Entransito 2026 Terminal de ferries
Perception and reality in transit
LINKS:
www.michaeldoerner.de
www.kunstverein-row.de
Instagram: michaeldoerner.de
Michael seeks Walter
This installation simulates a fictitious conversation between the artist Michael Dörner and Walther Benjamin. Two oversized banners hang from the ceiling of the Ferry Station. The likenesses of Walter Benjamin and Michael Dörner can be seen on two digital picture frames.
The text spoken in the film/installation is a complete, verbatim transcription of a fictitious dialogue on the ChatGPT platform between the artist Michael Dörner as a young avatar and an AI-generated avatar based on a photo of the philosopher Walther Benjamin (1892-1940), which is freely available on the Internet, and AI-generated voices in English. The Walther Benjamin depicted is not a historical source, but an artistic construction based on letters, biographical documents and art historical knowledge.
The dialogue is to be understood as a contemporary artistic format. It deals with questions of art, Walter Benjamin’s writings and letters, his stay in Ibiza in 1932 and 1933, references to current events and across historical time boundaries, as well as analogies and biographical information about the artist Michael Dörner. The AI does not function as an authority, but as a resonance chamber.
The historical figure portrayed is a fiction. All statements made by the figure of Walther Benjamin are imaginative and not to be understood as historical quotations.
Michael sucht Walter
Diese Installation simuliert ein fiktives Gespräch des Künstlers Michael Dörner mit Walther Benjamin. Zwei überdimensionale Banner hängen von der Decke der Ferry-Station. Auf zwei digitalen Bilderrahmen sind die Konterfeis von Walter Benjamin und Michael Dörner zu sehen.
Der im Film/Installation gesprochene Text ist eine vollständige, wortgetreue Transkription eines fiktiven Dialogs auf der Plattform ChatGPT zwischen dem Künstler Michael Dörner als jugendlicher Avatar, sowie ein durch KI entwickelter Avatar auf der Grundlage eines im Internet frei verfügbaren Fotos der Philosophen Walther Benjamin (1892–1940) und mittels KI generierten Stimmen in englischer Sprache. Der dargestellte Walther Benjamin ist keine historische Quelle, sondern eine künstlerische Konstruktion, die sich auf Briefe, biografische Dokumente und kunsthistorisches Wissen stützt.
Der Dialog ist als zeitgenössisches künstlerisches Format zu verstehen. Er verhandelt Fragen von Kunst, Walter Benjamins Schriften und Briefe, sein Aufenthalt auf Ibiza 1932 und 1933, Bezüge zum Zeitgeschehen und über historische Zeitgrenzen hinweg, sowie Analogien und Biografisches zum Künstler Michael Dörner. Die KI fungiert hierbei nicht als Autorität, sondern als Resonanzraum.
Die dargestellte historische Figur ist eine Fiktion. Alle Aussagen der Figur Walther Benjamin sind imaginativ und nicht als historische Zitate zu verstehen.
Curriculum vitae: born: 1959, Wiesloch, Germany Pedagogical University of Heidelberg, 1981 – 83 University of Art (HfbK) Hamburg, 1984 – 90 Studied by: Franz Erhard Walther, Stanley Brouwn und Lawrence Weiner Art diploma with decoration, 1990 Professor for Fine Art University of Applied Science Ottersberg 2008 -2025 Curator of Kunstverein Rotenburg e.V. since 2021 Curator of level one, Hamburg since 2013
Grants and Awards: Grant from Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, 1986 – 1990 New-York foreign grant of Studienstiftung, 1990/91 Hamburg Grant 1994 Piepenbrock Young Talent Award ’94 for sculpture, Osnabrück Edwin-Scharff Award of the City Hamburg 2006
National and international solo shows and group shows since 1988. Numerous publications since 1988 until today.
Artists Research Focus One research focus in Michael Dörner’s artistic work lies in playing with perception, confronting the recipient with an apparent identity of things, questioning familiar sensory experience and pointing out that things are not what they appear to be. Understood as critical models, his works symbolise the loss of sensual qualities in the social organisation of working and living environments and address a current problem of aesthetic perception in the reception of works of art. Another field of his artistic research activity is on the level of taste in the area of Eat Art. In his performative and installative works, he arranges and celebrates a dense visual-cultural stimulus layer almost to the point of pain, only to relativise it again in detail through palpable, edible, slowly narrating impressions. The latest research is concerned with artificial intelligence. The latest films created in this field interweave perception, self-image and external image in a virtuoso manner. The human being in the form of avatars appears as a medium and place where individual experience and collective imprinting are inextricably linked. Based on his experiences with his own works in public space, Michael Dörner founded the Institute for Art in Public Space ‘Außerhaus – urban relations in rural spaces’ at the University of Applied Science and Arts in Ottersberg, Germany
