Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss

13/12/2024

Who would have thought in 1992 that 32 years later we would be in the world news such as NYT, Guardian, Standard, Wallpaper, and others because we were part of the Electric Dreams exhibition at the Tate Modern? It took a while. :)
Alongside other visionary artists who have shaped digital art since the 1950s, we are showing 'Liquid Views - Narcissus' digital Reflection' (1992). We watched people interact with the piece in over 100 cities. All the kissing, playing, curious, and shy people who have approached the interactive installation over the past three decades have taught us something about how people from different cultural backgrounds around the world behave in front of an interactive virtual mirror.
Today, visitors take pictures with their mobile phones before they watch. For the first time in the UK, we may yet learn something special about Londoners - a curious audience.
https://houghtonmackay.com/new/electric-dreams-art-tech-before-the-internet-reviewed/emilyallen/

'Liquid Views' is in Room 15 next to the bookshop of the 'Electric Dreams' exhibition curated by Val Ravaglia at the Tate Modern until June 1, 2025. Come and experience it!

13/12/2024

See 'Liquid Views-Narcissus' Digital Reflection' (1992) in Electric Dreams at Tate Modern in London.

01/12/2024

We are thrilled that the press has responded so enthusiastically to "Liquid Views" (1992), which is now on display at the Tate Modern until June 2025!
"Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet at Tate Modern review: thrillingly experimental. This fusion of art and early technology is thoroughly engaging, so take your time." Nancy Durrant, The Standard
standard.co.uk/culture/exhibitions/electric-dreams-art-and-technology-before-the-internet-tate-modern-review-b1196277.html
"“So cool” reads the legend scrawled on the final page of my notes from the morning I spent in Tate Modern’s new exhibition, Electric Dreams. It was about the last piece, on display in the 15th room (the show is massive): an interactive video work by Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss entitled Liquid Views – Narcissus’ Digital Reflections, made in 1992 when interaction with your own digitised image was still a new experience.
Capturing you on video in real time, it projects your reflection into a limpid pool on the wall. When you touch the screen in front of you, as well as making an incongruous electronic boop noise, it sends a ripple across the water.
The piece was intended as a metaphor for the then-emerging internet, but the artists can't possibly have predicted just how accurate it would be, more than 20 years down the line, as younger generations slip seamlessly between real and virtual existence, and social media endlessly reflects our own selves and biases back at us. It’s chilling, when you think about it – but it’s really fun if you don’t."

This fusion of art and early technology is all thoroughly engaging, so take your time

01/12/2024

😍 Best press on Liquid Views in Electric Dreams at the Tate Modern in London:
"Instead, the last work on display is a better evocation of our heedlessness. By Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss, Narcissus’ Digital Reflections (1992) pairs a touchscreen of water that ripples when you tap it with a camera that projects your image on its surface. The same image appears enlarged on the wall behind it, so passersby can watch you play with your own face. It’s a social media test case launched decades before Instagram filters, but one that plays to our self-obsessions just the same. Narcissus fell so in love with his own reflection that he forgot the world and died. In the future, let’s hope we fare better when art and technology kiss."
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet is at Tate Modern, London, until 1 June

The singing robots and 8-bit graphics are diverting and sometimes sublime, but there’s a darker story to be told in this show about technologically-assisted art before the internet

30/11/2024

19/11/2024

16/11/2024

Memories. Peter Weibel, Masaki Fujihata, Monika Fleischmann, Siegfried Zielinski after the opening of the exhibition "Art in Motion. 100 Masterpieces at the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe" in 2018.

10/10/2024

Our contribution to SIGGRAPH 2024
https://ereyes.github.io/s2024/the_next_50_years/

24/09/2024

Meta deleted my post the second time, writing that it was "sensitive information" I was taking from others! The same thing happened to Marc Garret recently, if I remember correctly. Do you know what is wrong?

I quoted an article about our work "Home of the Brain" (1990), which had been reported by Scenospace* as the first virtual reality art installation in which we had incorporated real-time radiosity with the effect of a mystical landscape of light and shadow like a De Chirico painting.

I was happy to read it because not many people know that it was the first VR art installation presented with a data glove and a head-mounted display that we received from Jaron Lanier's company - (but still paid for by our research institute ART+COM, which we had founded with Edouard Bannwart in 1987) - in exchange for a real-time 3D model simulation of the Potsdamer subway station in Berlin.

"Scenospace
Entangled Histories
Home of the Brain (1992) a virtual reality installation by Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss
The first virtual reality art installation"

Very strange why I am not allowed to post it.

