Digital Media &
Experiment

In order to recognize the world, it is important to choose the intensity, perspective and form from which you want to view it first. Lichens create worlds in which an organism unfolds into an ecosystem and an ecosystem feeds an organism. For they switch back and forth between their self, the whole, and the collection of its parts. Where does an organism begin and where does it end? The material of this artistic research includes sound, photo and video material as well as digital scans of lichens to decipher their transformative behavior in relation to form and time. Are there other layers and processes that move on a scale that is invisible to our eyes; that take place on time scales that our senses cannot grasp? Based on the fascination of otherness, this work focuses on the art of perception in order to grasp the unexpected realities of these organisms. The result is an immersive, audiovisual and motion-sensory installation as an experience of nature, space and time.On several field studies, into the Finnish forests, lichens were visited, explored, drawn, measured, determined and mapped several times over a longer period of time. During the intensive process of my approach to the organism of the lichen, as well as to its temporal and spatial localization, investigative macro photo and video material as well as high-resolution 3D photogrametry scans of various lichen species were created. The moving image material was slowed down and edited into a repetitive video that is projected in full format into the exhibition space. The result is an encompassing portal in real space through which the viewer finds themselves as part of the lichen ecosystem.
With the help of highly sensitive microphones, hydrophones and geophones as well as a portable recording device, I archived electromagnetic impulses of the lichen in the ground and the atmospheric noise of its surroundings in the field. The collected sounds were analyzed in the laboratory and sequenced into individual sequences. A single recording feeds aquadrophonic sound installation that mixes with the environmental sounds of the exhibition area. At its center, a real funnel lichen is positioned on an illuminated pedestal. As people move closer to the installation, the sound track changes into an undefined noise. The closer the distance to the lichen, the more intense the audible change. The movement-sensory change suggests an interaction between humans and lichens and raises the question of the possibilities of communication and relationships between human and non-human organisms.

This artistic seminar aimed to explore trans humanist concepts through the use of face masks. The focus was on critically questioning the history and contemporary culture of masks, as well as introducing new ideas. Masks are seen as a way to transcend one's own identity and engage with non-human life forms, as observed inanimist cultures. They provide agency to spirits, ancestors, or natural forces. However, in a contemporary context where gods are not widely acknowledged and nature is often viewed as "the other," the significance of this practice is worth examining.Identity and anonymity are fraught with political implications and power dynamics. In the digital age, the right to anonymity is constantly under threat, with biometric data being stored and centralized without consent. Therefore, concealment can be seen as a political act. The seminar explored how concealment and the use of masks can contribute to self-determination and protect gender identity and other forms of self-expression from external influence.

Throughout the seminar Machines of Loving Grace, the students examined the entanglement of technology, power, and the body in an age where control is exercised through invisible systems. The collection traces how technical infrastructures are intertwined with violence, governance, and forms of extraction that operate below the threshold of perception.

Across sculptural, media-based, and data-driven practices, the works address the tensions between visibility and concealment, agency and automation, care and coercion. Encryption, interfaces, and measurement systems are unmasked as mechanisms through which power is organized, distributed, and withheld. Data is treated as an active material that acts on bodies, shaping behavior, sensation, and decision-making.

In Machines of Loving Grace, Countertechnology emerges as a critical strategy for artistic practice. By misusing, repurposing, or exposing technological systems, the works interrupt narratives of progress and efficiency. What emerges is a politically orchestrated loss of control. Autonomy is promised while being continuously undermined. The works do not offer solutions, but open a space to sense, question, and resist the infrastructures that quietly govern contemporary life.

From the primordial darkness of mystery, perfect bodies emerge, solemn, excited, as if seeing everything for the first time. Strength, pain, and devotion mark their faces. Are they the goddesses and gods who created us? Or are they the first human beings hatching from the egg of history? Are we the images of the goddesses and gods? Or did we shape them in our own image in order to worship ourselves in them? Do we see the incarnation of the gods or the deification of humans in dance, in the struggle for what is right, in the battle of good against evil, in the rebellion of the individual against fate? Armor elements and helmets seem to refer to modern sports such as rugby, ice hockey, or baseball. Their heroes enter the Hall of Fame like the gods enter Olympus.Does this happen on the oldest or youngest day? Is it a new beginning or the dawn of the gods? In his study Keeping Together in Time, American historian William H. McNeill described how human cohesion develops in stressful situations as soon as instruments or voices set a rhythm. Dancing, marching, and rowing, for example, have a common origin in the human need for “muscular bonding.” In cultural history, courtly dance steps and elegant competitive sports (e.g., fencing, archery, ball games) developed as forms of expression of physical and self-control. Drill and discipline are the flip side of intoxication and ecstasy, just as the Apollonian was opposed to the Dionysian. However, both self-formation and self-transcendence are inherent in the innate endowment of humans with drives and rationality. Cultures and religions have always mediated between these forces, between chaos and order. These forces are embodied as figures acting in space. Garments as second skins of the natural body emphasize these effects, provide support and protection, react to movements or produce them. – Prof. Anna ZikaThe project was developed as a collaboration between the Design Department of Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and the Center for Contemporary Dance Cologne.The fashion videos were created in the “Transcendentia” workshop under the production management of lecturer Marcus Wildelau, in which students from the DMX and fashion design departments participated together. Technical support for the workshop was provided by Tobias Bongartz, Kim Groche, and Nils Pisarsky. Thanks to everyone involved!

In June 2023, students enrolled in the course “Together We Are Robots,” led by Prof. Herwig Scherabon, designed an exhibition at Dock 11 in Berlin that marked the conclusion of a semester of research and experimentation with artificial intelligence. While current concerns and discourse on this topic focus on the ethics of using third-party artistic material to train AI models, the students wanted to go beyond the standard discourse and also included philosophical, political, and sociological positions in their research. In Together We Are Robots, they present a broad spectrum of positions such as non-human perspectives, post-human concepts, and utopian and dystopian scenarios. Topics such as agency, sentience, and ethics are deeply woven into the fabric of their concepts.

As part of the 2020 fashion show, students and graduates of the Design Department at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences will present their semester projects and final collections at the WissensWerkStadt Bielefeld on January 24 and 25, 2020.Fashion clothes us—and is a medium for presenting positions, desires, and questions to society. Fashion designers translate their ideas into clothing, thereby finding a specific expression for their time. In their seminar papers and collections, students and graduates deal with identity and gender, recycling and sustainability, craftsmanship and origin – topics and positions that reflect contemporary social discourses.The fashion show will be enhanced by Digital Media and Experiment, the new field of study at the Department of Design. Using methods of experimental animation, augmented reality, and interaction design, students process photos, videos, textiles, and concept texts from the collections presented. This reveals what lies behind the creative process of fashion design.A video stage set, an interactive photo box, and virtual animated posters will be presented. These media interventions turn the event into an open work of art that invites visitors to stage themselves and reflect in digital space. In the spirit of remix and collage, visitors thus become co-creators and protagonists of the cross-media staging of the fashion show.The WissensWerkStadt (Knowledge Work City) planned by Bielefeld Marketing, with its concept of positioning the building as a workshop for knowledge transfer in the heart of the city, opens up a platform for dialogue between urban society and our staging of fashion.