Opening Keynote

You must give your all; gods don’t bestow you with anything.

Learned people are those who themselves fulfil the demands they make of others.

In this new age of illiteracy, brought about by media technology and resulting from social breakdown, you need to learn to refer to examples from the history of modernity. After Europe’s religious wars had come to an end, during the second half of the 17th century, the first academics – successors of the Humanists – discovered that it only makes sense to write if, in times of illiteracy, primarily the writers themselves commit themselves to read. The new academies were associations in which the mutual orientation of their members in relation to the meaning of writing, painting, composing, experimentation and contemplation ensured that as painters, they appreciated what others had painted; as writers, they appreciated what others had written…

As writers who want to be read, we today lack that indispensable willingness to read what others have written, because we perceive the commitment to social orientation as reactionary and inimical to freedom.

We must rectify such thoughtlessness, which is based on individualistic claims of validity, if we wish to believe in the meaningfulness of our artistic and scholarly work, even beyond the realms of commercial success.

www.bazonbrock.de

In the beginning was...

Kinetic Typography and:
When letters begin to act

"In the beginning was the Deed". With this turn of phrase Faust emerges in the famous study scene in Goethe's eponymous play, wherein he endeavors to translate the beginning of the Gospel according to John from the Greek. It is the Greek word, "logos", for which he only establishes a suitable German equivalent after several attempts.  Luther rendered this sentence as "In the beginning was the Word" in his interpretation of

the Bible.

What transpires when a word becomes a deed, and thus "logos" can be a word as well as an action? The moving letters unique to cinematic typography have only become a potential creative element by virtue of audiovisual media in the modern age - namely, film and digital media. Yet the letters, which have simultaneously assumed a life of their own and have a long history based on the presentation of language and writing, hold the power to revive the inanimate into life.

Tilman Baumgärtel

Prof. Dr. Tilman Baumgärtel is a publicist and is an instructor of Media Theory at the Mainz University. He taught at the Film Institute at the University of the Philippines in Manila from 2005 to 2009, and Media Science and Journalism at the Department of Media and Communication at the Royal University of Phnom Penh from 2009-2012.  His main areas of activity include alternative cinema formats, media art, computer games as well as cyber culture and Internet art. He resides in Berlin.

Publications (sample):

Vom Guerilla-Kino zum Essayfilm: Harun Farocki.

Monographie eines deutschen Autorenfilmers, Berlin 1998;

net.art. Materialien zur Netzkunst, Nürnberg 1999;

net.art 2.0. Neue Materialien zur Netzkunst. New Material on art on the internet, Nürnberg 2001;

install.exe, Basel 2003;

games. Computerspiele von Künstlerinnen, Frankfurt/Main 2004;

Southeast Asian Independent Cinema, Hong Kong 2012;

Schleifen. Zur Geschichte und Ästhetik des Loops, Berlin 2015;

Pirate Essays. A Reader in International Media Piracy, Amsterdam 2015

Text and Time: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Audiovisuality

The word “text” in the title of this paper, as in literary theory, refers to any object that can be “read” as message — the content expressed in sound, or visual language, or the language of motion — not only a particular piece of writing or typography. “[T]he text is a process of demonstration, speaks according to certain rules (or against certain rules) … only exists in the movement of a discourse” (Barthes).

 The paper will focus on text — as sound and image — in the context of time. The discussion will explore the audiovisuality of human experience in relationship to the language of dynamic media communication, with time as its integral component. How text is able to store time? How time is revealed through text? Historical in method, this presentation will discuss a unique set of case studies to interrogate the topic.

Jan Kubasiewicz

Founder and Coordinator (2000—2015) of Dynamic Media Institute, he teaches information architecture, data visualization, motion design and user experience design in the undergraduate and graduate design programs at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. He has served as visiting lecturer and critic at numerous universities in the USA, Australia, China, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Poland. He has curated exhibitions and organized workshops, seminars, conferences and publications on the topic of communication, design and media. His personal work has been exhibited internationally in the USA, Europe, and Asia. He is curator of the Gierdojc Gallery at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

DIGITAL NARRATIVES

In his lecture Mike Meiré investigates the interplay between documentary visual realms, social media aesthetics, and narrative digital layers. On the basis of his style-defining editorial projects - namely, brand eins, 032c and GARAGE - he illustrates the evolution of analog to hybrid media and draws parallels to the design of cultural and commercial trademarks using the example of the KENZO visual identity project and the Berlin Biennale.

