Berlin-based artist Ralf Baecker works at the intersection of art, technology and science.
Through installations and machines, Baecker explores fundamental mechanisms of action and the effects of new media and technologies. In his representations and spatializations of microscopic processes he seeks to completely disrupt our perception. At the core of his objects lies the entanglement of the virtual with the actual, or rather, with the world. With a media-archaeological outlook, Ralf Baecker digs within obsolete devices for traces and functions that are still detectable in technologies today. His work seeks to form a hybrid between current digital aesthetics and an historical understanding of materials. As a result, he understands technology not as a tool but rather as an epistemological instrument, in order to pose elemental questions about a world perceived through technological impressions.
Baecker has been awarded multiple prizes and grants for his artistic work, including an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica in 2012 and 2014, and second prize at the VIDA 14.0 Art & Artificial Life Award in Madrid for “Irrational Computing,” a sound and light installation that relates to the disappearance, or rather invisibility, of materiality in contemporary information technology. The artist developed the project during a three-month-long residency at DOCK e.V. in Berlin with support from the Schering Stiftung.
His work has been presented in international festivals and exhibitions, such as the International Triennial of New Media Art 2014 in Beijing, Künstlerhaus Wien, ZKM | Center for Art and New Media in Karlsruhe, Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, WINZAVOD Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow, Laboral Centro de Arte in Gijon, and Malmö Konsthall.
Born in 1977 in Düsseldorf, Ralf Baecker studied Computer Science and Media Art at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.
Since 2016 he teaches at the University of the Arts Bremen as Professor for Experimental Design of New Technologies.
VITA
*1977 in Düsseldorf, Germany
2016 –
Professorship, University of the Arts Bremen, DE
2014-16
Fellow, Graduate School for the Arts, UDK Berlin DE
2014
Visiting Professor, ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Arnhem NL
2010-14
Lectureship, University of the Arts Bremen, DE
2007
Teaching Fellow, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, DE
2002 – 2007
Media Art at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne DE, Diploma
1999 – 2001
Computer Science at the University of Cologne, DE
lives and works in Berlin
AWARDS/SCHOLARSHIPS
2015
Honorary Mention, “Prix Ars Electronica 2015”, Linz AT
2014
Stipend of the Graduate School for the Arts, UDK Berlin DE
2013
Second Prize “VIDA 14.0 Art & Artificial Life Award”, Madrid ES
2012
Honorary Mention “Prix Ars Electronica 2012”, Linz AT
2011
Production Stipend DOCK e.V./Schering Stiftung, Berlin DE
Honorary mention “VIDA 13.0 Art & Artificial Life Award”, Madrid ES
2010
Stiftung Niedersachsen work stipend for Media Art 2010, Oldenburg DE
2009
Honorary mention “Share Prize 2009”, Turin IT
2008
Honorary mention “CYNETart 08”, Dresden DE
Honorary mention “digital sparks award 08”, Bonn DE
Work stipend “Stiftung Kunstfonds”, Bonn DE
2007
Award for Media Art of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Düsseldorf DE
TALKS/LECTURES
2015
From Transparency to Obscurity, ACT Center, Gwuangju KR
Zeichen – Körper – Instrument / Über das Entstehen technologischer Artefakte, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin DE
Fiber Festical 2015, Amsterdam NL
Lines, Robes and Computational Spaces (Lecture), Variable World: A Symposium on Simulation, AVANT/LEAP Berlin DE
Presentation and Lectue, Media Archeology as Artistic Practice, CTM/Transmediale Berlin DE
2014
Cybernetic Bubblegum (Lecture + Workshop), Kunsthochschule Kassel DE
2012
Rauchwolken und Luftschlösser: Temporäre Räume, Bremen DE
Machine Poetics (Lecture), Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg, Delmenhorst DE
2011
Life: Scinece Versions, Center for Contemporary Art WINZAVOD Moscow RU
2009
Share Festival, Turin IT
2008
Kunstverein Bochum DE
2006
- SuMa-eV Forum, Berlin DE
The Graduates, Upgrade Amsterdam NL
TEACHING
2014/15
Visiting lecturer – Block Course “Expanded Perception”, ArtEZ Arnhem NL
2014/15
Visiting lecturer – Block Course “Inside the Blackbox”, HFK Bremen DE
2014
Visiting lecturer – Workshop “Memory Machines”, ArtEZ Arnhem NL
2014/15
Workshop “Cybernetic Bubblegum”, Kunsthochschule Kassel DE
2013/14
Visiting lecturer / Block Course “The Poetics of Space”, HFK Bremen DE
2011
Visiting lecturer / Course “Feedback Machines”, HFK Bremen DE
2010/11
Visiting lecturer / Course “Expanded Perception”, HFK Bremen DE
2007/08
Artistic associate (künsterischer Mitarbeiter), Bauhaus University Weimar DE
