Klemens Kohlweis is an artist and toolmaker. His work spans installations with computer-controlled organ pipes, hacked vacuum-cleaning robots, industrial vibration motors, and 3D printers, as well as the development of electronic musical instruments. He has performed concerts using latex balloons and re-purposed everyday objects and creates light and sound objects for theater productions.

I’m interested in finding (hidden-) patterns in our surroundings and how I can transform our perception of seemingly mundane things by zooming in, blowing them up, multiply them or by translating them from one medium into another.

Processes of translation can make hidden patterns visible/audible/tangible – likewise can the introduction of errors reveal the inner workings of an object or a
process. ‘Broken’ things become something new. ‘Breaking’ the way we perceive things may reveal something about our self.

During my residency I will investigate light as a medium for transmitting sound and data. Drawing from the history of optical audio – from early optical sound devices to Cold War eavesdropping tech I plan to create a set performative tools that send, intercept, and shape sound and data via beams of light—treating them as both signal and instrument.