Artistic Bokeh is an initiative to qualitatively explore, map and extend the electrosphere with parameters of artistic research and development. The group is intertwined with the project Artistic Technology Research at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.
The format of “documentation” is an essential part of reflecting, presenting and structuring knowledge. Artistic Bokeh works in cooperation with expert-networks with backgrounds of DSLR-Video and DIY-Cameras, and includes a self-reflexive component which addresses the medium “documentation” as such: documentation as method. The main aim is to research on aesthetic/qualitative parameters of experimental documentation, apart from working on and finding new terms for what was previously known as “New Media Arts”.
Research in Residence: Mirko Tobias Schäfer
Mirko Tobias Schäfer is Assistant Professor for New Media & Digital Culture at the University of Utrecht at the Department for Media and Culture Studies.
His research interest revolves around the socio- political impact of media technology. His publications cover user participation in cultural production, hacking communities, politics of software design and communication in social media. His expertise is employed by Dutch government advisory councils, educational institutions and companies. Mirko was organizer and co-curator of [d]vision - Vienna Festival for Digital Culture. He is a member of the advisory board of SetUp Utrecht. Mirko is a curator for the Centre for Humanities-Impakt Festival Fellowship and co-curator of the Utrecht New Media Evening at Impakt. In 2012 and 2013 he is appointed research fellow at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (Artistic Technology Research) and Artist-In-Residence in MuseumqsQuartier Vienna.
Transmediale in:compatible research (Cooperation)
Tatiana Bazzichelli is a researcher, networker and curator, working in the field of hacktivism and net culture. She is part of the transmediale festival team in Berlin, where she develops the reSource for transmedial culture, an ongoing distributed project of networking and research within the transmediale festival. She received a Ph.D. in Information and Media Studies from Aarhus University (DK), conducting research on disruptive art practices in the business of social media (title: Networked Disruption: Rethinking Oppositions in Art, Hacktivism and the Business of Social Networking).
Miasma – Call for Reduction (Cooperation)
Miasma – Call for Reduction was an initial prototype that combined the media/formats of theatre and film: in three days, the performance that took place in the viennese ‘Alte Ankerbrotfabrik’ was interwoven with a movie-shooting. The actual production included the DSLR-cameramen – the cameras were not hidden from the public, but rather included in the storytelling and the stage set. ‘Call for Reduction’ was not only a performative experiment, but also consisted of various experiments with new media technologies as well as new audiences and forms of reception regarding the story-complex and the fictional world of Marie Müller, the main character of the play.
BitCoinCloud (Project)
BitCoinCloud is and interactive (media) installation and reactive sculpture thematizing artistic production as well as alternative economics. In various layers the underlying concepts are presented to the audience and the viewers: elements of the installation are the visualization of the activity of the artwork on one hand, on the other hand the communication with the viewers. BitCoinCloud reacts on the current social state of “the economy of attention” with a direct relation of recognition and value of the sculpture: the more viewers watch the art-piece, the more its worth grows. The “growth of worth” can be taken literally: bitcoincloud is a multifunctional visual installation that also works as a so called “bitcoin mining rig”, modified computers that create the p2p community currency “bitcoin”. The current value of the sculpture gets recalculated every minute: besides simple parameters such as the value of raw materials, the artistic value and the “attention value” get included in the calculation. The surplus of the installation is the amount of virtually generated bitcoins with their current market conversion rate to euros (dollars), as well as aspects of hyper-deflation that will occur, once the limited amount of bitcoins is calculated (21.000.000 max).
buying price (value of the art-piece) = value of raw materials + intangible assets (hours of work) + investment value (hyper deflation) + artistic surplus (artistic value)
Max Gurresch
Damian Stewart
Matthias Tarasiewicz
