"Awakening Borealis" is Paul Hance’s first extensive video and light installation. An alchemist of aura, Hance uses materials such as handblown glass, "time-welded" steel, fragments of nature and civilisation, stone, his own photographs, and found footage. However, his primary mediums are light and reflections, expanded time and space. His practice has been described as nomadic while he is, in fact, a traveler: Once he has explored and unearthed the local crafts and materials that inspire new work, he returns to previously discovered places for resources, cultural and emotional as well as spiritual stimuli. This practice links him to people and potentials. It enables him to work outside the confines of public artistic discourse and results in works that are intense, yet never unsettling.

The video "Awakening Borealis" was initially shown in the artist's exhibition "Sigueme Sigueme" at Galerie Meyer Riegger as a single-channel projection. It is now reconfigured as a dynamic frieze of up to 30 channels, depicting pairs of hands moving underwater into daybreak. The title references "Aurora Borealis", the northern lights, a natural phenomenon in polar regions that manifests as radiant patterns of glowing lights in the sky, appearing as curtains, rays, spirals, or flickering forms.

This 270 degree installation is accompanied by one of Hance’s "Beacons", a temporary light installation resembling a double-headed lantern, echoing the Varja — the symmetrical scepter and weapon found in Hinduism and Buddhism. This thunderbolt-shaped "Beacon" is crafted from gradually welded stainless steel, handblown cobalt and bicoloured glass. These lanterns are one of the artist's exercises in materialising metaphysical aspects and experiences by means of craftsmanship. Paradoxically, the effect of the lanterns simultaneously reverses this process, as light and reflections dissolve these intangible elements.

— Sebastian Hoffmann

Following Heiner Franzen’s "22 ANCHORS", Paul Hance’s "Awakening Borealis" is the second edition of the Studio IIII Residency. It opens on March 6th with the musical companionship by Tom of England, Carl Luis, and Junis, and will continue to be shown on select dates between March and June.

The Studio IIII Residency is a programme that provides artists with technical and production resources for multimedia projects at Studio IIII. Each year, three to four artists are invited to participate. The residency primarily focuses on moving images and light-based art, encouraging artists to configure work that engages spatially with audiences in ways that are uncommon in traditional exhibition contexts. The Studio IIII Residency is curated by Sebastian Hoffmann of Tadan.

1

As a teenager, I'm sitting in front of the television and watching a sports studio interview. The presenter Rainer Günzler interviews the boxer Norbert Grupe, alias Prinz von Homburg. He has just lost his fight against Óscar Bonavena. Günzler had previously scolded Grupe on another show and Grupe decides to take revenge. He doesn't say a word during the entire interview. That's forbidden on television. I'm sitting on my parents' carpet and I think it's great, Grupe's silence and the presenter's reflexes to clear the silence and restore the screen.

2

Cable News Network, June 1, 1980. The media entrepreneur Ted Turner starts the first pure news channel. History in the making. Appearing: a table with papers, a busy environment off-screen. At the table, a man and a woman take turns reading the news from the papers.

3

On the floor of my first Berlin apartment in the early 90s, there is a small, aging Grundig television that can only be tuned to the news portal CNN. It features a presenter, a map of Iraq, a photo of the reporter Bernard Shaw and Shaw's voice: We are standing on the roof of the Hotel Raschid. The skies of Baghdad are being illuminated. Then there is a sound disturbance and a silent eclipse in the presenter's face.

4

Editing room, June 2015. On YouTube, I see Trump going down his escalator. I sit at the monitor editing clips of anchors from American news programs that I have been collecting for several years. I am interested in the moment when someone is silent on the program, whether because of some kind of disturbance or because he or she is letting guests discuss things. I am interested in what happens to presence in an electronic medium. I have long since turned off the sound when researching.

5

Trump stands next to the escalator and announces his candidacy. First reactions online: comedy material. Anticipation of the first woman in the highest office.