„For his exhibition Thresholds at the Dinzlschloss in Villach, Patrick Topitschnig has focused on the creation of a virtual reality version of Shakespeare’s tragedy classic Hamlet.

He artistically accompanied the rehearsals in Villach and Ljubljana as well as the film recording and not only documented them, but transcended them through his specific gaze. Just as „Being Hamlet“, a project by Bernd Liepold Mosser and Flying Opera, offers the audience a new perceptual experience by combining classical theatre with state-of-the-art technology, Topitschnig‘s photographs and films open up a new perspective on the narrow transition between reality and appearance, which is constantly trodden in theatre and is not unknown to us in everyday life. We all play our roles on the stage of life according to our position and function every day and sometimes act like actors.

In his films, the artist has captured that moment and stretched it in time through slow motion before the lights come on and the acting begins. One experiences the actors in a precarious transition from individual to role, from naturalness to artificiality, from factuality to illusion. Before the audience is allowed to immerse themselves in the novel, virtual reality of Hamlet‘s tragedy on film, they are confronted in a poetic and subtle way with the construction of this new reality, which allows general conclusions to be drawn about our everyday lives, which are increasingly taking place in digital space. (…)“

Roman Grabner, 2023