Mike Meiré

Mike Meiré, born in 1964, works and lives in Cologne with his wife and three children. In 1987 he founded the agency Meiré und Meiré together with his brother Marc and in 2001 he established the cultural production company NEO NOTO.

Having a great deal of experience with crossover projects, Mike Meiré constantly switches between the roles of brand and art director, designer and artist.

His most important editorial design projects include the multi-award winning business magazine brand eins, the architecture magazine ARCH+, the re-design of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), the international culture magazine 032c, and GARAGE - the international art and fashion magazine. As brand director, he has been responsible for bathroom and kitchen fixtures manufacturer Dornbracht's communication and culture projects for over 20 years now. He is currently also overseeing the development and implementation of the Shifting Contexts program technology for the bulthaup brand and the corporate architecture of the MINI/BMW automobile group. In his role as designer and curator, he installs projects that deal with brands' cultural points of contact in the context of art, architecture, fashion, music and design. He developed and curated the Dornbracht Culture Projects project series and designed his own artistic contributions such as the Energetic Recovery System (2001), Noises for Ritual Architecture (2008), the Global Street Food exhibition (2009) (Vitra Museum exhibition, Buckminster Fuller Dome), Back Room (2011) and The Farm Project (2006-2010), which was presented at events such as Art Basel/ Design Miami, Skulpturenprojekte Münster 07 and in the Designmuseum Eindhoven (published by Verlag Walter König). In 2010, the first "DAY IN/ DAY OUT" catalog about his independent artistic works was published (Gallery BarthaContemporary, London).

Writing for the Camera:

A few remarks on issues of the design and legibility of writing in motion

Brody Neuenschwander has made a life writing for the camera.  His earliest projects, for Peter Greenaway, have become textbook examples of filmed calligraphy. There have been many other projects, including sound and light installations, videos, didactic films and art works. In this lecture Neuenschwander will discuss the issues that impact on writing for the camera. Technical questions such as tracking the moving pen with a macro lens will be discussed. The constraints imposed by screen size, direction of reading and viewing time will also be addressed. At a time when calligraphy is increasingly popular with young designers, this lecture will suggest new possibilities for integrating handwriting and drawing in film.

Brody Neuenschwander

Brody Neuenschwander was born in Houston, Texas in 1958. He attended Princeton University, where he was appointed University Scholar, graduating in 1981 with high honors for his thesis on the techniques of medieval manuscript illumination. Neuenschwander completed his doctorate on the methodology of German art history in 1986 at the Courtauld Institute in London. At the same time he studied calligraphy at the Roehampton Institute. The cross-fertilization that resulted from doing academic and practical studies simultaneously has influenced all his subsequent work. The objects studied by art historians are, for Neuenschwander, things that were made by human hands. The structure of the atelier and the properties of the materials are as important to him as the social context of their creation.

Neuenschwander began his professional career as assistant to Donald Jackson, an English calligrapher living on the Welsh borders. For a year Neuenschwander did studio work, mostly traditional ceremonial pieces. In 1989 Neuenschwander met the English film director Peter Greenaway, who asked him to provide live-action calligraphy for the film “Prospero’s Books”. Greenaway asked pertinent and challenging questions: “Can calligraphy be charged with emotions and historical associations? Can it represent in visual terms sound patterns of the language? Can it explore the tense region between text and image?”

In recent years Neuenschwander has continued his studies of Arabic/Islamic and Chinese/Japanese calligraphy. In the project called “A Brush with Silence” calligraphers from the world’s many writing traditions are brought together for a silent calligraphic happening. A television series on the origins and future of the world’s great calligraphic traditions is also in the pipeline.

