The Antimatter Factory

About

“To present in fiction form new ideas too difficult or too vague as yet to be presented as scientific fact. And ideas that are not scientific fact, never will be, but that are fascinating conjectures – in other words, possible or alternate science systems. […] We are capable of seeing alternate viewpoints as coequal with our own.” Philip K. Dick

Antimatter has long been famous for being the fuel used to propel starship Enterprise through the universe in STAR TREK. Now NASA scientists are working on a 'real' antimatter space rocket to go to Mars. And fiction might just become reality. 
The Antimatter Factory brings together the works of three visual artists and a writer, who – just like the application spectrum of antimatter - operate somewhere between fact and fiction, in an area where serious research meets humour and imagination.The artists combine research material from a wide variety of sources in their work in order to question our view of the world and understanding of reality and normality. These source range from trivial to high literature, from scientific books and articles to popular science. 
Visions of the future in science fiction have often proved to be truly visionary and frighteningly accurate in retrospect. If they didn't get the details right they nevertheless often provided very revealing insights into social aspects. Almost always they open our eyes to the present and what is wrong with it. Via the detour of the future the genre of science fiction allows the artists in the show to comment on the present.

Christine Niehoff's work is based on intensive research, with factual and fictional source material being equally important. Her core concern is the question how collective language patterns and conventions such as myths, ideology, film genres or TV formats consciously and unconsciously influence the way we think and interpret reality through constant repetition. 
The idea of Science Fiction is at the centre of her installations and videos, which show less interest in realism than in the creation of an almost theatrical reproduction of reality. Using everyday objects and a decidedly low tech collage aesthetic her work is a balancing act between scientific research and science fiction, magnificent plans and everyday banality, heroism and space loos.

The relationship between scientific knowledge and the empirical experience of everyday moments is central to Inês Rebelo's practice. Astronomy and cosmology have consistently informed her research, with its spatial and time scales placed in sharp contrast with familiar events, present here and now. In addition, the genre of science fiction operates as another cluster of interest, in her work, bringing us a critical vision of present times driven by scientific and fast technological developments.

Thus, in her practice, it is not surprising to encounter faraway galaxies, nebulae, planets and soup bowls, takeaway food containers, clocks, cars, emergency light beacons, and camping tents all in the same lamella. Astronomy becomes closer to astrology. Cosmological findings become nonsense, absurd, deadpan humorous or unbelievable. Scientific diagrams trigger precise DIY processes. And, even the electromagnetic spectrum can materialize as a bonkers teleportation device to another world.

Rose Stevens is an English writer who will write a short science fiction story for the show.

Anne Wölk's interest in science fiction is the starting point for her mixed-media paintings in which she explores the simultaneity of Romanticism and the idea of Utopia as well as the imagery of futuristic science and technology. The main characteristic of her paintings is the idea of sampling. Aside from traditional techniques of painting she experiments with contemporary colour schemes and paints. She is particularly fascinated by the interplay and the contrast between the superficiality of neon colours and the depth of glazing. 
Science fiction film stills, satellite photographs and computer-generated images taken by space cameras are the raw material for her paintings, along with elements borrowed from Constructivism, post-painterly abstraction and photorealism. For her representation of space and the light of stars she has to rely on modern photographic technology and cannot directly observe the object of her research herself. Using a variety of sources she explores the notion of perception in the digital age and develops paintings inspired by film and science which can be read as a mirror of a subjectively perceived world in the digital age.