The Academy of Media Arts, Cologne


'Marie-Luise Angerer Marie-Luise Angerer

Neither a college nor a film school, neither a center to foster the work of artists nor a design center, and not an institute for academic scholarship either—nevertheless, or perhaps for these very reasons, the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne (AMAC) has established an increasing presence not only at festivals for contemporary cinema but also on the American West Coast and in Venice. And maybe this is also why its works are to be found in galleries, museums and exhibitions. The AMAC attracts researchers and experimenters from the humanities and the natural sciences; it is a laboratory to which artists and technicians, chemists and authors, musicians and neurobiologists come to encounter one another.

Without even the benefit of a stylish-sounding name, it has made a name for itself in the international scene. Although AMAC is still quite young, its history already spans an entire age, but ages pass by quickly in the media. They last about half a generation—for example, from post-modernism to the proclamation of the posthuman and post-digital ages. Fifteen years ago, there was frequently talk of the “electronic Bauhaus” whenever museums, research facilities and colleges were set up to deal with the production of audiovisual media. Curiously, this formulation applied to a far lesser extent in 1990 when the newly founded AMAC admitted its first students than it does today when hardly anyone uses it. After all, it was most definitely not an aesthetic agenda or a program influencing or shaping style—as may still be attributed to the original Bauhaus—that was to bring together the applied and the free-form arts and creative pursuits both loud and soft.

The foremost consideration was rather an amalgamation of industrial and educational interests, local and regional ambitions, an amalgam that was by all means fused together more solidly than the colorful assortment of filmmakers and TV people, designers and artists, scholars and organizational experts who were called upon to pledge themselves to a common goal. From the very outset, this seemed terribly unreasonable to everyone involved, and for over a decade this concept of a linkage of diverging elements has occasionally been subjected to high (external and internal) pressure. Perhaps—if I am permitted this coquetry—the secret of its success lies precisely in the excitement of the experiment, in superabundance and being overtaxed on occasion, in a precarious equilibrium of forces or even in the maturing capability especially evident among students to think in complex, multi-layered terms, to try out variable techniques, and to endure complexity and contradiction.

The exhibition and the series of films, videos and discussions that make up AMAC’s contributions to the special program of Ars Electronica 2002 can therefore perhaps also provide an incentive for reflection about the period of new media that has just been winding down. Thus: a small, lively institution as a model not only for the study and practice of audiovisual media but also as a pars pro toto of media policy as a whole—two parallel stories.

Translated from the German by Mel Greenwald

KHM at Ars Electronica 2002

Alberto de Campo (A) and Jörg Lindenmaier (D), sound performance

Maximilian Erbacher (D), Monospace (photographic work)

Jaanis Garancs (Estonia), MultiCultureMolecular Humans. Society as MultiCultureMolecular Virus Epidemy (interactive installation)

Dagmar Keller (D) and Martin Wittwer (CH), Say hello to peace and tranquility (video installation)

Anja Kempe (D), Politische Unordnung (video)

Anja Kempe (D), Laser Raum (interactive installation)

Yun-Chul Kim (Korea), diagnose%prognose (video)

Viola Klein (D), www.ilovesteilacoom.com (Internet work)

Thom Kubli (CH) and Sven Mann (D), deterritoriale Schlingen (sound performance)

Ko Kubota (Japan), Ein schwingender Raum (sound installation)

Ko Kubota (Japan), ohne Titel (photographic work)

Anke Limprecht (D), Ohne Handy und viel Archiv (video)

Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Das Korallenriff (multimedia installation)

Aurelia Mihai (Romania), Power Game (interactive installation)

Heike Mutter (D), Wenn der Hase mit dem Igel (photographic work)

Naujokaite Neringa (Latvia), Name einfügen (video installation)

Tilman Peschel (D), Verdacht auf (photographic works)

Matthias Neuenhofer, ki (video installation)

Susanna Schönberg (I), nogame (video installation)

Susanna Schönberg (I), Pascal Fendrich (D), Ruben Malchow (D), Martin Seck, Speisung (video installation)

Till Steinmetz (D), Gegen alle illegalen Inhalte (video)

Cathrin Vahl (D), Pausenplattform (video work)

Olaf Vahl (D), Verstärker (game console sculpture)

Olaf Vahl (D), swingUp Games (interactive installation)

Olaf Vahl (D), paintOn Games (computer game)

Sandra Vasquez de la Horra (Chile), Hemispherios (video)

Jochen Viehoff (D), Boxsack (experimental interface)

Film program in Moviemento put together by Prof. Andreas Gruber
Video series compiled by Prof. Marcel Odenbach
Workshop on the subject of “Coding in Art Teaching”
Concept: Dr. Stefan Römer
Staff responsible for the program in conjunction with Ars Electronica:
Ursula Damm, Bernd Voss, Dr. Jochen Viehoff
Chief administrator: Prof. Dr. Marie-Luise Angerer