Nature. And us?
Stapferhaus Lenzburg

The exhibition "Nature. And us?" at the Stapferhaus Lenzburg explores our relationship to nature and presents this reflection as a sensory experience.
Visitors are welcomed into a room full of sand with a giant hourglass, a sound installation played through four loudspeakers supports the striking atmosphere. Guests are invited to take off their shoes, disinfect their feet, and experience the different materials, such as clay, memory foam or grass through their senses. In addition, visitors can wear a Plexiglas badge equipped with an RFID chip around their necks. Throughout the exhibition there are 13 different stations where multiple choice questions can be interactively answered and registered with this badge. This survey acts as a guiding thread leading through the different sections and is at the same time a tool for reflection, a kind of compass.
In "Projection Landscape", our idyllic idea of nature is deconstructed in a expansive synchronised multi-channel video and audio installation. Imagery projected onto layers of sheer fabric overlap in a poetic way, while videos can be viewed on the walls in three seating areas equipped with hanging headphones.
In the centre of the space you will find the installation on the "Anthropocene", the age of man, which exposes the negative effects of human activity. Environmental pollution, reduction of biodiversity, climate change, as well as the societal and psychological implications and consequences are highlighted with data, infographics and video portraits that include audio handsets.
Surrounding this, eight pavilions open up different perspectives on nature, broadening our point of view and inspiring new ways of looking at the natural world. For example, the 13-screen synchronised video installation "Fungi" shows the world with a decentralised brain that values decay just as much as creation. The videos are played on screens with visible wiring and open sound. A UV light in the room is synchronously controlled by UDP commands, periodically revealing facts about mushrooms placed on the walls with UV ink. In "Plants", plants are equipped with capacitive sensors and the signals they emit are visualised on a screen mounted on the ceiling. "Rights" addresses the question of the legal status of rivers, mountains and forests using the Rio Atrato in northwestern Colombia as an example, which has had a right to "protection, conservation, maintenance and restoration" since 2016. On eleven slide projectors with ambient sound, various people are shown describing their relationship to the Rio Atrato and describing the process of establishing the rights and their consequences.
The next room is dedicated to discussion: We are facing great challenges as a society. How do we want to deal with them? What is a desirable future? And how do we get there? Four prototypical attitudes to these questions are embodied by actors on an interactive edge-blended double projection with spatial sound. Using RFID tags, visitors can vote on questions posed by the actors and thus directly influence what occurs.
The exhibition ends with the "Epilogue". With a dynamically created animation, that unfolds in 5 stages through a multi-channel projection, the visitor’s data from their RFID badge is evaluated and finally displayed in the form of a scatter diagram.

Tweaklab is responsible for the planning and installation of all media installations in the exhibition. Furthermore, we developed the programming for many of the media stations. The RFID stations were also implemented by Tweaklab.

Client: Stapferhaus Lenzburg
Scenography: Kossman deJong

Exhibition: 30.10.2022–29.10.2023