To Bollywood background music, the blonde sucks on her partners erect prick with relish, then we see how he generously lathers her hairy fanny with soap…a porn movie? No, silly – an art video by Thomas Draschan.

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Why do we constantly need images and want to reflect, recreate ourselves in them? Certainly they allow us to to enjoy insights unattainable to us by ourselves alone. They help us to escape, to distract and to intoxicate ourselves more »

In this hi-tech age, the relationship between artist and viewer is a complicated one. There has always been the tacit agreement of suspension of disbelief between them, that what is presented may be altered or manipulated, but that the intention of the artist is to reveal some kind of truth nonetheless. Digital technology provides the means to doctor photos in every context, be it in advertising, art, or even private use. We seem to have all come to the agreement that when it comes to visual media, there is always room for improvement.

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The artist Helmut Grill worked for many years in the field of photographic manipulation. In the early years, the necessary equipment for this venture would take up an entire room. Now, Photoshop is a standard application on every computer—almost no photo goes unretouched. Those with advanced skills in this craft are among the highest-paid in the media industry. But despite our awareness of this sophisticated process, we still engage in the game of believing what we see, or at least enjoying the challenge of thinking we can still determine what’s real or what’s not. more »

Most of his sound installations are not recorded. They would not function on loudspeakers or headphones, says Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag, because his compositions typically use the entire body as an acoustic reception space. It can be good that the sound does not penetrate the through the eardrum, but instead, for example, through the soles of the feet - for those who would stand on their own loudspeakers. Sonntag’s artistic achievements involve interfaces between the human body, technical media systems, and sound-mediated space perceptions. For example, in one project, he plunges a randomly vibrating column into the earth, whose upper edge serves as ground-level manhole. Those who step on the manhole can sense the depth of the earth with their bodies through the oscillations of the manhole, as well as experience space in a different, nonvisual way.

The Architecure of Sound

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The Essence of Electricity

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Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag was born in 1965. He studied trombone under Heinz Fadle at the University of Music Lübeck, then he studied eight different subjects, ranging from art history to philosophy, in Oldenburg. Since then, he has taught at universities in Istanbul, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Oldenburg, and Darmstadt. more »

Picture for yourself reality. Is that reality immediate, direct, unexpected? Should we attribute this power of reality to something within the medium or to the medium itself? Reality, realized as a procedure of exclusion, as an attempt at reduction, has reigned over the scientific and artistic arguments that have existed over centuries. In the last twentieth century, this gateway was submerged in the continually rising flood of the everyday vocabulary of visual art.

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The influence of this radical change on the work of the painter Franziska Maderthaner is visible. Instead of reduction, construction, de- and re-construction, and bricolage prevail. Instead of strict exclusion, surplus of meaning. Instead of the pathos of one, a play with references with which to assemble and compose. more »

As opposed to other media like film or music, in principle, painting does not lend itself to as many possibilities, explains the painter, Thomas Reinhold. Throughout history, there have been painters who have tried to expand the range of the medium of painting time and time again. Take the case of Viennese Actionism, for which action painting or happenings—for example, fluxus art is not meant to extend the possibilities of the painting—always become something else instead.

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In the mid-seventies, Thomas Reinhold studied at the University for Applied Art in Vienna, when Actionism was still determining the current artistic climate. For many, the medium of painting was still not performative enough, hence, it only held a small part in the curriculum as opposed to other media. Reinhold was doing photography at the time. His work was successful—shown at the Graz Forum City Park as well as in art fairs in Basel and New York. more »