Ars Electronica Features Exhibition

3 — 7 September 2025

POSTCITY, First Floor Waldeggstraße 41
4020 Linz

On Point+
(More info coming soon)

Singapore

On Point interrogates humanity’s urge to make things immediately intelligible. Faced with today’s polycrises, we often oversimplify and overcategorise–approaches that work against deeper understanding and problem-solving. These impulses are rooted in uncertainty and can lead to panic and desire for control that ultimately “miss the point”.


The exhibition features darkmode/lightmode by artist Victoria Hertel with engineer Justin Ong. The work’s irregular flickering patterns resist predictable rhythms, echoing the often unseen interconnectedness of contemporary crises. Like a flickering lightbulb, the rhythmic pulses reveal a web of connections powered by interdependent presence and actions. Just as their full communicative pattern reveals itself over time, global problems too require patient observation over quick fixes or expectations of immediate understanding. This dynamic contrasts society’s fixation on fragmented elements and hopes to nurture sensitivity to critical signals rather than panicked reactions in order to guide us through uncertain futures. 


Curated by Shireen Marican

Produced by Mary Ann Ng

darkmode/lightmode (2025)

Victoria Hertel with Justin Ong
Iron oxide infused glass vessels, radar sensors, custom printed circuit boards, LED filaments, vibration motors, sound waves, water, currents 
Dimensions variable


darkmode/lightmode explores how technology perceives and responds to environments through sensors. Contrasting human and technological sensing, the work prompts interactions between bodies, spaces, and other presences. Switching states in response to environmental stimuli, the work consists of two co‑existing interfaces: one activated by presence, engaging in a communicative act of mutual sensing; the other triggered by absence, shifting into a state of auto-responsive rhythms and internal logics across the vessel network, asserting a form of circuit-driven agency. Sensing becomes a shared, slowed, and communicative act, forming a moment of awareness across biological, spatial, and technological networks.

About The Team


Curator
Shireen Marican (SG)

Shireen Marican is a curator, systems strategist and educator focused on social and environmental equity. She co-creates strategies, exhibitions and research addressing contemporary critical challenges. With a Masters in Curatorial Practices and Museum Studies from Nanyang Technological University, her accolades include the Platform Projects Curatorial Award (2020), Teman Warisan (2022) and GRAZIA Singapore Gamechangers 2025. She has managed over 15 strategic advisory projects and 30 over arts projects, while lecturing at University of the Arts Singapore since 2020.

Creative Producer
Mary Ann Ng (SG)

Mary Ann Ng is a transdisciplinary practitioner at the intersection of art, technology, culture, and design. As Creative Producer and Project Manager at SERIAL CO_, she leads concept development and production for innovative creative technology projects, while also lecturing at LASALLE College of the Arts. Past roles include Research Assistant at NUS Architecture, Curatorial Assistant for the 2021 Architecture Venice Biennale, and Project Manager for the 2022 Art Venice Biennale. She holds a Master of Architecture (RIBA II) from NUS.

Artist
Victoria Hertel (DE)

Victoria Hertel is a Singapore-based, German-Venezuelan artist whose slow-tech installations focus on sensory awareness, perception technology, and ecological entanglements as a way of reconciling current human behaviour with ongoing environmental over-extension. Hertel received her BFA from the University of Barcelona and her MFA from LASALLE Singapore, in partnership with Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work has been featured in exhibitions and research residencies across Europe, America, and Asia. 


Engineer
Justin Ong (SG) 

Justin Ong is a Singaporean engineer who enjoys the challenge of building solutions to enhance the impact and scale of works. He has contributed to works ranging from wearable technology to immersive, responsive installations, utilising sensors and highly integrated devices to push the boundaries of how technology is used in art. Being from more traditional engineering fields, he also explores how development can be driven by aesthetics and audience impact, rather than quantifiable metrics.

Contact: projects@serial.sg


More press information here


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