Talks
Sabine Himmelsbach
Curatorial Practice
Data Cultures
Fr. 9th of Dec. at 6 pm
ZHdK Viaduktraum 2.A05
Data Cultures
Founded in 2011, HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel) is an institution dedicated to digital culture and the new art forms of the information age. Sabine Himmelsbach, director of HeK since 2012, will speak about her curatorial work, which is focused on contemporary art that explores and configures new technologies. She will talk about the curatorial challenges that need to be dealt with when working with media art.
Her presentation will focus on exhibitions she has curated within the last couple of years that reflect life in a world increasingly controlled by data and that raise questions on the societal, political, cultural and social effects brought about by a data driven society. Specific strategies explored by artists shown in the presentation include DIY, hacking, sampling, immersive and technologically innovative environments, and the use of algorithms for a generative development of visual material.
Since March 2012, Sabine Himmelsbach is the new director of HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel). After studying art history in Munich she worked for galleries in Munich and Vienna from 1993–1996 and later became project manager for exhibitions and conferences for the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz, Austria. In 1999 she became exhibition director at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. From 2005–2011 she was the artistic director of the Edith-Russ-House for Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany. Her exhibition projects include ‘Fast Forward’ (2003); ‘Coolhunters’ (2004); ‘Playback_Simulated Realities’ (2006); ‘Ecomedia: Ecological Strategies in Today’s Art’ (2007); ‘Landscape 2.0’ (2009); ‘MyWar. Participation in an Age of Conflict’ (2010) and ‘Culture(s) of Copy’ (2011). 2011 she curated ‘gateways. Art and Networked Culture’ for the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn as part of the European Capital of Culture Tallinn 2011 program. Her exhibitions at HeK in Basel include ‘Sensing Place. Mediatising the Urban Landscape’ (2012), ‘Semiconductor: Let There be Light’ (2013), ‘Perspectives on Imaginary Futures’ (2014), ‘Ryoji Ikeda’ and ‘Poetics and Politics of Data’ (2015). As a writer and lecturer she is dedicated to topics related to media art and digital culture