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I am a multidisciplinary media & performance artist working with video, sound, installation and live performance to create immersive, sensory environments. Rooted in personal and often spiritual impulses, my practice explores the space between the natural and the supernatural, the physical and the intangible.”

2025 DEUTSCHE OPER AM RHEIN, DUISBURG (DE)

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  • by ManouJoela

The Lighthouse Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera The Lighthouse, about the disappearance of three lighthouse keepers, directed by Haitham Assem Tantawy, was visually set in the nightmarish, abstract world of a deconstructed tower by set designer Matthias Kronfuß. It premiered in February 2025 at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Duisburg, Germany. Video artist Manuela Hartel created strong imagery for the stage, taking the overall visual expression of this piece an affirmative step further. She developed the video design from concept to final projection, directing the video shoot and handling camera work, editing, montage, and video layering in postproduction. Her deliberately unsettling video sequences quite literally get under the audience’s skin.… Read More →

2025 BERGSON KUNSTKRAFTWERK, MUNICH (DE)

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  • by ManouJoela

2nd String Quartet Biennale 2025 The 2nd String Quartet Biennale at Bergson Kunstkraftwerk in Munich brought together four outstanding ensembles for a profound artistic dialogue between European and Japanese musical traditions. The festival honored Toshio Hosokawa’s 70th birthday, welcoming two rising quartets as ambassadors of the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition. Mechthild Ackermann’s large-scale silk calligraphies evoked the elegance of Japan and beyond, capturing the essence of cultural exchange. Manuela Hartel created a series of site specific video projections inspired by Japanese aesthetics—its subtle sense of space, silence, and transience. These works extended the concert experience into a visual dimension, transforming the raw architecture of the Bergson silos into poetic,… Read More →

2024 GREEK NATIONAL OPERA, ATHENS (GR)

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  • by ManouJoela

Expanded Piano II   Visual Architecture for Sound In June 2024, Stavros Gasparatos premiered his new work Expanded Piano II at the GNO Alternative Stage of the SNFCC in Athens, building on his long-standing artistic exploration of the piano as an expanded instrument. For this project, I developed the visual and spatial concept, including the stage design, the video projections, and the live video programming. My work shaped the visual identity and temporal rhythm of the performance, creating a scenographic dialogue between light, moving image, and the sonic landscape. Reimagining the instrument through image, code & space The performance revisited the mechanical theory of the prepared piano, extending it through… Read More →

2024 SCHLOSS GLEINA, SAXONY-ANHALT (D)

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  • by ManouJoela

>HearT’BEAT< A Musical Performance in the Resonant Spaces of Schloss Gleina Performance Three musicians in three distant corners of Schloss Gleina – separated by walls, connected through sound. Rainer von Vielen, Julian Sartorius and Manuela Hartel work with acoustic impulses, electronic textures, rhythmic fragments. Everything they transmit converges in the grand ballroom – live-streamed, layered, interwoven – forming a constantly shifting sonic body. At the center: a structure made of transparent PVC tubing, through which sound and light flow like an extended circulatory system. Moving through it, singing, Manuela Hartel disappears into loops and tunnels, then reemerges. Her voice travels, flickers, settles – a resonant heartbeat in a system of breath,… Read More →

2024 CHATEAU D’ORION, BÉARN DE GAVES (FR)

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  • by ManouJoela

AU LAVOIR – A Tribute to the Forgotten Washplaces Manuela Hartel (Munich/DE) performance, video installation, set, voice & lyrics Jesus Aured (Bayonne/FR) experimental accordeon Au Lavoir Presented as part of the european Terre et Temps | Erde und Zeit arts and culture festival in the park of Château d’Orion in Béarn des Gaves, German media artist Manuela Hartel turns her attention with sensitivity and nuance to a frequently overlooked aspect of regional heritage: the lavoirs—historic communal washhouses. Once vibrant meeting places where women engaged in an intimate yet essential daily task, these spaces now stand as quiet witnesses to a nearly forgotten tradition, fading in the shadow of modern society.… Read More →

