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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #9: Nieves de la Fuente Gutiérrez

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #9: Nieves de la Fuente Gutiérrez

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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, artist Isabella Fürnkäs, collective sputnic, filmmaker Silke Schönfeld, media artist Vesela Stanoeva and media art fellow Ani Schulze. We are now delighted to present a new episode with artist Nieves de la Fuente Gutiérrez.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #9: Nieves de la Fuente Gutiérrez in conversation with Thomas Spies

In the 9th episode of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, artist Nieves de la Fuente Gutiérrez talks to media scientist Thomas Spies about her creative process in digital and analogue space. In her mixed-reality works, the artist explores virtual experiences and the resulting insights for our real environment. Nieves uses virtual reality, gaming scenarios and other technologies to recreate places and enable users to experience extended worlds. She interweaves real-world and virtual experiences with human and non-human perspectives to illustrate the impact of our actions and the Anthropocene on nature and our environment. And she comments on contemporary phenomena such as the ubiquitous presence of technology in our everyday lives and the self-perception of man-made interventions in the landscape.

In conversation with Thomas, Nieves talks about her work, what role glitches play for her and where autobiographical traces can be discovered in her work.

Nieves de la Fuente Gutiérrez combines virtual reality, 360-degree or sound installations, audio walks or holograms in complex immersive spatial scenarios in her artistic work, interweaving the documentary with the fictional, the autobiographical with the technological. Nieves explores central socio-political questions. What is the nature of our living space, this territory that connects all beings, and how is it constituted? The core idea for the artist is a human, but above all non-human agency/power to act in the context of a network-like society that recognises the interconnection of the most diverse entities, as developed in the Actor-Network-Theory in the context of Science and Technology Studies by Bruno Latour, among others.
More Info on Nieves

Thomas Spies completed his doctorate on the representation of trauma in computer games at the University of Cologne. As an interdisciplinary researcher, writer and teacher, he critically analyses audiovisual media, especially video games, with regard to their socio-cultural implications. He is co-editor of the anthology ‘Spiel*Kritik: Kritische Perspektiven auf Videospiele im Kapitalismus’ (Game*Critique: Critical Perspectives on Video Games in Capitalism) and organiser of the event series ‘Let’s Play Critical’.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #8: Ani Schulze

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #8: Ani Schulze

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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, artist Isabella Fürnkäs, collective sputnic, filmmaker Silke Schönfeld and media artist Vesela Stanoeva. This spring, we had the pleasure to meet artist Ani Schulze for a new episode.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #8: Ani Schulze in conversation with Haris Giannouras

In conversation with curator Haris Giannouras in her studio at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Ani Schulze, the current media art fellow of the state of NRW, talks about her artistic practice, in which she draws on a versatile spectrum of different approaches such as painting, drawing, video, sculpture and installation. The interplay of fact and fiction, which is always relevant in Ani Schulze’s works, is playfully brought to light in her hybrid narratives. In her works, she presents a mixed world of historical figures and their performers, historical facts and anecdotes, and real and fictional spaces. For her latest film, The Convent of Pleasure, Ani Schulze examined Margaret Cavendish’s 17th century comedy of the same name, highlighting the role of female artists of the time.

This work, which is the focus of the conversation with Haris Giannouras for the eighth episode of the media artists’ portraits CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, was on view from 21 October 2023 as part of an exhibition at the Moltkerei Werkstatt, Cologne.

Ani Schulze works with painting, video, sculpture and installations. Recent solo exhibitions include “Snake Charming” in the gallery Lehmann + Silva (Porto 2023); “Lovers & Hunters”, Kunstverein Siegen (DE, 2021); “Hang in there, baby”, A Certain Lack of Coherence, Porto (PT, 2021); “Flint House Lizard”, Basis, Frankfurt (DE, 2019); “Flint House Lizard”, I: Project Space, Beijing (CN, 2019) and “7 Follies”, Artothek, Köln (DE, 2019). Her work has been shown in group exhibitions taking place at Hamburger Kunsthalle; Fundacion Botin, Santander; Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt and Extra City Kunsthalle, Antwerpen, amongst others. She received scholarships, prizes and residencies by Goethe Institut China, Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, Kunstgiesserei/ Sitterwerk St. Gallen and HBK Braunschweig, amongst others.
Find out more about Ani Schulze

