MONIKA FLEISCHMANN

BIOGRAPHY |BIOGRAFIE

If we don't support media art and digital culture our life will be dominated by machines. 1998

  MONIKA FLEISCHMANN
is a German research artist and scientist. Born in Karlsruhe, grown up in Donaueschingen, lived and worked in Zurich, Munich, Nice, Diano Marina (Riviera dei Fiori), Berlin - today in Bonn and Gargnano. Since 1987 she works together with architect Wolfgang Strauss.

Since 1997 Monika Fleischmann has been Head of MARS - Exploratory Media Lab (Media Arts & Research Studies) at the GMD-Institute Media Communication, today Fraunhofer IAIS in Schloss Birlinghoven, Sankt Augustin, Germany. Before, she was Co-Founder & Artistic Director of Art+Com e.V. Berlin (87-92), Fellow at Academy of Media Arts (KHM) Köln (92/93) and Research Fellow at GMD Institute for Media Communication (92/93) Sankt Augustin. 1994-96 Artistic director of the VisWiz/VMSD/VE research groups at GMD. In 1997 she initiated the MARS Exploratory Media Lab at GMD, (since 2001 Fraunhofer) and started with the concept for netzspannung.org, e-teaching platform and media art archive for research, didactics, lectures and tools on digital art & culture. In 1998/99 she was a member of the executive team of the New Media program (Mediale Künste) of Zurich University of Art and Design.

Since 2008 she is appointed Honorary Professor for Media Theory and Interactive Media Art of the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen. Since 2009 she is a member of the ERC European Research Council: Bringing Great Ideas to Life for Starting Grants to support investigator-driven frontier research. Her main interest is to extend the concept of interaction and communication on the base of perceptive processes e.g. in media art installations such as Liquid Views or Energie-Passagen, in knowledge discovery tools like Semantic Map or the Media Flow Browser of netzspannung.org. Further interests are in curating media arts, scenography, media art education. Her multifaceted education - digital media, visual arts, theatre play and fashion design - makes her an expert in new formats and innovative processes.

In 2000/01 the TIME magazine ranks Monika Fleischmann among the People to Watch. For the European Commission she investigated How Gate-Keeping System Work in the New Media Arts (2003). In 2003 she was appointed member of the board of directors of the Fraunhofer-Institute for Media Communication (IMK) and in 2004 an invited expert of the Enquete-Commission Kultur in Deutschland for New Media. From 2002 to 2007 Head of Advisory Board: House of World Cultures in Berlin and Member of the Control Board: Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin (KKB) GmbH appointed by the German Federal Ministers of Culture. She edited Digitale Transformationen, an anthology for digital media art with 54 articles by authors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and the Digital Sparks booklets01-08 and published more than 100 scientific papers, artistic essays, theoretical articles and received 22 awards – amongst them the Golden Nica for Interactive Art of Ars Electronica for the Virtual Reality Installation Home of the Brain.
Bio on netzspannung.org german/english. CV on IMA english/german. Evaluation of works.

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS |BERUFLICHE TÄTIGKEITEN

Studies of Fashion Design in Zurich, Visual Arts, Art- and Theatre Paedagogy, Education Science at Hochschule der Künste Berlin/University of the Arts Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin & Paedagogical College of Education, Berlin.
» 1970-1973 Internships in fashion design companies in München and Berlin.
» 1974-1983 Radio features for Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) and WDR Köln.
» 1984-86 Teacher in Art, Drama & Play in Primary & Comprehensive Schools, Berlin.
» Since 1987 Partner in the Studio for Architecture & Digital Media, ArtWork, Berlin/Bonn.
» 1988-1992 Artistic Director & Co-founder of Art+Com e.V., Institute for digital art, architecture, design & communication, Berlin.
» 1990-1996 Teacher in Summer Academy on Digital Media and Founding Member of La Premiere Rue, European Center for interdisciplinary cultural projects at Corbusier-Unité, Briey-en-Forêt, France.
» 1992-1993 Fellow at Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) Cologne, Germany.
» 1992-1993 Research Fellow, GMD-German National Research Center for IT, St Augustin.
» 1994-1997 Artistic Director of Virtual Environments (VisWiz/VMSD/VE) Research Group, GMD - German National Research Center for Information Technology, Sankt Augustin, D.
» 1997-2001 Head of MARS-Media Arts & Research Studies, GMD-Institute for Media Communication, Sankt Augustin, DE.
» 1998-1999 Member of the Executive Team of the New Media program, Zurich University of Art and Design, Switzerland.
» 2001 - 06 Head of MARS – Exploratory Media Lab, Fraunhofer Institute for Media Communication (IMK), Sankt Augustin, Germany.
» 2003/06 Member of the board of directors of the Fraunhofer-Institute for Media Communication (IMK).
» 2005-08 Head of eCulture Factory, Fraunhofer IAIS, Bremen/St. Augustin, D
» 2008-to date Senior Research Artist & Scientist for Media Arts Research Studies (MARS) at Fraunhofer IAIS, Sankt Augustin.
» since 2008 Prof. for Media Theory and interactive Media Art at the Digital Media Program, Bremen.

