A new consumer electronic device was built during the one week Interface Art workshop given by Johannes p. Osterhoff. Duragram is its name.

Aram Bartholl worked with the Merz Akademie students this semester. Beside several speed projects and the Speedshow, he infected the students with one of the greatest illnesses of our time — the deaddrop feather. As a result, there is a Deaddrop in Stuttgart now! Hidden at a perfect place, namely at 48.77420 N 9.17993 E

In SoSe11 Johannes p Osterhoff offered to the students of the 2nd semester to visit Uncanny Valley of User Interface design

The best way to exhibit net art is to do it in an Internet Cafe (CallShop, CyberCafe). This is what we did on the 8th of June 2011 at Ch@troom, very friendly and open space next to the Stuttgart Stategallery (Staatsgalerie).

In Mai 2011 Hans Peter Wyss Swiss artist was giving a processing workshop at the Merz Akademie.

In Mai 2011 German artist Sebastian Denz ( www.denz.cc/ ) was giving a workshop at Merz Akademie. Students explored the field of stereo photography and learned how to compose high quality stereoscopic pictures. For the presentation they combined the static pictures with our immersive virtual reality system.

When Google released Street View in Germany the world was shocked. Because it looked like Germans wash outside. Wherever you look there would be a huge shower cabin in the street. Well, the reality is not so exciting. The milk glass constructions are just houses, blurred by Google on request of the house owners who think that exposing their facades on the Internet can harm their privacy.

New media students are physically fit. They do tennis, surfing, skating and a lot of jump and run. In December 2010 our program was enriched with a new sport: Firewallball — it is like Volleyball, but for the information age.

In June 2010 Spanish designer and CSS artist Roman Cortes (3d Meninas, Coke Can, Tribute to the Beatles, etc) was giving a workshop at Merz Akademie.

Shadows of the User Strike Back:D is a photo series by Brandi Bryant developed during the Drop Shadow workshop.

Last week of April 2010 Manuel Buerger demanded that students “Try to bring the software to its knees!” because “Only if you know your tool you are ready for the next step.” It worked. The Beauty and Lacks of Limitation project is documented now:

Media artist Yunchul Kim held a workshop about physical computing. Students made experiments based on the Arduino and Max/Msp software. Some results of the workshop are documented here.

This semesters’ physical computing workshop was held by Yunchul Kim. The students produced an sound installation called “Unisphere” that can generate sound and light events, out of the weight changes of objects placed on the Unisphere platform. The whole project was technically realized with Arduino and Max/Msp.

This semesters’ creating virtual worlds workshop “Raumgenerator” was held by Tracy Krüger and Gabriele Bingula. The architects working in the field of digital content creation and virtual reality adressed two main topics: space as programmable mode and filters as structural elements of space. Some results of “Raumgenerator” can be found here: http://www.newmediaproject.de/facade/

Usually Aram Bartholl shows to his students how to make real objects out of digital artifacts. During his workshop at Merz Akademie he addressed this topic on meta level. Under the motto “How to DIY” workshop participants were following online tutorials, very famous and completely obscure ones, and are now offering their own Howtos to the global community:

SCOOTER IN A BOX is an interactive box with a magnet stick. SCOOTER IN A BOX makes the music tangible.

On the 5th of May 2009 at 19:30 Happy Front End lecture series (Ringvorlesung), organised by New Media/Interface Design pathway will start. This time it will be about successful practices in the field of interface design, web design, game design, media art and computer history research. Note the dates and read the abstract in German below.

Among the devices built in the Circuit Bending and Arduino workshop given by Gijs Gieskes in May 2008 were some really curious ones. For example the modest chip with tiny LEDs on the picture below allows you to write in the air.

After two and a half days in Johannes p Osterhoff’s seminar “The Final Frontier“, second semester students came up with the most radical presentation ever seen in the walls of Merz Akademie. Six minutes video of outer space wallpapers and screensavers: starring mondaufgang.jpg, cosmos07.jpg, cosmos04.jpg and many others, known from different times and systems.

During this semester’s pathway week, Julien Ducourthial (also known as otro), one of the main designers and VJs currently active in the home computer underground, came to do a workshop with NM students.

The Virtual Reality Workshop during the pathway week 2008 at the Merz Akademie was lectured by Roland Blach, Matthias Bues and Jörg Frohnmayer from the CCVE at Fraunhofer IAO. After a swift introduction students have build realtime applications within the field of game design and interaction design.

In December 2007 Swiss artists Monica Studer and Christoph van den Berg hosted the workshop Digital Garden for Merz Akademie students. Authors of Vue des Alpes, the most elegant virtual experience ever, taught students to model, film and assemble real and imaginary environments. Together these mixed media panoramas formed a smooth, seamless virtual world.

Please note that the computer fanzine Junk Jet is available now. New Media guest teachers Asli Serbest and Mona Mahall created a great laser printer publication that questions the mainstream usage of digital media to produce a standardized aesthetic.

Jana Frank, known online as Miu Mau, is an illustrator, graphic designer and author of the book Diary of a Maniac Designer. Last week she taught NM students different illustration techniques, like drawing and collaging.

Warius Watz, the prominent Norwegian artist working with generative systems, spent last week in Stuttgart, teaching New Media students the principles of generative systems. He was showing how they can be used both as pragmatic tools and a conceptual frameworks for creative work. For 5 days students were programming in Processing and managed to achieve results that made themselves and their teacher happy. He even promised to come back!

Former NM student Johannes Osterhoff comes back every semester to make students think about history and ideology of Graphic User Interface. Last semester his group came up with an outstanding realistic interface.