Research Catalogue

Paula Bracker combines topics from geology and ecology with art, philosophy, and perception theories in her practice. She wrote her BA thesis at Leuphana University Lüneburg in cultural studies about the role of art in climate change communication and started to translate her theoretical considerations into an artistic practice. Working at the Senckenberg Naturmuseum in Frankfurt am Main intensified her interest in researching and practicing at the interface of natural sciences and art. There she focused on the interrelation of earth and human history and familiarized herself with pharmacological substances from natural organisms for the exhibition Nature+Medicine. Since 2022, she is a student of the  MA program Cross-Disciplinary Strategies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and started engaging with sound in the artistic research project “Apophenia (musique plastique)” together with Samo Zeichen. By linking artistic and natural scientific approaches she creates networks between unrelated thoughts and experiments with different ways of alternative knowledge production.

Karl Salzmann is a sound and media artist, artistic researcher, and teacher living and working in Vienna. In his artistic practice, he combines sounds in performance, conceptual, and installation art. His work is characterized by the visual mapping and representation of sound, the incorporation of site-specific conditions, historical references, and the social and cultural implications of sound. His current artistic research focuses on the turntable as a research device that allows him to explore the above-mentioned areas.

He received a master degree (Mag.art) from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and completed his Doctor artium studies in Artistic Research at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Salzmann currently teaches and works as a senior scientist at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where he is in the process of establishing a sound research laboratory (ÆSR Lab) at Zentrum Fokus Forschung. He has held teaching and workshop positions at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, the University of Applied Sciences in St. Pölten, and the HDPK – the University of Popular Arts in Berlin. Salzmann is internationally active as an artist with solo shows, among others at ACFNY New York, Kunsthalle Bratislava, and Kunsthaus Graz. In 2017, he received the Erste Bank Art Prize; in 2019, he was awarded the State Scholarship for Media Art by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Culture. http://www.karlsalzmann.com

Samo Zeichen comes from the academic disciplines of business administration and economy (Karl Franzens University Graz), and worked in the fields of cultural heritage management, and preservation and communications for public institutions. His main interests and approaches circle around political notions of public space and its democratization. In his artistic research projects and practices, he uses the idea of noise to interfere with existing systems, offering new subversive forms and collaborative measures of togetherness. Currently, he is studying Cross-Disciplinary Strategies (MA Program) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Together with Paula Bracker, they developed the artistic research project “Apophenia (musique plastique)” in collaboration with the Technical University of Vienna and the artist run project space SSTR6. He further works for the Weltmuseum Vienna, Impulstanz Festival Vienna, and several Viennese music platforms as a freelance promoter, curator, and sound enthusiast.