STATION ROSE 20 Digital Years plus by Station Rose

Bruce Sterling, 2010

Station Rose – 20 Digital Years Plus Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg

“Station Rose had every right to claim ‘cyberspace is our land.’ They were there very early, they raised their antennas and put down deep roots, and they never left.”

20 DIGITAL YEARS PLUS 1988–2010→

Station Rose 20 Digital Years Plus

www.stationrose.com

20 digital years plus 1988–2010 →

Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg

Bridgehead Art in Cyberspace Preface – Peter Noever → 8 LoginCabin—Station Rose, Mak, Vienna 2008 Vitus H. Weh → 10 A disconcerting treatise on the essence of net culture Dr. Hans Diebner → 16 Station Rose—The Audio-Visual Live Band. Station Rose interviewed by Didi Neidhart, 2010 → 21 Station Rose— 20 Digital Years → A) Vienna Start Up Sequence, 1988 → 28 B) Cairo, 1988–1989 → 44 C) Back In The Western World, 1989–1990 → 54 D) Frankfurt & Cyberspace, 1991–1992 → 67 Gunafa 2000 — Installation Of An Electronic Fireplace, NGBK, Berlin Gabriele Horn → 73 E) Drag & Drop, Copy & Paste, 1993–1994 → 78 F) Digital Cocooning, 1995–1996 → 84 G) Gunafa — POP, MIDI and Virtual Community, 1996–1998 → 90 H) Here we are—Webcasting, 1999 → 96 the manifestion of webcasting in realtime Elisa Rose → 100 I) It’s private://public, 2000 → 104 J) Just a Click Away, 2001 → 110 K) Kommando TV and Professorship, 2002 → 114 L) Live Performance Is Still The Basis, 2003 → 124 M) More Electronic Habitats, more TV and more Teaching, 2004 → 130 N) Next Level, 2005 → 138 O) On Demand, 2006 → 144 P) Pausing for a moment, 2007 → 148 Q) Quantum Moment — 20 Digital Years, 2008 → 154 R) Recycling Surplus To Save Nature, 2009–2010 → 162 dvd and CD tracklist → 182 documentation of creative work 1988– 2010 → 185 List of Works → 189 Biographies → 191 Lesefibel →

Microscopic, Sit-In/Out, videostills, 2010

Bridgehead Art in Cyberspace

Ankerplatz Kunst im Cyberspace

Preface —Peter Noever

Vorwort – Peter Noever

Media art is both an art form and a way of life for Station Rose. Twenty digital years have by now assured them a permanent place in the cyberspace hall of fame — and not only there. As media art pioneers from the very outset, Elisa Rose and Gary Danner continue to sound out the possibilities of technologies that produce new realities and to conquer virtual space as the platform for artistic activities. Twenty years working together simultaneously reflect twenty years of media and art history which Station Rose helped write. As early as 1988, at a location in Vienna, a forum arose which for the first time in Austria pursued multimedia art in one place — stationary, so to speak. As a public media laboratory and a location for art and performance, Station Rose anticipated the newly established art scene in the Freihausviertel neighborhood. In 1991, at the same time as their move to Frankfurt, Station Rose was at the cutting edge of the “digital frontier”, adopting the slogan “Cyberspace is Our Land” to enjoin others to settle this new continent with them. A continent which indeed mostly lay uncharted at the start of the 1990s; one could hardly have envisioned the commercialization that was to follow, the transformation of cyberspace into the roaring locus of mass culture it is today; for some time now, its high-gloss multimedia world has tended towards various sensational, superficial thrills. By contrast the guerilla-style creative power of STR breaks with globalized macrologic, exemplifying in real time how small, wellnetworked cells release a multiple, productive added value when authentic art and new media overlap. In the process, the media artists have not only utilized existing structures, but themselves often created the structures that they operate in and with. In such emancipatory acts, they show us the escape route from the hall of mirrors of our spectacle-oriented society which, regardless of all the interactivity,

all too often gets mired in obsessive repetition of well-worn sound, picture and video routines. Frenetic multimedia activity cannot distract from the fact that it often causes original creativity to fall by the wayside. With their uncompromising dedication to this new medium in its ideal form, Station Rose remained and remains resistant to it to the present day, like the Gallic village from Asterix and Obelix; by expanding their artistic involvement to the virtual space, they have outpaced not only traditional structures but also designed their own vision of cyberspace. With their countless projects in an n-dimensional space, this dream team of media art demonstrates above all one affinity — to the infinite process, to the search, the discovery, the magic of the moment; in short, to artistic passion. With this kind of commitment, media art à la Station Rose carves out new territory. In 2008, Station Rose materialized again with its LogInCabin on the MAK-Terrace Plateau, with which real space and virtual space acquired substance in a hybrid presence.1 The LogInCabin electrified the MAK and was also visible far beyond the MAK, electrifying the public arena with media art. For twenty years, the charisma of Station Rose has remained undiminished, and by extending the horizon, it intensifies communication beyond artistic and spatial borders. Elisa Rose and Gary Danner visualize revolutionary energies, time and again discovering new bridgeheads for visions, and new spaces that enable us to peer into elusive intermediary zones.

Station Rose — LogInCabin, media sculpture, MAK-Terrace Plateau (5 Nov. 2008–25 Jan. 2009). As early as 1993, STR materialized at the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, with its three-day hyper-medial performance cycle Fab 505 Networked Cells.

Medienkunst ist bei Station Rose eine Kunst- und Daseinsform. Mit 20 digitalen Jahren sind sie mittlerweile ein Fixstern am Himmel des Cyberspace – und nicht nur dort. Als Medienkunst-Pioniere der ersten Stunde loten Elisa Rose und Gary Danner immer wieder die Möglichkeiten von neuen Realitäten erzeugenden Technologien aus und erobern den virtuellen Raum als Plattform für künstlerische Aktivitäten. Zwanzig Jahre gemeinsame künstlerische Arbeit reflektieren zugleich zwanzig Jahre Medien- und Kunstgeschichte, die von Station Rose mitgeschrieben wurde. Bereits 1988, in einem Wiener Geschäftslokal, materialisierte sich zum ersten Mal in Österreich ein Forum, in dem multimediale Kunst stationär behandelt wurde. Als öffentliches Medienlabor, Kunstund Performanceort nahm Station Rose die sich neu etablierende Kunst-Szene im Freihaus-Viertel vorweg. 1991, zeitgleich mit ihrer Übersiedelung nach Frankfurt, war Station Rose an der Vorhut der „digital frontier“ und rief mit „Cyberspace is Our Land“ dazu auf, diesen neuen Kontinent zu besiedeln. Ein Kontinent, der Anfang der 1990er Jahre tatsächlich noch weitgehend offen stand; kaum zu erahnen waren die späteren Kommerzialisierungen und seine Verwandlung in einen dröhnenden Ort der Massenkultur; seit geraumer Zeit tendiert seine multimediale Hochglanzwelt zum Spektakel irgendwelcher äußerlichen Sensationskicks. Die guerillataktische Schaffenslogik von STR bricht dagegen mit globalisierten Makrologiken und exemplifiziert in Echtzeit, dass kleine, gut vernetzte Zellen einen multiplen produktiven Mehrwert entfesseln, wenn sich authentische Kunst und neue Medien berühren. Dabei haben die Medienkünstler nicht nur vorgefundene Strukturen genutzt, sondern oftmals selbst erst die Strukturen geschaffen, in und mit denen sie operieren. Solcherart emanzipative Akte setzend, weisen sie den Fluchtweg aus dem Spiegelkabinett

der Spektakel-Gesellschaft, das bei allen Interaktivitäten allzu oft in obsessiver Wiederholung eingefahrener Sound-, Bild- und Video-Routinen stecken bleibt. Eine wild gewordene Multimedialität kann nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, dass das originäre Schaffen dabei oftmals auf der Strecke bleibt. Sich diesem neuen Medium kompromisslos in seiner idealen Form verschreibend, blieben und bleiben Station Rose bis heute als „gallisches Dorf“ dagegen resistent; indem sie ihr künstlerisches Engagement auf den virtuellen Raum ausweiteten, überholten sie nicht nur überkommene Strukturen, sondern entwarfen ihre eigene Vision des Cyberspace. Mit ihren zahllosen Projekten in einem n-dimensionalen Raum demonstrieren sie als Dreamteam der Medienkunst vor allem die eine Zugehörigkeit – die zum infiniten Prozess, zur Suche, zur Entdeckung, zur Magie des Moments; kurz: zur künstlerischen Leidenschaft. Medienkunst à la Station Rose erkämpft mit diesem Engagement neues Terrain. 2008 rematerialisierten sich Station Rose mit der LogInCabin auf dem MAK-Terrassenplateau, mit der sich realer Raum und virtueller Raum in einer hybriden Präsenz konkretisierte.1 Die LogInCabin elektrisierte das MAK und über das MAK hinaus weithin sichtbar den öffentlichen Raum mit Medienkunst. Die Strahlkraft von Station Rose ist seit zwanzig Jahren ungebrochen und steigert Horizont erweiternd die Kommunikation über künstlerische und räumliche Grenzen hinweg. Elisa Rose und Gary Danner visualisieren revolutionäre Energien und entdecken so immer wieder neue Ankerplätze für Visionen und neue Räume zur Sichtbarmachung schwer auslotbarer Zwischenbereiche. 1

Station Rose – LogInCabin, Medienskulptur, MAK-Terrassenplateau (5. 11. 2008–25. 01. 2009). Bereits 1993 materialisierte sich STR im MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, mit dem dreitägigen hypermedialen Performance-Zyklus Fab 505 Vernetzte Zelle im MAK.

LoginCabin Station Rose, Mak, Vienna 2008 Vitus H. Weh

The MAK-Terrace Plateau in Vienna is an unusual piece of architecture: On the one hand it has created, almost like a barrier, new areas such as an intimate museum outdoor dining area and a canopied campground by the channel, on the other hand it is usually not accessible. It was classified by the building department as too dangerous without constant supervision. Thus the terrace plateau, which was created by Peter Noever in 1991, consistently undermines its apparent function of a seat row arena. Instead of serving a purpose, the function as an autonomous concrete sculpture is the dominant one. But sometimes everything is different. For example, when the duo “Station Rose” places an especially designed wooden hut called LogInCabin on the plateau. Then the autonomous sculpture once more serves a purpose, it becomes the base for a new work of art and the public can step upward. The concrete of the stairs and the wood of the cabin result in a delightful contrast. A pleasant wind blows above and there is an extensive view. The museum seems very far away, as does the city of Vienna. One feels relieved, almost extraterrestrial. The extraterrestrial also resonates within “Station Rose”—a name that sounds like space station, computer station and also makes German speakers think of an intensive care unit. And all these associations are correct. “Station Rose” have been working intensively in digital space as an artist duo for 20 years now. That is a long time—a time in which the fine arts have changed very much. Originally the Station was created by Gary Danner and Elisa Rose as a real space in Vienna at the corner of Margaretenstrasse and Schikanedergasse in 1988.

Das Terrassenplateau des Wiener MAK ist ein eigentümliches Bauwerk: Einerseits hat es als schiere Barriere neue Räume wie einen intimen MuseumsGastgarten und einen überdachten Lagerplatz am Kanal geschaffen, andererseits ist es selbst in der Regel nicht betretbar. Ohne ständige Aufsicht hat es die Baupolizei für zu gefährlich eingestuft. So kommt es, dass das 1991 von Peter Noever entworfene Terrassenplateau seine scheinbare Funktion einer Sitzreihen-Arena beständig konterkariert. Statt einer dienenden Funktion dominiert jene einer autonomen Betonskulptur. Doch manchmal ist auch alles anders. Zum Beispiel, wenn das Duo „Station Rose“ unter dem Titel LogInCabin eine speziell gestaltete Holzhütte auf das Plateau stellt. Dann wird die autonome Skulptur wieder dienend, sie wird zum Sockel für ein neues Kunstwerk und das Publikum kann nach oben steigen. Der Beton der Treppenanlage und das Holz der Blockhütte ergeben einen reizvollen Kontrast. Oben weht ein angenehmer Wind und man kann weit blicken. Das Museum ist dann ganz weit weg und auch die Stadt Wien. Man fühlt sich enthoben, nahezu extraterrestrisch. Das Extraterrestrische schwingt auch mit bei „Station Rose“. Das ist ein Name, der nach Raumstation, nach Computerstation und auch nach Intensivstation klingt. Und all diese Assoziationen stimmen. Die „Station Rose“ besteht als intensiv im digitalen Raum agierendes Künstlerduo seit 20 Jahren. Das ist eine lange Zeit, eine Zeit, in der sich auch in der bildenden Kunst viel gewandelt hat. Ursprünglich gegründet wurde die Station 1988 von Gary Danner und Elisa Rose als ein realer Raum in

Exhibitions from the field of media art were shown. Time and again there were also audiovisual live acts. From the beginning, Gary Danner has been responsible for the sound track and Elisa Rose for the visual part. Gary Danner came from punk music and was front man of bands like “The Vogue” and “Die Nervösen Vögel” [the nervous birds]. Elisa Rose had studied fashion with Karl Lagerfeld amongst other things. At that point they operated a kind of public research station. Such a specialized off-space was new for Vienna in 1988, broke new ground to be more precise. New ground is such a fitting description,because Gary Danner and Elisa Rose have been, and still are today, quite literally, pioneers settling new territories: new areas such as the audiovisual field, club culture, television and net art. The sculpture at the MAK, with its log cabin aesthetics, also picks up this aspect of settlers. But more of that later. First, I would like to beam you back to the former shop for media art in Vienna, situated in today’s famous Schleifmuehl quarter with its numerous art galleries and bars. The gallerystation and a club called Trabant, also initiated by Station Rose, were the beginnings of the arts biotope that is so lively today. Some set pieces and spatial memories of this germ cell can be found again in the interior of the LogInCabin: the ornament of the balustrade, the bunk in the upper hidden room and at the bottom of the art space the engineering room as a laboratory. This mixture is very typical of Station Rose: Today, as then, the Station is housing, presentation and working space rolled into one. There are no separate spheres. In the Station’s concentration, art and life are truly united. This concept of a socially expanded art also affects the relationship between the sexes. It sounds more banal than it is: In the exposed situation of a pioneer station men and women working together really have equal rights. Necessarily. This conjoins Station Rose with artist pairs such as Lois and Franziska Weinberger, Bjork and Matthew Barney or Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Working

