Teaching

Rebecca Himmerich

Zwischenraum
February 2016

The Zwischenraum sound and space installation by Rebecca Himmerich confronts and challenges clearly defined spaces. In this work, Rebecca Himmerich focuses on gray zones, transitions and the absence of structure, which predominate between these usually conventionally declared central concepts. With the help of sound and light elements, some of which are produced in advance and some generated live, four rooms (or spaces) allow the public to have an immersive experience and confrontation with the topic. In the approx. thirty-minute performance, there are intermediate states such as waiting, the prenatal stage or the subset of what is certain and what is uncertain.

The project was carried out in collaboration with several other artists. The unique dynamic which develops among the performers through their live improvisation is part of the concept and supports the variety and unlimited nature of one of the main characteristics of the intermediate space [Zwischenraum]: its uncertainty.

Zwischenraum is the final project of Rebecca Himmerich in the upper-level Visual Music module, and supervised by Andreas Kolinski, assistant professor of Computer-based Media Composition, and me at the Institute For Music And Media.

[ 02/03/2016, Teachings ]

Lucas Grey

Quad²
February 2016

The Quad² project by Lucas Grey is an interactive space installation in surround sound. The narrators stand in a space generated by three beamers, a space which can be distorted with the help of custom-built Midi cube. The Midi cube interface depicts the projected space of the audience or public. Each of the six faces of the Midi cube represents both a sound as well as a pictorial effect. All the effects can be combined with each other and change according to how much of the cube is covered by a hand.

The final project by Lucas Grey was created in the upper-level Visual Music module, and supervised by Andreas Kolinski, assistant professor of Computer-based Media Composition, and me at the Institute For Music And Media.

[ 02/02/2016, Teachings ]

Moritz Hils

knockout
February 2016

The knockout video installation by Moritz Hils links the ideas of instrumental theater with the long fixed attitudes of structural film. In two video projections and two soundtracks, his installation depicts a battle between cellist Elisabeth Fügemann and saxophonist Moritz Schuster. Freely improvised, they play until one or the other capitulates. In the process, the musicians become actors who freely act out their roles as adversaries in a battle and determine the content as well as the structure of the work through their playing. In this way a three-hour chamber music performance featuring harmony and cacophony, irony, provocation, fighting spirit and mockery emerges.

knockout was completed in the 2015/16 winter semester as a final project by Music and Media major Moritz Hils for the upper-level Visual Music module under the supervision of Andreas Kolinski and me at the Institue For Music And Media.

[ 02/01/2016, Teachings ]

Workshop @ Peter Behrens School of Arts

Listen, Simply Listen.
November 11th, 2015

I gave a lecture on attentive listening as part of the annual Intra Muros week at the Peter Behrens School of Arts in the architecture department of the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences. In my workshop I juxtaposed the concept of Silence by John Cage, the piece I am sitting in a room by Alvin Lucier, and the graduation commencement speech This is water by David Foster Wallace. The students and I also practiced listening whithout judgement.

Oliver Kruse, Professor of Perception and Design Theory at the Peter Behrens School of Arts already initiated workshops and presentations on the topic of awareness and concentration as part of the Intra Muros week last year. This year he shared the responsibility for the program with graduate designer Nicola Richter.

[ 11/11/2015, Teachings ]

Roland Nebe

Six visual music clips for Grandbrothers
August 2015

How can artistically shaped worlds of images and the live performance of a band be combined into a music video? The motion picture designers WARPED TYPE, who specialize in Visual Music, explored this question. The group, which includes the two Music and Media graduates Andreas Huck and Roland Nebe, and the Audio and Video alumnus Florian Breuer completed a series of clips for the Grandbrothers duo, who also studied at the IMM.

The track Naive Rider marked its video premiere as a pre-release to the Grandbrothers' debut album Dilation on the website of British music magazine FACT TV. The video for the piece Arctica was presented by the US music magazine XLR8R and reviewed in the well-known music blog Stereogum and elsewhere. The images prepared for the clips were also used as visuals during the release concert at Düsseldorf's Salon des Amateurs and at the Contre-temps Festival in Strasbourg.

Visual Music major Roland Nebe prepared the series of six visual music clips as his bachelor thesis under my supervision at the Institute For Music And Media.

[ 08/25/2015, Teachings ]

Workshop @ Academy of Art and Design Basel

The Self and the Other
March 30th and 31st, 2015

Regine Halter invited me to give the 2-day seminar The Self and the Other at the Academy of Art and Design in Basel for their Conceptional Design Masterstudio students. Had the repeated great pleasure of co-teaching with Ralf Neubauer.

In the two days of the seminar the students critically reflected, analyzed and discussed creating an identity for a client in the broader context of corporate identity projects.

[ 03/30/2015, Teachings ]

Katharina Blanken

Kammermusik [Chamber Music]
February 2015

The visual music film Kammermusik [Chamber Music] is an audiovisual portrait of a building by Visual Music artist Katharina Blanken. The film won the prize for Best International Film at the Sydney Architecture Festival Shorts in 2015 as well as the Best Experimental Film award at the 2016 Tehran International Silent Film Festival.

In Kammermusik [Chamber Music], Katharina Blanken makes the rear wall of the Robert Schumann School of Music and Media, where listeners would not be expected, the canvas of her short film. A person standing in the dark outside the building can see musicians practicing in their separate illuminated cells. Each night a visual blend of parallel worlds results – a kind of mosaic or sequencer emerges where auditory interplay is scarcely perceptible.

The project came into existence in the Visual Music major concentration under my and Andreas Kolinski's, assistant professor of Computer-based Media Composition, supervision at the Institute For Music And Media.

[ 03/20/2015, Teachings ]

Martin Fütterer

Seven Rooms
March 2015

In his abstract video clip Seven Rooms Martin Fütterer visualizes several different soundscapes. Abstract animations flow into a light installation, and warm sounds bring a room to life. The room itself becomes part of the staging, and clocks what happens in it. In the music for this film field recordings meet digital synthesizers, and instruments meet programmed sounds. Seven Rooms combines live action with computer animations.

Seven Rooms was rewarded the Young Talent Award 2016 by the Art Director's Club Germany, and a Bronze Award in the Final Project category at the New German Director's Showcase 2016.

Seven Rooms is the diploma project of Martin Fütterer in the Motion Design post-graduate program at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy, and supervised by Prof. Manfred Becker and me.

[ 03/11/2015, Teachings ]

Paul Brenner

Eidolozän [Eidolozene]
March 2015

The Eidolozene is a geochronological geological age in the distant future. In his artistic research film Eidolozän [Eidolozene] Paul Brenner explores the life of humanity in a future determined by virtual reality. The influence of virtuality on human evolution, social interaction, and reproduction are discussed.

Eidolozän [Eidolozene] is the diploma project of Paul Brenner in the Motion Design post-graduate program at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy, and supervised by Prof. Manfred Becker and me.

[ 03/06/2015, Teachings ]

Three professors

Nina Juric, Gregor Kuschmirz and Mareike Ottrand
March 2015

The first three of my students who emerged from the Motion Design postgraduate program at Germany's leading film school Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg were appointed professor:

Nina Juric is tenured professor for Image and Motion at the Köln International School of Design.

Gregor Kuschmirz is visiting professors for Motion Image at the design department of the University of Applied Scienes in Münster.

Mareike Ottrand is tenured professor for Interactive Illustration and Games at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences' design department.

Had the great pleasure of working with them during their studies in Motion Design, supervised their final exams, and couldn't be more proud! I have been chairing the Motion Design program since 1998, and we will continue to incubate more excellence in design, and teaching.

[ 03/01/2015, Teachings ]