Over the last decade, Mike Hentz, a visual and polymedia artist of Swiss-American descent, has presented himself to Ljubljana’s audiences on several occasions with lectures, workshops and performances, which he delivered in collaboration with SCCA and Cirkulacija2. In addition to the projects ranging from pioneering media art works in the 1980s and 1990s, through situation and live art, to music and theatre, the most resounding have been also those that span several months or years. These, among others, also include the project carried out by the music and performance group Minus Delta t, which Hentz co-founded in 1978, titled Bangkok-Project, in which a rock weighing several tons was transported from England to Asia. Hentz’s works exhibit characteristic multifunctionality, constant changes, adaptations, and fluid incorporation of artefacts into various new artistic contexts. 

During his art residency in Ljubljana, he realised several radio shows on Radio Študent called Emotional Logic Systems and has a regular broadcast of this show on REBOOT FM Berlin. For the CC Tobačna 001 he designed a spatial installation in which various techniques and materials interact. The exhibition project Emotional Logic Systems moves between pure artistic imagery and metaphor. It comprises a floor work and an iconostasis showcasing a broad range of contents associated with the primary forces that drive today’s world, such as wars, energy, religion, home, family, sex, etc. The iconostasis follows the tradition of wooden walls of icons in Christian Orthodox churches and the floor work embodies unique mental landscapes. 

Hentz’s subjective visual language engenders a wide array of mental and emotional responses in the viewer as well as encourages the formulation of multi-narrative explanations and meanings directed by the viewer’s emotional logic. The emotional logic dictates the viewer’s association and develops their first impression of a given situation or piece of art. The intermeshing of the viewer’s personal interpretation and the artist’s view is deliberate. The art piece, in a way, represents a composition created by the viewer’s perception and the artist’s formal conception. The personal, local or international cultural contexts and mental landscapes that underline the interpretation of what is seen in the artist’s work are intentionally created and mixed for a reason. Depending on the viewer’s position (looking at the installation from up close or from a distance), a multidirectional reading and narration develop, with the composition of different associated contents creating new contents.