Bearing.
We dedicate ourselves to experimentation.
It excavates
our inalienable realities,
in order to rethink them.
Complex Structures and simultaneous
accessibility are a necessity
and not contradictory.
Ambivalence! We want to create
an aesthetic,
that hovers between
unbearable desire and the denial of desire.
Desires! Collections of information,
that multiply, proliferate,
spread, link,
overlap and
displace.
This project is designed for
our lifespan.
It works with a spatial
and temporal expanse
beyond our own.
Separations are possible.
We overcome the limitations
of our egos.
The Vapors of the City, film stils
camera Max Grünauer, 2020
The Vapors of the City, portraits
camera Max Grünauer, 2020
The Nest is a collective under the artistic direction of Marcus Frimel.
We all come from different professions, which means that we are currently psychologists, laymen, as well as performance, applied and visual artists. The basis of the collaboration is the creation of a fictional reality. This fiction serves as a research platform for important social questions and should offer an alternative space to our reality. We are particularly interested in interpersonal issues – “How a person feels and functions.” “Melodrama – the potential for exaggeration” – “What triggers people more than the mere depiction and criticism of problems?” Our methods are subjective, philosophical and psychological.
Together we create alter egos. We seek to develop the most complex, multi-dimensional characters possible, characters who have true inner conflicts. These are the basis of the world as well as of narrative and absurd tales. The alter egos must desire to confront themselves and be willing to discover and speak about their own contradictions. In order to come to know the characters and to define them verbally, we engage in intensive conversations. This method is developed in collaboration with psychologists and
sociologists. The alter egos should feel alive. Numerous therapy sessions were held over months with Felix Hamacher and Marius Adlers (psychologists) and their alter egos, “Ben Kehrbein” and “Avez Gurnemanz” (therapists in The Nest). Thus, the psyches of the participants can be further explored and the characters of the alter egos can be more deeply developed. A filming session took place in the fall of 2020. The resulting video material is performative in its structure, yet has narrative elements. It has already been exhibited in different forms. As an ideal of the perpetual motion machine, elements of the film became part of the world and were sculpturally and fragmentarily reshaped. The collective uses a common digital working platform for this. We call this virtual brain “the Cluster.” The holistic process and conception are composed and formed together here.
Participants 2020 – The Vapors of the city – Anastasia Yurovsky (Ava Fabré), Hannah Schwab (Zarah Langhaar) Ann-Sophie Redel (Ennie von Ellingen), Felix Hamacher (Ben Kehrbein), Josefa Schundau (Cazador Lejanía), Maria Triller (Elsbeth Piper), Silvana Crema (Myrthe Schnabel), Lorenzo Dell‘ Annunziata (Valentin Distelsaft), Max Grünauer, Tamara Eberth, Kevin Bogner, Stanislav Kuhn, Hannes Hümmer, Jan Eberlein, Carina Eirich, Richard Wilde, Andreas Boxhammer, Lynn Ohrndorf, Tim Schiffer, Lucia Müller, Dolores Burger, Philip Nürnberger, Agnes Fischer, Maximiliane Meißner, Conny May, Lisa Kindler, Assumpta Munsi
Current participants – Anela Luzi (Saraya Melifera), Gianna Dolci (Emily Schürmann), Clarissa Karrasch (Lara Laubenfrisch), Jessica Elbert (Sophie Varuna), Marcus Frimel (Tom Treibsand), Marlene Fahnster (Luna Contessa), Marius Adler (Aves Gurnemanz), Marsha Maria Miessner (Phobe Aschbaum), Melanie Nunhofer (Ella Morgenstern), Michaela Lenhart (Kara Dubois), Nina Niknafs (Nora Dornenbusch), Pia Louise Jahn (Emily Blum), Sina Große-Beck (Joa Nelke), Martha-Angel Gräbenitz (Margarethe von Graben) Polya Dimitrova, Adèle Perrin, Annemarie Chladek, Stefanie Schulz, Hannes Hümmer, Julia Berewinkel, Geraldine Nirschl, Karoline Schürer, Emery Escher
Current participants – Anela Luzi (Saraya Melifera), Gianna Dolci (Emily Schürmann), Clarissa Karrasch (Lara Laubenfrisch), Jessica Elbert (Sophie Varuna), Marcus Frimel (Tom Treibsand), Marlene Fahnster (Luna Contessa), Marius Adler (Aves Gurnemanz), Marsha Maria Miessner (Phobe Aschbaum), Melanie Nunhofer (Ella Morgenstern), Michaela Lenhart (Kara Dubois), Nina Niknafs (Nora Dornenbusch), Pia Louise Jahn (Emily Blum), Sina Große-Beck (Joa Nelke), Polya Dimitrova, Adèle Perrin, Annemarie Chladek, Stefanie Schulz, Hannes Hümmer, Julia Berewinkel, Geraldine Nirschl, Karoline Schürer, Emery Escher
The collective expanded in 2021. Many people left us, and several new members, who were attracted by this unusual, independent, and intensive way of working, joined. We developed a permanent online exhibition on social media: https://linktr.ee/Das_Nest. Every week there were many conversations with the new alter egos as well as two or three rehearsals. In coming phases we want to devote ourselves to exhibitions, films, performances, the search for a real space, and the mixing of forms.