Haris Giannouras collaborates closely with artists taking on the role of writer, curator, producer, and educator. He is currently working on a doctoral dissertation at the Department of Art History at the University of Cologne with the title “Painting and the 1990s: Quotes and Borrowings Reconsidered”. Past collaborations include (selection): Andrea Büttner, Beth Collar, Jamie Crewe, Maria Lassnig Estate, Stefano Faoro, Olivier Foulon, Beatrice Gibson, Oliver Husain, Onyeka Igwe, Eleanor Weber Ivory, Hiwa K, Ellen Yeon Kim, Lin & Lam, Ghislaine Leung, Rita McBride, Cana Bilir-Meier, Karī Mugo, Phung-Tien Phan, Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, Marc Siegel, Monika Stricker, Studio for Propositional Cinema, Megan Francis Sullivan, Mark van Yetter.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #7: Vesela Stanoeva

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #7: Vesela Stanoeva

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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, artist Isabella Fürnkäs and collective sputnic as well as Dortmund-based filmmaker Silke Schönfeld. This spring, we had the pleasure of meeting media artist and curator Vesela Stanoeva at the exhibition she curated, Neun Sonnen (Nine Suns), at Dortmunder U.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #7: Vesela Stanoeva in conversation with Esra Canpalat

Immersive, installative, collaborative and multisensory: the wide-ranging work of media artist, scenographer and curator Vesela Stanoeva is best experienced on site. We were all the more pleased to meet her and author Esra Canpalat in January at the exhibition Neun Sonnen – Erzählungen utopischer, digitaler Welten (Nine Suns – Narratives of Utopian, Digital Worlds) at the uzwei space at Dortmunder U. The exhibition showed 11 artistic positions, woven into a multi-sensory staging. The aim was to explore new ways of relating to our environment and to bridge the gap between human and non-human actors. In doing so, the exhibition presented itself as an immersive space in which visitors could develop new visions of the future and enter into communication with the works. In the new episode CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, you will learn more about the exhibition and her other projects in the field of media art from Vesela Stanoeva. We also find out about the title “Nine Suns” and the pink, pretzel-shaped seating landscape.

Vesela Stanoeva is a digital artist, scenographer and curator. She creates speculative worlds in immersive installations and performances using moving image, CGI, gaming software, installation and virtual and augmented reality. Through her artworks, Stanoeva addresses the uncertain future of the post-anthropocene. She was a fellow at the Academy for Theater and Digitality in Dortmund in 2020/21, and subsequently co-curated the immersive and interactive exhibition Welcome to Paradise at the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf in 2021. Vesela Stanoeva has presented her work in numerous museums, including the Lichtkunstmuseum Unna and the NRW Forum Düsseldorf. In addition, her works have been on display at various festivals, including VRHAM!, the Next-Level Festival for Games, and the NEW NOW Festival for Digital Arts. Together with Elisabeth Drache, she founded the artist collective Die Ruhrgebieterinnen.
More about Vesela Stanoeva

Esra Canpalat is an author and literary scholar from the Ruhr region. She writes stories, essays, reviews, academic and cultural education pieces. Her main topics include inter- and transculturality, anti-racism, gender and feminism. Esra Canpalat is a winner of the Ruhr 2021 Literary Award and placed 3rd in the literary competition “60 Years of Migration from Turkey – New Hopes”. She is currently working on a novel about (post)migrant memory and intergenerational trauma.
More about Esra Canpalat

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #6: Silke Schönfeld

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #6: Silke Schönfeld

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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, artist Isabella Fürnkäs and collective sputnic. We are now pleased to introduce the work of Dortmund-based artist Silke Schönfeld.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #6: Silke Schönfeld in conversation with Winnie Herbstein

Artists Silke Schönfeld and Winnie Herbstein met during a residency at the Rijksakademie Amsterdam. Two years later, they came together in the Hafenkombüse, Dortmund, for the filming of the sixth episode CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, to talk about Silke Schönfeld’s works and installative settings. In her cinematic work, which borders on the documentary, the Dortmund filmmaker examines, among other things, cultural traditions and customs that take place “on the doorstep.” Be it the “historical monk processions” for which club members still meet in Oybin, Saxony, or the May Day customs in the Lower Rhine region, which consists of a symbolic “auction” of all the single women in the village. The relationships that develop with the protagonists in the process and the resulting questions about responsibility as a filmmaker are central themes in the conversation between the two.

