Oliver Gray

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Oliver Grau (born October 24, 1965 ) is a German art historian and media theorist with a focus on image studies / visual communication , modern and media art as well as 19th century culture and Italian Renaissance art . He is professor for image sciences at the Danube University Krems .

Oliver Grau at ISMAR 2011

Life

After studying in Hamburg, Siena and London, master's degree a. a. with Martin Warnke and doctorate in Berlin with Horst Bredekamp and Friedrich Kittler , Grau taught and researched at the Humboldt University in Berlin , spent guest stays at research institutions in Japan and the USA and, after completing his habilitation in 2003, was a substitute professor at international universities. Since 2005 he has held the first chair for image sciences in the German-speaking area and head of the department for image sciences at Danube University Krems . Appointments to the University of Siegen and City University Hong Kong were turned down. Oliver Grau is the son of the physicist Prof. Lothar Grau and the graphic artist Doris Grau.

research

His visual research focus is on the history of media art , immersion and emotions as well as on the history, idea and culture of "animated" and telematic images, or telepresence , as well as on the development of visual scientific work tools such as online image and video databases.

Immersion

The monograph Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion contains a historically comparative image-viewer theory of immersion as well as a systematic analysis of the triad of artist, work and viewer under the conditions of digital art . Grau develops an explanatory model for the evolutionary history of the illusion media : This results from the relative dependence of new sensory suggestion potentials and the opposing forces of distancing, the media competence of their viewers. At the same time, Grau examined interdisciplinary methods of creating or increasing the viewer's impression of immersion in digital image spaces: This happens in particular through interaction (reaction of the images in real time to user movement), the use of evolutionary image processes - e.g. through genetic algorithms , haptic feedback , the natural design of the interface , the impression of telematic presence and, in particular, the comprehensive design of the image display, which at least fills the viewer's field of vision and is increased up to 360 ° horizontally and vertically. Traditional monomedial approaches of illusion research were tried to overcome with these studies and instead concepts such as polysensuality, suggestion potential, image space, individual disposition of the viewer, evolution of visual media were introduced and existing distance theories by Cassirer, Panofsky and others. a. extended for digital image spaces. Studies were also presented on the innovative connection between architecture and immersive moving images, as well as on immersion in the history of film. The majority of the publications on immersion go back to two research projects of the German Research Foundation lasting several years ( art history and media theories of virtual reality 1998–2002 and immersive art 2002–2005).

Emotion research

From several research projects at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Leopoldina and two summer academies funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, an interdisciplinary study on the history of how emotions are guided by image and sound emerged. Expanding the research of Antonio Damasio , Joseph LeDoux and Wolf Singer , the community-shaping effect of emotional visual experiences was demonstrated using the example of Matthias Grünwald's Isenheimer Altar , Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph des Willens" and the computer game "America's Army" and thus a problematic key concept in visual science explored.

Media art history

Since 2002, Grau brought together the interdisciplinary research on media art and its history as head of the Steering Committee in an international conference series, which in 2005 led to the first congress on media art history in Banff (Canada) with 500 participants. The international conference of the field has been established through the world conferences in Berlin (2007), Melbourne (2009), Liverpool (2011), Riga (2013), Montreal (2015), 2017 Krems / Vienna (2017), Aalborg (2019).

Digital humanities

Image scientific working tools for the humanities / digital humanities conceived in gray . At the Humboldt University he headed the project "Immersive Art" funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), whose team has been developing the Archive of Digital Art (ADA; previously Database of Virtual Art), the first international archive for digital art, since 1998 . that is open source at Danube University. As the first online archive, the Database of Virtual Art (DVA) has been streaming video documentations on a regular basis since 2000. With funding from the FWF, ADA has been developed into the first web 2.0 online archive in art history since 2012. In addition, a bridge thesaurus was developed that connects media art and its art historical forerunners. Since 2020, ADA has been expanded to a research and teaching platform for universities through funding from the Federal Ministry of 1.2 million euros. Since 2005, Grau has been head of the database of the Göttweig Graphic Collection , Austria's largest private graphic collection, which comprises 32,000 works from Albrecht Dürer to Gustav Klimt (online since 2007).

Teaching

Grau developed international curricula for the visual sciences: the MA program MediaArtHistory, the academic expert programs Digital Collection Management and Exhibition Design, Visual Competencies CP as well as the master's programs Image Sciences, Crossmedia and Data Studies, and Danube Telelectures, a new interactive lecture and debate format, that is streamed internationally. In 2015 the Erasmus Excellence Joint Master in MediaArtCultures started together with the universities of Aalborg, Lodz and the City University of Hong Kong (since 2019 Lassale Art School, Singapore), which is supported by the EU with a total of 5.5 million euros.

