open up to visitors. Due to an adaptive algorithm, rooms randomly materialize and disintegrate; they emerge as we walk. The emerging space is unpredictable. It challenges and encourages us to interrogate physical realities and to experience space and time anew.

The exhibition was created in cooperation with Ihor Sokolov and Oleksandr Sirous (3D artists), Úlfur Hansson (sound), and Gabriel Patay (model making). It was curated by Christina Landbrecht.