Sat 08.08.2009 Living on Mars. Workshop by Dagmar Lippok & Jens Sundheim

How do young people engage with the idea of the future? How do teenagers who have grown up with the internet and are familiar with technology imagine the world of tomorrow?

These are the questions explored by the HMKV together with artists Dagmar Lippok and Jens Sundheim during a weekend workshop.

The workshop “Living on Mars” encourages a playful, visionary and artistic exploration of the future. Participants experiment with photography, digital image processing and model-making to develop their own utopian ideas and transform them into physical models. Through a creative dialogue between analogue and digital techniques, materials such as scissors, pens, foils, paints, modelling clay and construction materials are combined with digital tools including digital cameras, Photoshop, scanners and printers.

Science fiction remains a fascinating subject, especially at a time when so many once-impossible ideas have become reality. With the rapid pace of technological change, young people appear to navigate this world with ease. Films visualise fantasy worlds with a level of perfection that many young viewers take for granted. Their everyday media environment is shaped by design, and they often possess extensive knowledge of aesthetics and technologies in areas such as entertainment, communication and automotive electronics. They continuously gather information and exchange ideas online.

For “Living on Mars”, the Hartware MedienKunstVerein provides an ideal setting: contemporary art on display, the architecturally planned PHOENIX site (still largely an open space at the time), and young people's boundless imagination and enthusiasm for the future come together as a space for experimentation.

Living on Mars – Seeking Visionaries!

Your parents grew up with landline telephones and Walkmans. You use new media technologies naturally in your everyday lives. You know science fiction mainly through highly advanced technological visions. But what else can we imagine? And what visions did people in earlier cultures have?

From Jules Verne to Google Earth, we construct imaginary living spaces and extraordinary forms of transport and communication. Using Photoshop, staged photography and scale models, we develop future concepts on the PHOENIX site.

In this two-day workshop, led by Dortmund-based artists Dagmar Lippok and Jens Sundheim, you will work with both analogue and digital creative tools: paints, foils, glue and cardboard alongside cameras, scanners and computers.

Guests:
Students from the SchülerUni Bochum, Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, seminar “Life in Space”

Dates:
Saturday, 8 August 2009, 11 am–6 pm
Sunday, 9 August 2009, 11 am–6 pm

Location:
PHOENIX Halle
Hochofenstraße, PHOENIX West site

Organised by:
Hartware MedienKunstVerein
as part of the exhibition “Only the Spirits Are Awake”

For participants aged 14 and over
Limited number of participants

Participation fee: €20 per person