STUDIO with Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits: Perceiving Plants Differently
Date and Time
Location
Price
About this Event
Mood
Venue Type
When Plants Perceive Differently: Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits at Kunsthalle Mannheim
How do flowers perceive their environment? And what visions of the future emerge when human perception is no longer the sole standard? The STUDIO with Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits invites you on October 27, 2026, to an artistic experience at the intersection of art, science, and new media technologies at Kunsthalle Mannheim.
An Aesthetic Experience Between Nature and Technology
The artist duo Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits has been working since the 1990s at the intersection of media art, scientific research, and ecological questions. Their installations combine data visualization, sound, projection, artificial intelligence, and extended reality technologies into immersive experience spaces. The central question is how natural processes can be sensually perceived and artistically translated.
The World from the Plants' Perspective
The event connects to the techno-ecological works of the duo. Projects such as Talk to Me, Biotricity, Atmospheric Forest, and Deep Sensing explore communication between humans and plants, bioelectric energy, atmospheric systems, and the perception of non-human life forms. Light, sound, moving images, and scientific data blur the boundaries between painting, installation, sculpture, and digital environment.
Art Historical Classification and Cultural Education
Smite and Smits are key representatives of research-based media art, which addresses ecological themes not illustratively but as open perception processes. Their practice combines elements of conceptual art, sound art, interactive installation, and the contemporary art movement of art-and-science. The examination of their works thus becomes cultural education: visitors experience how technical measurement methods, biological systems, and poetic imagery relate to each other.
International Recognition
The duo founded RIXC, a center for new media culture in Riga, and have shaped numerous projects connecting art and science. For their groundbreaking internet art project Xchange Net.Radio Network, they received the Prix Ars Electronica in 1998. Other works have been shown in places such as the Ars Electronica Center, ZKM Karlsruhe, House of Electronic Arts Basel, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, and Van Abbemuseum. Their immersive installation Atmospheric Forest was awarded the Falling Walls Science Breakthrough in the Art and Science category in 2021.
Conclusion: An Artistic Experience for Curious Perception
The STUDIO by Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits opens a sensual and simultaneously enlightening encounter with plants, data, sound, and future technologies. The exhibition atmosphere makes ecological connections not only explainable but physically experienceable. Anyone wishing to experience contemporary media art, aesthetic research, and new perspectives on nature should attend this presentation live at Kunsthalle Mannheim.
Official Channels of Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits:
- Instagram: no official profile found
- Facebook: no official profile found
- YouTube: no official profile found
- Website: https://smitesmits.com