Wien an der Ecke Margaretenstraße/Schikanedergasse. Gezeigt wurden Ausstellungen aus dem Bereich der Medienkunst. Immer wieder gab es auch audiovisuelle Liveacts. Gary Danner war dabei seit Anbeginn für die Tonspur verantwortlich, Elisa Rose für den visuellen Part. Gary Danner kam aus der Punkmusik und war Frontman von Bands wie „The Vogue“ und „Die Nervösen Vögel“. Elisa Rose hatte unter anderem bei Karl Lagerfeld Mode studiert. Und jetzt betrieben sie eine Art öffentliche Forschungsstation. Solch ein spezialisierter Off-Space war 1988 für Wien etwas völlig Neues – oder, noch präziser gesagt, Neuland. Neuland fasst die Sache deshalb so gut, weil Gary Danner und Elisa Rose damals wie heute ganz buchstäblich immer wieder Pioniere bei der Besiedelung neuer Territorien sind und waren, Pioniere in neuen Gebieten wie dem audiovisuellen Feld, der Clubkultur, der Fernseh- und der Netzkunst. Auf diesen Siedleraspekt rekurriert auch die MAK-Skulptur mit ihrer Blockhaus-Ästhetik. Doch davon später mehr. Erst möchte ich nochmals zurückbeamen in das einstige Gassenlokal für Medienkunst. Dorthin, wo heute das schicke Wiener Schleifmühlviertel mit seinen zahlreichen Kunstgalerien und Lokalen ist. Die Galerie-Station und das ebenfalls von Station Rose initiierte Künstlerlokal Trabant waren von diesem heute so lebendigen Kunstbiotop der Anfang. Einige Versatzstücke und Raumerinnerungen dieser Kern- und Keimzelle kann man im Inneren des Hauses noch entdecken: Das Ornament des Balustradengeländers, die Schlafkoje im oberen versteckten Raum und unten der Technikraum als Labor. Diese Mischung ist für Station Rose sehr typisch: Heute wie damals ist die Station Wohn-, Präsentations- und Arbeitsraum in einem. Es gibt keine getrennten Sphären. In der Konzentriertheit der Station sind Kunst und Leben tatsächlich eins. Dieser gesellschaftlich erweiterte Kunstbegriff greift selbstverständlich auch über in die Beziehung der Geschlechter. Wobei das banaler klingt, als es ist: In der Ausgesetztheit einer

together in an exposed situation even seems to be profitable for relationships. On this occasion I would also like to unveil a mystery, which is what inspired the name “Station”: It was Sergio Leone with his Italo-Western Once upon a Time in the West from the year 1968. Sometime near the end, the heroine of this movie, charmingly and very self-confidently played by Claudia Cardinale, has “station” brushed on a wooden house. Just the word “station”. Amid the solitude a future railway station is thus marked as a node, as a hub, as the nucleus of a city. The music of Ennio Morricone did the rest, to let the term “station” sparkle like magic. Speaking of the past: The Station in Margaretenstrasse had not yet been open a year, when Station Rose went on trips, namely to Cairo. The following year in Egypt was a very formative time. The alienation as well as their new oriental point of view were the appropriate environment — like the Stargate — for their dedicated step into cyberspace and electronic music. Shortly afterwards they moved from Vienna to Frankfurt am Main, Europe’s biggest hub, the City of data and traffic flows: bank headquarters, the hub of airlines, railroads and highways and not least of data lines. In the early 1990s this was also the mecca of the electronic club scene. Station Rose got a fixed engagement in the most important club from 1992 to 1994 and held their Gunafa Clubbings every other week. Simultaneously they began their years of expeditions into the virtual worlds of cyberspace. They even wrote a research study about it for the Austrian Ministry of Science. After all, they were natives of this new world, so to speak. However, the global data network initially was focused very much on pure text. It was the time and the world of draftsmen of concepts, pamphlets and polemics. Indeed, as “visual artists & musicians”, Station Rose were the exception. They had to develop their own formats for their audiovisual approach The appropriate media had to be mastered first of all.

Pionierstation arbeiten Mann und Frau tatsächlich gleichberechtigt zusammen. Notwendigerweise. Das verbindet die Station Rose mit Künstlerpaaren wie Lois und Franziska Weinberger, Björk und Matthew Barney oder Christo und Jeanne-Claude. Gemeinsam in exponierter Lage zu arbeiten, scheint für das Gelingen von Paarbeziehungen vielleicht sogar vorteilhaft zu sein. Bei dieser passenden Gelegenheit möchte ich auch das Geheimnis lüften, auf welche Inspiration der Name „Station“ zurückgeht: Es war Sergio Leone mit seinem Italo-Western Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod aus dem Jahre 1968. Ziemlich gegen Schluss lässt die Heldin dieses Filmes, bezaubernd und sehr selbstbewusst gespielt von Claudia Cardinale, dort auf ein Holzhaus „Station“ pinseln. Einfach nur „Station“. Inmitten der Einöde ist damit eine künftige Eisenbahnstation markiert, ein Netzknoten, der Nukleus einer Stadt. Die Musik von Ennio Morricone tat noch ihr übriges, den Begriff „Station“ magisch funkeln zu lassen. Und wo wir schon bei der Historie sind: Der Raum in der Margaretenstraße bestand noch kein Jahr, da ging die Station Rose bereits auf Reisen und zwar nach Kairo. Das kommende Jahr in Ägypten wurde eine sehr prägende Zeit. Die Befremdung und der neue orientalische Blick waren die geeignete Umgebung – gleichsam das Stargate – für ihren dezidierten Schritt in den Cyberspace und die elektronische Musik. Kurze Zeit später kam dann der Umzug von Wien nach Frankfurt am Main, Europas größten Hub. Die Stadt der Daten- und Verkehrsströme: Bankenzentrale, Drehscheibe der Fluglinien, Netzknoten der Eisen- und Autobahnen und nicht zuletzt der Datenleitungen. Anfang der 1990er Jahre war dort auch das Mekka der elektronischen Clubszene. Die Station Rose bekam im wichtigsten Club ein fixes Engagement und veranstaltete von 1992–1994 alle zwei Wochen ihr Gunafa Clubbing. Gleichzeitig begannen ihre jahrelangen Expeditionen in die virtuellen Welten des Cyberspace.

LogInCabin, Station Rose, MAK, Vienna 2008 — Vitus H. Weh

Soon, webcasting proved an appropriate format on the web and television an appropriate medium. For four years, from 2002 to 2006, Hessian Television (hr-fernsehen), part of the German public television ARD, showed Station Rose’s program for one hour each week. Data streaming and radio waves became the preferred media over the years. Meanwhile much of it flowed into a large database project, which was likewise fed into the station sculpture on the terrace plateau of the MAK, and could be accessed locally. This aspect of usability also explains the title of the sculpture: In America such simple settlers’ blockhouses are called “log cabins”. Station Rose derived the title LogInCabin from it. In the world of computers, “Login” means registering for a certain task. Outside in the material urban wilderness it means the actual entering of the house with its very special atmosphere, its “smoking room” and its “sleeping room”. What is it about this kind of intimacy? Please allow me to digress a bit here: The MAK, Vienna, as is common knowledge, is famed internationally, especially for the rooms of its collection that were designed by artists. During the reorganization in 1993 it was a considerable act to break with the old depot system. But more importantly, it was immediately convincing. It was immediately clear that independent, idiosyncratic rooms are necessary as living spaces for art. In my work as artistic director in quartier21 in the MuseumsQuartier, I have had a very similar experience: Even cultural productions in areas such as fashion, sound art or street art need specific, autonomous areas in order to be properly perceived. Their rooms must be real and durable. Only in the actual positioning of a discourse can individual works unfold their power. This need obviously also applies to the field of digital art, which is what quartier21 mainly focuses on: In order to be socially perceived, the activities in virtual worlds need a connection to our conventional

Für das österreichische Wissenschaftsministerium verfasste man darüber sogar eine Studie. Schließlich gehörte man gleichsam zu den Ureinwohnern dieser neuen Welt. Allerdings erwies sich das weltweite Datennetz zunächst noch sehr auf reinen Text konzentriert. Es war die Zeit und Welt der Verfasser von Konzepten, Pamphleten und Polemiken. „Bildende Künstler“ wie die Station Rose waren die Ausnahmen. Für ihren audiovisuellen Zugang mussten sie erst passende eigene Formate entwickeln, die geeigneten Medien mussten erst erobert werden. Als geeignetes Format im Netz erwies sich bald das Webcasting, als geeignetes Medium das Fernsehen. Von 2002 bis 2006, also vier Jahre lang, übertrug der Hessische Rundfunk jede Woche eine Stunde Station-Rose-Programm in die öffentlichen Haushalte. Datenstreaming und Funkwellen waren über Jahre das bevorzugte bildnerische Material. Vieles davon ist mittlerweile in ein großes Datenbankprojekt geflossen, das ebenfalls in die StationSkulptur auf dem Terrassenplateau des MAK eingespeist wurde und vor Ort abgerufen werden konnte. Dieser Benutzeraspekt erklärt auch den Titel der Skulptur: Im Amerikanischen werden solche einfachen Siedler-Blockhäuser „Log-Cabins“ genannt. Die Station Rose hat daraus den Titel LogInCabin gemacht. In der Welt der Computer bedeutet „Login“ das sich Anmelden zu einer bestimmten Benutzung. Draußen in der realen städtischen Wildnis bedeutet es das reale Betreten des Hauses mit seiner ganz speziellen Stimmung, seinem „Raucherzimmer“ und seiner „Schlafkoje“. Was hat es mit dieser Intimität auf sich? Hier sei ein kurzer Exkurs erlaubt: Das Wiener MAK ist, wie allgemein bekannt, international vor allem für seine von Künstlern gestalteten Räume der Schausammlung berühmt. Bei der Neuaufstellung 1993 war es eine erhebliche Zäsur, mit dem alten Depotsystem zu brechen. Aber, was noch mehr ist, es war auch sofort überzeugend. Es war sofort

world. At the MuseumsQuartier this is implemented by means of a real district for digital culture. It is time for such a real link back for the digital arts. Especially now that net art has lost its utopian head start and the initial euphoria has lost ground to a necessary sobriety. Therefore this is the time to focus discussion on artistic, visual quality once more. In any case, this house sculpture by Station Rose is located clearly in the context of fine art. The outer shape of the wooden house makes you think of film scenes or even of the performance settings by Paul McCarthy. Like a lighthouse it has been positioned on the terrace plateau. Solid and heavy, it can even defy the winter storms.

klar, dass eigenständige, eigenwillige Räume als Lebenswelt notwendig sind für Kunst. In meiner Tätigkeit als künstlerischer Leiter im quartier21 im MuseumsQuartier habe ich eine ganz ähnliche Erfahrung machen können: Selbst die kulturelle Produktion in Bereichen wie Mode, Klangkunst oder Street Art braucht spezifische, autonome Räume, um richtig wahrgenommen zu werden. Ihre Räume müssen real und dauerhaft sein. Erst in der tatsächlichen Verortung eines Diskurses können einzelne Werke ihre Kraft entfalten. Diese Notwendigkeit gilt selbstverständlich auch für den Bereich der digitalen Kunst – der wichtigste inhaltliche Schwerpunkt des quartier21: Um die Aufmerksamkeit der Gesellschaft zu wecken, brauchen auch die Aktivitäten in virtuellen Welten eine Rückbindung an unsere konventionelle Welt. Im MuseumsQuartier wird dies mit einem realen „Quartier für digitale Kultur“ betrieben. Jetzt braucht es solch eine reale Rückbindung aber auch für die digitale Kunst. Besonders nachdem die Netzkunst ihren utopischen Vorsprung einigermaßen verloren hat und die erste Euphorie einer notwendigen Nüchternheit gewichen ist, wird nun wieder mehr von künstlerischer, bildnerischer Qualität zu reden sein. Bereits ganz eindeutig im Kontext der bildenden Kunst ist jedenfalls die Haus-Skulptur der Station Rose beheimatet. Die äußere Gestalt des Holzhauses lässt an Filmkulissen denken oder auch an die Performance-Settings von Paul McCarthy. Wie ein Leuchtturm wurde sie auf dem Terrassenplateau positioniert. Fest und schwer kann sie selbst den Winterstürmen trotzen.

LogInCabin, Station Rose, MAK, Vienna 2008—Vitus H. Weh

A disconcerting treatise on the essence of net culture Dr. Hans Diebner

What prompts a physicist to be concerned with the origin and essence of media culture and net culture? Putting this biographic question right at the start of this condensed matter in hand but ultimately very long story points straight to its dominant selfreferentiality. Art, more or less, has always been self-referential. In essence, the same is true for net culture and likewise for systems theory and cybernetics, which is why the discourse on net culture is of particular interest for a physicist who deals with systems theory. Starting point of my critique is the obvious fact that cybernetic thinking more and more dominates society including cultural activities. As a consequence of this cybernetization of society and particularly the arts, it starts to become a serious general social problem. This occurrence is, for better or for worse, accompanied by the convergence of art and life or, more general, an ontological indifference of “art and x” (x as placeholder for science, economics, life, technology, and so forth). I am inclined to diagnose a social dysfunction with paranoid and conspiratorial characteristics as a result. The basically well-intentioned holistic systemic thinking, namely that everything interacts with everything, is recently brought to excess. I see net art as an indicator for this undesirable development because net art is the most extreme version of pulling the previously non-propositional arts into the hegemony of propositional logic and the radicalization of Hegel’s idealism called radical constructivism. Art historians feel compelled to no longer refer to art at all with respect to media art and net art. Media art, particularly net art, manifests itself as a media theoretical

subject. Artists turned into activists, hacktivists, and the like. This seems to be much more appealing for media theoreticians than art historians. Aesthetic considerations, is to be feared, falls by the wayside. In this context, Station Rose (STR) play a particularly interesting role as one of the rare counter-examples. As cyber-artists STR are strikingly different in that they are, doubtlessly, artists (as contrast to activists) who use digital media and the cyberspace as media vehicle. Moreover, their work can justifiably been called pioneering in that their cyber-artistic achievements go back to the 1980s. However, traditional art history lags behind with adequate methods to include new-media-based art in the art history’s canon. It is much more media theory that deals with media-based art. Unfortunately, media theory lags behind with aesthetic understanding. It can clearly been seen that works showing systemic characteristics are preferred at the expense of aesthetic qualities. For constructing an hypothesis I draw on patterns that I think can be recognized when the characteristics of “the usual suspects” of net art are analyzed. Many of the overvalued systemicbased net artists take Marshall McLuhan’s dictum “the medium is the message” overly literal. In the following I want to show that it goes even deeper. The artists, the spectators, and most likely a large fraction of society, are themselves turned into media. A reification takes place. The subject becomes an object within the constructed reality. A total deprivation of being. Astonishingly, this seems to be hip and compelling.