Silke Schönfeld studied fine art at the art academies of Münster and Düsseldorf. From 2020-2022 she was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam. Her filmic productions are political reflections that often take place in unexpected spatial and temporal references. Schönfeld’s films and video installations are shown internationally in exhibitions and film festivals, including the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (2020/2022), Folkwang Museum, Essen (2016), HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein (2020) and in Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2017).
More info about Silke Schönfeld

Winnie Herbststein is an artist and filmmaker. Her work focuses on historical and contemporary forms of organising, in relation to the built environment and the occupation of space.
More info about Winnie Herbststein

Recording Revisited: An evening on the history of experimental electronic music in the region

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Recording Revisited: An evening on the history of experimental electronic music in the region

Künstlerhaus Dortmund
Saturday, November 19, 2022 | 7pm
Concerts, Panel & Releaseparty
with: Scheinleistung, zo-on slows (aka. Echo Ho) and Damian T. Dziwis

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In collaboration with mex e.V. and artist duo Freya Hattenberger and Peter Simon, the Office medienwerk.nrw invites you to the release of the new research project Revisited: Generators and Generations. Experiments – Music – Electronics in NRW.

With live acts by artists such as Scheinleistung (VA) (hans w. koch & Britta Fehrmann), zo-on slows (aka. Echo Ho) and Damian T. Dziwis, as well as talks by guests such as DJ, sound artist and producer Waltraud Blischke and composer and performer hans w. koch, we will embark on a sonic journey into experimental electronic music from NRW and explore the special history of this artistic field.

With concerts by:
Echo Ho is a sound artist and performer. Her artistic practice goes beyond sound, music and performance by consistently bringing together different media forms, materials and genres at the intersections of art, philosophy, culture and technology.

Damian T. Dziwis is a Düsseldorf-based composer and scientist who creates multimedia works using audiovisual generative algorithms, machine learning and live coding.

Duo Scheinleistung (VA) was founded in 2016 by Britta Fehrmann and hans w. koch with the aim of finding a sonic interpretation of Scheinleistung.

Waltraud Blischke is a lecturer for acoustic research, music and text as well as narration and media aesthetics. She has written for magazines such as Spex, Stadtrevue and Meakusma Magazine, among others. She is also involved in various projects as a DJ and sound artist.

Revisited: Generators and Generations. Experiments – Music – Electronics in NRW

The event will mark the release of the new audio feature from the Revisited series, which twice a year highlights particularly influential events and developments in media art and digital culture in NRW. Revisited: Generators and Generations. Experiments – Music – Electronics in NRW is the third edition of this research, in which listeners can this time immerse themselves in the sonic side of the media arts. Starting with the founding of the WDR studio for electronic music in Cologne, Freya Hattenberger and Peter Simon trace the paths that musicians and artists in the field of experimental music have followed in the region, and let many of the players from then and now have their say. When the Cologne recording studio was founded in 1951, it was the first of its kind in the world and was thus able to attract renowned musicians such as Györgi Ligeti, Henry Pousseuer and Gottfried Michael Koenig to the Rhineland, who artistically explored the technical possibilities on site and created important avant-garde compositions. Much has changed since then. Instead of a studio with cupboard-sized technology that seems almost baroque from today’s point of view, a laptop and handy instruments are often enough today, with which flexible production and online publication can also be done at home.

The questions of how experimental electronic music in the region has developed in the following years up to the present day and to what extent new technologies and production methods have changed artistic processes are the focus of the new episode of Revisited and the evening at the Künstlerhaus Dortmund. The common thread here is the history of technology itself, especially the leaps from analogue to digital tools, recording, playback and distribution media, as well as the resulting sound aesthetics and currently urgent (cultural) political questions about representation and visibility, underground, institutionalisation and recognition.

mex e.V. is a non-profit association for experimental and intermedia music projects. Since 1992, more than 700 musicians and media artists have presented their works here. In an interdisciplinary programme, mex combines concerts with performances, video, multimedia and dance.
More info about mex e.V.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #5: sputnic

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #5: sputnic

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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.

sputnic are the three media artists and designers Malte Jehmlich, Nicolai Krahwinkel and Nils Voges, who as a collective develop new scenographic stagings and installations with the development of media and stage spaces. In doing so, they experiment with crossover projects that combine analog, digital and media means to create narratives and visual worlds on stage. With the production The Possibility of an Island, the collective created a new genre in theater and film in 2015: live animation cinema. The production IOTA.KI was awarded “best production 2019” at the HART AM WIND Festival in Kiel and included in the official program of the Ruhrfestspiele 2020. Sputnic’s work has been shown at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld, the European Media Art Festival Osnabrück and the Leopold Museum Vienna. The New York Times reported on the interactive game installation Racer 0.2 in 2010. In 2011, sputnic received the Critics’ Prize of the City of Dortmund for the staging of the series City without Money.
More info about sputnic

