Hermes Conspiracy - host by the lecture series: I'm an Artist and I want to be involved

5. - 6. November 2009
11.00 - 16.00 Uhr
Große Witschgasse 9-11, Atelier Transmedialer Raum

Compact Seminar with guest lecture from Paul DeMarinis & Jens Brand

Two coworkers of hermes, protector of travelers and thieves alike, will guide hack through a weekend of surface scratching and stolen knowledge of intrinsic and temporary value. As the landescape is known to be happening also outside certain paintings and can be experienced by movement rather than a motionless gaze, time-based art and thinking will provide the invisible tools to vivisect the space between the traveler and the horizon, with and without perspective. As the landscape changes with every centimeter of movement the knowledge that comes with it varies. We will take a closer look at machines that deconstruct the view, compress the ear, so we can look at it as agreed upon lie, or the stolen eye of a painter or the sonographer’s detached ear.

Info to Guests:

Paul DeMarinis, born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1948; composer, sound and media artist; fine arts studies at Antioch College and music under Robert Ashley; video game designer for Atari Inc. and Scholastic Software; teaching positions at Mills College, Wesleyan University, San Francisco State University, New York State College of Ceramics; assistant professor for electronic media at Stanford University.
DeMarinis’ works deal with the often obscure links between the physics, aesthetics and social history of the media. His works are characterized by his critical, conceptual approach as well as his unashamed inclination for the sensual and the playful. Many of his intermedial installations and sculptures examine the points of contact between technology and culture; they demonstrate that science and superstition as well as the usefulness and remorselessness of technical media are closely linked to each other.

Jens Brand, born 1968 in Dortmund, studied visual arts in Münster, Germany and lives and works as a composer, musician, visual & audiovisual artist and organizer in Cologne. He has presented, performed and exhibited all over Europe, Cuba, Botswana, Japan and the U.S.A. Although educated in visual arts he soon started to confuse and cross the borders between being a composer and a visual artist. Most of his Installations contain sound and most of his sound-works and compositions consider the image to be as important as the audio-information. A tendency in his work is for any given piece to be either very simple and meaningless or else a very complicated mess that involves everything and everyone. Recent works have ended up being mixtures of these genres,