Scylla and Charybdis
2025, Westphal brothers
mixed media performative installation

Our installation Scylla and Charybdis for “Offside Signal” consists of two tidal pools in acrylic incubation chambers, each equipped with fixed rubber glove openings that visitors can use to submerge their hands into the water.

The aquariums are connected with a thin silicon hose that passes through a special microscope slide called flow chamber. The microscopic view is relayed as a giant projection onto the walls of the exhibition space.

Using the principle of communicating vessels, the viewer can control the flow of particles and creatures in the microscope slide by altering the water levels by submerging their hands. Minute and gentle control of hand movements will be necessary to create an equilibrium between the
vessels and to keep the microscopic view still enough to observe. The work creates a portal between both worlds, enabling viewers to not only be a spectator but an active agent in this environment.

Uli Westphal, 1980, Bochum, Germany, works and lives in Berlin, Germany. In his works he observes how humans perceive, depict and transform the natural world. He is especially interested in how misconceptions and ideologies shape our view of nature. In recent years he has been focused on the portrayal and transformation of nature through the food industries. Hiswork is multidisciplinary and research based, frequently consisting of collections, classification systems, simulations and experimental set-ups. uliwestphal.com

Thomas Westphal, 1972, Bochum, Germany, works and lives in Helsinki. Working as sculptor he is often using moving images as a building block in the creation of video objects. His concepts originate from physical activity or constructing processes that get re-rooted into kinetic contraptions. thomaswestphal.net