Awards and advisory board activities

Grau was elected to the Young Academy of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Leopoldina in 2001; 2002 InterNationes / Goethe Institute; 2003 Book of the Month, Scientific American ; In 2003 Grau received a scholarship from the German-Italian Center for Excellence Villa Vigoni ; In 2004 he received the Humboldt University Society's special media prize, in 2008 Grau accepted an invitation to the Olympic cultural program in Beijing, in 2010 to the G20 summit in Seoul, and in 2011 to POSTECH University, where he opened the cycle of Nobel Laureates with two lectures. In 2014 he received an honorary doctorate from Oradea University . In 2015 he was elected to the Academia Europaea , in 2019 Grau received the Science Award of the State of Lower Austria .

Gray is u. a. Member of the advisory board of the following academic journals and institutions: International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics (UK); Newsletter Photography (GER); IJArt Journal (UK); EKFRASE: Nordisk Tidsskrift for Visual Culture (N); International Journal of Art and Technology (UK); SECOND NATURE: International Journal of Creative Media (AUS); IMAGES, Journal for Visual Studies in Southeast Europe; JUNCTURES The Journal for Thematic Dialogue (NZ); Jordan Journal of the Arts (JOR); Revista de Estudios Globales y Arte Contemporaneo (ESP); MediaArtHistories Conference Series Board / Steering Committee (since 2004); Interdisciplinary Research Center Humanities / Art / Technology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań (POL); St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Institute for Cultural Research, Machina Media (RUS).

Publications

Writings (monographs)

  • On the Visual Power of Digital Arts. For a New Archive and Museum Infrastructure in the 21st Century, Editiones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2016.
  • Эмоции и иммерсия: ключевые элементы визуальных исследований / Пер. с нем. А. М. Гайсина, EDIOS Publishing House, St. Petersburg 2013.
  • Image creation . Habilitation thesis. Art University, Linz 2004.
  • Virtual Art. From Illusion to Immersion . MIT-Press, Cambridge 2003 (Chinese 2006, Serbian 2008, Portuguese 2009).
  • The longing to be in the picture. On the art history of virtual reality . Dissertation. Humboldt University, Berlin 1999.

Writings (selection of editions)

  • Digital Art through the Looking Glass: New strategies for archiving, collecting and preserving in Digital Humanities , Krems / Wien / Hamburg: Danube University Press 2019.
  • Museum and Archive on the Move: Changing cultural Institutions in the digital Era , Munich: DeGruyter 2017.
  • Imagery of the 21st Century , Cambridge: MIT-Press 2011.
  • MediaArtHistories , Cambridge: MIT Press 2007 (translations in Brazil and Macedonia).
  • Media emotions. To steer feelings through image and sound , (together with Andreas Keil): Frankfurt / Main: Fischer 2005.

Published databases

  • Digital Art (Archive of Digital Art), formerly Database of Virtual Art since 2000, approx. 3500 works discussed, www.digitalartarchive.at
  • MedienKunstGeschichte , since 2005 www.MediaArtHistories.org
  • Graphic Collection Göttweig online , since 2007 www.gssg.at

Articles (selection)