Neuenschwander has taught and exhibited throughout Europe, the United States and Japan.

The Multi-Dimensional Interface: Movement and Metaphor in User Interface Design.

A survey of multi-dimensional conceptual models within human computer interaction. From pioneering desktop metaphors to current mixed and virtual reality interfaces, this talk will interrogate the use of spatial, temporal and gestural metaphors to communicate abstract information.

Brian Lucid

Brian Lucid is the Head of the School of Design, Ngā Pae Māhutonga, at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. Guided by questions that address the relations among visual design, complex information and the ability of people to learn and adapt to unfamiliar processes, his practice-led research envisions, defines and implements innovative, functional and aesthetic human-computer interfaces for government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, design studios, cultural institutions, and emerging startups.

A designer for over 20 years, he has dedicated a significant amount of time to teaching in the fields of interaction design and visual communication. Prior to taking up his position at Massey University, he held the role of Professor of Graphic Design at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts where he served as faculty within the Dynamic Media Institute, a postgraduate program focused upon design research at the intersection of technology and communication.

Brian has developed coursework and taught classes in typography, information design, interaction design, creative coding, data visualisation, service design, and time-based media. His presentations at conferences and design workshops around these topics have been attended by thousands of audience members across four continents.

Designing the Future Reading Experience (RX)

In a world of increasing information overload and decreasing attention spans, communicating to, and captivating an audience via word-based communication is becoming increasingly difficult. Screens are now the primary means for consuming textual information and yet traditionally they were associated with image-based media. The proliferation of text on screens has fundamentally changed our reading experience including how we consume books, newspapers and other information. For designers, the practice of typography and design is undergoing of seismic change in the realm of the screen.

This presentation will examine some critical factors affecting how we design reading experiences for the screen, including an in-depth look at the iPad edition of T.S. Eliot’s notoriously complex poem, The Waste Land. Hailed as ‘the future of digital literature’ by the Sunday Times, The Waste Land App became App of the Week in the US, was featured in a New York Times editorial and was the top-grossing book on iTunes UK within 24 hours of its release in 2011. Since then however, and despite the proliferation of e-books, interactively rich media App books have not garnered commercial or popular success. Richly illustrated books remain a steadfast preserve of the print world, as readers are yet to be convinced of the value of digital books.

This talk will pose critical questions about future reading experiences and how designers must evolve their practices to embrace the changing context of a screen-dominated world.

Hilary Kenna

Dr. Hilary Kenna is a designer and lecturer on the Visual Communication Design degree at IADT www.iadt.ie, Dublin, Ireland, which was selected in Europe's top 25 graphic design programmes by Domus, Spring 2013.

Hilary’s research into user experience (UX), interface design and data visualisation for information discovery, funded by Enterprise Ireland, was commercialised in 2014 into a product called SeeSearch. SeeSearch is an online search and discovery platform for education and research and in September 2015, it was selected to be a participant in Google’s Adopt-a-Startup Programme.

From 2008-2010, Hilary was Principle Investigator of a data visualization and business intelligence research project called Vizi, which was funded by Ireland’s National Digital Research Centre (NDRC). In 2010, Vizi won the Irish Software Association (ISA) award for Best Industry Academic Research Collaboration.

In 2014, Hilary consulted as Head of Design and UX at Independent News and Media (INM), Dublin Ireland where she re-designed independent.ie, Ireland’s largest online newspaper and other INM apps such as The Windmill Lane Sessions www.independet.ie/windmilllane. Within two months of the launch in June 2014, traffic to independent.ie increased from 7 to 9.5 million page impressions per month.

Hilary completed her PhD, Design Principles for Screen Typography with reference to the teachings of Emil Ruder, at the London College of Communication (LCC), University of the Arts (UAL) in 2012. In 2011, she designed the multiple award-winning poetry iPad App, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot for publishers Faber & Faber and Touch Press UK, which was the subject of her TedX talk, Screen Typography – Words made Usable.

Literaturwurst 2.0 / or:
inscriptions of first and second order.

