HfG Karlsruhe Jahresbericht Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung ...

MK MA
114 Prof. Michael Bielicky 115
Digitale Medien /Digital Media
mainly focused on developing useful methods and concepts which will allow us to find an-
swers to the question of the exponential growth of digital information in our era, in the form
of works of art, both content- and form-wise.
The third seminar, the “Alchemist’s Chest” [die “Alchimistenkiste“], led the students into the
unknown waters of the history of media art, where they familiarized themselves with rare
works from the field of experimental film and other time-based media.
Stefan Dösinger, in his teaching appointment, “Bastard Spaces,” analyzed the fusion of the avatar
reality in Second Life with our physical reality and conducted exercises with the students
accordingly.
Agronomist and social activist Ephrem Rukundo from Rwanda, in his impressive lecture,
“Power Off,” confronted our “energy-saturated” students with the Rwandan reality of dramatic
power shortage. Most of our students realized for the first time that industrial nations like
Germany would collapse without their energy supply, and consequently are actually quite
fragile constructs. This recognition made some of them view their activities in the field of
Media Art in a different light and gave them much to reconsider.
Croatian artist and exhibition designer Darko Fritz visited our department and presented his
work. He then guided us through the important exhibition “bit international” at the ZKM
[Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe], which he had curated together with Margit Rosen.
In the spring semester, we invited renowned art critic Konstantin Akinsha to talk about the
obvious influence of early film on the emergence of abstract painting, as well as about the
projection of moving images in urban, public space in Russia at the beginning of the 20th
century.
In the past academic year, we also focused increasingly on specific technical disciplines by
conducting workshops with various experts. Dominik Rinnhofer, for example, introduced us
to the complexities of what is known as “motion capture tracking” technology (EyCon), a
technology that can mainly be used in the field of interactive installations or in different performative
disciplines.
The brothers Andreas and Michael Rentschler from the Department of Computer Science at
the Technical University Karlsruhe had developed what they call the “Visual Cube.” In an intensive
workshop, they gave our students the opportunity to develop projects specifically for
the “Visual Cube.”
Albert Radel taught a group of students how to use “stop motion” animation technology. It is
to be used for the realization of a highly ambitious project in the next two semesters.
Last but not least, our students benefited from a workshop on “Arduino Processing” held by
Alex Wenger, author of the very first book on this specific technology that makes it possible to
program microprocessors (used pretty much everywhere, today) in a simple but brilliant way.
At the end of the spring semester, we hosted a three-day conference and training for the first
time at the HfG-Atrium [HfG Lichth_fe]. 150 programmers from the Karlsruhe region attended
and enjoyed the “GPN 8: Goulash Programming Nights CCC Karlsruhe” [GPN 8: Gulasch
Programmiern_chte CCC Karlsruhe]. Our students also greatly benefited from this conference,
which is to become a regular event at the HfG in the next years.
“Outside – Inside” was the title of our double exhibition at the end of the spring semester. At
the fascinating ruin of the Frauenalb Convent in the Albtal [Valley near Karlsruhe between
Ettlingen and Bad Herrenalb], our students displayed very different projects in one night
which had been designed especially for this location. Visitors could see projections on artificial
fog and experience interactive, telematic, but also pyrotechnical projects that were particularly
impressive in such a bizarre environment.
During the annual exhibition “Sommerloch,” the students displayed ambitious projects, like
the interactive piece by Thomas Kühn that was controlled by the visitors’ brain flows or the
telematic piece by Mariane Schmidt that allowed virtual handshakes via long distances. We
are particularly pleased to announce that the latter was selected, funded and given an award
by the worldwide most important festival in the field of Digital Media, the “Ars Electronica”
in Linz.
MK MA
█ Inflation
Stefan Rosinski