Bertram Niessen

Memefest: Oliver Vodeb. Critical And Radical Comunication

Bertram Niessen
In a world where communication is more and more rapid and pervasive, we constantly show a deficit of interpretative tools that allow us to really understand this complexity and to interact with it. Many of the institutions traditionally delegated to the production of such tools have gradually shown their inadequacy, crystallizing in purely aesthetic logics and marrying an idea of creativity as a gesture included in itself, which is born and consequently develops independently of the rest in a sort of perfect and pure emptiness.... READ MORE...
ActivismArticlesDigimag - Issue 60, December 2010 / January 2011

Mark Grimes. Maker Faire Africa: The Net Doing

Bertram Niessen
The last years are witnessing the rise of a new phenomenon generally defined as Makers movement. Its pillar is the network grown around Make Magazine and Maker Faire. Make Magazine is a publication born in 2006 that connects a wide range of DIY projects related with technology. Makers Faire is a meeting held around the USA aiming at the connection of backyard inventors, artists and high-tech crafters. Behind this boom is O'Reilley Media, the publisher worldwide known for its software manuals and for the support to many initiatives related to technological innovation, social entrepreneurship and high-tech startups.... READ MORE...
ArticlesDigimag - Issue 58, October 2010

Open Peer-to-peer Design.massimo Menichinelli, Partecipated Future

Bertram Niessen
Along with this interview with Massimo Menichinelli, my second collaboration phase with Digicult begins. After being interviewing the leading live media artists during the past years , I believe I fairly cleared my mind up on what is going on in that field , and I hope to have also supplied at least narrowly i nteresting readings, to those who bothered reading me.... READ MORE...
ArtArticlesDigimag - Issue 54, May 2010

Andrea Marutti: Italian Experimental Underground

Bertram Niessen
Digimag readers are probably bored by my long prologues on the reasons why I chose to interview someone. I'm unfortunately convinced, and I'm getting more and more into those convictions, that explaining the reasons behind articles is definitely one of the most important part of the article itself. Well, Some weeks ago I was at Torkiera in Milan (for those who missed it, Torkiera is one of the few spaces of the metropolis that is seriously promoting musical experimentation, among all its proposals). I was resonating with Marco Mancuso about potential interviews. Suddenly, I saw the table of Afe Records and I asked myself: Is it possible that we haven't interviewed Andrea Marutti yet, one of the most interesting key character of the experimental underground of the last ten years?. Yep, it is possible. So here I apology and remediate.... READ MORE...
ArticlesDigimag - Issue 30, December 2007 / January 2008

Atom: Floating Audiovisual Design

Bertram Niessen
Sometimes things happen, a bit by chance. It is true, though, that in some cities by chance things happen easier than somewhere else. So it may happen to go for a walk to the Tesla Culture Centre in Berlin on a Friday rainy evening, maybe feeling a bit bored, just to take a look around at the installations, not all of them interesting, and then to come across the rehearsal of one of the best performances/audiovisual installations one have seen long since.... READ MORE...
ArticlesDesignDigimag - Issue 28, October 2007

Quayola: Visual Delicatessen

Bertram Niessen
Davide Quagliola is among that group of sensible Italians who left their native shores to move to less sunny yet more hospitable places. Having moved from Rome to London, his work had been long associated with that of HFR Lab (a visual experimentation duo together with Chiara Horn), a project of sound and video, graphic and music on the border between installations and live performances which, also thanks to the good choice of moving to London, succeeded in creating a considerable professional connection net which probably would have been impossible to have living in Italy.... READ MORE...
ArticlesDesignDigimag - Issue 23, April 2007