Revisited: VIDEONALE.1 X Perspective #2

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Revisited: VIDEONALE.1 X Perspective #2

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In three parts, the thematic series Revisited by Office medienwerk.nrw once more invites you to delve into an event from the history of media art with audio contributions, film and texts. This summer, the series is dedicated to the first edition of the Videonale, which took place in Bonn in 1984 and laid the foundation for the groundbreaking festival. An audio feature and essay look at the history of the Videonale as well as challenges and demands on art festivals from today’s perspective.

Revisited: VIDEONALE.1 X Perspective #2

As the third part of the series, the Office medienwerk.nrw, together with the Videonale Association, has invited curator Giorgi Spanderashvili to place works from the Videonale’s online video archive into a new context. This selection of works appears in cooperation with the new Videonale series Perspectives. From over 140 videos and motivated by the current political situation, a program with a focus personally chosen by Giorgi came to be.

With works by Mahdi Fleifel, Beate Geissler & Oliver Sann, Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, Julie Kuzminska, Salome Jashi and Mariam Natroshvili & Detu Jincharadze.

To Perspective #2

Perspective #2
Conflicted Landscapes or Losing the Ground from under One’s Feet
by Giorgi Spanderashvili

Working with an archive provides endless opportunities of interpretation as the process is frequently affected by certain circumstances or emotional states. Diving into the online archive of the Videonale, I was thinking about a possible topic of selection, as the collection of the materials stored on the platform offers an abundance of diversity and meanings. At one time or another, I would turn my attention to subjects such as technology, environment, identity or longing for forms of the moving image. However, at this given moment in time, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, it is hard to think about any other matter than conflict and violence. We have entered the third decade of the 21st century with a global health crisis caused by the pandemic, a resurgence of totalitarian tendencies, a massive war in Eastern Europe and rising economic inequalities. Perspectives for solutions or visions for a better future are lacking, and the question what tomorrow will bring us is open to a multitude of answers.

Hostilities, conflicts and political oppression bring about never-ending violence, often manifested in personal tragedies, forced displacements, disruption of livelihoods and other hardships. Conflicted places are like wounds on the body of the earth, breaking out over and over again without relief. Oftentimes the tendency to find justifications, to forget or to create alternate narratives for what actually happened is predominant.

Collective memory seems to be alienated from reality, but the pain and trauma do not fade away, they remain alive as the ghost next to a door. Archives can be a powerful tool in coming to terms with them as they have the potential to recall memories and find ways towards much-needed relief.

My selection from the Videonale online archive encompasses works that touch upon the issues mentioned above: 3 Logical Exists by Mahdi Fleifel, a documentary story of a man living in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon; fuck the war by Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann, a stunning piece which brings me back to my childhood memories of playing war games in the early 1990s, when Georgia was ravaged by wars and it was one of the most popular games for children; Anumbumin by Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler, an emotionally taxing work that describes the hidden political and economic oppression of the citizens of Nauru island; and Chaos by Julie Kuzminska, an abstract narrative flow of visuals and sound that expressively resonates with the given selection.

Additionally, in relation with the playlist from the Videonale archive, I am referring viewers to two pieces by Georgian artists in order to build a dialogue and open up further perspectives in the context of the given thematic spectrum: Speechless (2009) by Salome Jashi and Lost & Found – Spell to Return a Lost One (2020) by Mariam Natroshvili and Detu Jincharadze.

Giorgi Spanderashvili is a Georgia-based curator, art manager and cultural professional. Since 2010, he has been engaged in the fields of contemporary visual and performing arts, and has worked on a number of local and international projects. He is a co-founder & co-curator of the Georgian video art archive and the independent new media art platform In-between Conditions. This year, he has curated the Georgian National Pavilion at the 59thVenice International Exhibition – Biennale Arte 2022.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #4: ISABELLA FÜRNKÄS

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #4: ISABELLA FÜRNKÄS

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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 and photographer Axel Braun. Now the medienwerk.nrw office presents a new episode with artist Isabella Fürnkäs.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #4: Isabella Fürnkäs

In a brand-new episode of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, we had the pleasure of meeting the artist Isabella Fürnkäs at her parents’ house in Cologne. Isabella’s work consists of equal parts videos, multimedia installations, performances and drawings. Her works have been exhibited at the Folkwang Museum, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Sprengel Museum, the 13th Biennale of Contemporary Art Dakar and the project space of the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf, among others.