In 1987, to both further and demonstrate the demise of the linear thinking that he saw induced and sustained by the old means of typographic reading and writing, Vilèm Flusser had his text "Die Schrift. Hat Schreiben Zukunft?" [1] published digitally, on a diskette. The software it came with could not only be used to read the essay but also to edit it; and Flusser explicitly encouraged his readers to become co-authors in this way. Ironically, today, accessing this version of the text has become a complex media-archeological endeavor: The letters encoded by the magnetic charges on the disk are not in flux anymore but seem rather entombed.

My presentation will be a stubborn and playful approach of the computer and the thingness of its forensic writing material, the ungraspable /stuff/ that computers are made of. I try to illustrate how all digital objects are sustained through acts of inscriptions of first and second order, and thus attempt to argue how, ultimately, all digital writing can be considered to be animated writing.

Hans-Jörg Pochmann

Hans-Jörg Pochmann studied typography at the Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig. In 2013, his final project, the book /FALLEN/, received the ›Golden Letter‹, the highest accolade in the competition ›Best Book Design From all over the World‹. He obtained an MPhil from the Royal College of Art in London, for which he investigated the materiality of digital media and the thingness of their machines and interfaces. For his work, he productively ponders on Derrida's notion of the ›secret without mystery‹ of the computer: the literally ungraspable, but by far not immaterial reality of the virtual objects with which they are confronting us.

Location

Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz

Address

Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz

Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 2

55131 Mainz

#001

Disruptive Text

This workshop presents an introduction to type, code and sensors using the city of Mainz as a stage. The concept of 'disruptive text' within the physical environment will be explored from three perspectives; typographic form, message and context. Using a combination of physical sensors, screen and print media, workshop participants will explore and create disruptive text experiences within the environs of the conference setting. Participants will be introduced to the Arduino and Processing platforms and how they can be used to trigger text in the environment. Hands-on experience of coding and visualising will be demonstrated so no prior experience is necessary. A variety of sensors will be available to build prototype interactive systems. A laptop will be necessary. A selection of outcomes from the workshop will be presented later at the Motyf symposium.

Adam Cooke (UK)

Adam Cooke was born in 1973 and lives in Liverpool, United Kingdom Studying Fine Art at UCA, University for the Creative Arts. Completing his Masters in Interactive Multimedia Arts at John Moores University, Liverpool. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Design Communication at North Wales School of Art & Design. His research explores open technologies in a community context.

#002

The Multi-Dimensional Interface: Movement and Metaphor in User Interface Design.

This speculative design workshop will explore emerging metaphors for human computer interaction, with a focus upon spatial and gestural models applied to mixed and virtual reality experiences.

Brian Lucid (NZ)

Brian Lucid is the Head of the School of Design, Ngā Pae Māhutonga, at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. Guided by questions that address the relations among visual design, complex information and the ability of people to learn and adapt to unfamiliar processes, his practice-led research envisions, defines and implements innovative, functional and aesthetic human-computer interfaces for government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, design studios, cultural institutions, and emerging startups.

A designer for over 20 years, he has dedicated a significant amount of time to teaching in the fields of interaction design and visual communication. Prior to taking up his position at Massey University, he held the role of Professor of Graphic Design at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts where he served as faculty within the Dynamic Media Institute, a postgraduate program focused upon design research at the intersection of technology and communication.

Brian has developed coursework and taught classes in typography, information design, interaction design, creative coding, data visualisation, service design, and time-based media. His presentations at conferences and design workshops around these topics have been attended by thousands of audience members across four continents.

The bridge project is based on the meanings of the word “bridge” not only literally, but mainly as a metaphor .

A design game where words “construct” bridges of communication, under certain limitations.

This workshop is intended to take participators in to expressive typography, navigating through the inner thoughts, to set up and control visual experiments.

Participants will be focused on brainstorming, collaboration, visualization and production of results.

By the end of the workshop, students are expected to have the ability to design artworks by transforming images to types. Experimentation with typographic characters may achieve a better understanding of verbal expression.

