The Animax- Forum for interactive Arts and cultural-pedagogic Projects
The Animax is a forum for performative media arts and intermedia artsworks. It has been a constant institution since 1999. As of 1985, temporary residences of the forum were in different studios and cultural institutions in the region of Northrine-Westfalia.
Responsible body of the Animax is the BEC- Bonner Entwicklungswerkstatt für Computermedien e.V.- a non-profit association. Due to its innovative orientation, the institute was accredited as a “Worldwide Project” of the Expo 2000. According to its concept, the institute fulfills various functions.
Consolidated Diversity
• Events
The forum is a site of new productions and objects of klangkunst and media-arts contents. Under the umbrella term “Audiodome” its technical and acoustic possibilities offer special production conditions for composers and sound artists. Sound architectures, music performances and sound installations are realised here. Furthermore, works and productions of the “Interactive Arts” area, installations and dance performances as well as music theater and dance theater productions are produced and presented here.
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• Media Pedagogics
Additionally, the Animax has been concentrating on new forms of education for many years and works closely with regional schools. The focus is on workshops in schools comprising traditional and new media based art forms. Regarding the media stage work the focus is on creating interactive architecture and educational environments for children.
This is a matter of aesthetic media competence, the manual of the competent and creative use of medias that are performed in schools in courses and workshops. Numerous works- also developed in the theater practise- artistically founded approaches of the active creation were presented with and by medias. To children of the first grades of school, projects of the creative-artistic content contribute a broader approach, experience and knowledge of computers.
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• Artistic Works
Cooperating with many art practioners and institutions, the forum continuously develops its own artistic productions.
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• Design and Research
The premises of the Animax also function as a workshop for continuous probation and development of software for the project's purposes as for example the artistic usage of motion capture systems for movements and gestures in choreography.
Being aimed at the technical-scientific expansion of music, dance and performance technologies , the forum has networked with corresponding research facilities and artistic institutions in Germany and Europe.
The following institutes are cooperation partners:
- the IML-InfoMus Lab of the University of Genua
- the IRCAM in Paris
- the Academy of Media Arts (KMH) in the Institute of Musicology of the
University of Cologne
- the dance department Hochschule fuer Musik Koeln
- Medienwerk NRW
Common Purpose- Team Work
To create a permanent working platform out of tools and methods arising in the past and the presence, the artists and developers cooperate in a supportive structure, for which the forum has formed the term “Authors' Workshop”.
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Technology Equipment
With its tonal range, the “Audiodome”, as well as substantial production facilities and motion-capture-systems, the Animax has access to diverse medial possibilities. The system software as well as the used production environments are proprietary to an extensive part. Especially the “Audiodome”, a domed, over-arched assembly of 40 separately controllable loudspeakers to the performance area belongs to a production area. It provides hearing experiences beyond the usual. The ZKM- Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe- currently is the only other institute in Germany which uses a similar sound system.
