Kai Philip Trausenegger
Selected works
Kai Philip Trausenegger
Biography
Kai Philip Trausenegger was born 1990 in Vienna, Austria.
Trausenegger’s interest in ethnology, spirituality, rituals and technology have great influence on his work. Social practices and art theory premises are mingled and interwoven with fiction, history and reality.
His objects and installations take up current media theories while simultaneously making use of contemporary advertising aesthetics. Manipulation, exaggeration and generalisation are understood as phenomena and tools that one can use in order to expand one’s sphere of influence. The balancing act to kitsch and the invisible borders of art that go with it, play a central role here.
Through the use of modern production techniques such as 3D printing or precision laser processing, historic forms receive novel interpretations and are turned into contemporary objects. Gothic arches are replaced by baroque bombast and glossed over with a pinch of meta-modernism. An amalgamation takes place that pays no heed to historical truth but nonetheless allows for a glimpse of a view of the future.
Kai Trausenegger studied Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna and TransArts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Photos (c) Kaja Clara Joo and Manuel Carreon Lopez
Values
Values by Kai Philip Trausenegger is a continuation of a series of work that deals with coming-of-age symbology and a culture, that is being dragged into an increasingly delayed adulthood.
Based on imagery communicated online, the artist draws upon the feelings of a population that does not have any prospect of a future and therefore relies on the former joys of adolescence.
Faced with the impending consequences of climate change, a hopeless hustle culture and an all-all time peak of mental exhaustion, a generation of Millennials and Gen Z seem to be trapped in an adulthood that only seems to offer consumption as a means of gratification. Reverting to excessive online gaming, the collection of fan figurines or binge-watching an endless loop of prequels, prior sources of former joy are reiterated until the point of undeniable pleasure exhaustion.
In this work, the title Values refers to the specified importance given within the displayed room axis X, Y, Z. Staging an undefined space, those values allow an insight into a closed off volume – projecting an illusion of perspective to the viewer. A vacant room is revealed with a scratching of a window accompanied by its incidence of light. The other side of the room exposes empty walls, one decorated with a nostalgic poster of the popular 90s series Sailor Moon.
Photos of Values I – III, (c) Kaja Clara Joo, 2024
