Adrian Rheinländer

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Aesthetics of Failure

The project "Aesthetics of Failure" is a search for traces of non-success that man leaves behind in his ambition for progress and development. Buildings and structures that do not, no longer, or never fulfilled their genuine purpose become manifestations of their builders’ intentions and coincidentally monuments of their failure. By capturing this transition and revealing its peculiar aesthetics, the work questions the predominantly negative understanding of failure while unveiling a broader understanding of this inseparable part of the human condition.

Gartenfreunde

It is estimated that 5 million people frequently use garden plots inside and on the outskirts of German cities. Gartenfreunde tells the story of some of these people who built their hideaways behind railway tracks and highway lanes. A group of people, which is despite all controversies united by their love of flowers and an idiosyncratic approach to landscape architecture.

California

California is a short series that came into existence during a trip across the south west of the United States. It is a story of drought and decay and a reminder of perishable life may be.

Klaar Kiming

The series Rüm Hart - Klaar Kiming is an ongoing project exploring the unique landscape the Wadden Sea, a landscape shaped by wind and tides. The title of the work, which can be translated with “open heart – clear horizon”, originates from Plattdeutsch, an ancient language only few people know today. Though it is not entirely clear where this stance on life originated from, it has become closely connected to the people living on these lands.

Unendliche Weiten

Unendliche Weiten is a collection of places that were created to give an understanding of natural science and of what is yet to be called science fiction. By doing so, these places are meant to entertain as well as shape human perception of the cosmos and ultimately of one’s place in it. Entering an era of exponential growth, the boundaries between the two domains become narrower than ever before. Although no one knows for certain how long it will take, until today’s science fiction becomes tomorrow science, it is clear, that change is happening at an accelerating speed. Fueled by advances in many fields such as robotics, quantum computing and A.I., it is possible that man will soon find himself in a world he can hardly understand. Finding his place in his own creation will once again pose the most fundamental questions of life, its meaning and one’s place among the stars.

Areal Structures

Namib is a small series of areal images of the Namib desert in south west Africa. With approximately 80 million years of age, the Namib desert is the oldest desert in the world and consequently a time-capsule of land-formation. Its hostility to most life forms is the result of cold arctic currents off the coast of Africa and by no means detrimental to its stunning beauty.

Founding Iron

Casting steel is hot and dirty and at the same time a highly sophisticated process that has evolved over millennia. Without it civilization as we know it would have never come into existence.

Béton Brut

Béton brut is a photographic search for traces of an architectural utopia. This utopia became worldwide known under the name of brutalism. It was characterized by the claim to meet the social needs of a modern society and shape a modern everyday-culture. Although buildings of his epoch are seen today as monuments of post-war zeitgeist and are often despised for their rawness, its claim has not lost its relevance to date. And with that, the question as to whether this claim became reality or maybe failed due to its radical nature.

Downstream

Bubbles have more colors than a rainbow. Tom Noddy

Belo Monte

Belo Monte is the name of a hydroelectric power-plant built at Xingu River, one of the major contributing streams to the Amazon River. Although initial planned in the 1970s, the project was first dismissed due to serious environmental concerns and negative effects on the local population. Nevertheless, construction started in 2011 and despite several court orders on environmental and social grounds the first turbine started service in 2016. Time will tell if Belo Monte and all the other hydroelectric installations already planned will bring progress and development and might eventually justify the destruction of Brazil’s ecological heritage.

Baustelle

“The only constant in life is change.”

0,918 g cm³

0,918 g/cm³ describes the density of frozen water at zero degree Celsius and is also the name of an ongoing project that examines water’s third aggregate state and its peculiar beauty.

Zürich

In the movie of life our sun is the star, the energy of life itself is recycled sunlight, and the atoms in our bodies were born within the body of a star, so, we are recycled star dust, powered by star light.