On a walk with journalist Beate Scheder, she discusses recurring motifs in her artistic works. Together they explore, among other things, the meaning of objects such as the Go game or the bed as a symbol of private space and, based on this, develop questions about intimacy, interpersonal relationships and the influence of modern communication technologies.

Isabella Fürnkäs is a German-French artist who works with a variety of media. Her work has been exhibited at the Folkwang Museum, Kunsthalle Wien, Sprengel Museum, Museum Abteiberg, the 13th Dakar Biennale for Contemporary Art and the Julia Stoschek Collection Project Space in Düsseldorf. Her performances have most recently been shown at Salon Acme in Mexico City, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Manifesta 11, Akademie der Künste der Welt and Pogobar KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin.
More Info about Isabella Fürnkäs

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #3: Axel Braun

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #3: Axel Braun

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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 May we were able to accompany the artist duo Jana Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten to a special filming location near the Hambach Forest. This was followed in summer by a double episode with the artists Nico Joana Weber and Vanja Smiljanić. We are now looking forward to going deeper into conversation with the Essen artist Axel Braun.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #3: Axel Braun

Climate change is extremely central to the question of how we want to live in the future. All the more moving is the work of Axel Braun, who in the third episode of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS presents some of his projects related to ecological issues in a studio discussion with Fabian Saavedra-Lara (Head of Office medienwerk.nrw). Together, the two delve deeper into the artist’s working practice, which deals with the long-term consequences of human influence on nature and its complex causes. Axel Braun examines impressive landscapes such as glaciers or forest areas and large infrastructure projects in case studies. He interviews experts in this field and brings his photo and video productions into a dialogue with archive materials and current research results. In this way, he makes the clear traces of the Anthropocene visible in different regional contexts and makes their historical, social, economic and political interconnections tangible.

Axel Braun is an artist and photographer. He studied at Folkwang University of the Arts and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. With a growing collection of case studies, he attempts to trace the path of humanity into an age of the earth determined by humaniuty itself. In addition to ecological issues, he is particularly interested in the political, economic, social and cultural implications of the processes involved. He presents the results of his work in mixed-media installations, artist books and lecture performances.
More info on Axel Braun

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #2.1: Nico Joana Weber

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #2.1: Nico Joana Weber

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The web series CLOSE ENCOUNTERS makes the wide range of media art in NRW visible. For many years and decades, the region has been home to outstanding artistic positions in this field, and it is a great pleasure for us to meet and present the artists in our video portraits. Step by step, this will provide an overview of the diversity of media art that is characteristic of NRW. In May, we joined the artist duo Jana Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten to a special filming location near the Hambach Forest. Now Office medienwerk.nrw presents two new episodes of the series with the artists Nico Joana Weber and Vanja Smiljanić. With curators Kerstin Meincke and Nada Schroer, the two fellows of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia for Media Art (2018 and 2019) talk about selected projects from recent years and what moves their work.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #2.1: Nico Joana Weber

Artist Nico Joana Weber and curator and scientist Kerstin Meincke recall their joint research trip to Nigeria, during which the artist investigated traces of colonial history in architecture. The legibility of such structures and their transformative significance in urban space in cities such as Paris, Lagos or Ibadan is a recurring theme in the works of Nico Joana Weber. The conversation focuses on her work Tropic Telecom, in which one explores a Parisian suburb alongside an extraordinary protagonist on the threshold between documentary and fiction.

Nico Joana Weber works with video, photography and multimedia spatial installations. She studied Fine Art and History of Art at Goldsmiths College in London and completed her postgraduate studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in 2013. In her work, she negotiates the aesthetic and political imprints of architecture and landscape in transcultural contexts.
More info about Nico Joana Weber

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #2.2: VANJA SMILJANIĆ

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #2.2: VANJA SMILJANIĆ

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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #2.2: Vanja Smiljanić

At the artist’s invitation, the conversation between Vanja Smiljanić and curator Nada Schroer took place in Vanja’s Cologne studio. Together they reflect – in a creative environment – on the artist’s way of working, which often revolves around spiritual movements and historical practices as well as the transfer of these practices into a contemporary context. In the process, Vanja Smiljanić takes the audience on a journey in films, installations and performances. In the interview, she shares thoughts on her own experiences in the field of Past-Life Therapy and talks to Nada Schroer about what she takes away from her work with different communities.