The following quotation of the contemporary web activist Hans Bernhard may be dismissed as artistic provocation or plainly and simply as psychotic: “Hans Bernhard’s neuronal networks are connected to the global network, and his mental illness — the bipolar affective disorder that in March 2002 sent him to a mental hospital — is the network’s illness. The video called Psych|OS (2005) sums up that experience, in which those two levels — digital and real, bio & tech, nervous system and operative system — merge. This nervous system, infected by the hi-tech, needs a treatment, and the hi-tech society prescribes its remedies, bio-chemical ‘agents’ which control the internal information flow. […] The Psych|OS Generator (2006) is the literal application of this kind of control: a piece of software that asks the user about the symptoms of her disease and provides her with a remedy, in the form of a ‘forged original’ medical prescription.” 1 It is my hypothesis that the true cause of such a “systemic disease” lies in a lapse of being (Seinsverfehlung), in other words, it is a “dialectic endless loop” as a result of an extreme (system theoretical) form of (Hegelian) idealism often called radical constructivism. The above quoted example is a rather arbitrary one and definitely not intended to denounce particular net activists. It is no secret that a large fraction of contemporary web art is based on fake. A constructed war against a constructed social reality leading to new suspicion. The “system” acts and is antagonized at the same time in a game of cat and mouse. At a first glance, the net activists seem to fight a kind of gang war. Net art sites have been hacked by other hacktivists and the hacking itself declared as art. And this is not even the highest level in media hacking. The absurdity seems to have no limit. Hans Bernhard’s “bipolar affective disorder” is instrumentalized as part of the next level in media hacking.

The observation that “conspiracy” has recently become a buzz word proves that it is more than just an irrelevant artistic side scene. The internet seems to be a preferred or a natural habitat for constructivists. It is my persuasion, to cut it short, that cyberspace is a phenomenon where the metaphor by and large becomes the essence. There has been a general tendency all along to show the blurring of essence and metaphor in scientific methodology and even more in technology, particularly in all technological media. Cyberspace seems to be most effective in this respect, though. Once the pretended “world on a wire” or “matrix” becomes conviction it enters a self-referential and obviously dominant phase. In the following I want to supply arguments and evidence. However, part of my considerations remain hypothetical and some conclusions are speculative. The fact that substantially working net-art pioneers like STR have been ignored is most likely not a simple coincidence but rather an outcome of the “Tom-and-Jerry-society”. The ignorance is also closely related to the “death of art history”, as has recently been augured.2 It is true that traditional art history doesn’t have proper methods to deal with media art. STR produced and produce transient phenomena between art history and media theory. But this is not the full story. Also Klangkunst (sound art), i. e. the blending of visuals and acoustics, is oftentimes deficiently discussed because of a lack of appropriate methods. And this holds for the work of STR, too, because they also deal with an alliance of all arts: acoustics, performance, and visuals. However, the crisis is deeper than the mere fact that art history lags miles behind with their methods. Art history is gradually replaced by media theory. And it is indeed not only art history that is about to be replaced, it is even art itself that becomes media theory as Hans Ulrich Reck concludes.3 Notwithstanding these massive crisis, it is my conviction that art history will not only survive but that it will also develop appropriate means to include media art into their discourse. I dare to anticipate the art historical recognition of STR anytime soon.

A disconcerting treatise on the essence of net culture — Dr. Hans Diebner

Coming back to the cybernetization of art. As a disciple of the eminent chaos researcher Otto E. Rössler, the eponym of the Rössler attractor, i. e. one of the icons of chaos research, I am actually supposed to be familiar with the renunciation from scientific objectivity. For Rössler is also the initiator of an observer dependent physics called endophysics.4 Endophysics has hitherto been largely apprehended as futile or even rubbish in the scientific community. Not so in the art community. At least since the 1992’s “endo and nano” ars electronica, where Rössler’s endophysics went public, interactive media art has been characterized as endo aesthetics, i. e., a kind of applied endophysics. It must be said, however, that the system theoretical and cybernetic way of thinking has been adopted in the art ’s world long before endophysics. Anyway, in spite of my background in systems theory and endophysics, my “thrownness” in 1999 as physicist into the “art world” at the center for art and media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe caused an irritation. The perhaps particularly faithful interpretation of systems theory in the art world caused me to distance myself from systems theory to a considerable extent. It has ever since been an emotionally charged question to me of whether art and science can and should be bridged. My answer is almost axiomatic: It shouldn’t! It is assumed that the reader is aware of a large fraction of contemporary artist’s affinity for system theoretical concepts. As a reminder, it may suffice here to refer to the ground breaking events like 9 evenings — Theatre & Engineering (sound performances by Billy Klüver’s “Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.)”), cybernetic serendipity (1968, an exhibition by Jasia Reichardt on what she calls “cybernetic art”), software (1969/70, an exhibition by Jack Burnham on what he calls “systems art”). The influence of cybernetics and systems theory onto art, however, exceeded the threshold of awareness much earlier during the 1950s, particularly in literature and music. The Beat Generation and their extensive contacts to cyberneticists and (system-)psychologists (like Timothy

Leary) eventually opened into cyberpunk and other cybernetic-influenced genres. Currently, there is a noticeable revival of the “Beat” (cut-up, mash-up, emergence of meaning in random permutations of found footage, and so forth). Novels that address social design and conspiracy boom. John Brockman coined the notion of “third culture” to summarize the converging cultures into a cultural phenomenon, which is, for better or for worse, an amplification of post moderism and, therefore, certainly deserves this new notion. I am inclined to characterize “third culture” as ideologization of a previously well intentioned “systems thinking”. Some notes on the history of systems theory are advisable, although I try to cut the long story short. An important key figure certainly was the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey. By the end of the 19th century he suggested to differentiate the epistemic process into “understanding” and “explanation”. He attributed the latter to (natural) sciences with its methods. Understanding, in contrast, he attributed to what he and the German academic community henceforth called “Geisteswissenschaft”, which is probably not fully apprehended by the English expression “humanities”. Understanding, in his conception, is achieved through an hermeneutic process. The hermeneutic circle is not a method in a strict sense. In a nutshell, the hermeneutic circle stands for the process of understanding the part through a prior understanding of the whole and a subsequent improvement of the understanding of the whole and so forth. The physical involvement of the human being thereby plays a prominent role. It is remarkable that, in this context, Dilthey frequently used the notion of “system” to refer to the holistic character of hermeneutics. Furthermore, he assumed primacy of “Geisteswissenschaft” for each scientific endeavours are intellectual endeavors. Early systems theoretical writings adopted Dilthey’s conception to a large extent. A “system” is not an “existential” but rather a universal “constructed category”. Early systems theoreticians, therefore, regarded systems theory as philosophical engineering.

Another important figure of Continental philosophy certainly is Martin Heidegger. He also build on Dilthey’s work. Heidegger’s fundamental ontology is often summarized in the famous phrase “beingin-the-world”. In his early work, he often referred to Dilthey and hermeneutics as a crucial holistic praxis for “thinking” (understanding being). The process of understanding cannot be (completely) reduced to a pure propositional logic. Rather, it contains performative elements. Heidegger’s writings are usually regarded as extremely complex and difficult to understand. Nevertheless, Heidegger’s concept of “being-in-the-world” has ever since been cited as a crucial conception behind systems theory, too. Doubtlessly, there is a remarkable difference between Rössler’s endophysics and Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. Yet, with a large grain of salt, “being-in-the-world” constitutes a kind of endophysics avant la lettre. At least, it is understood in this way in the systems theoretical community. At this point, it is difficult to figure out why Heidegger, as a matter of fact, regarded systems theory and cybernetics downright as the worst enemy of “thinking”. It takes a great deal of intense studies into fundamental ontology to understand this essential discrepancy. In short: the performative aspect of understanding is pulled toward the logical side by systems theory. In other words, even systems theory cannot avoid the general tendency of natural sciences to be positivistic. Let me motivate the problem by a view remarks on second order cybernetics. Cybernetics treats objects as systems. And, as has been mentioned above, “system” is a universal constructed category. Everything can be described as system. The scientific disciplines are systems, too. Or take, for example, the “art system”. Cybernetics is a subsystem that belongs to the system constituted by scientific disciplines. Therefore, cybernetics belongs to the subject area of cybernetics, which leads to second order cybernetics. Now not only the universal but also supra-theoretical character of systems theory

can clearly be seen. Cybernetics is the (pretended) union of physics and metaphysics (ontology). Heidegger’s fundamental ontology is based on the ontic-ontological difference. In his understanding physics and cybernetics and all the other scientific disciplines are ontic but not ontological. According to Heidegger, the question of being, or more correct, the question of the meaning of being, cannot be answered using scientific methods. Art, in Heidegger’s conception, is a practice that at least can help densify understanding. His conception of art is ontological. Moreover, his conception of ontology is performative (has artistic aspects).5 Therefore, the incorporation of ontology into cybernetics’ subject area means to make ontology ontic. Indeed, there exist attempts to even describe the “art system” within the synergetic 6 framework 7. Timothy Leary, who collaborated with STR, criticized the buzz word “multi-media-interactive” in an illuminating fax to STR as of March 1991 8. He noticed that the verb “to interact” is misleadingly used where “to react” appears to be the correct term: “Humans and machines ‘react’. Only two or more humans can ‘inter-act’. The point is that machines cannot perform as ‘actors’.” STR are acting using multi-media. And they interact with the aid of these media appliances with other humans. Although the majority of contemporary net activists claim that they do interactive work, they actually perform reactive and they make users to re-act. This is in line with my own analysis 9 where I supplied evidence for reification (Verdinglichung) for a significant amount of works that are based on the misguided usage of “interactivity”. As a conclusion I want to ask again the question of why substantial works are ignored in favor of re-activistic reified work? The sick explanation by Hans Bernhard as quoted above gives the clue. The digital universe constitutes a pǽpμæĸov (pharmakon). Already Plato and roughly 2 millenniums later Heidegger clearly pointed out that each cultural technique and technology in general constitutes

A disconcerting treatise on the essence of net culture — Dr. Hans Diebner

a poison that contains its own remedy. Scripture compensates a bad memory but at the time even impares memory due to neglected practice. It is often claimed that only technology can supply a remedy for the damage done through technology. Previously well-intended systems thinking, as it unfortunately fells out, sees each occurrence as potentially suspect that has to be answered by an offensive that in turn increases suspect and so forth. It is now essential that cyberspace will again populated with artists — not re-activists. Art history should urgently care about contemporary media art because otherwise the trend toward a “systemic disease” of the “art system” might become unstoppable. Why not start with appreciation due to Station Rose? This seems to be a good point to take up the opening question. As a self-critical scientist who is interested in ontological problems a union with the arts seemed to be the thing to do. However, art as science or science as art or both at the same time, i. e. art=science: These are only different ways of confusing the proper with the improper (or the essence with the metaphor). Contrary to the rules, it was Goethe who obviously managed to harmonize art and science in his work. The last line of his famous poem “Ginkgo Biloba” reads: “Do my songs not make you feel—That I am both one and twain?” The historian of science Walter Saltzer writes in his essay 10 on Goethe after quoting Goethe’s poem “Ginkgo Biloba” out of the West-Eastern Divan, i. e., Goethe’s book of the reconciliation of cultures: “The divided, but symmetrically unified Ginkgo leaf— a splendid symbol for the artist and scientist Goethe. Art and science in one! Does that go together, after all? Or perhaps it doesn’t in the end? Should the last line, therefore, not better read, ‘that I am divided and only half’.” And with reference to the historical precedence Lucretius, he further writes:

“The ideal of the [Freudian] theory would then be the suicide due to inner conflict, demonstrated through the pretended vita of the nature-inspired poet and passionate advocate of the atomic world view at the same time, Titus Lucretius Carus. Of course, Lucretius’ suicide is a trendy invention only, and even the most intimate expert does not know anything about a suicidal end of Goethe.” Does there exist a bridge between art and science? Not so when taking the ontological stance. Heidegger says, “…there exists no bridge, only the jump.” Provided that the built-in corrective in science via art is sincere what is the recipe for bearing up against the inner conflict? An awkward side effect of the art&science trend is the conspicuous dilution of both art and science. Instead of a sincere discourse almost only blatant hypes survive, which is in line with current viral marketing strategies. Contents are pushed totally into the background. What counts is how the system is best controlled and utilized. The affair between art and science reached a tipping point. The certain indefinable something that emerged from the ontological indifference between art and science is often called “third culture”. However, a tipping point would not be a tipping point, if there would not exist an opposite side, a “biotope” of performativity, non-propositional logics, and a touch of mysticism. It is my observation that the emerged dilemma between art and science has a clear trend towards an aporia. For the time being it is much more a problem of art and less of science but this will probably change soon. I am well aware that art has several times pronounced dead. Yet, the aporia has a new quality, it seems. It was the avant-garde movement in art that contributed to its own ruin. Definitely not as a moral fault. The preceding excursion into my own experience was thought as evidence for the reverse. To conclude, I see parallels to the story of Station Rose. As avant-garde artists they also faced the tipping point. Studying their early works and

performances as well as their current activities one clearly sees that they settled in the performative biotope. Now is the time for art history to account for this important aspect of contemporary art and not to leave the field completely to the systemic infection. As an allusion to a well-known hacktivist group with systemic fitness and adaptiveness I should like to speak of an overturn of the steamer after a (digital) hijack. It is, by the way, the same group that abuses the message of Timothy Leary to mock an “eternal mission”. Of course, it is an extremely interesting social phenomenon worth being analyzed. However, not on the expense of aesthetics and performativity. Let me finally ask a provocative question. Is the one to be blamed who declares her plagiarism of the inventors of mash-up as mash-up or the inventors?

Ubermorgen.com: Psych|OS and Psych|OS Generator (2005/2006) Synopsis at: http://www.res-qualia.net/view_projecte. php?id=441 (Accessed on 26th May.2010). CHArt (Computers and the art history conference 2010): http://www.artshumanities.net/cfp/technology_death_art_ history_chart_computers_history_ art_2010_conference (Accessed on 6th June 2010). Hans Ulrich Reck: Kunst als Medientheorie. Fink-Verlag, München, 2003. Claudia Giannetti: Ästhetik des Digitalen – Ein intermediärer Beitrag zu Wissenschaft, Medien- und Kunstsystemen. Springer Verlag, Wien, 2004. Rüdiger H. Rimpler: Prozessualität und Performativität in Heideggers „Beiträgen zur Philosophie“ – Zur Zeitigung von Sinn im Gedanken an die Wesung. Ergon Verlag, Würzburg, 2008. Synergetics is a modern variant of systems theory. Wolfgang Tschacher and Martin Tröndle: Die Funktionslogik des Kunstsystems – Vorbild für betriebliche Organisation? In: Timo Meynhardt and Ewald J. Brunner (Eds.): Selbstorganisation managen. Beiträge zur Synergetik der Organisation. Waxmann, Münster, 2005, pp. 135–152. Station Rose: 1st Decade. edition selene, Wien, 1998, p. 63. Dr. Hans Diebner: “Where Art and Science Meet (or Where They Work at Crosspurposes)”. In: Uwe Seifert, Jin Hyun Kim and Anthony Moore (Eds.): Paradoxes of Interactivity: Perspectives for Media Theory, Human-Computer Interaction, and Artistic Investigations. Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, 2008, pp. 142–159. Walter Saltzer: “Goethe – Naturwissenschaft, Kunst und Welterleben komplementär.” In: Alfred Schmidt und Klaus J. Grün (Hrsg.): Durchgeistigte Natur: Ihre Präsenz in Goethes Dichtung, Wissenschaft und Philosophie. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt 1999.