Former participants – Leonard Carrow (Flynn Seifenzahn – 2020), Antonia Döring (Zoe Ritter – 2020), Leopold Altenburg (2020), Stephanie Engel (Luzi Burech – 2020), Selma Lindgren (2020), Eva Marie Schade (2020), Simon Haendl (2020), Franziska Kabutke (2020), Christina Vöelz (Elsa Rotvogel 2021), Clara Devatnié (Madita Mayn – 2021), Friederike Goltz (Sophia Silberzweig – 2021), Ivy Lißack (Ria Seidentau – 2021), Leonid Roth (Anton Silberzweig – 2021), Lina Bullwinkel (Melanie Blaufunken – 2021), Melissa Breitenbach (Mia Laurin – 2021), Meta Luise Volkers (Thalia de Slagter – 2021), Mimi Nowatzki (Liz Kleesturm – 2021), Paula Luy (Marie Perlfeh – 2021), Anne Deegen (Amelie Schön – 2021)
Excerpted texts from Das Nest.
“The Nest is a melodrama, a Kafkaesque film. It takes place in a house, where the residents and guests are dedicated to different therapies. As a location, the house remains abstract and serves as an atmospheric, charged framework, in which the very clinical, repetitive scenes remain in the foreground. The work has neither an end nor a fixed form. It is a fragile, modern parable of art.”
Petra Meyer
“Marcus Frimel has discovered his own aesthetic and brought it to an impressive fruition in a multivalent installation with objects and live performance. In his current project, The Nest, on which he has been working since March 2021, he defines the concept of the expanded stage and seeks a collective working community. The purpose of the collective is the development a new utopia, which changes and manifests itself through the characters of this new world. The Process is reversed. It is clear that Marcus Frimel questions existing structures and dissolves them. This free and playful style has the potential to view art and performance in a new way.”
John Bock
His current work, The Nest, is extremely complex. Marcus Frimel is the initiator and the original author of this work. However, he does not consider it to be finished and increasingly would like to turn it into a collective project belonging to
all the participants. Transformation had already played a major role in his sculptural and spatial works. A sculpture may become something different in another context, and indeed, it could even be transformed itself and in Marcus Frimel’s eyes retain its identity. The project The Nest shows transformation not only as a linear process, but as something simultaneous from different perspectives. By dissolving the authorship of the individual, dissolving linearity, and opening up to diverse media, something multifaceted emerges, whose framework is aesthetic appearance. It will be exciting to see how
this work develops in terms of content and changes in its aesthetics through the increasing distribution of authorship. Marcus Frimel’s work is the result of his incredible dedication and commitment. He invests a lot of energy in the extensive research alone. He immerses himself obsessively in his work and pursues it against all odds. The intensity impresses me immensely.”
Jochen Flinzer
This project has been supported by Stadt Nürnberg, Bürgermeisterin, Geschäftsbereich Kultur, the Freunden der Akademie e.V. and by Rotary Club Nürnberg-Sigena.
All lyrics are translatet form German in English from Dr. Sarah W. Lynch.