The Art of Unfinishing - Highlights of transmediale.07

The Australian artist Stelarc, Berlin-based media theorist Friedrich Kittler and the Canadian political scientist Arthur Kroker are keynote speakers at the conference of transmediale.07 that runs from January 31st to February 4th at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin under the theme unfinish!.

Stelarc (aka Stelios Arcadiou) presents his new project "The Extra Ear: Ear on Arm". Since the Eighties Stelarc has been exploring the technical improvement of his own body. Recently he had a third ear implanted onto his forearm, an artificial prosthesis cultured from human cell material.

Kroker's lecture "Born Again Ideology" analyses the relationship between religion and terrorism in the technologically enarmoured US-American society. Kittler dedicates his lecture to the topic of non-finishing: "The Finality of Algorithms" is based on his recent research into machine, media and music theory.

transmediale's exhibition deals with the motto unfinish! and presents – among others – works by David Rokeby (Canada), Herwig Weiser (Austria), Kurt d'Haeseleer (Belgium) and Moon Na (Korea) in the Academy's modernist building on Hanseatenweg:
Rokeby's surveillance installation "Taken" interprets the stream of visitors by categorising them and double-projecting the results. D'Haeseleer's "Scripted Emotions" stages a nocturnal, pseudo-romantic drama, visible through two tourist binoculars. Weiser's installation "Death Before Disko" disenchants the computer hardware by uncovering its basic elements. Na's video work "Against God by Waterpistol" ironically shows the artist's revolt against a higher force: She is shooting with a water pistol into the sky while rain is pouring down.

The workshop-installation "Edition Edison" is on display during the festival at the foyer of the Academy's new building on Pariser Platz. The artists Nicholas Bussmann, FM3 (Christiaan Virant, Zhang Jian), Aleks Kolkowski and Nicolas Collins will manufacture artistic storage media, thus commenting the immateriality of digital sounds.

At TESLA (in the Podewils'sches Palais) Japanese media artist Seiko Mikami is re-working her interactive installation "Desire of Codes": Sculptures made of human skin-like silicone react to the audience, thus showing the connections between human and computerised body.

transmediale is funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes