25.02.–23.04.2017
1 Picture in Café

Stefan Kreiger. Trojan Source Code

Opening: 24 February 2017, 8 pm

Stefan Kreiger was invited to present new work as part of the exhibition series in Café Cult #78.
In his work-series Trojan Source Code he tries to show the relationship between simplified images and the very human wish to see or find any figurative metaphor in it.

The series started in the art-colony of Cered in 2016, which had the theme Lebens.Zeichen attached. As a point of departure Hungarian stitch pattern were chosen and used partially in a frame of fifteen to fifteen squares. That is the fragment where the new picture takes place, which also could be taken as a sign, pictograph or symbol. The patterns are showed only in black on white ground, like a blueprint or construction-layout for further use. In the original version as a stitching, for instance on a tablecloth, they mostly would be found in black and red on white ground. So the squares with an R beneath the very black squares are the hint for the worker, who originally would make the stitches that these places are intended to be red. So the works can be understood as the fragmental manifestation of a plan.

But drawn with black ink on that very precious handmade paper from a local paper-manufacturer it becomes more and more a single piece on its own without the purpose of being a patterns any more. So, on the one hand it still is part of the big traditional design and on the other hand it wants to be something else detached from that. The sharp, distinct ink drawing as technique and the rough, heavy paper as media are forcing a symbiotic combination for this suggestion. The scale of fifteen squares in both directions has been chosen as a good compromise, so that there would be enough dots to create a new figure and it also could be seen that there maybe was a bigger picture before.

In every work of this series there is always one of the R-dots colored pink. That is a reference to the uniqueness of every single stitch or the, here so called, dots―an idea that suits very well the presence of the handmade paper, which also is unique from piece to piece. The title Trojan Source Code also links to the pink dot, which is hidden beneath the others, ready to invade. The source code as a computer code-language, basically goes down to a binary code, which can be read from the computer. The pieces with its squares and dots also can be seen as a translation attempt maybe for a not known crazy machine. They even look similar to those punched cards, that certain computer models used before the floppy disk or even the cd-rom were invented. What we have here is some kind of visual data in a very pure form.

Stefan Kreiger, born 1981 in Salzburg, lives and works in Salzburg and Vienna.