mariana carranza

blurring boundaries

[mannigfache Wege]

by Mariana Carranza
In context of FreshA.I.R.#10

Mannigfache Wege gehen die Menschen. Wer sie verfolgt und vergleicht, wird wunderliche Figuren entstehen sehn; Figuren, die zu jener großen Chiffernschrift zu gehören scheinen, die man überall, auf Flügeln, Eierschalen, in Wolken, im Schnee, in Kristallen und in Steinbildungen, auf gefrierenden Wassern, im Innern und Äußern der Gebirge, der Pflanzen, der Tiere, der Menschen, in den Lichtern des Himmels, auf berührten und gestrichenen Scheiben von Pech und Glas, in den Feilspänen um den Magnet her, und sonderbaren Konjunkturen des Zufalls, erblickt. In ihnen ahndet man den Schlüssel dieser Wunderschrift, die Sprachlehre derselben, allein die Ahndung will sich selbst in keine feste Formen fügen, und scheint kein höherer Schlüssel werden zu wollen. Ein Alkahest scheint über die Sinne der Menschen ausgegossen zu sein. Nur augenblicklich scheinen ihre Wünsche, ihre Gedanken sich zu verdichten. So entstehen ihre Ahndungen, aber nach kurzen Zeiten schwimmt alles wieder, wie vorher, vor ihren Blicken.
Novalis
Die Lehrlinge zu Sais
1798-1799

This artwork constructs an environment where visitors actively shape the dramaturgy by immersing themselves in an interactive, infinite game.

It is an artwork to be discovered. Transcending boundaries, visitors generate new, imaginary, and unpredictable worlds -simply by entering the work. Their presence alone creates narratives. Like Alice stepping through the looking glass, their actions -or even their inaction- shape the unfolding story.

Site-specific installation, mixed media: elements from the botanical environment such as branches and leaves; graphic components including AR target images that launch short videos.
Guest artist Lisa van Bommel’s „skin tears“ stitch soft, emotional poetry into the garden, alluding to vulnerability and the traces left by the body.
By combining these small narratives and impulses, visitors weave their own stories.

Interactive projection: a full-body interface invites visitors to observe and be surprised, to discover, to follow the thread of a story generated by their own presence -the movements of their body, or the stillness of their inaction.
Next Frame, a motion prediction algorithm forms the basis of the interactive digital interface that generates the images.
The observer becomes an actor; processes of embodiment are triggered, and paradigm shifts occur.

It is an invitation to play an infinite game -to immerse oneself in a world without defined borders or known frontiers, to explore beyond paradigms and discover new horizons.
It is an invitation to stop consuming to extinction, to stop wasting nature’s resources.
It is an invitation to leave behind ancestral and contemporary colonialism, to learn from nature, and to experience the happiness of avoidance.

“Trees are an invitation to think about time and to travel in it the way trees do, by standing still and reaching out and down.“
by Rebecca Solnit

Most of the elements that shape this garden have roots in my everyday life:

Lady’s Mantle leaves, whose tea has been my companion. Poppy seed pods, whose seeds germinate in defiance of prohibitions. Verbenas that seek fresh air, or Mallows that self-seed freely and feed the bees in autumn.

The Berlin bear, the rabbits of Karlsbad Park, the seagulls of the Landwehrkanal that flock to my window, the reeds of Potsdamer Platz …

Other elements are simply recycled: very fine copper wire from broken motors, chamotte from construction debris, and even the texts themselves.

I reuse the words of poets who express what I wish to say -more beautifully than I ever could.