Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule
Hochschule für Gestaltung
The digital drop shadow is the most popular effect in computer graphics today. Easily applied, it made its way to modern graphic design and advertising. It raises typography and objects from a flattened background into three-dimensionality—and thus significance.
With the current generation of operating systems the drop shadow effect entered the graphical user interface to a new extent. In this context it raises not only windows from background wallpapers; it also stands for a visually enriched interface that strives towards three-dimensionality. Loaded with rich imagery, photorealistic icons and pseudo three-dimensional configurations the graphical user interface yet remains tied to its flat medium.
Bewildered by this paradox, the graphical user interface leaves the office it was made for and becomes a pop culture phenomenon.
This semester the Drop Shadow Talks reply to current developments on the visually enriched layer for machine interaction. In the shades of evening lectures the Drop Shadow Talks will present art and projects influenced and inspired by the baroque graphical user interface.
Bei allen Ansichten, Blickwinkeln, Betrachtungsweisen und Perspektiven: die Komplexität unserer Welt erfordert Fokussierung und Scharfstellung. Aber was passiert wenn aus 2D 3D wird? Wie verhält es sich mit Dimensionssteigerung und suggerierter Dreidimensionalität. Wie arbeiten Gestalter, wenn sie Installationen in die Zweidimensionalität zurückführen? Wo verschmelzen die Grenzen zwischen Raum und Fläche, Architektur und Design? Einen Schwung Antworten hat Lars Harmsen im Gepäck …
The talk will be in German.
Lars Harmsen ist einer der zwei Geschäftsführer der Karlsruher Agentur Magma Brand Design, Gesellschafter und CD bei der Münchner Agentur Melville Brand Design und Dozent an der Hochschule für Gestaltung in Pforzheim.
Some of Lars' projects:
Slanted Magazine #8, 2d3d. 4.
Bastard Project
Book wii love arts
In welcher Form manifestiert sich die Netz-Daten-Welt in unserem Alltag-Lebens-Raum? Was kommt aus dem Cyberspace zurück in den physischen Raum? Wie beeinflussen die digitalen Neuerungen unser alltägliches Handeln? Anhand einer Reihe seiner Projekte stellt Aram Bartholl das Verhältnis zwischen On- und Offline zur Diskussion.
The talk will be in German.
Seit 1995 lebt und arbeitet Aram Bartholl in Berlin. Aram Bartholl studierte Architektur an der Universität der Künste UdK Berlin und schloss dort als Diplom Ingenieur 2001 mit der Arbeit Daten am Ort ab. Mit dieser Arbeit gewann er auch den Browserday Wettbewerb 2001. In 2007 erhielt er eine lobende Erwähnung der Transmediale Berlin und gewann den 17. Video Kunstpreis Bremen. Für das Projekt Sandbox Berlin erhielt er 2007 eine Projektförderung der Berliner Senatskanzlei für Kulturelle Angelegenheiten und für das Jahr 2008 ein einjähriges Arbeitsstipendium der Stiftung Kunstfonds Deutschland.
Related:
Aram's Website
Aram at Free Art and Technology Lab (F.A.T.)
Aram's Blog
Technical innovations shape only a small part of computer and network culture. It doesn't matter much who invented the microprocessor, the mouse, TCP/IP or the World Wide Web; nor does it matter what ideas were behind these inventions. What matters is who uses them. Only when users start to express themselves with these technical innovations do they truly become relevant to culture at large. Users' endeavors, like glittering star backgrounds, photos of cute kittens and rainbow gradients, are mostly derided as kitsch or in the most extreme cases, postulated as the end of culture itself. In fact this evolving vernacular, created by users for users, is the most important, beautiful and misunderstood language of new media. Do you believe in users?
The talk will be in German.
Moscow-born artist Olia Lialina has, for the past decade, produced many influential works of network-based art. Dragan Espenschied, born in Germany, has received international acclaim for his music and online art. He co-founded the home computer band Bodenständig 2000. He has won the Webby Awards People's Voice NET ART (2004) and the ZKM International Media Art Award (2001).
Projects of Olia and Dragan:
Midnight
Contemporary Home Computing
Online Newspapers
A journey into the world of Hyper Alchemy in its quest to find the lost location of the long forgotten "Sublime" experience…
The talk will be in English.
Jan Robert Leegte is a Dutch artist living and working in Amsterdam. Leegte's installation work isolates elements of Windows' interface that in turn are projected onto various structures. This alienates the elements from their original function and makes them into familiar but also indefinable aesthetic objects.
Works of Jan Robert:
Ornaments from 2009
Scrollbar from 2002
In the 1990s digital design could focus largely on the World Wide Web as a remediation of graphic design for print as well as on interaction design for Internet-based experiences. While these areas have not disappeared, the development of social media for the Web and now for mobile technologies poses new challenges for design. An important question is whether polished, transparent, modernist design is appropriate or even possible in an era of user-generated contents such as the eclectic pages of Facebook and the cluttered Google maps on mobile phones. Other design approaches may be suggested by Performance Studies: that is, by thinking of digital artifacts as opportunities for users to define and perform their own identities—for themselves and for their digital “publics”.
The talk will be in English.
Jay David Bolter holds the Wesley Chair in New Media and is the Co-Director of the Wesley Center for New Media Research and Education Center for New Media Research and Education in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at Georgia Tech University. He is author of several influential books on new media theory. He is author of the books Remediation — Understanding New Media and Windows and Mirrors — Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency.
Related:
Remediation, MIT Press
Windows and Mirrors, MIT Press
Wikipedia about Jay Bolter
BTK's campus is located at Bernburger Straße 24-25, very close to Potsdamer Platz.
U-Bahn: U2 to station Potsdamer Platz or to Mendelsson-Bartholdy-Park.
S-Bahn: S1, S2 or S25 to station Anhalter Bahnhof or to Potsdamer Platz.
Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule at Google Maps.
All talks will take place in room J/K on the second floor.
Admission is free.
The Berlin Technical University of Art is a private art university for design (FH). The university concept follows the demand which is placed on design work in the times of digital media. This shows for example in the technical equipment, the quality of the teaching staff and practice through intensive contacts in the communication economy.
The Berlin Technical University of Art was established in spring 2006 from the Berlin Technical Art School, (Academy for Design) in order to educate Communication Designers (Bachelor of Arts) at a high level, focusing on future-oriented occupational fields.
The Drop Shadow Talks are organized by
Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule, Hochschule für Gestaltung (FH)
Bernburger Straße 24—25, D-10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 25358698
If you have questions, please write to info@btk-fh.de.
Check the website of BTK for imprint details.
The Drop Shadow Talks are curated by johannes p osterhoff.