STATION ROSE the audio-visual live band Station Rose interviewed by Didi Neidhart, summer 2010

20 years between psychedelic beats and techno, “digital boheme” and “digital glamour”, pop and avant-garde, electric guitar and computer, riff and pattern. Station Rose can also be regarded as a research station, where the respective actions, performances and publications can be read as research reports of individual phases. Which different phases were important?

Didi Neidhart

Due to the technology available at that time our art was both analog and digital in the beginning. That was the Vienna phase from 1988 to 1990. In between there was the immensely important Cairo phase in 1988/1989. Since then our art has increasingly shifted towards the digital (“Digital Cocooning /Digital Boheme”, 1995, “Digital Communities” starting from 1996, “Webcasting” starting from 1999), and has finally become purely digital with a focus on the future. Since about 2006 our art has (again) concentrated on the present and the material (guitar, material objects, installations) without, however, losing sight of the digital for just one second. We are quickly bored with things as soon as they become mainstream. That was true for techno in 1994, and somehow it also applies to Web 2.0 today.

GD It ended my undertaking to understand the 1960s and to re-enact them. I can even exactly

A disconcerting treatise on the essence of net culture — Dr. Hans Diebner

The name of the band was rather stylish.

Gary Danner

DN 1979 saw the foundation of the pop band “The Vogue”, which in 1981 even had a number 2 hit in the Austrian charts with The Frozen Seas Of lo. How did that affect your later development?

specify the moment: it was when we played The Frozen Seas Of lo at the Wiener Stadthalle, and 10,000 people held their lit cigarette lighters in the air. I saw absolutely no future in becoming an Austrian pop star. And around 1982 punk was over. At that time I was rather interested in concepts than in a follow-up hit single to The Frozen Seas Of lo. So I enlisted at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

GD It was Elisa Rose, she studied with Lagerfeld at the University of Applied Arts, who came up with the name. It was one of her favorite magazines and I only needed to set “The” before its title, and there it was: “The Vogue”. The styling of the band was also very important to us. We did not only see ourselves as Mods (contrary to The Jam), but called our music “psychedelic beat”. At the end of the 1970s a typical saying in Vienna was: “Vienna is always 10 years late”. Thus we determined 1969 as the year of the foundation of “The Vogue”, and did not consider ourselves as one of the first neo-psychedelic bands, but as the last “real” band from the sixties. DN Why psychedelic? This term is still of importance to Station Rose.

When I was 14 I noticed that the word “psychedelic” was always linked with the music that pleased me most. That was in 1974. At that time the heyday was of course over, but aftershocks were still being felt. For me an intriguing combination of harmony and aggression was linked with that term.

In short: a synergy. The nonchalance with which English bands such as The Smoke, The Creation or The Who spiced up their old repertoire of rock ‘n’ roll, blues, soul and/or folk with feedbacks and studio gimmicks still amazes me. Starting from 1966, at the latest, this led to their own new style. Over the years the palette of instruments extended, but the vibe remained alike. The sixties have never failed to inspire, amuse, surprise and fascinate me. I don’t exactly know why. Perhaps it’s simply the air that surrounds the sound sources and microphones. The music recorded between 1965 and 1968 was just excellent; this sound is simply unrivaled. DN Psychedelic is also characterized by sound modulations. Is this also a reason why this topic is still relevant? GD I think so. Instruments modulating the sound were present in all phases of psychedelic: from the Moog synthesizer to the Wah Wah pedal and the TR-303-Acid machine. Around 1966/67 ideas of musique concrete were used. I always thought it's great when pop music smuggled avant-garde sounds and noises into the hit parade. DN The music of Station Rose also likes to play with krautrock elements. GD Krautrock simply is the “German” approach which was often more monotonous than the English and American approach and it was thus easier to combine it with a drum machine. Via Detroit this cosmic monotony then led to techno. Krautrock was of importance for (my band) “Die Nervösen Vögel”, where we also worked with a “minimal” aesthetic. The press used to compare us with Cluster and Faust. DN On the other hand there are direct lines from psychedelic to Silicon Valley and from LSD to cyberspace.

Station Rose interviewed by Didi Neidhart

GD When the “cyberpunk” movement started at the end of the 1980s, people such as Timothy Leary, whose name I had already known for years through my involvement in music, suddenly surfaced again as a result of the developments in California. He also said to me once that the sixties could only be realized in the 1990s. However, the “psychedelic” category is still quite disputed, and to some extent rightly so. When at the end of the 1990s the goa/ trance movement became important, and some smart music critics and connoisseurs wanted to put us in that box, we had already dissociated ourselves from it for some time. For us goa/trance was simply weak music with dreary visuals. There was absolutely no “it’s a happening” feeling. Psychedelic music is based on contrasts that converge and/or communicate dialectically. It’s about changes in style within a LP/CD or within a piece of music. A recent example is dubstep: shaking basses and compelling kick drums, combined with vast, engrossed sound surfaces. With dubstep the rhythm is in sync with the superstructure, and the bass is so strong (and deep) that in parts it is recognizable as a space only, thus becoming a “sphere” itself. Sometimes there is also a kind of mystic and cosmic love of nature involved which in case of the Mods in 1966 expressed itself in long hair rampantly overgrowing the moptop haircut of 1965. All of this contains psychedelic. In our case it is also the connection of “Nature Is Cool” and “CyberSpace Is Our Land” as well as of “male/female”. DN

What does this male/female aspect mean?

Our work is oriented towards Timothy Leary’s “male/female” concept. In simple words it means “partners in life & work”. We have always wanted a sexy and exciting relationship. In the beginning, in our “The Vogue” period, I didn’t exactly know which part to play. It was digitization, computers and the Internet which made that possible. And suddenly I had become a specialist in this field. Thanks to the then available technology, the linkage

Elisa Rose

of sound and image did the rest. Of course working together as a couple can be quite tricky from time to time. So it’s really good that we work in two different media. Sometimes we even refer to ourselves as two mavericks who discover together. And Timothy Leary always encouraged us to do so. DN

How did techno come into play?

GD When acid house cropped up in 1988 and techno, too, became a topic, everything changed for me. I had no desire being a singer and a guitarist in a band anymore but wanted to bring the studio to the stage and perform live with computers and samplers. Even after the end of “The Vogue” electronic music became more and more important to me: Throbbing Gristle, Test Dept., 23 Skidoo, Clock DVA, and early Sonic Youth. The scene I was involved in had rejected synthesizers and computers categorically. These were deemed unnecessary toys from the “very bad” 1970s and associated with bands such as Tangerine Dream or Pink Floyd after Syd Barrett had left. From 1982 onwards I got more and more involved with synthesizers and drum computers. Before that I cut tapes the musique concrete way. In 1986 I added a sampler, in 1989 we started with our Gunafa Clubbings. These were the first clubculture/techno events in Austria. I had already gained DJ experience at “Stadtwerkstadt” in Linz and the “Ring” opposite the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in the early 1980s. The freshness of techno underground was fascinating. In Vienna, we had understood underground as a playground for a few students. In Frankfurt the whole thing was to some extent dangerous and illegal. But there, in the “real” underground, we were finally able to put into practice what we had planned in Vienna. ER In Vienna there were no places to play. I waited for years to start playing. It was the computer (Amiga) that finally made this possible for me. In 1992 actually no one except me worked with graphic computers

and the Internet live in the club scene, so with Gunafa Clubbing I was able to develop a lot on my own. Otherwise I would have probably been ruled out—also because I am a woman. We created a completely new world which had not existed before. As my contribution—visuals & net-art—didn’t disturb anyone the electronic music scene had no reservations about it. The art scene did not take it seriously then. Except for Peter Noever who invited us to perform at the MAK as early as in 1993. DN Despite samplers, computers and cyberspace the guitar never really disappeared all these years. GD The guitar is the instrument that allows to produce a good sound quickly and is a reliable means to compose music with. In the mid-1980s I also played guitar with Minus Delta T and later for the last official album of Der Plan (Die Peitsche des Lebens, 1990). One must not forget that computers actually never really function. Composing on the computer requires patience and time. And it is advisable to keep a clear head at least in the early phase of a composition. Compared to a sequencer, however, a guitar has limited possibilities of expression. A further disadvantage is the fact that, due to the sensual involvement of the body, one quickly reaches a general sense of well-being when playing, which is not necessary favorable for the creation of a profound artistic statement. DN Do electronic pieces develop differently, or do things happen rather intuitively here? GD It often happens that I go to the computer and think: the composition is finished in principle (in the head, or on paper). It should sound for example like the Yardbirds, had they still existed in 1970. I’d like to have it finished in five hours, so here we go: let’s begin with the bass, then on with the kick drum etc. This is one approach to my productions. Then there could be a sample from a field recording session with which I play: so I tune it 12 octaves down,

take out the high frequencies, and slice it into 32nd notes. And of course it should also be danceable. As the original sample probably is a recording of a cash register in the supermarket, I put a 12 Hz sine wave under it to make it fatter. However, a particular frequency band had to be cut and then pasted on the snare drum so that it won’t get in the way of the kick drum. And half a day has passed already. So I even don’t try to work intuitively when making electronic compositions right from the start. Since computers are rather unreliable partners, I have to divide the process into small steps beforehand. And it makes fun when in the end you have to decide whether to take the remaining 0.05 dB for the reverb of the snare or for the echo of the vocals. Around 1997 I had a phase when I only used sounds I absolutely didn’t like.

GD When I concern myself with noises or pure sine waves it may well happen that I overdo it, given the almost limitless possibilities of digital processing. So quite a few sequencer sessions ended in the trash, and late at night I just grabbed my guitar. You have to apply the “microscopic” qualities of the digital to the boundless possibilities of a sequencer. This way you can do things that wouldn’t be feasible with a band. DN Which parameters, coordinates, challenges are important with the more experimental pieces? GD I sometimes read manuals of music software or effects, make graphic notations, and assemble the composition in my head, without switching anything on in the studio. Usually it stays that way, and nothing is recorded.

Are there any differences between pure music tracks and those made for performances? Can you separate that at all? Isn’t it rather that individual tracks switch between different modes of presentation?

DN So you concentrate on music-specific aspects only, or also on translating or transforming other things?

GD Yes, they are flexible. But there are also music tracks which are meant for listening only, which I make purely for the love of the sound of my guitar (e.g. “Deadhead”). Sometimes it is necessary to close the eyes when listening.

At present I am interested in mathematics, pataphysics and random progressions in the form of sine waves. These topics sometimes come amazingly close to dubstep. At the moment I read Heisenberg, but that serves me less as a guidance for composing than as a confirmation of how Station Rose approaches art. The same is true for Vilem Flusser.

DN Do experimental laboratory tests become tracks in the end? GD Rather few of these experiments become tracks. Lab tests are published as such (e.g. “brumme”), or deleted, which is often the case. ER I often record audio-visual sessions on a DV recorder—while jamming with Gary—without concentrating on the result or on the possibility to use it. Later on we often find good material on these DV tapes. Which was for instance the case when we post-produced the webcasts for TV.

Station Rose interviewed by Didi Neidhart

DN Some of the techno tracks (Peterson, Dave) have a specific narrative structure, which is not typical for the genre. GD These pieces are part of a series: soldier (Peterson) or astronaut (Dave) reflect on life, on failure as part or because of an institution. I have already been producing a long time before techno. The narrative structure comes from my past as carrier of the torch of psychedelic beat culture. All joking aside, a little structure should be recognizable so that it works at home. When I play live

the monotonous structure perfectly comes into its own as I simply stay longer on one and the same riff. DN The “more recent” sixties tracks, however, are rather oriented towards imaginary Italo-western soundtracks, where dope cowboys and space cowboys get mixed up.

Italo-western soundtracks had implied an escape button from rock, underground and hip hop in the late 1980s, which truly fascinated us. You could (and can) mix a good deal in this category: avant-garde (electronics with Morricone and Ortolani) and pop. As everyone knows, Claudia Cardinale, who in “Once Upon A Time in The West” explains what a station is, is a patron saint of Station Rose.

DN A certain space age appeal from the past surfaces with the theremin sounds on the track Phosphoric Brain Massage. GD Yes, that’s my old theremin, which I still have. But this instrument is very bitchy, and so after a while one takes up the equally tempered scale again. The demonstration video, which came along as instruction, made this very clear as the title was not “Playing the Theremin” but Mastering the Theremin! DN How important are the interrelations between acoustics and the visual? GD That is a core of our work! I never studied art with the expectation of becoming an artist, I rather wanted to sharpen my acoustic senses. Even before I started to work with Elisa this combination was enormously important to me. In the late 1970s I spliced together continuous loops of Regular-8 films and played music to it. “The Vogue“ even had some gigs with a film made by Linz based filmmaker Dietmar Brehm projected on the group. In the late 1980s Elisa and I felt the coming of cyberspace with all its implications. Underground music alone was not a sustaining concept anymore. When composing an

audio-visual piece, we sit side by side in the studio. This way we are always confronted with the progress of the other. At times the visual material “leads” and the music provides the “backbeat“, then the music takes over again, and there are visual counterpoints. If there is a “leitmotiv”, it can be either optical or acoustic, surfacing again and again. That is what we call real time communication, especially when we perform live. ER These two atmospheres create a third one, which otherwise would not be there. This “third field” which only develops in cooperation, has its own timing—between super-fast, looped and freeze. And the speed changes permanently. In other words: at some point sometime during playing we reach a state of rest. That is the moment you’re absorbed by the music. We (and the public) pause (also out of entrancement). That is a fantastic moment, and it only lasts for a short while. Even the smallest uncleanliness scares it away. DN I s this why Station Rose’s audio-visual concerts are positioned at the interface of media art and psychedelic lightshows? GD They are most likely oriented towards the abstract, Op Art-influenced lightshows of the acid tests around 1965/66. Unfortunately these shows are very badly documented. And I’ve never heard that these lightshows were composed in sync with the music. Thus they rather correspond with today’s VJ culture, which is not our cup of tea. Psychedelic should be an audio-visual entity. I was rather influenced by the psychedelic sequences of Hollywood movies like “2001—A Space Odyssey”, “The Trip” or “Psych Out”, or by the trailers to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” by Saul Bass. ER Lightshows are early “projection art”. This definitely is a very important thread for Station Rose. Projection art—plus sound—including its bright and/or dark light. Today, with computers, I can operate with extreme precision here.