Fonts have personality, just like written thoughts, with great graphic potential.

The reevaluation of simple texts will build a bridge between messenger - receiver and typography – interpretation. The poster can distance itself visually from the logical content and can establish itself convincingly as an independent, abstract piece of artwork ready to use in social media too.

Aspasia Voudouris (GR)

Graphic Designer and visiting tutor at the Graphic Design Department, Technological Education Institute of Athens, GR

She holds Post Graduate Degree on “Graphic Arts and Multimedia”, from the Greek Open University, GR

Training seminars on “Utilization of Information Technology Communication & Education”.

Her professional experience covers the Graphic Design sector, as Creative Manager and Design laboratory Manager, either as freelancer or employed in the advertising industry.

Her educator experience at the Faculty of Fine Arts & Design, Technological Educational Institute of Athens – TEI Athens- covers more than 15 Academic Years.

Since 2001 she teaches Graphic Design at the secondary education level.

Her publications include “packaging concept” and articles in local newspapers.

Her research work includes project on “problems during digitization of old documents, photographs and special prototypes” and visual communication and arts.

Her Artistic Activity includes participation in two exhibitions as well as one personal exhibition with creative digital images.

As an Educator, she participated with her pupils’ creations in over 10 exhibitions on Graphic Arts since 1993, and performed lectures and presentations in conferences in the sectors of education and visual communication arts.

Calligraphy is always about movement. The pen, filled with ink, soars over the paper, guided by a trained eye and flowing movements of arm, shoulder and entire body.  On paper the ink dries, becoming a form, a permanent record of movement.  On screen the ink continues to live and change, never drying into a final statement.

In this workshop we will explore the calligraphic line, on paper and on screen. Looking at examples of Chinese, Arabic and Western calligraphy, we will explore the elasticity of letters, their expressive power, and the flowing movement of the pen.

I will also demonstrate a basic technique for filming and projecting live calligraphy using a glass table with camera and projector. Students can take turns to experiment with this set-up while others are working on paper with hand-made experimental pens.

Brody Neuenschwander (BE)

Brody Neuenschwander was born in Houston, Texas in 1958. He attended Princeton University, where he was appointed University Scholar, graduating in 1981 with high honors for his thesis on the techniques of medieval manuscript illumination. Neuenschwander completed his doctorate on the methodology of German art history in 1986 at the Courtauld Institute in London. At the same time he studied calligraphy at the Roehampton Institute. The cross-fertilization that resulted from doing academic and practical studies simultaneously has influenced all his subsequent work. The objects studied by art historians are, for Neuenschwander, things that were made by human hands. The structure of the atelier and the properties of the materials are as important to him as the social context of their creation.

Neuenschwander began his professional career as assistant to Donald Jackson, an English calligrapher living on the Welsh borders. For a year Neuenschwander did studio work, mostly traditional ceremonial pieces. In 1989 Neuenschwander met the English film director Peter Greenaway, who asked him to provide live-action calligraphy for the film “Prospero’s Books”. Greenaway asked pertinent and challenging questions: “Can calligraphy be charged with emotions and historical associations? Can it represent in visual terms sound patterns of the language? Can it explore the tense region between text and image?”

In recent years Neuenschwander has continued his studies of Arabic/Islamic and Chinese/Japanese calligraphy. In the project called “A Brush with Silence” calligraphers from the world’s many writing traditions are brought together for a silent calligraphic happening. A television series on the origins and future of the world’s great calligraphic traditions is also in the pipeline.

Neuenschwander has taught and exhibited throughout Europe, the United States and Japan.

“to be” is the most common verb, used in all of languages around the Globe. Its origins can be traced back to derivatives of Proto-Indo-European, the parent language of most major languages thought to have been in use before 3000 B.C. This language was then subsequently split into smaller groups of languages including Indo-European (from which Germanic languages are derived), Indo-Iranian (includes Sanskrit), Greek and Latin.

This interdisciplinary workshop is combining artistic and IT approaches. Students will learn how to use Augmented Reality tools and motion typography for creating interesting art projects.

