As part of the Astoria Artshow, the University of Applied
Arts Vienna offers a glimpse into current approaches to artistic research: On view is the three-channel video installation
Shaken Grounds: Hell is Empty (2026) by the Shaken Grounds Collective. In addition, Open Circle – moderated
by Alexander Damianisch (Department of Support Art and Research) – brings artistic research projects
from the University of Applied Arts into dialogue through speakers and artifacts.
Shaken
Grounds: Hell is Empty brings together research conducted across volcanic landscapes in southern Italy, the retreating
Pasterze glacier in Austria, Icelandic environments, earthquake monitoring rooms and performative field research. Moving between
geological, somatic and philosophical registers, the evolving three-channel composition explores how environmental instability
registers in perception and the body, and how human action and responsibility become entangled with increasingly shaken grounds.
Open Circles – Encounters on Sustainable Ecologies of Artistic Research, moderated by
Alexander Damianisch
(Department of Support Art and Research), extends the exhibition into a participatory format. Current artistic research
projects from the University of Applied Arts Vienna are introduced. The encounter focuses respectively on artistic practice
and artistic reflection as central elements of research, asking what becomes newly possible and effective through them, particularly
in relation to ecological, technological and societal conditions.
About Shaken GroundsShaken Grounds is an artistic research collective exploring the relationship between geological, social, and
psychic tremors. Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Victor Jaschke, Peter Kozek, Werner Moebius, and Lucie Strecker are collaborating
with artists and researchers from diverse fields.
Since 2024, the collective’s work has been presented internationally,
including at MAXXI Rome, Berggruen Arts & Culture Venice, Künstlerhaus and MuseumsQuartier Vienna, Expo 2025 Osaka, and
the Iceland University of the Arts. In 2026, projects continue in Gibellina, Italian Capital of Contemporary Art 2026, with
the current Creative Europe project culminating at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb in 2027.
Shaken Grounds
was initiated with support from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and BMEIA and is currently co-funded by the European Union
through Creative Europe, in collaboration with the Angewandte Performance Lab at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Shaken
Grounds: Hell is Empty film installation
Three-channel film installation, 2026
With
the participation of:
Nikolaus Gansterer (Transmedia Art, Art and Communication Practices, Angewandte Performance Lab)
Mariella Greil-Möbius (Angewandte Performance Lab)
Victor Jaschke (Postgraduate Programme /ecm - educating/curating/making)
Peter Kozek (Angewandte Performance Lab)
Werner Moebius
Lucie Strecker
Shaken Grounds:
Hell is Empty (2026) is a three-channel film installation unfolding as a film in progress. The title refers to William
Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the line “Hell is empty, all the devils are here,” shifting the idea of evil away from a distant
hell towards human action and responsibility.
The work brings together footage from volcanic landscapes
in southern Italy, the retreating Pasterze glacier in Austria, and research material from Iceland, alongside recordings from
earthquake monitoring rooms and studio-based explorations, developed between 2024 and 2025. It works with a three-channel
composition that moves between establishing shots and performative actions in the field. The film remains open, assembling
sequences that are provisional and subject to change. Chance encounters and unexpected relations become part of the editing
process. Sound unfolds both spatially in the installation and in close dialogue with the image.
The installation
moves through geological, somatic and philosophical zones, understood as overlapping fields rather than fixed categories.
It traces how seismic transformations in the environment register in perception and in the body.