GD A successful AV concert is always more intense than a pure concert. We try to deactivate verbal thinking and to operate exclusively with audiovisual patterns and loops. Perhaps the most consistent project of that kind was our Public Brain Session, which we performed from 1990 until around 1996. We played AV patterns synced to 300 beats per minute, for 30 minutes. On the one hand this got us into The London Sunday Times but on the other hand we had to stop performing it because the audience went off the rails. DN Pop and glamour seem to be central topics with Station Rose. In this context you speak of “digital glamour” as a way of aesthetic self-portrayal. ER From the very beginning glamour was a crucial aspect. An inapproachable, reserved aura holds on forever. These presentations are part of Station Rose’s performance art. Of course they are thought as pop tactics as well. But for us glamour does not at all mean to be capitalism-affirmative. Our glamour always came along with nature, biology and ecology. We have been deeply rooted in this since the 1980s. Today I call it „green glamour“, which has been our approach right from the start. With each new project we fathom novel stagings to hit the respective moment in time. Today we focus on a more reduced aesthetic with “Recycling Surplus To Save Nature” and “New Media Arte Povera“. So like for instance not buying new clothes but updating them. My slogans like “I am not a material girl, but a digital woman” anticipated that as early as in 1995/96. GD Pop generally has to include subversive glamour and to address a lot more people than underground. DN That’s why you are also staging as an “art couple“? ER (Self-)portrayal is part of the art. Many artists prefer to stay anonymous. However, I’ve always considered this as major part of the performance. Art that is about staging, performance and glamour

Station Rose interviewed by Didi Neidhart

ideally results in pop. From the color side of things it’s also a question of luminance. Punk solved that perfectly with neon colors, which are still in my repertoire today. DN

When I first met Station Rose, they were pioneering the use of real-time multimedia in artistic performance. This was in the early 1990s, before the Web was known to many people. Then and now, they show the way for those who use art and technology to reflect and reflect on each other. Since then, the Internet has made it possible for multitudes to create, publish, and perform, and now, as then, Station Rose continues to show the way. As avant-garde audiovisual artists, they are no longer the rare exception, but are role models and trend-setters for entire populations of online creators. Now, as then, they explore both the potentials and the limits of the media available, concentrating these days on moving media art out of the hi-tech ghettoes of media festivals to more everyday venues and on recycling material. In the beginning, they worked extensively with sampling in their real-time performances. Now, they extract material from their real-time performances and integrate that material into their more permanent works. Now, as then, they question where we are and where we are going.

Was punk a source of inspiration to you?

GD Punk said “I can do that, too, and even louder!” At the end of the 1970s I felt a tremendous atmosphere of departure when everything seemed possible, and actually was possible for a short period. For us punk was a huge opportunity to save hours and hours of practicing Clapton riffs or play until our fingers hurt as dictated by the blues. I still am influenced by Wire, Buzzcocks, Chrome or Flying Lizards. The “necessity to be peaceful” of the 1970s was over, too, and now we felt like we could live out our meaningless aggression in music. ER Punk has improved the position of women. And after that—with computers and the Internet—things were even getting better = cyberpunk.

Recommendation: Play the CD while reading the book

If you want to know where the edge of multimedia performance will be located tomorrow, look and listen to Station Rose today. H o war d R h e in g o l d , 2 0 1 0

1988 Vienna Start Up Sequence From Postmodernism to Multimedia: Station Rose was the 1st open media lab in Vienna, a place for exhibitions, conferences and symposia, a meetingpoint for artists, musicians, philosophers, curators, writers and scientists. This open structure resulted in co-operations in diverse topics in various media. It was situated in the 4th district, Margaretenstrasse 26.

1988 9-needle computer print, 1988.

On from the beginning, the STR office was equipped with an Amiga computer and a printer.

Computer Art, 1987â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1988

1988 Opening of Station Rose, 11.â&#x20AC;&#x2030;03.â&#x20AC;&#x2030;1988.

The secret room.

Front view.

STR-office, artists as businessmen.

STR-headquarter in the 4th district, Vienna, 1988

1988 Fahnen und Hymnen (flags and hymns), group show with artists and musicians, Vienna, 1988.

A multiple was produced, including a STReamer together with a music cassette.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Station Rose has started this so lively art-biotope of today in 1988.â&#x20AC;? STR 2010

STR-headquarter in the 4th district, Vienna, 1988

1988 Fahnen und Hymnen (flags and hymns), STR invited 7 artists to design flags, and 6 musicians to compose hymns for a manifestation of a new “art_ attitude”.

Participated artists: Bob Adrian, Walter E. Baumann, Tina Bepperling, Wolfgang Capellari, Helmut Mark, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Elisa Rose. Participated musicians: Der Plan, F. M. Einheit, General Chaos, Andreas Kunzmann, Sevo, Gary Danner.

Falter, 1988

STR-headquarter in the 4th district, Vienna, 1988

1988 left: Oriental Light, installation and performance, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Autumn 1988.

right: STR went online for the first time, as part of the Sampling symposium, Vienna, November 1988.

“sample 04: der Ausgang dieser Geschichte findet überall statt.”* STR 1988

* The outcome of this story takes place everywhere.

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1988

1988 The project SAMPLES was an intermedia exhibition project of STR. The term â&#x20AC;&#x153;sampleâ&#x20AC;? was explored theoretically in various lectures. Then the realms of art, music, literature and ecology were presented in form of a media exhibition.

STR-headquarter in the 4th district, Vienna, 1988

1988 left: Samplingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;live No Sleep Till Cairo as part of the symposium, Skala, Vienna, 1988.

right: Online inside Station Rose, Vienna, 1988.

Hier steht der Projekttitel

B 1988–1989 Cairo

Field-research during Austrian post-graduate stipend in Cairo, Egypt. Equipment: computers, digitizer, sampler, drum machine. STR was practising hi+lo, analog+digital, having a home in “le monde arabe” for 8 months, simultaneously looking at the Western hemisphere from the outside. Living in Egypt for 8 months meant experiencing the Arabic world far beyond cultural tourism. It gave STR the chance to look at the Western World, the so called 1 st world, from the outside (from Viennese to American style all way through). Scanning all Western rules, questioning them from the distance, comparing them with Egyptian rules. For this STR-observation & research 8 months were time enough to really enter. In March 1989 STR showed art objects they had produced in Cairo at a show at Viennese Gawlik & Schorm Gallery. In May 1989, Gary Danner recorded 5 tracks with Egyptian musicians.

1988–1989 left: STR-headquarter in Cairo, Faluga Street Agouza. Gary Danner films on the terrace outside the studio. Press photos shot in Cairo.

middle: Rose’s and Danner’s passports with registered electronic equipment.

right: Artwork “View from the studio”.

Gary Danner with Raja Rais at Midex studio, Heliopolis.

Rubber stamp made in Cairo (Station on field duty).

Elisa Rose and Gary Danner in downtown Cairo.

Station Rose in Cairo

1988–1989

“The Station in the Margaretenstrasse was not yet open a year, when they went on trips, namely to Cairo. The coming year in Egypt was a very formative time. The alienation as well as their new oriental point of view were the appropriate environment—like the Stargate—for their dedicated step into cyberspace and electronic music.”

STR on field duty equipped with digitizer and discette.

V it u s H . W e h , 2 0 0 8

Artproduction made in Cairo.

GUNAFA = Cairo slangword for chaos.

Station Rose in Cairo

1988â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1989 In March 89, Station Rose left the camp in Cairo for one month to come back to Vienna to open their solo show Arabian Sands at Gawlik and Schorm Gallery. Light Boxes, Vienna 1989.

left: Arabian sands, solo show at Gawlik und Schorm Gallery. Gary Danner in concert with The Bicycle Thieves at the opening. Videoedition, catalogue including discette.

right: pre-Cairo 1, light object, Vienna 1988 (private collection).

Station Rose in Cairo

1989–1990 Back In The Western World

The Station Rose-headquarter in Cairo had been abandoned at the end of July ’89 until further notice. Then, back in the Western World, the Station Rose was re-opened and permanently occupied (2 p.m.–6 p.m.). After having presented the main features of a concept, developed in North Africa, at Ars Electronica 89, Station Rose then focused on 3 subjects: East West—Cyberculture— Gunafa Clubbing.

Watch this video on DVD

“Station Rose has been an important station in the evolution of media art”

1989–1990

DVD

left: Gunafa Shoppe, Vienna 1989–1990.

Peter Weibel, 2010

right: STR as curators: Windows, series of exhibitions in the shop windows of STR.

Elisa Rose in the office, Vienna, 1990.

Windows No. 1 by Peter Sandbichler, January–February 1990.

1989â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1990 Solo exhibition and performance at Westwerk, Hamburg, 1990.

Westwerk, Hamburg, 1990

1989–1990 left: Gunafa Show, performance, Ars Electronica, Linz, 1989.

Gunafa Pavillon, installation, Ars Electronica, Linz, 1989.

Coming back from Cairo, STR was bored with the music played in Vienna’s music venues (mostly hip hop and rock). They wanted to create an audiovisual space, where people could listen to electronic music and dance to it. So STR created Vienna’s first techno events in 1989, Gunafa Clubbing.

Later, in 1990, they would bring their computers to the club and perform live.

Hier steht der Projekttitel

1989â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1990 Solo show at Gallery Karin Sachs, Munich, November 1989.

Gallery Karin Sachs, Munich, 1989

1989–1990

“They didn't have to speak Esperanto. From the day artists Elisa Rose and Gary Danner opened their ‘Station Rose’ in Vienna’s fourth district, they were already known in the art scene behind the Iron Curtain. Even before the Wall fell, the moment I was lucky enough to be able to travel to Vienna, I steered my first steps directly to their shop, which at the time was one of the main crossroads of intermedia thinking in Europe. With ‘Flags and Hymns’, the title of their show back then, they guided me through various art scenes while the Vienna Institute for Human Sciences shifted my interests in the radical present toward the politics of culture. From the very beginning, one looked to ‘Station Rose’ for networking and establish new contacts in every imaginable direction. Without the forging of theories or the formulating of controversial theses, new sensual potentialities were created, felt, perceived, thought, remembered, presented or willed into being before one’s eyes, and/or made audible. Never before had I tested a ‘mind machine’ or discussed guitar fantasies as representations of life and the world. While other personalities of ‘net.art,’ still in its infancy then, frantically defended their territories, thereby solidifying far-reaching misunderstandings, ‘Station Rose’ stood out, front and center, for all-encompassing border-crossing. They left their marks not only on the visual arts but on fashion and rock as well. And in every riff, every song, every sound of Gary Danner's audio palette, one hears the passion, an unabashed homage to the history of rock and, at the same time, a willing openness to the future.”

“The Public Brain Session is more than just an externalised mind machine (…). People aren’t joylessly isolated here, and although the wealth of visual information and speed of flashing light is disorientating, it is a pleasant disorientation, heightened by the relentless rumble of theta-waves which, at 300 beats per minute, are around two-and-ahalf times the tempo of current dance music.” S im o n W itt e r , T h e S u n d a y T im e s , S e pt e mb e r 2 6 th 1 9 9 3 .

left: Public Brain Session, premiere, Skala, Vienna, 1990. Public Brain Session was developed by STR for their symposium No. 2, Mind Machines, where they experimented with theta waves.

Having invited Christoph Tannert to a lecture at Station Rose in 1988, STR met Tannert in East Berlin, 3 months before the Berlin Wall came down, and asked him to curate the exhibition. Das Broiler Projekt consisted of an exhibition of goods from the GDR (“Warenwerte”), audio tapes and videos, print-outs of scanned photos of the turmoils at East Berlin during the last days of the socialist government, as well as of lectures by Christoph Tannert.

C hrist o ph T ann e rt , 2 0 1 0

“On from October 1989 STR has been working on the concept of brainstimulating soundwaves, using the medical discovery of alpha-, beta-, delta- and thetawaves on the surface of the brain. During the live-performance of a PUBLIC BRAIN SESSION, sequencer-driven samples of voices are played back over the P.A., producing oscillations (theta-waves, i. e. 4–7 Hz) which normally surface on the brain during dreaming, meditating and other subconscious-driven brain activities. Videos edited in the same frequency, together with manually controlled strobelights, are shown at the same time. The audience is invited to hear music and see a vision of their own per stimulation by audiovisual theta-waves.”

EAST–WEST Das Broiler Projekt– Avantgarde in former East Germany?, curated by Christoph Tannert, at Station Rose, Vienna, April 1990

S tati o n R o s e P R - t e x t , 1 9 9 0

Hier steht der Projekttitel

Later in 1990, STR performed the Public Brain Session at Cyberthon festival in San Francisco, where they got in contact with The WELL and met John Coate and Howard Rheingold for the first time.

1991–1992 Frankfurt & Cyberspace

Station Rose moved to Frankfurt/Main, Germany, and went online in 1991. A research project on Virtual Reality was done for the Austrian Ministry of Science including multimedia field research in the USA. This resulted in a CD-ROM as final report. At that time Gunafa Clubbing was started— as “the first audio-visual online club”. A STR solo exhibition was shown at NGBK, Berlin. An installation & performance with 8 projections took place at Soft Targets, Munich. DigitEyes and Dave was released on vinyl and CD.

1991–1992

DVD

Watch this video on DVD

left: Public Brain Session during Soft Targets, AV performance, Munich 1991. STR performed several Public Brain Sessions at the occasion of this exhibition in Munich in November 1991. This was also the first time the Public Brain Session was performed not in the underground techno scene but in a “high art” setting. It was an installation with 8 beamers, as early as 1991.

right: 37 Räume, group show, Berlin 1992, Yoko Ono, Gabriele Horn, Gary Danner, Elisa Rose at the opening. 37 Räume (37 rooms) was a group exhibition in Auguststrasse, Berlin Mitte, in July 1992, in parallel with documenta 9 at Kassel. STR showed a bubble jet print, a neon coloured shop window display and a video. Station Rose made the sole digital contribution to the exhibition, which was curated by Gabriele Horn and Beatrice E. Stammer.

Hier steht der Projekttitel

1991–1992 Gunafa 2000. Hypermedia Installation. Creation of a Central Fireplace in Cyberspace, NGBK/Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst e.V., Berlin June/July 1991.

right: STR was online during the exhibition, and sent and received messages, which as print-outs were part of the exhibition.

Installation views.

Invitation card.

following page: Station Rose interaktiv, CD-ROM, Frankfurt/Main 1992. This was Station Rose’s first CD-ROM production, and it is said to be the first art CD-ROM in the world. It was actually a CD-Plus (CDROM with 3 audio tracks), which was sold at newsstands as add-on to the German magazine Chip Inside.

