FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN

The Foundation aims to preserve and make accessible to the public the works of artists Betha and Teff Sarasin, including early generative art.

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

Take a digital walk through SPIRALPROJEKT by Betha Sarasin at https://t.co/U60V4W34Ak.

Opening tomorrow, Thursday, September 18, at 7 pm CEST with a walk-through by curator Markus Ganz.
Online 24/7 from 18.09. – 23.11.2025.

Started in 1983 by Betha Sarasin with Markus Ganz and Horst Kordisch (Fraunhofer Institute), Spiralprojekt was further developed in 2024 as a real-time web-based audiovisual animation. After evolving through NFT collections, it now re-emerges as an interactive exhibition in HEK’s browser-based space.

Curated by Armin Blasbichler & Markus Ganz @ganzertext
In cooperation with the Betha and Teff Sarasin Foundation
Exhibition design: David Schwarz @hauser_schwarz

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

Betha Sarasin's SPIRALPROJEKT soon @hek_basel https://t.co/HgmQVFyNA7

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

@Tulipaniart

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

Thank you!

We want to give a big shout-out to Georg Bak and Roger Haas @artmetaofficial for the fantastic Digital Art Mile 2025. They made it possible that we could present the Curated Edition of Betha Sarasin's Spiralprojekt (1983-2025) in such an inspiring environment of recent and historical developments in digital and generative art.

We'd also like to thank the exhibition team who made sure everything went smoothly and created a great atmosphere. Thanks also to the artists and fellow exhibitors for the stimulating conversations. Last but not least, we want to thank the exhibition visitors, who were delightfully curious about the background of Spiralprojekt.

[100 collectors @100collectors]

Thanks for being part of the tour today!

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

Curated Edition of SPIRALPROJEKT live at ArtMeta

From Monday, the Sarasin Foundation will be showing the curated edition of the Web-based audio-visual realtime animation SPIRALPROJEKT for the first time. As a small foretaste, here are the previews of the 12 spirals created by the artists Kevin Abosch, Hans Dehlinger, Mario Klingemann and Susanne Päch. Check them out live in motion on site!

ArtMeta’s The Digital Art Mile, Basel, Switzerland: “4th floor”, Rebgasse 31, Monday 16 June - Sunday 22nd June, 12:00 - 20:00, free entry.

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

PRESENTING CURATED EDITION OF SPIRALPROJEKT at ArtMeta’s The Digital Art Mile, Basel

Plotter drawings are included in the Curated Edition of SPIRALPROJEKT as a nod to the historic 1983 project. At the time, plotter drawings and artistically enhanced reproductions were the only practical means of showing the spirals to a wider audience, and Betha Sarasin loved their precise, sharply drawn black lines.

Each of the 12 unique iterations of the Curated Edition comprises a short-form NFT of SPIRALPROJEKT and two corresponding plotter drawings, one depicting the top view and the other the side view (black and red on Hahnemühle paper 190 g/m², 297 × 400 mm). The plotter drawings are stamped, numbered and signed by the Sarasin Foundation with a separate certificate, including the JSON code.

Presentation at ArtMeta’s The Digital Art Mile, Basel , Switzerland, @artmetaofficial: “4th floor”, Rebgasse 31, Monday 16 June - Sunday 22nd June, 12:00 - 20:00, free entry.

Artist Manuel Lampert @manuellampert is an expert on plotters and helped us a lot in optimizing the Bantam NextDraw 1117 pen plotter, also recommending compatible pens and paper, as well as guidance on the software tools. Thank you!

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

To learn more about Betha Sarasin and her series SPIRALPROJEKT, read the interview with @postanika and Sarasin’s longtime artistic collaborator, Markus Ganz.

https://t.co/HRlxwlFJ22

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

PRESENTING CURATED EDITION OF SPIRALPROJEKT

Anika Meier @postanika recommended the following renowned artists for the Curated Edition of SPIRALPROJEKT which is presented for the first time next week at ArtMeta’s Digital Art Mile in Basel, organized by @artmetaofficial.
– The Irish conceptual artist Kevin Abosch @kevinabosch was asked because he works across traditional mediums as well as with generative methods including machine learning and blockchain technology.
– Mario Klingemann @quasimondo was an obvious choice because this artist is known for his curiosity and because his preferred tools are neural networks, code and algorithm.
– It was a matter of the heart to ask the journalist and media expert Susanne Päch @SusannePaech. She manages Art Meets Science and the estate of her husband Herbert W. Franke, whom Betha Sarasin and Markus Ganz met in 1982 at the Ars Electronica Festival.
– What connects Hans Dehlinger @hansdehlinger with Sarasin and Ganz is that they all began to explore computers and pen-plotters artistically in the late 1970s. Early works from him and Betha Sarasin were shown 2024 at the exhibition CODED CUBES at https://t.co/r0golNUe9I gallery in Berlin.

ArtMeta’s The Digital Art Mile, Basel, Switzerland: Presentation of the SPIRALPROJEKT at “4th floor”, Rebgasse 31, Monday 16 June - Sunday 22nd June, 12:00 - 20:00, free entry.

