MEDIA ART AS THINKING SPACE


The artist duo Monika Fleischmann (*1951) and Wolfgang Strauss (*1951) define interactive media art as a transformative process. Similar to Aby Warburg's "Thought Space" (1929), the concept of "thinking space", understood both as a "spatial mode of thinking" and as a "space fused with data", [1][2] is key to their exploration.


In interactive, immersive, participatory, virtual and mixed reality environments, their work allows visitors to interact with data to reimagine human knowledge and act with moral intelligence, rather than mindlessly implementing AI. Arguing that the real question is not whether machines can think, but whether humans will retain their ability to think, they question the future of automated reasoning. Their idea of the performative interface turns the traditional interface maxim, "what you see is what you get" into "what you get is what you have not seen before. [3]


In the mid-1980s, the artist duo laid the groundwork for their ongoing journey by founding ArtWork and ART+COM, later MARS Lab and eCulture Factory. Their pioneering projects, including Berlin-Cyber City (1989-90, MR, Video), Home of the Brain (1989-91, VR, Video), Liquid Views (1992 /2022, MR, Video), Energy Passages (2004, MR, Video), nd more than 30 other works, have captivated and intrigued audiences worldwide at prestigious art festivals, museums, and galleries. [4]:


After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Berlin-Cyber City (1989-90) was created to explore the evolving urban landscape of Berlin. The Wall divided Berlin into a communist and a democratic part between 13 August 1961 and 9 November 1989. With simulations of the city and a sensor-based real-time navigation interface, this installation allows visitors to explain to each other their familiar part of the city in East and West. The interactive table invites participants to navigate Berlin's past, present, and imagined shared future by moving a sensor across the city map. The historical and architectural layers of the city encourage dialogue between East and West Berliners. The work aims to empower the public to help shape the future of a reunited Berlin. [link]


Home of the Brain (1989-91), the world's first Virtual Reality installation, is a journey into the minds of four influential philosophers to understand the dawn of digitalization. The furious ideas of Joseph Weizenbaum, Marvin Minsky, Paul Virilio and Vilém Flusser are presented in this virtual environment as a debate on the digital future. Their opposing positions on digital culture are made visible and audible in a heated debate. The visitor becomes both an observer and a participant in the philosophical exchange. The virtual replica of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is projected onto a large screen. It is the setting for the debate, where the audience can become part of the navigator's journey. The work invites reflection on the future of digital culture and the evolving relationship between human and technology. [link]


From fresco painting to virtual reality, the figure of Narcissus is an exploration of shifting identities. In the Internet age, it examines issues of self-reflection, self-awareness, and the observation of self and other. Liquid Views (1992) is a digital well in which the media Narcissus meets its reflection. Visitors close the gap between reality and virtuality by touching the surface of the watery screen, creating ripples, and observing its blurred images. The body becomes an interface to virtuality, mediating different perceptions through touch. Liquid Views invites participants to immerse themselves in an interactive narrative that blurs the boundaries between performance, video, and virtual reality. [link]


The immersive audio-visual installation, Energy Passages (2004) explores the interconnectedness of language as an energy system, the influence of the newspaper as a mass medium, and human interaction in the space around us. Through the lens of daily news, participants are encouraged to create poetic or random sequences of words and explore how language influences perception. The complex dynamic between media, technology, and human behavior invites viewers to reflect on their role in shaping the evolving mixed reality of our current environment. [link]


The 2018 ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art [link] and membership in the SIGGRAPH Academy [link] are among the many honors and awards they have received. For Home of the Brain (1989-91), the first work of art in Virtual Reality, they received the Golden Nica for Interactive Art at the 1992 Ars Electronica Festival [Video] [link].


The ADA Archive of Digital Art Magazine  featured the work of Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss in 2023 [link]. Anilla Cultural in Montevideo, Uruguay awarded them the e-Culture Award 2023 [link]. They are currently in the process of establishing a foundation to support media art.


References:

[1] "Images of the Body in the House of Illusion". M. Fleischmann. In Art and Science. Vienna: Springer, 1998, (pdf)

[2] "Imagine Space Fused with Data". W. Strauss. In CAST01 - Living in Mixed Realities, Fraunhofer IMK. Proceedings 2001 pp. 41-4, (pdf)

[3] "The art of the thinking space—a space filled with data". W. Strauss. In Digital Creativity, 2020, 31:3, 156-170, Taylor and Francis Online. https://doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2020.1782945, (pdf)

[4] "New Media Arts - The Thinking Space for Digitality". M. Fleischmann. In Creating Digitally, 2023. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol 241. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31360-8_1, (pdf)


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