  • The Complex and Multifarious Expression of Digital Art & Its Impact on Archives and Humanities. In: A Companion to Digital Art. Edited by Christiane Paul. Wiley-Blackwell, New York 2016, 23–45.
  • New Media Art. In: Oxford Bibliographies in Art History. edited by Prof. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann. Oxford University Press, New York 2016, pp. 1-18.
  • Our Digital Culture threatened by Loss. In: Valentino Catricalà: Media Art: Towards a new definition of Arts in the Age of Technology. Pistoia 2015, pp. 39-44.
  • ARCHIVE 2.0: Media Arts Impact and the Need for (Digital) Humanities. In: Giselle Beiguelman (Ed.): (Itaú cultural). Sao Paulo 2014, pp. 97-118.
  • Printmaking to Media Art: New Analysis Instruments for Historically Comparative Image Research. In: Newsletter photography. Vol. 21 (2014), No. 1/2 [NF 81/82], pp. 108-116.
  • Our Digital Culture Threatened by Loss. In: The World Financial Review. 2014, pp. 40–42.
  • New Perspectives for the (Digital) Humanities. In: The Challenge of the Object, Congress Proceedings of the 33rd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art. T. 1-3. Ed. by G. Ulrich Großmann / Petra Krutisch, Nuremberg 2013, pp. 990–994.
  • Image Science & MediaArtHistories. New Infrastructures for the 21st Century. In: Gunther Friesinger, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Thomas Ballhaus (Eds.): Mind and Matter. Comparative Approaches towards Complexity. transcript, Bielefeld 2011, pp. 29-37.
  • Media Art's Challenge for our Societies. In: 2010 International Humanities Conference, Boundary Crossing Humanities and Symbiotic Society. Yonsei University, Seoul 2010, pp. 163-193.
  • Renewing knowledge structures for Media Art. In: EVA London 2010. Electronic Visualization and the Arts, BCS London, Alan SEAL, Jonathan BOWEN and Kia NG (Eds.), Pp. 286-295.
  • Living Habitats: Immersive Strategies. In: Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mignonneau (Eds.): Interactive Art Research, Springer. Vienna / New York 2009, pp. 170–175.
  • Media Art Needs Histories and Archives. In: Zhuangshi. Beijing 2008, No. 7, pp. 50-61.
  • The Recombinant Reality - Immersion and Interactive Image Spaces. In: Synthetic Times. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, pp. 72-93 (German / Chinese).
  • "Attention! It seems like he's rushing straight for the darkness you're sitting in. " Immersion and emotion research, core elements of image science. In: Klaus Herding / Antje Krause-Wahl (Eds.): How emotions are expressed, Verlag Dr. HH Driesen GmbH, Taunusstein 2007, pp. 263-288.
  • Phantasmagoric image magic of the 18th century and its afterlife in media art. In: Brigitte Felderer (Ed.): Rare arts: On the culture and media history of magic. Vienna 2006, pp. 461-480.
  • Art as an inspiration for media evolution: visions of overcoming the cinema screen from stereo optics to telepresence. In: Thomas Hensel, Klaus Krüger, Tanja Michalsky (Eds.): The moving image. Film and art. Munich 2006, pp. 419–448.
  • MedienKunstGeschichte: For a transdisciplinary image science. In: Matthias Bruhn and Karsten Borgmann (Eds.): Visibility of history. Contributions to a historiography of images / ed. For H-Arthist and H-Soz-u-Kult. Clio-online and Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin 2005.
  • The digital building: Current trends in spatial visualization and their predecessors. In: Thesis, scientific journal of the Bauhaus University Weimar. 2004, Vol. 3, pp. 112-121.
  • For an Expanded Concept of Documentation: The Database of Virtual Art . In: ICHIM. École du Louvre, Cultural institutions and digital technology, acte publié avec le soutien de la Mission de la Recherche et de la Technologie du Ministère della Culture et de la Communication, Paris 2003, Proceedings, CD-Rom, pp. 2-15.
  • Images of Art and Science: On the Way to Image Science. In: Gegenworte: Journal for the dispute over knowledge. edited by BBAW, Berlin 2002, pp. 25-30.
  • Art as an inspiration for media evolution. Intermedial stages of the virtual in the 20th century. In: Christoph Tholen (Ed.): Intervalle 5th series of publications by the Scientific Center of the University of Kassel, Kassel University Press, 2002, pp. 57–76.
  • New Images from Life. In: Art Inquiry: Recherches sur les Arts. Ryszard Kluszinsky (Ed.), Annual publication by Lodz Scientific Society, 2001, pp. 7-26.
  • Between image suggestion and distance gain. In: Klaus Sachs-Hombach (Ed.): On the realism of images: Interdisciplinary research on the semantics of pictorial forms of representation. Magdeburg 2001, pp. 213-227.
  • The History of Telepresence: Automata, Illusion, and The Rejection of the Body. In: Ken Goldberg (Ed.): The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology on the Internet. MIT-Press, Cambridge / Mass. 2000, pp. 226-246.
  • Into the Belly of the Image: Historical Aspects of Virtual Reality. In: Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. Vol. 32, Issue 5, 1999, pp. 365-372.
  • Surrender to nothing: the cyberspace between utopia, economy and art. In: Medien.Kunst.Passagen, No. 4, 1994, pp. 17-30.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gray 2000
  2. ↑ Grau 1999–2007
  3. ↑ Grau 1997 and 2001
  4. ↑ Grau 2002
  5. ↑ Gray 2000
  6. ↑ Grau 2001 and 2003
  7. ↑ Grau 2003 u. a.
  8. ↑ Grau 2006 and 2007
  9. ^ Gray 2005
  10. ↑ Gray 2007
  11. ↑ cf. the online text archive mediaarthistory.org
  12. ↑ Art historian Oliver Grau receives an honorary doctorate. Press release from May 20, 2014 at the Science Information Service (idw-online.de)
personal data
SURNAME Gray, Oliver
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German image scholar and art historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1965