SPIRALPROJEKT, web-based audio-visual real-time animation (2024)

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

Presenting Curated Edition of SPIRALPROJEKT at ArtMeta Basel

Only in recent years has it become evident that Betha Sarasin’s SPIRALPROJEKT of 1983 can be classified as a pioneering multimedia project in the field of generative art. The members of the Sarasin Foundation decided to revive the project and make it accessible to the public once again. They also agreed that the reappraisal should be conducted in a contemporary form that reflects the innovative spirit of the original SPIRALPROJEKT.

The objective of the 2025 Curated Edition is to create a link to the historical version of 1983. 40 years later, the Betha and Teff Sarasin Foundation has invited four renowned contemporary artists to explore the potential of this historically evolved software. They have each created three new spirals using a P5.js adaptation of the SPIRALPROJEKT program which is based on Betha Sarasin's 1983 Fortran algorithm. They were granted full access to the parameters of this web-based audio-visual real-time animation, only the audio samples were randomly selected and spatially positioned. More soon!

ArtMeta’s The Digital Art Mile, Basel, Switzerland
“4th floor”, Rebgasse 31, Monday 16 June - Sunday 22nd June, 12:00 - 20:00, free entry.

Original Logo of SPIRALPROJEKT, 1984

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

@Noahbolanowski @artmetaofficial Yes, I will be there! :)

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

SPIRALPROJEKT at ArtMeta’s The Digital Art Mile
Basel, Switzerland, June 16–22, 2025
We are delighted to present the Curated Edition of the web-based audio-visual real-time animation SPIRALPROJEKT for the first time ...
at “4th floor”, Rebgasse 31, Basel
Monday 16 June - Sunday 22nd June, 12:00 - 20:00, free entry.

Stay tuned for more information in the coming days.

[ArtMeta @artmetaofficial]

Showcasing 12+ Exhibitors Spread Across Two Locations

Space 25 (Rebgasse 25):
▫️The Paintboxed Exhibition (@paintboxed1981)
▫️Kate Vass Galerie (@KateVassGalerie)

Fourth Floor (Rebgasse 31):
▫️Objkt (@objktcom)
▫️The Mayor Gallery
▫️Bright Moments (@brtmoments)
▫️Sigg Art Foundation (@SiggArtFdn)
▫️Galerie Charlot (@GalerieCharlot)
▫️Cypherdudes (@CYPHERDUDES)
▫️Sarasin Foundation (@Sarasin_Fnd)
▫️LaCollection (@LaCollectionOff)
▫️DANAE .IO (@Danae__io)
▫️Solimán López (@solimanlopez)
▫️RCM Galerie (@rcmgalerie)

[Kate Vass Studio @KateVassGalerie]

In today’s Artist Highlight, we introduce Betha Sarasin, a Swiss pioneering artist who created works across a range of media and approaches, from informal and concrete painting to figurative drawing, sculpture, church windows, and early computer-aided art. A recurring motif throughout her oeuvre was the cube, which she explored and transformed in multiple ways. Her 1983 project, SPIRALPROJEKT, is a pioneering work in computer-generated art, exploring spatial movement of the cube and integrating music and sound experiments.

[Kate Vass Studio @KateVassGalerie]

7/ In 2024, to commemorate 40 years since this pioneering work, the Sarasin Foundation @Sarasin_Fnd revived SPIRALPROJEKT and updated it with a contemporary approach in collaboration with @Highlight_xyz and Anika Meier @postanika. Coder Benjamin Berger adapted the work to P5.js, creating unique animated spirals with randomly selected colors and branches accompanied by spatial music, which shifts with each cube sequence.

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

To learn more about Betha Sarasin and her series SPIRALPROJEKT, read the interview with @postanika and Sarasin’s artistic collaborator, Markus Ganz.

https://t.co/HRlxwlGgRA

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

FEEDBACK ON SPIRALPROJEKT IN THE 1980s

"In the 1980s, it was difficult to get attention for digital art. The media, museums and galleries were skeptical about such multimedia projects. Betha Sarasin and I were already (slowly) using the Internet in 1987, but platforms like YouTube didn't yet exist. It was only through music that we managed to reach a wider audience.

At the first multimedia performance of the SPIRALPROJEKT in the Gewerbemuseum Basel (1985), the reactions were particularly good. After the concert, some people told us with shining eyes that the music of MUNGO and BERNOULLI AUF REISEN moved in space like the spirals depicted. This was thanks to the 3D sound system COMspace, which I developed with a friend and which allowed me to determine the spatial position for each individual note of the spiral melody.

But the most international response Betha Sarasin and I received was for the multimedia art book THE TRIP TO THE LAKES (1988), in which the music was accompanied by an adventurous story about bio-computers and plants that start to travel. The media described the book, written in German, English and Chinese, with its many art images and accompanying music, as an "extravagant total work of art", "a surreal art journey to happiness" or "bio-tech fairytale"."

- Markus Ganz, musician and collaborator of Betha Sarasin

Cover of the book THE TRIP TO THE LAKES, 1988; still from the web-based audio-visual real-time animation SPIRALPROJEKT, 1983/2024.

[FOUNDATION BETHA AND TEFF SARASIN @Sarasin_Fnd]

Collect SPIRALPROJEKT, the generative art release by Betha Sarasin, on @ExpandedArt.
!!!MINT ENDS 19 DECEMBER at 6 PM CET !!!

https://t.co/ooerDI3SVT