The projects will serve as a springboard for discussion about text meaning, metaphors, various forms of delivery/interpretation, theatrical potential of letters as the actors: project is a part of international event “Akademos – a Place for Poets and Philosophers?” – a set of international exchange on moving typography design.

Ewa Satalecka (PL)

Ewa Satalecka is Professor at Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technologies in Warsaw and leader of its motion typography class. She represents Poland on the international forum of ATypI (International Typography Association). Satalecka organizes international design workshops, conferences, and exhibitions of typography and information design. Her work includes kinetic typography installations presented at the “Liquid Page” Symposium in Britain's Tate (2008) and as a part of the international “Moving Type” Exhibition in the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz, Germany (2011). Edited by Satalecka: MOTYF2013, MOTYF2014, Fajrant (available on issuu, prized TDC 2012 certificate). Her articles were included in Very Graphic: Polish designers of the 20th Century, edited by Jacek Mrowczyk, (IAM, 2015) and 365xtypo: 365 stories on type, typography, and graphic design, edited by Linda Kudrnovska (Etapes, 2015).

Marcin Wichrowski (PL)

Marcin Wichrowski is lecturer at the Chair of Multimedia at the  Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw.
He teaches classes at the Faculties of Information Technology, New Media Art and Social Informatics connected with computer graphics, designing and programming web and mobile user interfaces, audio/video editing and motion graphics, interactive storytelling, Augmented Reality and Human-Computer Interaction. He was guest lecturer at Academies of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Katowice, and at universities in Ireland, Scotland, Finland and Belgium. In 2012 he worked at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (Netherlands), where he was involved in designing mobile applications for patients with aphasia.

He collaborates with artists from Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in the creation of projects/installations using multimedia technologies.

His research is focused on methodologies of designing user interfaces for medical devices and applications. He is particularly interested in new, experimental forms of Human-Computer Interaction and their impact on usability and emotions of users.

Three-dimensional design involves objects such as props, the human figure, and the staged area itself. The arrangement of these objects introduces the student to considerations of space and volume. In manufacturing sets and choosing props, the student become sensitive to form relationships and adept at the various skills dictated by the craft.

Lighting is a crucial tool in staged cinematography. Students learn that the alteration of lighting affects the perception of the staged setting. Alternative light sources, such as candlelight or fluorescent light, alter warmth and tone, changing the perceptions of the viewer. Students can add images or type to the staged setting by using a slide or digital projector: the possibilities for manipulation with this tool are limitless. Images can be distorted or unfocused, creating interesting effects and textures. Lighting is such a dramatically tool that it can change the same staged setting radically.

A map is a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between
elements in space such as objects, regions and themes.

In the workshop, we will discuss the concept of psycho-geography, term linked to the Situationist International (SI), an organisation of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals and political theorists, prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972.

Psycho-geography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical evironment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals."

In present view, psycho-geography can be seen as an approach to geography that emphasizes playfulness and "drifting" around urban environments.

According to Phil Baker, an English writer, the psycho-geography

“…explores the city in our heads, places of special and unique significance to a particular person or people, a generation.”

The workshop task:

Create your personal psycho-geographic map on Mainz by using typographic elements. You can work on the whole city of Mainz, or a certain part of the city or a neighbourhood.

Compose onto the map places that evoke emotions and/or are in other ways of significance to you.

Means of execution:

free;

digital (dynamic file) or a print - to be decided later on

Tarja Nieminen  (FIN)

Tarja Nieminen is an artist and designer. After graduating from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, she pursued further studies in photography and motion media at the Academy of Performing Arts, FAMU in Prague and, on Fulbright grant, at the School of Visual Arts, SVA, in New York. She has been a lecturer of visual communication at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture of the Aalto University since 2007. Before that, she served ten years as the Head of the Graphic Design Department at the Institute of Design of the Lahti University of Applied Sciences. In her educational work, she has focused on developing curricula related to dynamic media and international cooperation. For the past eighteen years, her practice has included free-lance design work in visual communication as well as fine arts activity in Europe and in the US.