nagl∼wintersberger · Andrea Nagl & Markus Wintersberger
Stone becomes relic,
sediment becomes record,
touch becomes method.Wall text RELIQUIE WEIN4 · Kunsthaus Laa 2026
The same rocks, the same chapel, the same traces — read four times. The exhibition at Kunsthaus Laa is the origin; the three re-versions translate the material into languages of their own: as an evaporating sea, as a drill core, as a crime scene.
Geological formations of the Weinviertel, the architecture of the Bürgerspital chapel and the notion of the relic: finds, drawings, 3D prints, projections, AI “future fossiles” and Andrea Nagl’s dance performance.
The image as the Paratethys sea, evaporating: seven chapters after Andrea Nagl’s “Skurrile Aufzählung (als Gedicht)” — each with its own image process derived from the rock.
A schematic borehole from the performance in the chapel down to the Ernstbrunn Jurassic limestone: seven cores, seven processes, an unconformity of 128 million years.
The research day of 8 Nov 2025 as a crime scene: terrain from the GPS data of 255 photographs, five 360° panoramas, a body scan, fourteen exhibits — forensics, geology and art read the same traces.
| 0 · RELIQUIE WEIN4 | I · SALZSPUR | II · KERNZEIT | III · BEWEISKETTE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image idea | The chapel as resonating space of an expanded geology | A sea evaporates, the salt remains | A drill core is a relic of time | The research day as a crime scene |
| Direction | Space · body · object | Karpatian → chapel (evaporation) | Chapel → Jurassic (0 → 2,400 m) | Field day → 150 Ma → 2026 |
| Processes | Field research, drawing, AI artefacts, 3D print, dance | Caustics, rhodolith rings, interbedding, halite, raking light | Slit-scan, desiccation cracks, thin section, seismics, stylolite | GPS metadata, 360° panorama, photogrammetry, simulation |
| Sound | Songs & poems by Andrea Nagl, performance sound | Poem chapters, water, salt | Rap “Late Early Miocene”, drilling sound | Field recording 8 Nov 2025, shutter clicks |
| Colour | Night · limestone · magenta | Salt · brine · salicornia | Drilling mud · signal orange | Night · luminol · evidence marker |
In RELIQUIE WEIN4 — Spurensicherung Laa, the artist collective nagl∼wintersberger (Andrea Nagl & Markus Wintersberger) combines digital interventions, fine art, embodiment and performance into a poetic, space-filling installation.
Geological formations and rocks of the Weinviertel, the architecture of the historic Bürgerspital chapel at Kunsthaus Laa and the notion of the relic — understood as a carrier of time, meaning and identity — are the starting point for digital artefacts such as videos, AR objects and AI-generated “future fossiles”, drawings, sculptural installations and the dance performance at the opening. Kunsthaus Laa becomes a resonating body of an aesthetically expanded geology, a fluid space of memory.
The work begins in the field: at limestone klippen, in quarries, on fields and salt soils between Ernstbrunn, Staatz, Mailberg, Zwingendorf and Laa. Stones, photographs, scans, drawings and sounds are collected — and the question of how a place remembers its deep time. In the studio they become salt images, limestone-latex casts and foraminifera drawings; on the computer, terrain models, 3D prints and AI compositions; in the performer’s body the material is touched, carried, set down.
In 2026, three re-versions follow, translating the same material into media of their own — 4K film, walk-in 3D scenes, games and a simulation. This page brings everything together: the original, the re-versions, the chronicle of the research, the formations and the sources.
Image research: AI sketches on relic, chapel and rock.
Foraminifera research: the microfossils of the Laa Formation.
Research day Ernstbrunn · Staatz · Laa: 255 photos, five 360° panoramas, a body scan — the white stone. → BEWEISKETTE
Andrea Nagl’s studio: experiments with salt water.
Web research: Kunsthaus Laa from Apple Maps, AI 3D reconstructions. → Series 2
Research Göllersdorf / Mailberg (MW) — the Mailberg reefs.
Google Maps isometries with Gemini, 2D → 3D. → Series 4
Halophytes of Zwingendorf — plants of the salt soils, AI studies.
Natural History Museum Vienna.
Studio AN: limestone latex — casts of rock.
Drawings on the Laa, Ernstbrunn and Mailberg formations (AN).
“Embodied Geology” in the quarry (MW, AN) — hand-specimen scan, later exhibit A14.
SalzBildMeer — salt crystallises on paper (AN).
Buschberg · MAMUZ.
Salt slurry; foraminifera as 3D models after drawings by Andrea Nagl.
Sand throws in the field (MW).
Opening & performance by Andrea Nagl in the Bürgerspital chapel. → Series 8
Exhibition at Kunsthaus Laa, Wein/4 Festival 2026. → Series 9
Re-version I: SALZSPUR — a sea becomes relic.
Re-version II: KERNZEIT — borehole Laa 1.
Re-version III: BEWEISKETTE — case Laa.
Dates from the project’s research and studio folders. Scroll sideways.
The layers beneath Kunsthaus Laa are the shared material of all four readings. Choose a layer: on the right you see how the original and the three re-versions take it up.
Ages and sequence schematic, after Rögl 1968, Roetzel 2009, Dellmour & Harzhauser 2012 and others — not a to-scale section.
