From Tuesday, May 13th, the 24th international exhibition of the Triennale Milano will open for the audience. Austria is with the mixed media installation Soft Image, Brittle Grounds of the research -oriented artist and filmmaker Felix Lenz.
The Austrian contribution funded by the MAK and the Federal Ministry of Living, Art, Culture, Media and Sports of the Republic of the Republic of Austria (BMWKMS) takes a critical look at the invisible infrastructures of digital technologies and their ecological and social effects. Felix Lenz takes the viewers on a visual and tonal journey through the multi -layered interdependencies of technology, ecology, power and inequality.
Based on his 30-minute essay film presented on an LED Wall Brute Force (Exhibition Cut) (2025) and expanded by the Dreiskanal video installation Valley of the Heart’s Delight (2025), Felix Lenz examines – through a queer perspective – how the complexity of our world collides with the reductionist rationalities of the digital age.
The dwindling banks of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA serve as a symbol of how data extraction and knowledge production convert the topography of the earth and how environmental destruction is interwoven with neocolonial practices that determine access to resources, knowledge and country.
Brute Force (Exhibition Cut) Immerse yourself with impressive images of salt twigs, the interior of data centers, drone and macro recordings deep into the material and political implications of the digital world. Attached with a multi-layered sound design and a poetic voice-over, the film follows in three chapters to the instruments that capture our data, the ecological costs of the infrastructure that it processes, and the geological traces that they leave. Turned to salt lakes and in salt twigs from Utah and California, viewed Brute Force(Exhibition Cut) Salt as an archive of the absence of water – an index for resource creation, climate change and its unequal effects and distribution. Brute Force was created with the support of the BMWKMS funding program “Pixel, bytes + Films”.
With an artistic practice that lets documentation and staging flow into one another, Felix Lenz deconstructs the apparent neutrality of technological systems. Information is translated into words, poetry and metaphors: The voice-over voice of the poets in Day Eve Comet combines findings of the feminist physicists and theorists in Karen Barad, the media artist Vladan Joler and geologist Diego P. Fernandez to interdisciplinary criticism of technology.
The newly developed three-channel video installation Valley of the Heart’s Delight – which refers to the original name of the Silicon Valley in the title – deepens these topics. Hidden behind the symbolic fragment of an architectural glass facade, the videos remain invisible until the visitors look through the glass. A special coating of the facade makes the images visible on the screens, which makes the ratio of (in) transparency and control manifest directly in the exhibition space.
In slow motion, an industrial robot slides over layers from earth, sand and grinded white mussels. They recall the holy shell mounds and midden sites of the indigenous Ohlone, which are now hidden among the headquarters of the tech giants. Repressed history combines with today’s architecture of technological dominance.
The processing of information inevitably distorts the world. While technological infrastructures promise efficiency, they are based on the silent erosion of landscapes, stories and communities. Soft Image, Brittle Grounds questions the illusion of equality in the effects of technological progress and asks us not only to see what is shown, but also what is lost in the narrative.
With impressive images, sound and a spatial experience of hiding and revealing, the installation gives visitors on all senses, how deep technological progress, environmental degradation, historical displacement and global balance of power are interwoven.
Felix Lenz
In interdisciplinary installations, films and artistic strategies, the research -oriented artist and filmmaker Felix Lenz (Felixlenz.at), which works in Vienna, expresses his studies on geopolitical, ecological and technological topics. He is a graduate of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, great design investigations (Prof. Anab Jain). In addition to his independent activity, he worked in the design studios of the Forma Fantasma (Amsterdam) and Studio Folder (Milan).
His work was exhibited internationally, including at the Beijing Art and Technology Biennale, the Ars Electronica Festival, the Digital Art Festival Zurich, the Istanbul Design Biennale and the London Design Biennale. In 2024 he was awarded the Outstanding Artist Award (category experimental design) of the BMKÖs at that time.
The topic of Soft Image, Brittle Grounds Is linked to the MAK exhibition Water Pressure. Design for the future (21.5.–7.9.2025).
24. International exhibition of the Triennale Milano
The 24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano Inequalities (May 13 – November 9, 2025) is devoted to the growing inequalities that shape the cities and today’s world. With exhibitions, special projects and public events, she questions the global challenges associated with different areas of life: from economic to ethnic origin, from geographical origin to gender. Personalities from the areas of art, design and architecture, collectives, cultural institutions, museums and research institutions from all over the world are called to think about the topic in order to map inequalities and to identify the most advanced projects for a society in which differences are a resource and value that can be converted into new forms of community.
The MAK has already participated twice in the international exhibition of the Triennale Milano: 2019 with Eoos and the contribution CIRCULAR FLOWS: The Toilet Revolution!which was awarded the silver Black Bee Award awarded by the Triennale Milano, and in 2022 with Sonja Bäumel’s multisensory installation ENTANGLED RELATIONS – ANIMATED BODIES.
Press photos and detailed work information are available for download at mak.at/presse.
Soft Image, Brittle Grounds
A project by Felix Lenz, commissioned by the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna
Exhibition location
Triennale milan
Viale Emilio Alemagna 6, 20121 Maland, Italien
T +39 02 724341
www.triennale.org
Exhibition duration
13.5.–9.11.2025
Commission
Lilli Hollein, Director General and Scientific Director, MAK
Curator
Marlies Wirth, curator of digital culture, Kustodin Collection Design, Mak
Artistic concept and implementation
Felix Lenz
Financial support
Federal Ministry of Living, Art, Culture, Media and Sports of the Republic of Austria
Cooperation partner
University of Applied Arts Vienna
With the kind support of
4Youreye projection design & -Technik GmbH
Austrian Culture Forum Milan