My art is a continuous reconciliation of models and reality. Since 2016, I've been walking - through cities, landscapes, thoughts, and canvases - collecting evidence of how fragile, incomplete and limited our conceptions of the world are. Like Darwin aboard the Beagle (Darwin, 1859), I strive to perceive and discover without judgment. What matters most isn't what I think I know, but what reveals itself when I look carefully and engage.

Walking: Field Study of the Everyday  

My artistic practice follows an evolutionary algorithm (Mitchell, 1996; Eigen & Schuster, 1979):  

• Mutation: Chance findings, unexpected encounters, discoveries along the way  
• Selection: What do I keep? What do I discard? What do I pursue further? What proves instructive?
• Inheritance: How do discoveries transform the next work? New builds upon everything prior
• Population Dynamics: I always work on multiple pieces simultaneously - like a generation of individuals in exchange
• Fitness Landscape: Successful adaptation emerges from complex interactions of multiple factors
• Punctuated Equilibrium (Eldredge & Gould, 1972): Long phases of development and observation are interrupted by radical innovations  

Rhizomatic Research (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980) 

My method is non-linear, it is "strolling". This artistic approach can be scientifically described - together with Prof. Dr. Claudia Meier-Magistretti, I taught a module on this at Lucerne School of Art and Design. For me, it's about exploring, applying and making visible this methodology.  

1. Nomadic Thinking  
I begin without fixed goals and let myself be guided - like a walker  

2. Perceiving Assemblages 
My work connects seemingly unrelated elements: found objects, observations, intermediate results, discoveries, coincidences etc. They become nodal points in a growing network.  

3. Embedded Living  
Walking and life merge. I don't research about, but with - materials, passersby, spaces, situations etc. I'm not a detached observer, I'm part of the field of research. And I accept provisionality.  

4. Deterritorializing (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980)  
I consciously undermine control mechanisms. In painting, I orchestrate conditions that deprive me of control - through time limitations, the use of random operations or materials that provoke willful reactions. In photography, I rely on serial overproduction, intuition and instinct. Only in strict subsequent selection does the essence of a struggle between control and surrender crystallize.

5. Following Affects  
Rather than control, I prioritize openness to unplanned impulses ("prepersonal intensities" according to Deleuze & Guattari, 1980). They're not disturbances but "agents of the rhizome" - they rupture the illusion of complete artistic control. By allowing them, I work with the process's inherent logic rather than against it.

6. Becoming, Not Being  
My works aren't finished objects but snapshots in a constant flow. They visibly bear their creation processes within them.  

Models as Central Tools 

Physics has long understood that Newtonian mechanics and quantum theory are just different maps of the same world (Kuhn, 1962). In my artistic processes, I actively work on and with my own models. This involves simultaneously comparing, questioning and experiencing existing notions while developing and constructing new models. None are final, but always an evolutionary step.

From this work emerge paintings, for instance. They bear not only traces of this process but are expeditions in themselves – while simultaneously being their results. Photographic series document expeditions into reality, both in systematic and unsystematic aspects. In both media, the documentary impulse merges with artistic-aesthetic ambition: each work is equally research protocol and autonomous image.  

Silas Kreienbühl (*1983) lives and works in Lucerne and Berlin. His works have been shown at institutions including Kunstmuseum Lucerne, KKLB (Art and Culture at Beromünster Radio Station) and in the group exhibition "Dance of Death" by Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger.

 

References:

• Darwin, C. (1859): On the Origin of Species. London: John Murray.
• Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F.(1980): Mille Plateaux. Paris: Minuit.
• Eldredge, N. & Gould, S.J. (1972): "Punctuated Equilibria". In: Models in Paleobiology (Schopf ed.), pp. 82-115.
• Eigen, M. & Schuster, P.** (1979): The Hypercycle. Berlin: Springer.
• Kuhn, T. (1962): The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University Press.
• Mitchell, M. (1996): An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms. Cambridge: MIT Press.