FRAGMENTS: A Digital Companion to Networks of Impressionism

Six digital projects translate the research undertaken by Networks of Impressionism into a range of interpretive formats. Bringing together art, literature, photography, sound, and interactive technologies, they offer new ways of engaging with the people, places, and stories behind the paintings. From a graphic novel to an immersive spatial installation at Museum Barberini, each project offers a distinct experience of the networks that shaped Impressionism.

Developed by ART+COM Studios, Berlin, the media installation FRAGMENTS at Museum Barberini generates new visual compositions from fragments of Impressionist paintings. Drawing on art-historical research data compiled by Networks of Impressionism, the installation unfolds as a poetic interplay of form, color, movement, and sound.

At the heart of the installation are the 115 paintings in the Hasso Plattner Collection, digitally fragmented into more than 74,000 individual squares. Categorized according to their color values, these fragments are recombined across a grid of 12,960 cells to create new generative compositions. The result is a poetic interplay of form, color, and movement that immersively conveys both the diversity of Impressionism and the intricate connections that bind it together. The installation marks the culmination of the anniversary exhibition at Museum Barberini, offering a new perspective on the museum’s scholarly research.

Seen from a distance, the seven-meter-wide screen evokes almost lifelike natural scenes: a fragment of blue sky, sunlight shimmering on water in pale yellow, green treetops swaying in the wind. Up close, these scenes reveal their underlying structure, composed of individual fragments drawn from the original paintings. The motifs and brushwork of the Impressionist source works come into focus, evoking the movement’s characteristic interplay between proximity and distance, detail and overall impression.

Every half-second, each cell displays a new fragment, coordinating the direction of its appearance with that of its immediate neighbors. From countless individual decisions, emergent patterns of movement arise, flowing across the screen like a murmuration of birds.

As visitors approach the installation, they become part of the composition themselves. A LiDAR sensor captures their movements, rendering their silhouettes in ghostlike outlines formed from luminous image fragments. Those who linger are invited to explore the Networks of Impressionism art-historical database in greater depth. Six exemplary stories bring scholarly connections to life through compelling narratives, revealing links between Impressionist works from collections around the world.

The composition, created specifically for the installation, is by Carlo Heller, who received mentorship from Alva Noto throughout the project. The sound composition extends the visual presentation with an independent acoustic layer, adding a further spatial and atmospheric dimension to the installation. Sterre Barrentsen of Museum Barberini also contributed curatorial expertise to the selection of works and the development of the conceptual framework.