composition w. potted plants, vases, drapery, marble,... M. pauses in midstep and looks up at the glass roof. The light changes quickly, like flicking a light switch off and on and off. There’s a strong wind today chasing the clouds from one end of the sky to the other. M. casts a glance over the manifold potted plants in the greenhouse, arranged in a raster; they are set up in the space and sorted by type, size and function. M. is now standing in what is almost the exact center of this plant-grid, amid rows and rows of the most popular houseplants: ficus benjamina (with decorative trunks), spider plant (on NASA’s list of best air-filtering plants!), snake plant (ditto), dracaena (added cheerfulness), aloe vera (frugal, no need for direct sunlight), parlor palm (perfect for creating an exotic atmosphere), monster (“Swiss cheese Plant”) (...)

In the dream I’m floating, gaze skywards. I am nothing but pure gaze in an upward direction, moving forward, not like an eye but like the lens of a camera, thin and transparent, close to immaterial, or the sensor of a scanner, moving slowly, formed from light, actually immaterial. I, the eye, am floating through an empty cityscape, the light a dim, brownish twilight. I am floating past empty shop windows, very close to the ground, looking up at ceilings, hardly any reflection in the windowglass, just the texture of the clouds above. Curious to notice from time to time that I have no reflection myself. In a few spaces I drift past, the light is switched on and I can study the patterns of the glowing bulbs and fluorescent tubes in passing. How good to know that one’s surroundings are undisturbed by one’s own material presence, how nice to be bodyless, weightless, nothing, only a gaze.

M. walks through an elaborate entrance hall, arm wrapped around the pot of a miniature banana tree, dragging behind with the other hand a cart filled with a couple of different specimens, all contained in discreet off-white ceramic pots. The client had asked to rent out approximately 500 house plants for their new inner-city office—employees had complained about the new office building, the dry air, the general lack of atmosphere. The addition of a few indoor plants to the offices seemed like an ideal solution, every position of every single plant had been specified exactly, and the types of plants were to be selected today.

The entrance hall really is monumental, M. marvels, walking slowly as to not tip over the plants in the cart. The walls are mantled in decorative slabs of green marble with unlikely veinings. Bubbles containing colour gradients (mint green fading into emerald fading into turquoise) are penetrated by chaotic anthracite lines that perpetually entwine to form repeating patterns (...)

KURZBIOGRAPHIE TITANIA SEIDL geboren 1988 in Wien / 2006–2012 Studium Bildende Kunst (Christian Ludwig Attersee, Judith Eisler), Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien / 2010–2011 Erasmus Stipendium an der Newcastle School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle upon Tyne (GBR) / 2012 Diplom mit Auszeichnung / seit 2012 Betreiberin des Kunstraums MAUVE, Wien (mit Daniel Ferstl, Lukas Thaler) / Ausstellungen (Auswahl): 2015 for aliens when humankind is gone, mo.ë, Wien (mit Melanie Ebenhoch) / Ezara Spangl & Rainer Spangl, ve.sch, Wien (Intervention mit Daniel Ferstl, Lukas Thaler) / Leicht gegenüber, Fuggerstrasse 40, Berlin (mit Melanie Ebenhoch) / 2014 X. marks the spot, AIRY, Kofu City (JPN) / a walk, a wall, some mountains, Showroom for Young Art, Wien (mit Laura Põld) / Joseph Helland, Titania Seidl, Franz Zar, wellwellwell, Wien / one MAUVE gallery, work, Wien (mit Daniel Ferstl, Lukas Thaler, Salvatore Viviano) / Goofy, studios das weisse haus, Wien / beyond mimesis – the unwritten, mo.ë, Wien / Preise, Stipendien, Residencies: 2015 Start Stipendium, BKA / 2014 & 2015 Strabag Art Award Shortlist / 2014 Artist in Residence, AIRY, Kofu City (JPN) / 2013/2014 künstlerisches Arbeitsstipendium des BMWF / 2012/2013 Artist in Residence, Sammlung Lenikus, Wien / 2010 Fred-Adlmüller-Stipendium