Prof. Ursula Damm
Referring to environment as a concept from artistic practice of the nineteen-fifties that emphasizes the mismatch between life and art, the Media Environments Research Chair (GMU) aims to redesign everyday situations, objects, devices and practices. The Multi-layered mixture of cultures and technologies and further, the production of knowledge all call for a permanent repositioning of artistic practices within society. Through transdisciplinary experimentation with art, technology, biology and nature, we aim to challenge our own self-conceptions in a rapidly changing world.
Along with creating artwork for exhibitions, GMU works throughout everyday situations; cooperations with the sciences and cultural institutions; the internet; game environments and public spaces. We develop audio visual installations; mise-en-scènes; performance and interventions in urban space. Media Environments students work with a variety of tools and techniques to create wearable technology; smart objects; digital visualizations; electro-mechanical sculptures, experimental games and simulations of utopian city planning. Media Environments encourages students to experiment with technological processes, creative coding, DIY electronics and further with species, organisms, plants and animals. At GMU we investigate new ways to perceive ideas of environment by cultivating connections between art, technology, science and and nature in adventurous ways.