HONORARY APPOINTMENTS |EHRENÄMTER

» since 2009 Member of the ERC European Research Council: Bringing Great Ideas to Life. Panel "Cultures and cultural production: literature, visual & performing arts, music, cultural and comparative studies" for Starting Grants to support investigator-driven frontier research. Appointed by Helga Nowotny. => Research Enquiry Service
» since 2008 Hon.-Prof. for Media Theory & Interactive Media Art, University of Applied Sciences, Bremen appointed by Helmut Eirund.
» 2002-07 Member of the Control Board (Aufsichtsrat): Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin (KKB) GmbH - for the House of World Cultures, the Berlinale and the Berliner Festspiele - appointed by the German Federal Ministers of Culture Julian Nida-Rümelin (02), Christina Weiss (03-05), Bernd Neumann (06-07).
» 2002-07 Head of Advisory Board: House of World Cultures/Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
» 2005 Evaluation-Team of the Acquin – Accreditation Institute for the Digital Media Program of Bremen Universities and Academies with Jens Geelhaar, Bernd Fröhlich, Christoph Zydorek
» 2005 Member of the Finding Commission of Christina Weiss, Federal Minister of Culture, for the new Intendant of the House of World Cultures, Berlin with Max Hollein, Elisabeth Schweeger, Joachim Sartorius.

» 2004 New Media Advisor for the Enquete-Kommission Kultur in Deutschland of the German Bundestag in Berlin.
» 2004 Reviewer of the Concept for an Institute for Digital Culture of Ars Electronica, Lentos Museum and Kunstuniversität Linz for the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, Vienna, Austria
» 2002-04 Member of the Board of Fraunhofer Institute for Media Communication, Sankt Augustin, Germany, appointed by Martin Reiser.
» 2003 to date: Member of the Board of Deutschland.de  www.deutschland.de
» 2002 to date: Editorial Advisory Board for the international Journal Technoetic Arts, appointed by Roy Ascott.
» 2002 to date: Member of Advisory Board of DigiArts, Virtual Library Projects of UNESCO, appointed by Roger Malina.
» 2001 Task Force Swiss Peer-Review - Evaluation Expert for »Swiss Programme of Media Studies«, Chair Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmitt, Delegierter für internationale institutionelle Angelegenheiten ETH (ex Vice-President), Zurich, Switzerland.
» 2000 Member of EU Consortium for the Research Program ExpressioN. Partner: Starlab, Brussels, Belgium.
» 1998-2002 Member of the Expert Group: Entwicklung multimedialer Gestaltungs- kompetenz, Academie Remscheid, Germany.
» 1998-99 EXPO2000 Hannover, Germany - Advisory Board Member for Knowledge: Information, Communication.
» 1997-98 Member of EU Consortium: Intelligent Information Interfaces (I3), Brussels.
» 1997 Strategic Research Foundation, Stockholm – Member of Review Board for the evaluation of two New Media Institutes - AMIT and MIMS in Stockholm and Malmö - with Andrew Lippmann - MIT Media Lab, Boston, Gillian Crampton-Smith - Royal College of Art, London, Jakob Nielsen – Sun, Denmark.
» 1996-2003 Goethe Institute«, Munich, Germany - Advisory Board Member for Media & New Media Art with Regina Wyrwoll, Siegfried Zielinsky a.o.
» 1996 Curator of Art Gallery, ACM Multimedia, Boston: Storytelling after Cinema.
» 1996 IN ART Festival, Teneriffa, Spain. Advisory Board Member with Karin Ohlenschläger, Roy Ascott, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Wolfgang Strauss. Producer: Telefonica, Spain.

MONIKA FLEISCHMANN & WOLFGANG STRAUSS

The artistic and scientific work of Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss is internationally recognized, exhibited and awarded. At the interface between art, science, technology and society they develop methods, models and works to link real and virtual space in an emerging media-culture.

In 1998/99 Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss carried out the requirements of an online competence centre for art, culture and new media. The CAT feasability study on Communication of Art & Technology was supported by the Fedral Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) and accompanied with generous funding for the media art research archive & platform netzspannung.org.

In 2002 the Fraunhofer IMK - MARS Exploratory Media Lab was invited by Itau Cultural in Sao Paulo, Brazil as one of the 15 internationally recognized Art & Technology Labs. Applications & tools of MFWS such as Semantic Map, PointScreen, Interactive Poster were awarded groundbreaking products of the 21 century in 2008.

In 2008/09 their online archive for media arts is exhibited at ZKM Center for Art & Media Technology in Karlsruhe: netzspannung.org – performing the archive. At the same time one of their first media art works Liquid Views of 1992 was presented in Seville, Spain in YOUniverse at BIACS (2008/09). Liquid Views and netzspannung.org were also part of the YOUser II exibition at ZKM in Karlsruhe 2009 and of Ars Electronica History Lounge 2009.

Peer review of MFWS' works: Evaluation

WORKS – PUBLICATIONS – EXHIBITIONS – AWARDS – W.STRAUSS – TOWN HOUSE