“Our engineers, programmers, scientists have given our species the technology to think and communicate in multi-media electronic forms. The next stages involve popularizing, personalizing, humanizing electronics. This will require the dedication of creative artists. Elisa Rose and Gary Danner of Station Rose have won an international reputation for their pioneering work in this important field.” T im o th y L e ar y , M arch 1 9 9 1

NGBK, Berlin, 1991

“Cyberspace is Our Land” STR 1992

Gunafa 2000 — installation of an electronic fireplace, NGBK, Berlin Gabriele Horn

The first Station Rose solo exhibition in Berlin at NGBK/Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst closed on August 2, 1991: “Gunafa 2000. Hypermedia installation—creation of a central campfire in Cyberspace.” For five weeks Elisa Rose and Gary Danner had filled the exhibition space of NGBK, at that time at Tempelhofer Ufer, with the latest, digitally created sounds and visuals from their own archives of field research data: laser bubble jet color copies, neon shop window displays, computer printouts & printouts from the net, computer animations, video art, light objects as well as a Gunafa information booth. The CD-ROM was the final “AV-report” for the research project Virtual Reality as a New Frontier which STR had done for the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research 1991/1992. It was programmed entirely on Amiga and Atari by Elisa Rose and Gary Danner, in cooperation with Commodore Germany.

We, the curators of the project, were still working in the traditional way: the text for the poster written with the good old Brother typewriter, the draft of the poster with inserted Braille handed over to the designer, we were now confronted with a “culturaltechnical strategy project”, which in 1991 was described by Station Rose as follows: “CONCENTRATION THROUGH de-individualization through OVERINFORMATION. PUBLIC BRAIN. GUNAFA REALITYDESIGN for Cyberspace Rebels on the level of a Global Sprawl Community. Welcome! “What in former times was part of the subcultural practice of Psychedelics & related techniques was now updated by GunafaHypermedia as an articulation of art the project opened with a virtual introduction by Timothy Leary, Ph.D., the prophet of consciousness expansion, who then saw a consciousness expansion potential in the new technologies, in the use and invention of new means of communication for the individual. This was subsequently proved by Station Rose with their

“Public Brain Session”: a complex interaction between computer-diversified melodies & pictures—300 BPM (beats by minute), the beat of the brain’s alpha wave frequency and therefore following the own body rhythm—took the individual into an instant production of reality into a shift of reality, an illusory world, a hallucinogen, which was based on new ways of communication caused by more or less new art forms of that time—into the creation of an electronic campfire in cyberspace. One had to get involved with this electronic simulation, introvert oneself and open up, accept the overlapping but tuned frequencies, and keep developing them by one’s own choice, leading to a stimulative overflow of the brain waves. Animation, stimulation, suggestion ending in a final association—the game of stimulation and simulation. Station Rose were not interested in transferring the public into a state of trance, which finally excludes the free will, but rather in the intervention of a perception-oriented application of techno-sciences and their available potentials. While in the Renaissance the proximity between technology and art was based on the premise that unknown, foreseen, artistically created world views had to be established by means of natural science and technical development, today reality has to be produced via computer simulation and creating imagination using technology. Station Rose got involved without losing their art. Already in 1991 they used different reality levels in order to let irritation and imagination run wild. They have never been interested in aesthetic effects but rather focus on the question of which aesthetic strategies are required for developing new artistic strategies by knowing and using new technologies.

Station Rose — Elisa Rose and Gary Danner — thus were a step ahead of both the then pessimistic attitude towards new technologies and the positivistic attitude. They experimented, performed and interacted a long time before crossover and club culture became mainstream. Only one year later we asked Station Rose for a further statement on Berlin - this time it was about the articulation of art in the context of the society and urbanity. In the process of the renewal and change of the Berlin art and gallery landscape following the collapse of the wall, the idea for the exhibition 37 Räume (37 rooms) was born by KunstWerke Berlin e.V. They had already moved into an abandoned factory in Auguststrasse in 1990. 37 Räume, presented in parallel to documenta 9 in mid-June 1992, was an articulation of ideas and concepts the then ongoing art happening in the city which was already marked by beginning changes. The ownership structure of the former Spandau suburb of Berlin Mitte still unsettled, 37 curators declared abandoned apartments and trade areas— shops, dwellings, hotel rooms, a school—in the middle of the ruinous charm of Auguststrasse art spaces for one week. A hazardous enterprise, as residents risked being dislodged due to the proximity to the future government district and to the expected building boom. This quarter, which had been strongly influenced by the Jewish lifestyle in former days, had already seen such a development once in its history. Here artists and art concepts had to be very careful in order not to be accused of attracting speculators. The exhibition and representation system in contemporary art should be reflected by investigations, field research and social concepts. Some understood their contribution as politicalcultural references and included the atmosphere of the quarter, others focused on art with unspectacular accents, others on life. In a virtuous way the provisional was composed and the temporary was called a piece of art. With a profound feeling for place and time the late Wolfgang Max Faust under-

stood his contribution as a guidance for hearing. He placed the score of “Silence” by John Cage into a kosher shop. Photographs by Gordon Matta Clark or a marketplace for projects by curators from the Baltic countries and Russia alluded to the location or the social art context. Another contribution was about the cleaning of windows in order to recruit more transparency in the art business in order to bring more transparency into the art business. We satirized the reminding call of many female artists for a quota of women at the documenta 9 and asked international female artists for a critical contribution. In Auguststrasse 4, a run-down and empty building where British squatters had established themselves and built huge steel figures with welding sets, we had difficulties to place the contributions of over 70 artists on one floor. It was an irony of the fate that we had to negotiate more space for the art with the squatters. A statement of Colette from New York matched our slogan MISS-ING perfectly: a large linen cloth with the saying NO MONEY, NO ART. Ulrike Ottinger added a photo of a landscape of Mongolia, Valie Export was represented with a slide-room-ina-room situation, Hella von Sinnen provided a mini TV for self serving, and mixed Cologne with von-Sinnen motives. As Melissa Gould from the USA liked the Berlin sausage selection so much, in particular the “Billy Bears”, kids’ cold meat, she created a whole room as a “ham pavilion” with faces on sliced cold meat as her Berlin statement. Among others were represented Helen Chadwick (GB), Eun Num Ro (Korea), Thereza Miranda (Brazil), Murshida Arzu Alpana (Bangladesh), Nancy Spero (USA), Svetlana Kopstiansky (Russia), Sarah Stevenson (Canada), Jelena Peric (Croatia), Cecilia Edelfalk (Sweden), Ana Lupas (Romania), Helen Escobedo (Mexico), Anne Jud (Switzerland) and Marisa Maza (Spain). The prelude to the opening was a visit of Yoko Ono who had a show in Berlin at the same time and installed her “Box of Smile”: two mirror glass lined boxes reflecting the viewer’s face when looking into them. Yoko Ono sympathized with our idea of MISSING and demanded a stronger hearing for female

Gunafa 2000 — installation of an electronic fireplace — Gabriele Horn

artists, which should come true four years later at documenta 10 by Catherine David. Elisa and Gary also attended particularly this happening-atmosphere with the light-box “From 360 million years up to Now”. The light-box showed the visualization of computer data on a surface texture. It represented the connection of a complex computer automatism with the creative intuition of humans in real time. It was the only contribution in the field of science and aesthetics, and dealing with computers. For us, Station Rose and their increasing integration of and interference in new technological developments towards the end of the 20th century signaled the possibility of a more philanthropic information technology on the one hand and the extension of the creative opportunities of art through a leap in technological on the other hand that seems by far larger than that of geometry, perspective, printing techniques, photography or film. At the beginning of 1999 Station Rose was again represented in Berlin and cooperating with us in the scope of an inter-medial exhibition of artists entitled “crossLinks”. Their contribution was called “Webcasting”, which understood itself as the last chapter of the “1st decade” and at the same time as the first chapter of “LAH/Life after History”. So now we have known them since 1998 and we wish them good luck for the 3rd decade.

Gabriele Horn (with Beatrice E. Stammer) 1998/2010

1991â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1992 Gunafa Clubbing was very likely the first digital audiovisual techno club in the world with online connection. While Station Rose were live performing sounds and visuals (Gary Danner: Atari 1040ST, Elisa Rose: Commodore Amiga 3000), text messages were received and sent over email/instant messaging (early social web/netart version), which could be seen via 4 video beamers installed around the dancefloor.

left: Gunafa Clubbing, installation views, flyer for Gunafa Clubbing Nr. 2, XS Club, Frankfurt/Main, 1992.

right: Flyer for Gunafa Clubbing, outside. Live performing by Elisa Rose and Gary Danner, Frankfurt/ Main, 1992. Online message received from San Francisco.

1993–1994 Drag & Drop, Copy & Paste

Gunafa Clubbing boomed and STR was online during these events. Sending and receiving messages during the performances—digital ecstacy, technology and Gunafa manifested there. STR had turned on the techno crowd to hypermedia. STR had 2 club hits (Digit Eyes and Dave) and finally proved that having an exhibition in the “classical“ art scene, flying from city to city and being on tour at the same time was possible. In march 1993, STR came back from touring and felt that techno was over. The change from the Amiga- and Atari-systems to Mac had happened, and STR was ready to dive into cyberspace even deeper, to “sit in their pixel-soup and play”, as Howard Rheingold described that STR-period. In 1994, STR spent nearly 300 days in the studio, producing audio-visual art & being online. So STR created the term “Digital Bohemian Lifestyle”, a term that seemed to have caught on with masses as late as 2006.

1993–1994

“Digital Bohemian Lifestyle” STR 1994/95

left: Ebene 7 was the name of a very special club location in Frankfurt, on top of Zeilgalerie, a downtown shopping mall. At 11 a.m. on Sundays once a month, STR experimented with laser and bodysonic soundsystem installed there, connected to the internet. The London Sunday Times wrote a 1-page article about the performance with Terence McKenna 1993.

"The further IN you go the bigger it gets. Technology is the real SKIN of our species. We ARE the sex orgANS of our machines, we exist to improve next years model.

right: Gary Danner and Terence McKenna performing at Ebene 7, Frankfurt/Main, July 1993. Elisa Rose in front of her computer set, on tour in Germany 1993. Gary Danner DJing at XS Club, Frankfurt, 1993. Installation view with 4 beamers,

We are closing distance .... The world is not only stranger.... The octopus wears language like clothing we ARe the tool-MAKing species, we transform matter into culture. History is the shadow thrown INto time by the trANSscendental object ... AMAZON BASIN, no way out, World Trade Center, no way out. WARM fusion at the end of history" Terence McKenna, 1993

The same year STR started their own hypermedia label Gunafa with the release of the FAB 505 EP. In 1994 they released the CD-ROM Surfing on Electronic Surfaces—15 Years of Ars Electronica.

writt e n d o wn in th e S T R - st u d i o wh e n pr e parin g th e p e rf o rmanc e at Eb e n e 7

Hier steht der Projekttitel

1993–1994 click on it!, solo exhibition, Tröster & Schlüter Gallery, Frankfurt, January 1993. At Tröster & Schlüter Gallery STR showed light boxes, prints, and the CD-ROM Station Rose interaktiv. Part of the exhibition was the first in a series of audiovisual performances at Ebene 7. The exhibition ended with a Gunafa Clubbing together with guest DJ-star Mark Spoon at XS Club.

left: FAB 505, Networked Cells, performance and installation, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, October 1993.

After STR had often performed Gunafa Clubbings in the underground, in October 1993, the MAK invited them to perform and to exhibit their first CD-ROM. STR built an installation with 6 beamers, P.A. system and internet connection. This was STR’s first live performance in Vienna since they had left in 1991. It was sold out for 3 nights. 82

Hier steht der Projekttitel

1995–1996 Digital Cocooning

STR made a lot of self-experiments in the net. Digital Cocooning consisted of 2 opposite parts— one was a 70 per cent exclusion from “Real Life”, and the other was opening up to the biggest audience STR ever had—happening at the same time. STR didn’t go out to get in touch with people, but stayed in and had 50.000 hits per month on their homepage, as well as a lot of press coverage— even more than ever before—concerning their new CD/CD-ROM. STR STAYED IN (cyberspace) AND WAS MORE PUBLIC THAN EVER, reaching 10.000s of people while being in the studio was the clue. When in 1995 STR tried to communicate and sell their online-experience to the German industry as well as to the music/art scene, there was not much response however. Internet was not a topic at all at that time, people had rather equipped themselves with mobile phones. In 1995, STR won the “Prix Ars Electronica” (honorable mention) for their homepage.

1995–1996

The homepage got a honorable mention at the “Prix Ars Electronica” in 1995.

left: Timothy Leary’s last videoconference 1996 Just a couple of weeks before Timothy Leary’s death, he invited STR to join his last audio-visual conference. Shortly before the event Leary had decided not to die in front of running webcams, but to invite friends to an online conference. It turned out to be a multimedia jamsession between his home in Hollywood, Ken Kesey’s studio and our studio in Frankfurt. We all said farewell with words, sounds and images.

right: STR’s first Webpage at The WELL, 1995. After STR had finished the Ars Electronica CD-ROM, they immediately started producing the next one, an abstract piece of Station Rose art, called Icons, Morphs & Samples. It became a CD-Extra, released on Gunafa/ PIAS, Germany. When it came out in February 95, STR had already begun to program their first homepage. Besides a visit to California, programming →

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1995–1996

“In the early 1990s, San Francisco was just waking up to the potential of interactive multimedia. As I worked on the business plan for the magazine for interactive media developers and designers that became Morph's Outpost on the Digital Frontier magazine, it became obvious that personal computers are also meant to empower people to create and control media, in addition to consuming it. We were in touch with the folks who were launching Wired magazine, too, focusing on the cultural side of digital life more than Morph's Outpost which targeted tools and methods. Leading the charge to put computerbased creative tools into the hands of technically-savvy artists we found Station Rose. At a time when developers and designers were still struggling with ways and means to manipulate still images on the Internet, here came Station Rose with their music and graphics and motion and a vision for linking people across long distances – spanning continents and oceans – by using computers and the World Wide Web. More than any mere addition to the productivity or business toolbox, Station Rose showed us how the Web could transform culture by bringing us together to collaborate creatively, with art and music. By the time they came to visit our Berkeley offices, we were deep into planning BLASTER magazine, the first lifestyle magazine for young people with multimedia computers, and we were incorporating what we had learned from Station Rose about the creative possibilities of this new technology mix.” D o u g M i l l is o n ,

CD-ROMs and creating the homepage morphed into one another. STR stayed in the studio and in cyberspace, excluding R(eal) L(ife) more than ever before. STR had arrived where they always wanted to be, in the interactive on/offline Gunafa environment. They live a “Digital Bohemian Lifestyle” ever since.

f o u n d in g e d it o r M o rph ' s O u tp o st o n th e Di g ita l F r o nti e r ma g azin e & B l ast e r ma g azin e http : / / mi l l is o n . c o m / 2 0 1 0

The essay “The Aesthetics of Techno” for Brainstorms marked the beginning of Danner’s & Rose’s career as virtual journalists. STR started to work as European correspondents for the Brainstorms-column “Digital Zeitgeist”. http://www.well.com/~hlr/jam/ gunafa/gunafareport1.html

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left: The Gunafa Clubbing/Internet Lounge was a revitalization of the famous Gunafa Clubbing STR had performed during 1992 and 93. This time, however, a more complex technology was available. They integrated a CU See me online video conference with California and Japan, turning the crowded club into a visionary digital bohemian internet lounge.

right: Howard Rheingold had established Brainstorms as a new online-platform for the world wide hypermedia scene and marked out new directions for electronic publishing in 1995.