2022 DIGITAL ART SPACE, MUNICH (DE)

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  • by ManouJoela

HAUCH – solo show exhibition @ digital art space München Intermedially and in layers, Manuela Hartel researches the measurability or visualization of inspiration, intuition and charisma and, together with three female performers, addresses the question of the divine in the creative process. For her solo show HAUCH, exhibition at the digital art space Munich, she arranges digital print, Augmented Reality, collage, performance and video into a spatial installation. Perception in the field of tension between nature and the supernatural, as well as the meaningfulness of our existence in the context of faith, religion and ritual are the focal points of her artistic practice. The exhibition is the result of her “intermedial… Read More →

2022 PINAKOTHEK DER MODERNE, MUNICH (DE)

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  • by ManouJoela

Recording of the audio-visual live concert at the Pinakothek der Moderne 9.12. 2022 Six renowned string quartets and video installations at different locations Ensembles: Asasello Quartet, Diogenes Quartet, Henschel Quartet, Klenke Quartet, Malion Quartet, Modern String Quartet Music: String quartets by George Crumb, Lisa Streich, Ursula Mamlok, Carolin Shaw, Sergej Newski, Steffen Wick, Jörg Widmann, John Adams and “Pictures at an Exhibition” – Framed in Jazz Video art: Manuela Hartel Moderation: Annekatrin Hentschel, BR Interview partners: Monika Henschel, Manuela Hartel, Peter Hackel Organized by: Festival4 e.V. (Förderverein des VdSQ) in cooperation with the Pinakothek der Moderne on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Pinakothek der Moderne Photographer: HP… Read More →

2023 NEW MUSEUM NUREMBERG (DE)

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  • by ManouJoela

GOD ORCHESTRATED HAPPENING material: aluminum, stainless steel, muslin gauze, glue, bog mud, video, audio The audio-visual installation is part of the group show ⭕️ MOMENTUM at NEUES MUSEUM NÜRNBERG from May 5th until September 24th. The work deals with the term ‘Kairos’ or the favor of the moment as a gift: the divine spark or thought that has to leap over and cannot be inflamed by itself. The result is an artificial and walkable throne of introspection that stages the possibility for visitors to have their own ‚Kairos‘ #MOMENTUM. curated by Simone Schimpf, Helmut Braun, Janette Witt, Thomas Heyden music by @stavrosgasparatos with text, melody, spoken and sung word by @manuelahartel Foto… Read More →

2021 STAATSOPER STUTTGART (D)

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  • by ManouJoela

videostill from schlafenszeit © Manuela Hartel QUÄLEND SÜSSE EINSAMKEIT Sechs Filme und Musik über Gefühle im Ausnahmezustand (english below) videostill from schlafenszeit © Manuela Hartel „Lange allein sein macht ungerecht“, lässt die Dichterin Ingeborg Bachmann eine ihrer Figuren im Insel-Hörspiel Die Zikaden feststellen – und es steht außer Frage: Zum Menschsein gehört das Miteinander mit Anderen, auch wenn Philosoph*innen und Dichter*innen seit Jahrhunderten den Wert der Einsamkeit ergründet haben. Als im Frühjahr 2020 alle abrupt und unerwartet auf sich selbst zurückgeworfen wurden, Distanz zur lebensrettenden Regel wurde und Orte gesellschaftlichen Miteinanders als Gefahrenzone galten, als Öffentlichkeit voll ends in die sozialen Medien wanderte, wurde das Bedürfnis nach Nähe und Gemeinschaft… Read More →

2020 EINSTEIN KULTUR, MUNICH (D)

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  • by ManouJoela

Tasting Water – An installative dance video performance Water on the skin can be an intense body experience. When body and water meet, there is an immediate reaction, depending on the state of the water: warm, cold, icy, liquid, solid, rustling, flowing. Water is constantly changing and is a symbol for cycles and for life. The installation performance “Tasting Water” is a dialogue between dance and video that deals with the effects of water on the body; under water, by the water, on the water, with water. While the boundaries between water video and dance body blur, the audience is invited to experience the element of water anew. Due to… Read More →