“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.

In the photographic works of the exhibition ‘THRESHOLDS’ he focuses on the showspace, the illuminated setting before the actors enter the stage and the staging begins. The artist succeeds in wresting a poetry that is as fragile as it is seductive from the sideways glances of a theatre production.”

Roman Grabner, 2023

Room I:
Videos:
„Thresholds: I,II,III,IV,V“ & „Buck Fever“
Schauspieler: Georg Schubert, Michaela Kaspar, Lisa Schrammel,
Marcus Thill, Lukas David Schmidt, Christoph Steiner & Bernd Liepold-Mosser

Room II:
Bilder:
Staging, 2023, Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta Print, 120 x 80 cm
The Beyond, 2023, Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta Print, 120 x 80 cm
Soliloquy, 2023, Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta Print, 80 x 120 cm
Passage, 2023, Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta Print, 35 x 52 cm
Limelight, 2023, Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta Print, 35 x 52 cm

Videos:
„End near the Apparatus: I & II“