Auf der ISEA 2011 in Istanbul

kurzundschön is a pan-European competition for students and apprentices in the audiovisual field. The competition promotes and awards short cinematic narrations, animations films, artistic films and videos (up to 15 minutes max.), commercials and social-spots, music-clips and motion art. In 2009, the category "mobile miniatures" was created as an experimental platform for inspiring ideas and concepts for the networked world. And for all those talented newcomers, who are building the bridges to music, dance, performance and the public space, a prize for motion art with an additional emphasis on live-video/vjing, projections and performances is introduced for the first time in 2011. The notion now lies on „expanded video“ with all its exciting capacities. Also for the first time  the Academy of Media Arts offers the „partner price“ that will be annually awarded to a partner university. Our partner in 2011 is the Department of Art and Social Sciences of the Sabanci University Istanbul.
During ISEA a compilation of award winning works from 2007 till 2010 will be screened. All schools were invited to join this competition. The entry deadline was July 25th 2011. The award ceremony is celebrated annually in Cologne. The 2011 event will take place on November 9th.
For further information: www.kurzundschoen.khm.de/2011. The second part of the presentation takes into consideration creative experiments that interact with the environment and that translate physical, natural and biological phenoma into aesthetic processes as well as spatial and interactive art. Five projects, each of them part of a different referential frame, represent these transdisciplinary paths. Martin Hesselmeier works at the edge of art and environmental analysis. „SARoskop“, an interactive installation, reveals the impact of electro smoke emissioned by mobile communication devices.  Light cascades and mechanical, motor driven moduls react panic-stricken close to mobile phones. Hesselmeier’s spatial installation resembles a nervous system sensitive for information that goes far beyond human perception.
„Floating Point“ a 3D animation film by Arne Münch, is a synthesis of natural phenoma and digital art. Movements obtained and captured in natural settings caused by a breeze, wind, drifting clouds and falling rain drops are translated into digital data that in turn animate abstract computer generated structures and images. In the same manner natural sound scapes provide the base for the digital acoustic atmosphere in this poetic film.
Drawn from the automobil and aviation industry „stroke city“, a project by Matthias Gerding, visualizes the current of air caused by body movements. Using various modified scripts the moving air is translated into phantastic threedimensional liquid objects and translucent materials that are in constant flux and transition. Seemingly a contradiction in itself the installation unfolds the aesthetics of human movements and gestures by revealing the invisible and unperceivable. At present a realtime interactive version for direct telecommunication exchange is in preparation.
„0h!m1gas: biomimetic stridulation environment“ is an artistic research and audiovisual installation by Kuaishen Auson that approaches the self-organization in ants as a cybernetic system with emergent manifestations. By means of contact microphones and video surveillance interfaced with the computer, which feeds these bio-data to two turntables, the life of the ant colony emerges as a soundscape of scratching effects. „Scratching Beethoven“ was installed during the international Beethoven Festival Bonn in 2009.
The artistic work of Tobias Dämgen is characterized by open and continual procedures in lab situations where his light and cybernetic objects spread like rhizomes. Structures grow, continue, alter. The act of construction, the working process is treated like a performance. „Laser-kraken, light-parasites and other mutations“ is one of his latest projects that reveals his artistic methods and approach. Starting in an empty space with shopping windows facing the street, Dämgen exposes himself while building and „planting“ a new environment that at a certain point metaphorically resembles a jungle where light objects and obscure constructions seem to flourish over night. The whole process is streamed live via web-cam. After the finissage the „jungle“ is cleared.