Woody Vasulka

CLIENT: Art and Exhibitions Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany
1994

An interactive sound-picture-automata installation that deals with two aspects of space: the real and present situation of the stage and the data-based virtual world.

In his installation, Vasulka refers to the classical functions of the theatre, however, he extends the stage to cater for an interactive discourse between man and machine. The pan/tilt/rotate camera head built by Vasulka himself, is, at this time, the most advanced piece of robotic used to construct this newly created dramatic space.

A second instrument, the binaural microphone system, allows a confrontation between an existing acoustic room and its synthetic model. This environment explores the possibilities of the mutual penetration of the different sensual worlds, of the subjective and objective experience and of the real with the fantastic.

Mobile Electronic Café

1992 til 1993

Musicians, architects, designers, writers and critics came together to explore, debate and criticise the new and changing possibilities of products and technology within around 60 individual projects. Their temporary studio was the ELECTRONIC CAFÉ INTERNATIONAL. Sited on the top floor of the “Container” it was linked to computer networks with state of the art business and communications technology (direct ISDN connection, Internet, Video-phone, Audio/Video conferencing etc.). The aim of the “Artists In Residence” was to challenge both the partiality of regulated broadcast media and the free for all of open channels where an opinion expressed is an opinion contradicted.

The mobile public room concept ELECTRONIC CAFÉ INTERNATIONAL was developed by Casino Container for today’s media society to use when and wherever needed. This hybrid of Media Work Station and neighbourhood café enables a new, modern interaction between local people and issues and the wider networks of the “Global Village“. For a discrete period of time a place is chosen, transformed, activated – then the journey continues…

A “Mobile Public Room” project created by Cologne based artists was installed beside Documenta 9 at the 1993 Venice Bienniale and later in the Cologne Media Park.

Ulrike Rosenbach

CLIENT: St Peter’s church, Cologne
1987

he video installation ORPHELIA was exhibited in 1987 at the documenta in Kassel, Germany and in St Peter’s church in Cologne.

Three monitors are lying in an object from perspex, showing three video works synchronised to each other. The overall picture of the three monitors show the Orphelia figure revolving slowly around its own axis. The image of Orphelia is overlaid a texture consisting of microscopic images of human blood circulation and blueish-reddish shades. Meditative flute and water sounds underline the iconic character of the installation.

Ulrike Rosenbach uses elements of far-east spirituality as well as subjects based on western ideas of transcendence. The title „Orphelia“ is a composition of the mythological Greek character Orpheus and the literary character Ophelia from Hamlet. Here, references to the androgynous utopia can be found: Orpheus and Ophelia merge into “Orphelia”. As an element in the pictorial code of the alchemists, the hermaphrodite stands as a metaphor for the feasibility of a symbiosis of contrasts.

The two characters Orpheus and Ophelia are connected by their common fate of a love that remains unfulfilled: Orpheus’ love for Eurydice, as well as Ophelia’s for Hamlet, ends tragically. Orpheus and Ophelia both live through the transitory states between life and the afterworld: Orpheus in the attempt to free his beloved out of Hades and Ophelia in the state of madness before she dies in the floods. In her work, Ulrike Rosenbach continues the development right through to the spiritual ideal of the androgynous Orphelia who has reached a destination between here and beyon

Videokunst auf VHS

1985

“As collage technique replaced oil paint, the cathode-ray tube will replace the canvas.” With these words, Nam June Paik prognosticated a great future for media art as early as the 1960s. After more than four decades, video art has long since outgrown its state of infancy. Meanwhile, it is established beside the traditional art categories like painting, sculpture and photography and no present art exhibition is imaginable without it anymore.

With the edition of the first video art series published on VHS in 1992, 235 Media took another consequent step to make the immaterial video art accessible to a wider audience. Besides the classics of video art of the 1980s, the first VHS VIDEO ART EDITION comprises trendsetting new works of the early nineties like Ulrike Rosenbach’s “Über den Tod” (“About Death”) or Raphael Montanez Ortiz’ “Introspective”.

The edition is not only interesting for colleges, universities and other educational institutions, it also addresses home users. The first VHS VIDEO ART EDITION was the first to allow an approach to electronic art outside the museum and exhibition context.