Vanja Smiljanić is a visual and performance artist. She concluded the post-master in Artistic research at A.pass, Brussels, MFA at the Dutch Art Institute (DAI), Arnhem as well as at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln and got a degree in Fine Arts at the Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa. Smiljanić’s focus is in interdisciplinary projects and her research lies in cross methods within the fields of visual arts, video and performance.

REVISITED: RESERVATE DER SEHNSUCHT #film

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REVISITED: RESERVATE DER SEHNSUCHT #film

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Just want you to be (2021) by Ale Bachlechner
HD Video, 15:52 min, colour, sound
Director, camera, editor: Ale Bachlechner
Music: Julian Prießen
Sound: Jonathan Kastl
Artistic assistant: Olivia Platzer

In the web series Revisited, actors in media art and digital culture from NRW embark on an artistic research. Each episode focuses on an event or development from the history of the media arts in the region. Changing topics are examined from several, contemporary perspectives. In this way, past experiences and knowledge are made accessible again and communicated in a new way. The research results stand for themselves and complement each other at the same time. Each multi-part episode featuring audio pieces, short films and essays invites you to enter a moment of media art.

The first episode focuses on the exhibition Reservate der Sehnsucht by HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein, which took place in 1998 in Dortmund. Not only did the exhibition, which presented 30 international artistic positions in the impressive half-demolished ruin of a former brewery Union-Brauerei (now Dortmunder U), anchor the media arts even more firmly in the Ruhr area. It can moreover be considered as groundbreaking in the field of restructuring and new ultilisation of old industrial sites in the region.

The Webseries Revisited now enters its second round. In her filmic exploration for Revisited: Reservate der Sehnsucht, artist Ale Bachlechner examines different associative fields that came to light during her research on the exhibition through the catalogue and interviews. She traces connections such as ‘fear-security-disaster’ or ‘leisure-pleasure-consumption’ and gives them new layers with the help of her own private film material.

In her artist statement, she explains her approach as follows: “These keywords are still relevant and very affective in 2021. At the same time, I noticed that autobiographical or autofictional approaches were rather rare in the exhibition. Only a few works focused on the artists themselves, attention was directed more outwards. For ‘Just want you to be‘ this led me to use private film material from my mobile phone for the first time. In this idiosyncratic archive of my last three years, I found a surprising number of parallels to Reservate der Sehnsucht, visually and in terms of content.”

Ale Bachlechner is a performance and video artist living in Cologne. She studied Comparative Literature in Innsbruck and at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Her work includes the temporary dating agency “Twelve Roses” (2013) in Beirut, the performance coaching institute “This Is Not A Competition” (2016) and the online television format “Studio Hallo” (2018). Since 2018 she is a member of the Young College of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Her work is in the archive and programme of the IMAI Foundation and has been presented at festivals, symposia and exhibitions e.g.: Art Cologne, Videonale, Impulse, EMAF Osnabrück, Kassel Dokfest and International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

Further information on alebachlechner.com

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #1: JANA KERIMA STOLZER AND LEX RÜTTEN

Vimeo Video

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #1: JANA KERIMA STOLZER AND LEX RÜTTEN

PortraitVideo

The new web series CLOSE ENCOUNTERS aims to visualize the wide range of media arts in NRW. For many years and decades, the region has been home to outstanding positions in this field. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS presents video portraits of the artists behind the projects – with their practices, thoughts, and questions. Four times a year, this dialogical space opens up, in which artists share their ideas with the audience at different locations and with changing conversation partners. The result is a mosaic-like overview of the diversity of media art that characterizes NRW.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS #1: Jana Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten

In spring 2021, for the first episode of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, we will accompany the two artists Jana Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten to the surface mine surrounding Hambacher Forst: an environment that forms the foundation of the work Pawāaraibu-filling the vacuum. Curator Marijke Lukowicz (Emscherkunstweg) spoke with the duo from Dortmund about their artistic work.

Lex Rütten and Jana Kerima Stolzer have been working together as an artist duo for four years. The starting point of their multimedia installations and performances is often the intertwining of humans with their technological environment and the resulting narratives and emotional challenges. In the past, the duo has realized projects both in the independent theater scene and in exhibition contexts.
More info about Lex Rütten and Jana Kerima Stolzer