Johanna Reich, Hyle

The hand of the artist transforms into a canvas making the projection of a digital black square visible.
The video “Hyle” refers to this black square: the idea of Malevich`s icon of modernity, the “Black Square on White Ground” (1915) by Kasimir Malevich establishes immediately. Malevich himself wanted “… to liberate art from the weight of things …”. By painting the “Black Square on White Ground” - a synoym for artistic and conceptual freedom - Malevich provoked the beginning of a revolution.

In Robert Fludd’s book “Utriusque Cosmi Maioris scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica, atque Technica Historia” (The Metaphysical, Physical, and Technical History of the Two Worlds, Namely the Greater and the Lesser, 1617) the term “Hyle” signifies a not yet formed “Ur-stuff”. This visualization of “nothingness” is shown in form of a black square.