Format Exhibition - Schallwirkungen auf Mensch und Tier

In early 2015, the art-based research project Six Formats gathered a group of artists, curators, and researchers 1) to co-think about an Exhibition as well as 2) to articulate this particular format of communication as knowledge. In Six Formats, formats of communication are the central knowledge. Format, content, and context are in relations. The format Exhibition was placed at Kunsthalle Exnergasse. In order to be in line with the aim of KEX to serve artists, the research process was intended to work with the exhibition space. The research group decided to improve the acoustic qualities of the room - for talks, screenings, and performances - and to intervene in the space without interfering with an artist’s needs. This decision led to reflections on visibility and subtleness.   Six Formats investigated “exposition” - proposed by Research Catalogue - as a format of communication. For Cogne and Pilz, the format exposition could be explored as “one” space (one room, one poster, one painting). Six Formats invites the visitor/reader to circulate between fiction and reality and to let their activated thoughts navigate without searching for any truth. The exposition 'Format Exhibition - Schallwirkungen auf Mensch und Tier' proposes a double entry. The visitor can visit it as they would enter the physical space of the Exhibition Schallwirkungen auf Mensch und Tier at KEX: 1) little by little, randomly, maybe not noticing all the elements placed in the exhibition space; 2) glancing through the space or directly diving into the reading of the exhibition booklet that the research group treated as a fictional space. The visitor can also directly access the process the group had - written in black on a white background. They will meet a quite linear writing that Cogne and Pilz exposed in a nonlinear way. Six Formats (FWF, PEEK, AR291-G21) takes every opportunity to challenge formats of communication and explore ways in which art-based-related knowledge can be presented and articulated as well as activating and circulating.