Kai Balthasar Wittig: „phoenix_404“

In a futuristic music, sound and video installation that fills the entire Hall 1 of Speicher XI A at Bremen University of the Arts (HfK), Kai Balthasar Wittig's first solo exhibition, “phoenix_404”, is about the rebirth loops of nature and with that something that is not possible for humans, despite all technological developments. The title refers to the firebird phoenix, which is reborn again and again from its ashes, combined with “404”, which is an error message from the Internet that appears when content is not available.

Wittig has packed sculptures made of glass, wax and 3D prints into vacuum bags, which are filled with water and arranged in an orderly grid in the room. It is interwoven rather chaotically with more materials and psychedelic music, sound and video feeds. The sounds are structured in five acts, that flow into one another seamlessly, arising from audio recordings of rain and thunderstorm sounds and disappearing into them again. On the opening evening, Aleksandr Bukin, HfK master's student in Mladen Miloradovic's class, will improvise to it live on the cello additionally.

The patterns that appear in the sculptures and videos are developed from the shell of a tridacna (giant clam). For the videos ice tiles were filmed with these patterns as reliefs while melting, alienated in post-production and placed in loops so that they grow endlessly out of nothing and melt back into it.

By contrasting all these elements, Wittig explores, as he says, “the question of how we deal with nature and the future, despite a dystopian vibe with a positive approach”.

In principle, Wittig has developed the exhibition into the core subject of his work: balance. The artist explains: “Balance has accompanied and interested me my whole life, and I am just as interested in nature and technological developments. What I develop artistically is formed intuitively from this. I try to implement realistic, critical, documentary and questioning content in various media, which does not have a paralyzing effect, but is intended to increase the ability to act.”

Biographical note

Kai Balthasar Wittig is studying fine art at the HfK Bremen with Katrin von Maltzahn and James “Jim” Richards in the 7th semester. After focusing on painting for several years, he began to expand the artistic process to other materials in 2023. For example, he develops his works from glass, 3D printing, cable tubes, polystyrene, vacuum and plastic bags, wax, ice, plants and clear or colored liquids. His audiovisual installations are created from these materials using sound, music and videos.