Sascha Jungbauer’s work – be it giving insects refuge in one’s apartment or malfunctioning but still self-regulating fluorescent tubes – is characterized by the acceptance of the radical other. It is about recalibrating human habits and emotional triggers and leaning into what is different to create something new.
One artwork for example concerns the mass extinction of insects in the industrialized landscape. Since the proposed political remedies tend to be abstract, he brings the topic closer to a personal level by giving insects refuge in his own studio. This gesture is the starting point for a journey towards what shall become an intricate understanding of the needs of this other: a complete biological environment, for example, with specific plants, which again have distinct needs of their own, for instance, regarding UV-lighting and humidity. However, strong constant UV-Lamps can be damaging to human eyesight. Having a thriving insect population in one’s apartment goes against culturally and biologically conditioned affects. So, at the end of the personal endeavor as a performance lies a detailed yet deeply caring understanding of the complexity of the insect-human relationship in all its myriad ways. The attitude is not about acquiring fragmentary pragmatic insights but about glimpsing a wonderful and awesome different world, how precious it is, and how difficult it is to reconcile with the needs of one’s own world. This attitude, sadly, is sorely lacking in, and shall therefore be returned to, society’s mostly impersonal discourse around insect extinction.
In a similar undertaking, Sascha Jungbauer, as part of the LAYTBEUIS collective, worked on old everyday machines: fluorescent tubes. They begin to flicker as one part of them, the starter, ages. This flickering produces a familiar array of sounds everybody remembers coming into old houses or rarely used bathrooms. To bring about the beauty of the derelict, Laytbeuis attached high-sensitivity microphones to the starter to vastly amplify those sounds. This ice-cracking-like soundwave then induced another starter to activate. So, ultimately, there was a network of old starters, a retirement home of fluorescent tubes, if you will … chattering with each other, visually and auditorily. This entire networked process was completely self-induced, without human intervention, just machines having a conversation about their aging bodies. We were able to see something rare in machines: the dignity of the nonfunctional.
To work with the body, to accept the autonomy of the collective, to allow for deficiency, for the unwanted is a well-known intersection of the counterculture. This was the concept for Sascha Jungbauer’s work in a series of events at “Salon des amateurs”, one of Germany’s most avant-garde electronic clubs, located in Düsseldorf. Under the moniker: “Raubjunge” or “robbing boy” Jungbauer created the series “furrows.anomalies”. Addressing the fault line as a potential, the mood moved from rough to gentle, gloomy to playful. Moving, sweaty, exhausted, feeling the pulse beneath the skin. Opposites are brought together in contrast to enlighten each other. Strange but sensual would be a fitting name for this genre. Longing, obsession, mania, and eccentricity, everything could be a source of beauty on the dancefloor. At best, like a good massage at a spa, one’s spiritual-emotional freedom to move is enhanced.
Sascha Jungbauer’s work is characterized by a deep interest in the other: dying insect populations, malfunctioning machines, unwanted emotions - in short, the unloved others. In work as in topic, he discovers networks on their own terms. Their autonomy is the Precious. Jungbauer leans deeply into these networks to discover their intricate own worlds, brings their self-determined systems to light, and leaves the viewer with a sense of wonder, beauty, and richness that is utterly unexpected.