Exhibition³: An artistic dialogue in virtual space and a search for new ways of presenting art in the digital age.

Visual Layer
Exhibition³ is an anaglyph 3D animation, experienced with anaglyph 3D glasses. Visitors enter a three-dimensional virtual exhibition, making the space tangibly perceptible. We (Sabine Hertig and Dirk Koy) engage in a dialogue, moving along the virtual x-, y-, and z-axes. At the core lies the interplay between naturalness and artificiality—the interweaving of real and virtual worlds.
From the very beginning, Exhibition³ is based on artworks, and the architecture is developed around them—custom-tailored and continuously evolving to meet their needs. The spectrum ranges from concrete, possible exhibition scenarios to abstract, utopian architectural spaces that can only exist digitally. By recontextualizing our own artistic works within a purpose-built virtual exhibition space, and shaping the form and atmosphere of the spaces surrounding the artworks, we not only take on a curatorial role but also seek a format where architecture and art merge into a total work of art. At the same time, the film reveals the process of reflecting on and staging the artworks, involving viewers in the dialogue between the artists.

Sound Layer
Just like in the visual space, various analog and digitally generated sounds collide and overlap in the sound world, forming a new hybrid whole. The acoustic composition is a collage of real and digital sounds. Physical environmental noises are combined with analog instruments like the violin (played by Sabine) and digitally created sounds (developed by Dirk). Here too, an artistic dialogue emerges between analog and digital sound sources. Dirk (digital) and Sabine (analog) deliberately work from their respective strengths but also record analog sounds together and collaboratively develop the composition further in the digital space.

Concept and sound: Sabine Hertig, Dirk Koy
3D animation, 3D modeling, compositing: Dirk Koy
With support from: Fachausschuss für Film- & Medienkunst BS /BL;  Ernst Göhner Stiftung; GGG Basel  

Sabine Hertig (CH, *1982) is a Basel-based artist. Starting from analogue collage as a mode of thinking, she explores in drawing, painting, photography, and film the relationship between fragment and whole, as well as pictorial space in a digitalized world. She lives and works in Basel and exhibits internationally.
Dirk Koy (CH, *1977) is a Basel-based moving image artist. He blends analog, drawn, and digital elements into hybrid worlds suspended between concrete and abstract representation. His process-driven works focus on motion, traces and transformation, and have been internationally exhibited and awarded.

Exhibition³ by Sabine Hertig and Dirk Koy invites visitors to explore the M. C. Escher-inspired architecture of a museum. The works on display appear to come to life, growing rampantly around the audience, or dissolving into complete entropy. For a long time, people have dreamed that video games would emulate museums, and museums would become like video games. In Exhibition³, these two worlds finally converge. Horror-action adventures and bourgeois media art are ingeniously and multisensorily interwoven in a dazzling audiovisual explosion. Furthermore, Hertig and Koy ensure that each exhibited piece is not merely translated into three dimensions but captivates on its own merits. This exhibition represents the ultimate utopia, even for the Ars Electronica Festival, demonstrating how art can devour its audience.