The series “thinking about / working on” features projects and processes of students and teaching staff (mainly from exMedia), asking them to share thoughts on their current topics and give insight into their practice. The questions vary slightly and can be adapted by the interviewee. In the following Leopold Strey (postgraduate degree at the KHM in 2018) reflects on iterations and his personal approach.

* What kind of materials are important to you right now and how is this expressed in your work? Are materials important to you?
Being an artist doing plastic works I kind of have to deal with material. It is important for me to see myself in a position where I try to be a writer, who doesn’t work with letters, but tries to express himself in arranging things and formulating things by doing and arranging. But my definition of material is not that clear. I also include scripts and motion in my definition of material. These can also be arranged so that they form a thing or a process which develops meaning.

* What kind of processes do you use in your work?
I am interested in iterative processes. I see the increase of knowledge as an iterative process. I imagine a man, who has never seen a bus. Then he leans with a pillow in the window and sees a bus for the first time. In seeing the bus the first time he gains much knowledge. But every time the bus drives by he will understand something new. He will slowly learn about the interval. After that he will learn when the interval will change, and he would learn and learn. A further understanding of this iterative process in the increase of knowledge is a key part for my understanding and making of an artistic thing. Being able to emphasize this slow process of gaining knowledge in building systems with a loop producing different results in the same setup is also part of understanding this process.

* What are you thinking about today/this month/year? What would you like to find out? Do you feel the urge to explore and what are you exploring right now?
Part of being interested in the process of increase of knowledge is the blurry knowledge that you will learn when you observe. I hope I will never stop making and never stop observing. Then I hope I will explore something every day.