Karlsruhe media art festival Seasons of Media Arts goes into extra time
With monumental sound, video and light installations, interactive projections on facades and streets as well as experimental events, the Seasons of Media Arts festival in Karlsruhe invites visitors to see, experience and be amazed until the middle of next year.
Like in a horror movie, the giant hand with the oversized cell phone sticks out of the water surface of the Schlossgartensee. Is this the desperate struggle of a drowning man? A symbol of the transience of digital identity? Or a hidden hint that a simple smartphone will outlive its owner at the end of their earthly existence? In any case, the cell phone hand in the palace garden is one of the most striking installations of the “Seasons of Media Arts” media art festival in Karlsruhe. Since September, media art works such as the striking “Obsolote Presence” by Aram Bartholl have been on display at numerous decentralized locations in the city. Because cultural life in Karlsruhe is otherwise almost completely suspended during the Corona winter, the duration of the festival organized by the City of Karlsruhe and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe has now been extended until the middle of next year. A detailed overview and a map with the locations of all the artworks can be found on the corresponding event website.
Art in public spaces should inspire reflection
The main aim of the media art in public spaces is to encourage viewers to reflect. Anyone who stands directly in front of Bartholl’s cell phone will recognize their own face in the mirror that has been installed as a display. Bartholl’s message: people should reflect on the flood of images in social networks and focus more on the here and now in the real world. Other striking works of media art in the city since the start of the festival are the rededicated colorful billboards “Light Signs” by Betty Rieckmann at platform 3 of the main train station or the abstract waterway “KORRELATION” by the artist collective Xenorama on Karl-Friedrich-Straße.
Thoughts of Christmas come to mind when looking at the cube in front of the ZKM. Since mid-November, the structure on Platz der Menschenrechte, which is illuminated with numerous twinkling lights, has been radiating an Advent atmosphere. The artwork entitled “Sparkling Cube” is a reconstruction of earlier works by media artist Walter Giers, who died in 2016, and has already been dubbed the “most beautiful Christmas tree in the city” by ZKM Director Peter Weibel. The installation also offers a foretaste of the Giers exhibition planned for 2021.
App and interactive video game invite you to join in
The “Our City” app by Alexander Liebrich and Marco Zampella went live at the end of November. With the app, users can customize the lighting of the Turmberg ruins after dark until 19 December and even project emojis onto the façade. From January 29, 2021, the “Saving Water” installation by creative agency PONG.Li Studios will be on display on the façade of HypoVereinsbank on Stephanplatz. In the interactive computer game, citizens can construct a water pipe on the striking façade. The group of artists has already developed an interactive game for the Schlosslichtspiele. In “Capture the Pyramid”, visitors were able to maneuver their game pieces across the illuminated castle façade.
Karlsruhe honored by UNESCO as a city of media art
The Seasons of Media Arts are an integral part of the UNESCO City of Media Arts project. In 2019, Karlsruhe was the first and so far only city in Germany to be awarded the title “City of Media Arts” and was thus included in the international “Creative Cities” network. An annual festival in public spaces aims to introduce citizens to the various facets of media art such as light installations, sound art and video projections.