The web series CLOSE ENCOUNTERS makes the wide range of media artistic work in NRW (North Rhine-Westfalia) visible. For many years and decades, outstanding positions in this field have been located in the region, and it is a great pleasure for us to meet some of these artists and present them in video portraits. Step by step, this provides an overview of the diversity of media art that is characteristic of NRW. In previous episodes, we had the pleasure of meeting the artist duo Jana Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten, video artist and photographer Nico Joana Weber, performance artist Vanja Smiljanić, photographer Axel Braun and artist Isabella Fürnkäs. We are now very pleased to present a collective from Krefeld that explores a special genre of the performing arts.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #5: sputnic

For the new episode CLOSE ENCOUNTERS we climbed over the rooftops of Krefeld, into the beautiful workshop of sputnic. The collective, founded in 2004 and consisting of media artists and designers Malte Jehmlich, Nicolai Krahwinkel and Nils Voges, has made the genre of Live Animation Cinema its own and developed numerous productions such as IOTA.KI or Die Möglichkeit einer Insel. In sputnic’s works, analogue and digital technologies are used and deployed both scenographically and performatively to create new visual worlds and narratives before the eyes of the audience. Instead of hiding the necessary props and technology behind the stage, the technical processes are revealed and brought to the front. To find out more, Klaas Werner (Office medienwerk.nrw) talked to Nils and Malte about their futuristic narratives, installations and creative use of artificial intelligence.