As I float above the Atlantic and my eyes gaze into the blue light, the weight of loss opens an abyss of an expanding distance never-yet-felt. The abyss offers a glimpse into the deep unknown. Meanwhile, in a 27-kilometer long tunnel located underneath Geneva, a group of scientists measures the collision of accelerating particles, unbounded by gravity, in an attempt to conjure space in its most universal sense, as a distance deemed to expand into such depth. A depth that is repeatedly found during a bright night in the Atacama Desert, where the foundation for a new, large telescope has been set up to conquer the abyss of a universe ever-expanding in time.

This research project originates in the intimate sensation of an abyss that appears at sites that are prone to new regimes of distance and visibility into the unknown. It proposes to create a new body of work that derives from my artistic research practice, which appropriates technologies to reveal material-discursive phenomena underlying the contemporary condition. Departing from an elusive, personal abyss of sorrow, the research investigates emerging technologies that operate at the edge of the abyss of the unknown in order to reveal new media and new regimes of meaning construction that might extend across a reality that is both subjectively felt and objectively constructed.

The first practical steps will be writing auto-ethnographic accounts and gathering audio-visual materials during visits to the aforementioned technological sites, and will also involve performative exercises and technical experiments with emerging technologies found within them. In due time, the research intends to broadly question the ways in which meaning is constructed in new media art, while also expanding its methods and bringing a new understanding to the abyss as a haunting motif that crosses both art and science.

Luiz Zanotello (1986, Jundiaí, BR) is a media artist, researcher, and educator based in Berlin. In his artistic research practice, he appropriates technologies to reveal material-discursive phenomena underlying the contemporary condition.

In the past, he has exhibited and given talks at festivals, galleries, and institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (HR), Museum of Applied Arts Vienna (AT), and Cidade das Artes in Rio de Janeiro (BR); he is also the recipient of a variety of awards, scholarships, and residencies in recent years.

He holds a BA degree in Design from the São Paulo State University (BR) and an MA degree in Digital Media from the University of the Arts Bremen. He is currently an Assistant Professor for New Media at the Berlin University of the Arts (DE), as well as a guest lecturer at the University of the Arts Bremen (DE).

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