1996–1998 Gunafa — POP, MIDI and Virtual Community In 1996, Station Rose was signed as the first multimedia band by Sony music. They released a CD & CD-ROM in 1997, followed by a vinyl. POP met Virtual Community. STR performed live, also at raves, now connected via MIDI between sound and image computers. Parallel they were hosting the “Frankfurt Conference” at Howard Rheingold’s Electric Minds on a daily basis since October 1996, after earlier experiments in virtual journalism and editorial jam sessions. THE SOCIAL WEB was HERE. STR lectured with John Coate on that topic at Ars Electronica 1997. Hosting a virtual community meant continuing the STR-shop in Vienna—comparing the opening hours—organising projects, meeting people. Communicating dislocated and publishing multimedia in realtime has become an important experience inside the Web. In 1998 the book 1st Decade was released, performances were played at Transmediale Berlin and at MuseumsQuartier, Vienna.

1996–1998 left: Live at Transmediale festival, Berlin 1998. Station Rose played the two main opening performances of the Transmediale festival in Berlin 1998. STR synced their computers via MIDI.

right: After STR’s Digital Cocooning phase they were ready to try something new (which later turned out to be Webcasting), and leave clubculture and Techno behind.

But then Sony Music came up with an offer they simply could not refuse! So STR set sails direction POP, and signed an artist contract with Sony music, released CDs, CDROMs and vinyls, and experienced performing in front of thousands of ravers at festivals like “Sunflower” or “Nature One”. Phosphoric Brain Massage, CD-Extra, Sony Music 1997. Stills from the interactive section of the CD-Extra. Autograph card.

Sony Music

1996–1998 left: Construction Sounds, performance and installation, MuseumsQuartier Vienna, 1998. For the performance STR used the projections in a not regular form to let the room behave in a more fluid form.

STR as hosts of the “Virtual Community” at Electric Minds

Station Rose in the Social Web: on from 1996, and even before with Brainstorms in 1995, STR dived into the Virtual Community World. They became hosts of the “Frankfurt Conference” at Electric Minds, trying out what was possible online.

“There was a lot of brilliant conversation throughout ‘Electric Minds’, but the ‘Frankfurt Conference’ was unique. Because Gary and Elisa's concept of the conference was unique. They melded it into the overall project that is Station Rose. It wasn't so much the things Gary and Elisa were saying as the way they were saying them. Yes, both could write eloquently on a wide variety of issues, and both knew how to give warm welcomes to newcomers and interact online with old friends. But because the digital heart of Electric Minds was the conferencing system developed to make the Well accessible to the Web, Well Engaged, Gary and Elisa could effuse far more expressively by uploading eye-searing images and animated GIFs and ear-tickling loops of beats and otherworldly sounds.” Davi d H u d s o n , tw o e l e ctric min d s , in “ S tati o n R o s e 1 st d e ca d e ” , vi e nna , 1 9 9 8

Hier steht der Projekttitel

There was a lot of STR-experimentation with the pre-web 2.0 system WellEngaged going on, as well as a daily involvement in their virtual community.

1999 Here we are— Webcasting In January 1999 Station Rose’s next level of netart—having started in 1992—was initiated at the Berlin exhibition crossLinks—Webcasting. Now playing in realtime, STReaming had become possible. More than 90 STR live-webcasts had happened in only one year. The studio, live@home, had become the place for the performance, for the STReam. Parallel to webcasting STR was still performing live at festivals, art spaces and clubs, promoting the CD-release Playing Now. One of the highlights of this European tour was the performance at Le Batofar in Paris. This period also saw the start of a series of vinyl audio-releases recorded live during the Webcasts, called live@home.

1999 left: Stills from webcasts, Station Rose studio, Frankfurt/Main, 1999â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2000. right: Webcast with Bazon Brock, Station Rose studio, Frankfurt/ Main, 2000.

Besides streaming freeform audiovisual performances, Station Rose invited guests to a webcast in their studio.

Some of the most interesting conversations were published in the book private:// publicâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Conversations in Cyberspace in 2000, including conversations with Geert Lovink, Thomas Feuerstein, Bazon Brock, and others.

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Station Rose—the manifestion of webcasting in realtime

STR started webcasting during the exhibiton crossLinks in Berlin 1999. Following that active week, the STR-studio became the location for STReaming. Webcasting from Frankfurt into cyberspace was the updated version of the public Station Rose in Vienna 1988–91, and a next level of net-art. “Realtime— 20 seconds” was the STR-concept of that time. It needed 20 seconds to have the encoded material available on the web. Live@home was the place. STR had performed more than 200 live-STReams so far. Topics were AV-jam sessions, STR in conversation, “Nature is Cool”, Webcast Marathons. Webcasting meant “more @home & less on the road”. Audio- & videocasting into the net had became possible now, which was formerly restricted to TV and radio stations only. STR created a new artform that way, mixing LIVE animations, sound, text messages & moderations. “private://public”: the isolation of the studio, needed for artistic creation, became public for 60 minutes, opening itself via connected cameras. STR had their encoder as well as the <Gunafa Server>, without being dependent on large teams. The <acting in front and behind the cameras> was a special challenge. The encoder offered the possibility to webcast at any given time. The amount of shows had levelled out to twice a week. For STR realtime has become the ultimate concept of time. Fluid cyberspace was tough in the sense of calling for data, change, speed, updates. In realtime art, time continuities & breaks were born through fades, wipes, zooms, FF, slo-mo, flashbacks, freezing, feedback, repetition & time stretching. Even non-action was given place. The past was experiencing its update in realtime. One thing not given in realtime_ art was a <preview>, belonging to the field of post production. AV-jamming was given special emphasis. There were no phases of testing, as preview was not possible. STReaming meant action. Mistakes were immediately visible & audible, unexpected results appeared through encoding & transmitting.

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Webcasting-TV 2002–2006

Webcasting@home: the studio could not be entered from the street, and meant minimal Real Life/RL distraction. The neuromantic artistic STR-couple changed the fields of activity in seconds—being object, subject, conceptualist, performer & technician at the same time. Exhibitionism in cyberspace became an important artistic moment, while cyberspace gave the intimacy needed for exposure. Interactions between STR & the cameras were posing, contacting, being watched when working, moderating, operating the mixers, slamming text, etc. Breaks between STR in conversation with guests, & jam sessions were needed. In between <Nature is Cool> sessions were a possible setting, during summertime <indoor=outdoor>. The studio included hi+lo, was not sterile & confronted with permanent improvement & change. There was no waiting for the optimal technical equipment. <Waiting is the enemy of realtime>. The studio was online, using 2–3 camera positions, while the camera installations were more or less fixed, since STR performed in front of the cameras as well as produced on the workstations simultaneously. The person behind the camera could move in front of it, which almost never happened in television broadcasts. This separation became obsolete in a STReam. The indoor=outdoor experiment connected the studio, the digital home & the outside. Outdoor scenes, on the 16th floor with a panoramic view over Frankfurt, <Nature is Cool>, the artist as gardener were mixed with the metropolitan <indoor> office, studio, home. On the Road & Gunafa Clubbing II: webcasts in clubs were harder to put together, because of the light situation. Extra light sources destroyed the virtual club created at Gunafa Clubbing. Art production, originating out of realtime: After the recorded STReams had developped a slight patina, videos, prints, lightboxes, installations, vinyls, CDs, DVDs can be created out of sequences.

Elisa Rose, 2000/10

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1999 left: Still from a live webcast, Station Rose studio, Frankfurt/Main, 1999.

right: Playing Now World Tour

After the release of the CD Playing Now, STR went on tour, performing live in Paris, Bordeaux, Vienna, Hamburg, Munich, Lucerne, Frankfurt/ Main, San Francisco.

Between 1999 and 2002 Station Rose released 4 vinyl EPs, Live@ Home 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;4, which featured audio recordings of their multimedia live webcasts at www. stationrose.com. The live recordings were edited and remixed for highest club standards, without losing the freshness of their live origins as webcasts in the internet.

bottom: Station Rose Webcasting, catalogue crossLinks, Berlin, 1999.

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2000 it’s private://public

The Web had slowly become mainstream since the middle of the decade, and the transformation into “a giant shopping mall” (Bruce Sterling) was in full swing. Everybody seemed to be a part-time stockbroker. On the other hand, self-proclaimed “netcritics” and “net artists” cunningly invented a “new artform”, with preposterous rules and hierarchies fitting their demands. STR countered this global frenzy with Webcasting almost every week, feeding the Internet with freeform audiovisual sessions from their studio in Frankfurt. STR invited Bazon Brock to a live STReam at their studio during the Art Frankfurt Fair. They had an intense hour’s conversation, which was published in the book private ://public, and which was broadcast by German public television station ARD, “Kulturzeit”, during the webcast. Besides the release of the book private://public and the Audio-CD Au Ciel, STR performed live at San Francisco. The term “private://public”, which STR had invented in 2000, is more than accurate since then.

2000 left: Holz, C-print and video 6:21 min, Trabant Gallery, Vienna 2000.

right: Installation and performance during if only we could tell, Generali Foundation, Vienna, 2000.

“Nature is Cool”

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STR performed at Generali Foundation, inside the Soft Gallery by Marta Minujin as part of the exhibition if only we could tell. She had built that room out of mattresses, and STR performed inside, covering some of them with white cloth for the projections. Gary Danner & Elisa Rose were playing on their powerbooks synced by MIDI, sitting inside the room, close to the visitors, all together on that unstable soft ground, also made of mattresses. The sound inside was fantastic, the whole performance was a rolling experience.

STR 1988

Holz, C-print and video, Vienna 2000

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2000

“The intersection of art, electronic dance music and personal media technology is brightly pixilated, abstractly self-absorbed, giddily transcendent and tasty like candy. Germany’s Station Rose brings a distinctly European sensibility to the process, which means there’s serious art-shtick amidst all the Warholian dada of their engaging, bewildering webcasts. With roots in the psychedelicized ‘60s—and claiming artistic inspiration from the Velvet Underground rather than the Grateful Dead— Station Rose’s blip-addled audio mixes are groovy and inventive like Kraftwerk, swerving from driving house rhythms to bollixed artfuck beats, with inscrutable foreign-language narratives floating up over the ambient/trip-hop turns.” J . W i l s o n , S an F rancisc o C hr o nic l e o n l in e , 2 0 0 0

left: Audiovisual performance at Salzburger Kunstverein, 2000.

right: Virtual Window, solo exhibition, media installation at Kunstraum Innsbruck/medien. kunst.tirol, 2000. With a performance on the ocassion of the opening.

Stills from live performance at Blasthaus, San Francisco 2000.

In 2000, the TV station arte showed a feature on STR in Tracks.

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2001 Just a Click Away

Shortly before 9.11., the music scene and the music industry was at the peak of its power. The techno-subgenre “clicks and cuts” was its most promising branch at that time, and Station Rose contributed to the Mille Plateaux-sampler Clicks and Cuts 2 with the composition Smoother Than Strange. As the music industry, mainstream as well as underground, had ignored hypermedia, and especially the Web, for so long, its comedown was imminent at that point. Besides curating the Webcast Lounge at Art Frankfurt—a huge media installation where they presented netart—STR performed and lectured in Austria and Germany, amongst many other things.

2001 left: MIDI Pillows, computer print on cloth, Art Frankfurt, 2001. Installation views of “Webcast Lounge”.

STR created and curated the Webcast Lounge, set up in a booth of 110 m2 at Art Frankfurt, 2001. The Lounge could be experienced both as an accessible mediainstallation as well as a real-time webcasting station. The artists were present. STR had noticed that net art has never been present as a topic at art fairs. So STR decided to suggest this to Art Frankfurt, thus being the first art fair to make room for art in the net.

“Cyberspace & RL is Our Land” STR 1998

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Webcast Lounge, Art Frankfurt, 2001

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Different to the usual curating model, STR as artists invited artists, and the Webcast Lounge was a piece of art in itself. From inside this media installation STR webcasted live audiovisual sessions, and had conversations with guests Daniel Birnbaum, art cart/ Mario Hergueta and 01001011101 01101.ORG.

2002 Kommando TV and Professorship

Gary Danner & Elisa Rose shared a professorship at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt for two years, teaching “Media Production”. They held lectures every week, focusing on the history and aesthetics of TV, the Internet, sampling in audiovisual media, and the history of Dub (from calypso to ska to dubstep). In the practicals, held twice a week, students swapped between audio production (Danner) and video production (Rose). At the same time STR started their Best of Webcasting-TV series, one of the rare art programs in public television. Until 2006 they produced 50 minutes of audiovisual art every month, which was broadcast at hr-fernsehen/ARD Digital once a week. Approximately 40.000 viewers from all over Europe watched this video art experiment, this inverse publishing from the Net to TV. The tight production schedule allowed only a few selected activities and live performances besides that. STR performed at the ICA London, Kunsthaus Bregenz, and organized the 9/11 Netzwerke-symposium, where they installed Electronic Habitats for the first time.

2002 Cybersonica, performance at ICA, London 2002.

The next day STR performed at DeLuxe Gallery, a media art space in East London.

9.11-trailer 1–01, 9.11-trailer 1–02 each C-print, 80 × 60 cm, Frankfurt/Main 2002

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9.11-trailer, Frankfurt, 2002

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2002 right: Station Rose on TV: Best of Webcasting, ARD/ hr-fernsehen.

Out of almost 200 webcasts, which have taken place at www.stationrose. com, a special videoedition was re-edited for TV each month on from 2002.

Selected segments from webcasts, which originally were STReamed as 1-hour audio-visual freeform sessions, were resampled, relooped, morphed, distorted & smoothed, recombined, stretched and cut. Inverse publishing —from realtime in the net to TV—let us play with the language of “the old media”.

left: Vorspann C-print, 80 × 60 cm, Frankfurt/Main 2002

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The avantgarde approach of freeform STReaming became cut-up and turned into pop with a mass audience in a mass medium.

