"For us, media art is a thinking machine performed in public." (2026)
"Monika and Wolfgang are pioneers who understood very early that interactivity is not just a technical feature, but a transformation in how we think and perceive ourselves within media space." — Derrick de Kerckhove
We create interactive environments where thinking in doing becomes an experience. Moving between body and image, gesture and code, they treat media art as a living Denkraum in which knowledge emerges through encounter. Their installations turn data into atmosphere and interfaces into reflection, inviting visitors to sense the digital world consciously — awake, attentive, and ready to think.
MEDIA ART AS THINKING SPACE.
Interactive environments become settings (Stages) where perception, culture, and digital systems meet. Thinking becomes embodied; experience arises through interaction rather than instruction. Drawing on Aby Warburg’s concept of the Denkraum, their practice treats art as an epistemic medium — a place where reflection unfolds through active engagement. Instead of hiding technology behind seamless surfaces, they expose its processes. Their notion of the performative interface overturns the familiar maxim “what you see is what you get,” replacing it with: “What you get is what you have not seen before.”
[The art of the thinking space—a space filled with data, 2020].
Rather than adopting artificial intelligence unguarded, their installations create spaces where people encounter themselves, each other, and the digital sphere with renewed attention. Art becomes a synesthetic realm of reflective transformation. Across immersive, participatory, virtual, and mixed‑reality environments, their work poses a central question: not whether machines can think, but whether humans will continue to think and act responsibly.
Their current project, Mind Circuits, extends this trajectory by creating an AI‑mediated thinking space where historical voices, algorithmic systems, and human participants share a field of reflection. The first presentation of Mind Circuits is an interactive, live experience in which thinking becomes a shared experiment. Inspired by Home of the Brain [Link], it reinterprets a groundbreaking work of media art using contemporary AI. At the center are four philosophical agents inspired by media theorists and computer scientists Vilém Flusser, Paul Virilio, Joseph Weizenbaum, and Peter Weibel. [Link] [Link]
Media theorists have described the work of Fleischmann and Strauss as a key artistic laboratory for understanding the psychological and cultural implications of digital media. Sherry Turkle reads installations such as
Energie‑Passagen [Link] as environments where participation becomes self‑reflection rather than spectacle. Derrick de Kerckhove sees
Liquid Views [Link] as an early anticipation of today’s selfie culture, revealing interactivity as a shift in how we perceive ourselves in media space. Italian critics such as Luca Farulli and Lorenzo Taiuti frame their installations as an interactive renaissance, where colour, gesture, and data become performative materials that transform the screen into a responsive, living surface
that bridges aesthetic tradition and contemporary media experience.
Latest Interview
Conversations – Interview by Anika Meier – 28.11.2024
Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss: Creating Virtual Worlds Like Fairy Tales
New Media Art and Virtual Reality [Link]
International Awards
2024: XR Hall of Fame, AWE Augmented World Expo, Pioneers for VR in Art and Culture
2018: ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award – Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art
2000/01: TIME Magazine ranks as People to Watch
1994: Prix Ars Electronica – Honorary Mentions – Responsive Workbench
1992: Prix Ars Electronica – Golden Nica for Home of the Brain
more Awards [Link]
Exhibitions
2025 SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, Vancouver (CA) Liquid Views – Echoes of Self (2025) [Link]
Connecting Nature, Art, and Technology, Curator: Francesca Franco
2024–2025 Tate Modern, London (UK) Liquid Views (1992) [Link]
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Curator: Val Ravaglia
2024 Heilig Geist / König Galerie, Essen (DE) Between Zero and One (1988) [Link]
Reimagine Tomorrow, 1954–2024. Expanded Art. Curator: Anika Meier
more Exhibitions [Link]
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