*Scenospace: A weekly digest of developments in live performance, technology, and the emerging metaverse.
https://scenospace.substack.com/p/the-first-virtual-reality-art-installation

Meta/Facebook deleted this post a second time:
"Home of the Brain" (1990) by Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss, ART+COM, Berlin, Germany, was presented as the first virtual reality installation by Scenospace in January 2020.

It was deleted the second time and Meta wrote that it was sensitive information I was taking from others.

A weekly digest charting developments across live performance, technology, and the emerging Metaverse

21/09/2024

Here is the updated paper of our presentation at the Generative Arts Summit, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 3/07/2024:
ALL WE NEED IS THINKING SPACE - GENERATIVE INTERACTIVITY IN DIGITAL ART by Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss
https://www.academia.edu/123565671/ALL_WE_NEED_IS_THINKING_SPACE
Abstract
This presentation at the Generative Art Summit discusses the impact of Generative Art at the nexus of art, technology, and interactivity, particularly within the Art & Science framework. While the focus of Generative Art has been on predetermined, algorithms, Fleischmann and Strauss' approach departed from generative methods by emphasizing interactivity and audience participation as integral elements of the creative process. Influenced by post-reunification Germany and the rise of the Internet, their work highlighted performative interfaces where audience engagement actively shaped the artwork. Key projects such as Between 0/1, Genetic Modification, Home of the Brain, and Energy Passages illustrate how their research and practice created dynamic Thinking Spaces that invited reflection, public debate, and personal discovery. This generative interactivity transforms passive observation into co-creation, allowing viewers to interact with the artwork and reflect their role within it, offering a meaning-finding, evolving experience beyond the moment of engagement.
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20/09/2024

I just saw this short article about our VR installation 'Home of the Brain' (1990). Thanks .
Just please correct the date (1990). The other date (1992) was the Golden Nica Award for Interactive Art at Ars Electronica for "Home of the Brain".
https://scenospace.substack.com/p/the-first-virtual-reality-art-installation

A weekly digest charting developments across live performance, technology, and the emerging Metaverse

08/08/2024

Just published: Our 20-minute talk on “All You Need is Thinking Space – from Art+Com to Art+Science” from July 3rd, 2024 at The Generative Art Summit, at Akademie der Kuenste in Berlin.

This presentation pays tribute to Herbert W. Franke, a pioneer of Generative Art and founder of Ars Electronica, whose influence has permeated the field of digital art. We reflect on our journey, which began in the mid-1980s with the founding of ART+COM in Berlin and has evolved into a fusion of art, science and technology. Our work explores the dynamic relationship between humans and machines through generative frameworks and interactive media, fostering new "Thinking Spaces" (Denkraum) in which artificial and natural intelligence coexist. From early explorations like Between 0/1 (1988) to works such as Genetic Modification (1992), Home of the Brain (1990), and Liquid Views (1992), we demonstrate how generative systems evoke individual autonomy. These Performative Interfaces, driven by algorithms and visitor participation, turn static observation into a dialog between viewer and machine, redefining self-awareness and creating immersive experiences. A platform and an installation such as Netzspannung.org (2001) and Energy Passages (2004) further exemplify how generative art can transform media archives and engage public discourse. In the spirit of Franke, we believe that generative interactivity transforms art into a process of discovery. By breaking traditional boundaries, we have created "Thinking Spaces" that challenge the digital landscape and invite audiences into an evolving, performative interaction between thought, action, and digital transformation.
Draft paper: https://www.academia.edu/123565671/ALL_WE_NEED_IS_THINKING_SPACE
Organised by Susanne Paech under the Herbert W. Franke Foundation, the two day conference was held in the memory of Herbert W. Franke - Art Meets Science
https://art-meets-science.io/konferenz-praesentation-von-fleischmann-strauss/

Generative Art Summit Berlin - Präsentation Monika Fleischmann und Wolfgang Strauss

28/07/2024

Just published:
"Beyond Narcissus: Seeing the self in the other"
Authors: Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss
Source: Virtual Creativity, Volume 13, Issue "Immersive Horizons: Blurring the Creative Frontiers Between Virtual and Material Worlds", Oct 2023, p. 131 - 144
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/vcr_00080_1
Language: English
Received: 31 Jan 2024 Accepted: 04 Mar 2024 Published online: 18 Jul 2024

This article proposes a reframing of the contemporary media Narcissus through the lens of the interactive installation Liquid Views: Narcissus Virtual Mirror (henceforth Liquid Views), created by Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss in 1992. The installation explores the transformative encounter....