Artists

Nelles, Jan Nikolai

The Beheaded Buddha, 2021
Courtesy: Jan Nikolai Nelles: Foto: Jan Nikolai Nelles

The work Beheaded Buddha (2021) is a browser- based experience and essay by multidisciplinary media artist Jan Nikolai Nelles. The work takes the religious figure of Buddha as a subject of “cultural fracking" - the forceful removal of cultural heritage and the presentation of these looted objects in museums and cultural institutions. In the work, the artist describes his personal experience of a visit to the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, where he encountered beheaded Buddhas and began to think about the stolen heads and the display of these artifacts in museums. The browser experience and the essay voice questions that the artist raised during his visit. These questions critically reflect on the museum as a space where history is organized and institutionalized for consumption and where looted objects are presented as the concept of universal cultural heritage.
The artist generated 3D data objects that visualize the Buddha’s head by using AI-guided waypoint technology and photogrammetry - the extraction of 3D information from photographs. By repositioning the Buddha and his biography, Nelles aims to deconstruct the dominant institutional narratives and to liberate the spiritual figure from the concept of universal heritage. His works show the potential of technology, as speculative material, and how it can open a new digital space for the collective imagination, independent of institutions.

Text: Sarie Nijboer; englische Übersetzung: Johanna Schindler

The work Beheaded Buddha (2021) is a browser- based experience and essay by multidisciplinary media artist Jan Nikolai Nelles. The work takes the religious figure of Buddha as a subject of “cultural fracking" - the forceful removal of cultural heritage and the presentation of these looted objects in museums and cultural institutions. In the work, the artist describes his personal experience of a visit to the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, where he encountered beheaded Buddhas and began to think about the stolen heads and the display of these artifacts in museums. The browser experience and the essay voice questions that the artist raised during his visit. These questions critically reflect on the museum as a space where history is organized and institutionalized for consumption and where looted objects are presented as the concept of universal cultural heritage.
The artist generated 3D data objects that visualize the Buddha’s head by using AI-guided waypoint technology and photogrammetry - the extraction of 3D information from photographs. By repositioning the Buddha and his biography, Nelles aims to deconstruct the dominant institutional narratives and to liberate the spiritual figure from the concept of universal heritage. His works show the potential of technology, as speculative material, and how it can open a new digital space for the collective imagination, independent of institutions.

Text: Sarie Nijboer; englische Übersetzung: Johanna Schindler

The Beheaded Buddha, 2021
Courtesy: Jan Nikolai Nelles: Foto: Jan Nikolai Nelles