Series 1 · 32 imagesAI selection imageSeries 2 · 6 imagesWeb research · Apple Maps AI 3D
Series 3 · 6 imagesWeb research · Apple Maps AI 3D · ASeries 4 · 5 imagesWeb research · Google Maps Gemini 2D/3D
Series 5 · 13 imagesWeb research · Google Maps Gemini 2D/3D · 2
Series 6 · 13 imagesAnalogue-digital collage · Andrea Nagl
Series 7 · 48 imagesfuture fossiles · AI composition · MW
Series 8 · 17 imagesOpening & performance
Series 9 · 109 imagesExhibition · space · artefactsSeries 7 gathers AI-generated trace-images by Markus Wintersberger: synthetic cabinets of wonder in which the rocks and formations of the Weinviertel merge with the architecture of the Bürgerspital chapel, with the data-shards of digital terrain scans and with the gesture of collecting — “future fossiles”, where find and invention, deep time and present become indistinguishable.
On the re-version pages the films play with chapter markers.
I · SALZSPUR · GameSpurensicherung LaaSecure twelve exhibits under raking light, pass the salt portal into the chapel — and take home your own future fossil (PNG/GLB).
II · KERNZEIT · GameBohrmeisterDrill, keep the mud flowing, pull cores, answer questions about each layer, survive the unconformity — the core box as image and GLB.
III · BEWEISKETTE · GameFall LaaDocument, survey, identify, date and seal fourteen exhibits — log contradictions, reconstruct what happened.| 3D scene | Content |
|---|---|
| SALZSPUR · Chapel above the sea | 3D film · 5 GLB · animation |
| KERNZEIT · Bohrung Laa 1 | 3D film · live scene · 5 GLB |
| BEWEISKETTE · Simulative model | Timeline 150 Ma → 2026 · walk-in 360° panoramas · 5 GLB |
| Sketchfab collection RELIQUIE WEIN4 | all 3D models of the research and the re-versions ↗ |
A remnant to which meaning is ascribed — here: stone, sediment, trace as carriers of time, meaning and identity.
Inland sea that covered large parts of central and eastern Europe during the Oligocene and Miocene; its sediments form the subsurface of the Weinviertel.
A named rock unit with its own character, e.g. the Laa, Grund, Mailberg and Ernstbrunn formations.
A hard, older rock body standing out from younger surroundings — at Ernstbrunn and Staatz, Upper Jurassic limestone.
Single-celled marine organisms with calcareous shells; as microfossils they date layers. Andrea Nagl drew them; as 3D models they became finds.
A gap in the sequence: time missing from the rock. Below Laa some 128 million years between Jurassic and Karpatian (KERNZEIT).
Salt-loving plants, for example on the salt soils near Zwingendorf — an echo of the evaporated sea (SALZSPUR).
AI-generated artefacts in which find and invention become indistinguishable (series 7).
Knowledge that arises in the body: rock is touched, carried, set down — the method of the performance.
A secured piece of evidence and the unbroken record of its path — the basis of BEWEISKETTE.
A cylindrical rock sample from depth, archived in core boxes — in KERNZEIT a relic of time.
Rock formed from evaporated water: salt, gypsum — the end of the sea.
Finger, F. & Riegler, G. (1999): Der Thayabatholith und der kristalline Untergrund des Weinviertels.
Hofmann, Th. & Wimmer-Frey, I.: Geologischer Überblick des östlichen Weinviertels.
Glaessner, M. (1931): Geologische Studien in der äußeren Klippenzone. Jahrbuch der Geologischen Bundesanstalt.
Klien, A. & Roetzel, R. (2009): Auf den Spuren der Urdonau im Raum Hollabrunn.
Roetzel, R. (2009): Erläuterungen zu Blatt 23 Hadres. Geologische Karte der Republik Österreich 1:50.000.
Malzer, O. et al. (1993): Die Molassezone und deren Untergrund. In: Brix & Schulz (Hg.): Erdöl und Erdgas in Österreich.
Roetzel, R. (Hg.) (1999): Arbeitstagung der Geologischen Bundesanstalt 1999, Retz–Hollabrunn.
Roetzel, R., Mandic, O. & Steininger, F. (1999): Lithostratigraphie und Chronostratigraphie der tertiären Sedimente im westlichen Weinviertel und angrenzenden Waldviertel.
Rögl, F. (1968): Die miozäne Foraminiferenfauna von Laa an der Thaya in der Molassezone von Niederösterreich.
Rögl, F., Hofmann, Th., Zorn, I., Brzobohatý, R. & Stojaspal, F.: Die Typuslokalität der Laaer Serie. ÖGG-Exkursionsführer 17.
Wessely, G.: Das autochthone Mesozoikum im weiteren und engeren Raum von Laa an der Thaya–Staatz. ÖGG-Exkursionsführer 17.
Dellmour, R. & Harzhauser, M. (2012): Arbeiten zum Iváň-Canyon (Karpatium/Badenium) — Vorlage der Canyon-Rekonstruktionen in SALZSPUR und KERNZEIT.
Michel-Lévy, A. (1888) · Marey, É.-J. (1882): Interferenzfarbtafel und Chronofotografie — Verfahren in KERNZEIT.
Re-versions and complete website: medienwerkstatt006 · Vienna 2026 · AI-assisted (Claude, Anthropic). Age and depth figures in the re-versions are schematic. Image rights: nagl∼wintersberger.