2002 left: Kratzer 01, Waldzer 01, each: C-print, 80 × 60 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2005.

right: Caravan 2 France 01, Caravan 2 France 02, each: C-print, 50 × 60 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2005.

Storyboard from Best of Webcasting 26 and 29, Frankfurt/ Main, 2005.

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Webcasting, Frankfurt, 2005

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2002 left: Storyboard from Best of Webcasting 30, Frankfurt/Main, November, 2005.

9.11 Netzwerke, symposium, Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main, 9.11.2002.

Media congress on networking, curated by STR.

Media installation Electronic Habitat, webcasting marathon, AV performances, lectures and contributions by: Thomas Feuerstein, John Coate, Richard Barbrook, Ralf Homann, F. E. Rakuschan, nOname.de, pingfm. org, dfmrtv.int. Video conference with ICA’s Digital Festival, London.

“I use lo-res, but I never downsize” elisa rose 1999

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2003 Live Performance Is Still The Basis While teaching “Media Production” at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt and producing the Best of Webcasting-TV series, STR was invited to participate in “Playing Field—streaming media art” by the Institute for Media Design Mainz. The results were presented at Montevideo in Amsterdam. At this occasion they also performed at the famed Melkweg. Their busy schedule of that period also included a contribution to Mille Plateaux’ “Soundcultures” project, as well as the first exhibition of Electronic Habitats at Gallery Detterer in Frankfurt. Re-materialization was on its way.

2003 Electronic Habitat, solo exhibition at Detterer Gallery, Frankfurt/Main, July 2003.

At the opening STR performed live in the gallery.

left: Border (01), C-print, 30 × 40 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2003.

right: Electronic Habitat 02 – Borderhack, mixed media, Frankfurt/ Main, 2002.

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Electronic Habitat, exhibition at Gallery Detterer, Frankfurt/Main, 2003

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2003 Performance and installation view, Detterer Gallery, Frankfurt/Main, July 2003.

Electronic Habitat Borderhack, mixed media, Frankfurt/Main, 2002

Stoffbild 02, Stoffbild 03, Stoffbild 04, each: print on cloth, 34 × 34 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2003 spam, C-Print, 60 × 80 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2003

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Electronic Habitat, exhibition at Gallery Detterer, Frankfurt/Main, 2003

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2004 More Electronic Habitats, more TV and more Teaching Rose and Danner shared the professorship until summer semester 2004, while they still produced their monthly TV series. STR also showed Electronic Habitats at O. K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz. Webculture became re-materialized. Towards the end of the year they started to produce a Best of Webcasting-DVD and CD, this way distilling 2 years of TV-art and 5 years of webcasting. Over this period STR had composed hundreds of videos, AV-pieces and millions of stills.

2004 left: Electronic Habitat 03 – Patchwork, mixed media, Frankfurt/ Main, 2002, courtesy Artothek des Bundes, Vienna.

right: Electronic Habitat 03 – Patchwork, DVD loop, 5 minutes, ed. 5, Frankfurt 2002 Electronic Habitat 03, exhibition view, O.K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, March–April 2004.

Electronic Habitat 03 – Borderhack, DVD loop, 7 minutes, ed. 5, Frankfurt/Main, 2002.

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Electronic Habitats 03, solo exhibition, O.K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz

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2004 left: Electronic Habitat 03 – Gummizelle, mixed media, headphones, VR-glasses, DVD loop, Frankfurt/ Main, 2004.

right: Smoother Than Strange, mixed media, Frankfurt/Main, 2004.

In its current production phase the artist duo is developing walk-through objects whose multicolored design is extracted from the flow of their audiovisual compositions. Dynamic digital imagery that emerges in the process of Station Rose's webcastings is translated directly into stills that form the basis for the design of room dividers. Formatted data streams become materialized objects. R o l an d S ch ö n y “ W e b C u l t u r e r e - mat e ria l iz e d ” e x c e rpt fr o m E l e ctr o nic H abitat 0 3 cata l o g

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Electronic Habitats 03, solo exhibition, O.K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz

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2004 Electronic Habitats 03, exhibition view.

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Electronic Habitats 03, solo exhibition, O.K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz

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N 2005 Next Level

As the shared professorship had ended the previous year, STR had more time to focus on artistic work again. While still producing their TV series, they released the DVD and CD Best of Webcasting that year, presenting them in Frankfurt, Vienna, Innsbruck, and Berlin with lectures and audiovisual performances. They had a second solo show, in Gallery DAM in Berlin Mitte.

2004

“Station Rose (…) have successfully occupied that bewildering hinterland between real-time and recorded, past and future, audio and visual. ‘Best of Webcasting’ provides an excellent opportunity to catch up with them.” T h e W I R E , f e br u ar y 2 0 0 5

left: Galerie Morgen, Café Royal, ZYX Music and hr-fernsehen presented Station Rose live + CD & DVD release party of Best of Webcasting, performance and lecture, Frankfurt/Main, 2005. Following the presentation at Café Royal STR presented Best of Webcasting at Kunsthalle Wien, projectspace karlsplatz, Kunstraum Innsbruck and Cooky’s, Frankfurt/ Main. STR lectured on their TV series at “Transmediale 05”, Berlin, as well as at the University for Art and Industrial Design Linz, master class “Interface Culture”.

right: Electronic Habitat 05, solo exhibition at [DAM] Gallery, Berlin, June–July 2005 Electronic Habitats 05, exhibition view.

next page: channel-take-2a2, C-Print, 60 × 80 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2005.

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O 2006 On Demand

Due to peculiar new aesthetic and cultural politics at hr-fernsehen, Station Roseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TV series was cancelled (the person in charge still owes STR an intellectually convincing explanation). It can be said that this series had been one of the rare regular art TV programs, antedating a style made popular by Myspace, YouTube, Facebook, etc., by merging performance, moderation, documentation, and interviews into a contemporary format. This gave them a lot more time to concentrate on other activities and projects like lecturing, performing, and producing their new book ://on Demand. STR started releasing music online on their Gunafa label, available on iTunes since then.

2006

bootspattern_01_9, bootspattern_01_2, bootspattern_01_5, bootspattern_01_6, each: C-Print, 60 x 80 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2006

Lecture & live performance: Station Rose— everything so analogue out there ://performance art, STReaming netart, television & :// artproduction: mediaart rematerialized at Städelschule, Frankfurt/Main, 2006.

left: Installation view, Städelschule, Frankfurt/Main, 2006.

In 2006, STR also performed and lectured at M12 in Berlin, Alexanderplatz, at Paraflows, Vienna, and released music online under their label Gunafa.

They produced the book ://on Demand— going therewith from net art to TV back to the medium of books, which was published by Revolver Books, Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt/ Main.

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2007 Pausing for a moment

The planning of the project 20 Digital Years was under way. STR contributed a video to the DVD compilation art_clips. ch.at.de. This DVD was published by Hatje Cantz, and produced by ZKM, where the DVD was shown in an exhibition. STR performed live at two major European festivals, Gary Danner wrote an editorial on Dubstep for the Austrian music magazine â&#x20AC;&#x153;skugâ&#x20AC;?. At their performance at Ars Electronica 2007 STR had started to experiment with projections on architecture in public space, thus going away from projecting on walls inside white cubes and clubs only.

2007

Incredibel_006–3 C-Print, 120 x 90 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2007

“I am not a material girl, I am a digital woman” elisa rose 1995

left: Incredibel_006, DVD videoloop, 3:50, Frankfurt/ Main, 2007.

right: Lips, video, 3:57, from: art_ clips.ch.at.de, DVD, published by ZKM, digital arts edition, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006. Presentation and exhibition at ZKM, January–March 2007.

Originally Webcast 135-lips from the body-STReamsseries, 7. 3. 2001. In this live webcast Elisa Rose has been showing her lips only.

Incredibel_006–1, Incredibel_006–2, Incredibel_006–4, C-Print, 60 x 80 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2007

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Incredibel_006, Frankfurt/Main 2007

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2007 left: Goodbye privacy, hello publiCity, performance and AV_dubplates, Ars Electronica 07. STR started experimenting with projections in public space. Ars Electronica in cooperation with Stadtwerkstatt, Linz 2007. Pneumatic sculpture by Sigi Miedl.

right: 20 Digital Years Digital Archive, online database, Frankfurt/Main, 2008.

Since 2007 STR has implemented audiovisual data into their archive.

Work in progress.

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2008 Quantum Moment — 20 Digital Years 20 Digital Years needed all of STR’s attention with the building LogInCabin. Besides producing their first 60 minutes movie Station Rose— 20 Digital Years—The Movie (which was shown at Kunsthalle Wien), and contributing a text for the book Interface Cultures. STR Digital Archive went online. In 2008, STR was granted the “Austrian State Stipend for the Fine Arts”.

2008

DVD

Watch this video on DVD

LogInCabin media sculpture, MAK-Terrace Plateau, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, 5.11.2008 – 25.1.2009 © The Art Collection of the City of Vienna STR went back to their roots—after 20 Digital Years. They constructed a media architecture of 3,3 tons using the logcabin system as a sample, and updated it to the LogInCabin, including the Digital Archive. Sustainable wood met LEDs & sound system. It was open 24 hours for 3 months (Sound System live by Gary Danner, LEDs live by Elisa Rose). It was an intervention in city space which could be seen from a great distance. Digital Art could be experienced inside the sculpture, in the museum, on the street & online. The Digital Archive was also shown. The LogInCabin was constructed in 3 days, un-built in 2, and can be rebuilt any time. The opening was at the beginning of the financial world crisis, 4.11.2008. 156

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LogInCabin— RaucherInnenzimmer Station Rose + Elfie Semotan, C-Print, 50x60 cm, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, 2009 Aesthetically a mixture of Jules Verne’s armchairtraveller laboratory and STR’s Electronic Habitats. The layered interior design, including stills on cloth— taken from the video MAK93-timVTS01_1, partially with a baroque attitude—consciously display a layering, an extreme rematerialization. The leitmotif surfaces in various stills, in prints on cloth as well as in the curtains of the Virtual Window. 158

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2008 right: 20 Digital Years – The Movie, installation view, “Video des Monats #37”, KUNSTHALLE wien, ursula blickle video lounge, June 2008

The real storylines are not in the spotlight but get inverted as breaks, as wild cards & un-commercials between abstract MIDI-sequences patterns. The real world is featured as disruption, as glitch, as reset button. Particular attention is given to subjective perception of time, digital glitches and the merger of digital worlds and the (urban) nature surrounding us.

2008 STR celebrated 20 Digital Years, and showed a film as a new piece of art, as a representative cross-section of their audio-visual art. The basis of STR’s work is the interaction of visuals (E. R.) and sound (G. D.). Both compose their AVart synchronously.

left: The Movie 01, The Movie 02-Lugano, The Movie 03-Verwehung, The Movie 04-Tupper, The Movie 05-Bagger, The Movie 06-incredibel, each: C-Print, 60 x 80 cm, Frankfurt/Main 2008

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20 Digital Years—The Movie, Frankfurt/Main 2008

Material used: films shot on locations in Cairo, Frankfurt/Main, Linz, Lugano, Avignon and at the web conference with ICA, London 2002, from 1988–2008 Elisa Rose: Visuals, editing, camera, performance, Gary Danner: Music, camera, performance

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While STR had installed & performed in an AV-installation with 8 screens as early as 1991, their next step further here was in the opposite direction, by showing a onechannel projection at the Kunsthalle Wien. The focus is on non-narrative dramaturgy & fictional storytelling, which has been enhanced since their TV-series.

2009–2010 Recycling Surplus To Save Nature Release of the Interstellar Overdrive—A Tribute to Syd Barrett audio project with Atom™. Station Rose focused on art production and performance once again, but with a new point of view. Still based in the bankers’ city Frankfurt/Main, for almost 20 years, they could observe capitalism at grass-roots level. This led to an aesthetic they called “New Media Arte Povera” from now on. In this period STR cooperated with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung twice, creating an audiovisual installation in the Staedelmuseum 2009 as well as in the Kunsthalle Schirn 2010.

2009–2010 left: In summer 2008 and 2009 STR performed at Yachtklub, an old wooden ship anchored at the Main river in the center of Frankfurt.

Once they showed 20 Digital Years The Movie, one year later they presented their new release Station Rose & Atom™: Interstellar Overdrive—A Tribute to Syd Barrett. This CD included a 5-minute video clip.

For the installation at Yachtklub STR stretched the 5-minute video clip to a loop of 50 minutes.

right: Installation view, Yachtklub, Frankfurt/Main, 2008.

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Interstellar Overdrive—A Tribute to Syd Barrett, Yachtclub, Frankfurt, 2009

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2009â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2010 Augenclickâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Pheromonic_Hungry Walking Blues, AV-performance, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, 2009.

For the exhibition SeeThisSound STR built a Pheromonic Area with projections and sound system. The basis was their personal synchronization. The samples/ substances, which STR delivered to the public during the performance steered the behavior. The pheromonic was manufactured as AV-liquid.

Signals released behavior reactions. <Worst case scenario> were alarm pheromones, where hungry cultural workers transfered increased aggression. Premiere. Thanks to Ma Rainey for helping STR out with the title.

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SeeThisSound, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz 2009

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2009–2010 left: Violent, C-Print,40 x 100 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2009.

right: Performance stills Augenclick— Pheromonic_Hungry Walking Blues, AV-performance, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, 2009.

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Hier steht der Projekttitel

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2009–2010 left: Augenclick— Pheromonic_Hungry Walking Blues, C-Print,40 x 100 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2009.

right, above and below: Fussgängerzone, video, 5:42, Frankfurt/Main, 2009.

right middle: Fussgängerzone, a part of Augenclick—Pheromonic_ Hungry Walking Blues, AV-performance, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, 2009.

DVD

“As Austrian media artists, with a domicile & a working place in Frankfurt, STR made the financial crisis, the omnipresent paranoia, coupled with a resurrected impertinence of the financial world, more than transparent. They experience that tension in Frankfurt on a daily basis, and integrated that experience in the LogInCabin media sculpture. To get more distance to this craziness, STR produced an AV-track called Fußgängerzone (pedestrian zone), which they performed at Lentos Kunstmuseum in 2009. Even if the financial world still behaves like there is no crisis, the tension in the air is more than present, in this video and in situ. And, it looks like there is not enough money around to build new skyscrapers—which always meant stopping a life in the inner city cause of the construction fields/STOPS involved. Cause the impulse to destroy real space—which often belongs to the citizens, is still here & unbroken, the field of destruction just moved a bit. The place of action has been moving to the streets, the STOP sign now is in the STReets, with all those barriers and bypasses. The bypass became the leitmotiv of the video”.

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E l isa R o s e , 2 0 0 9

17 1

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2009–2010 Violently Y/ours— recycling surplus -> to save nature, solo exhibition, Galerie Hofkabinett, Linz, 2010. With this exhibition STR went consciously away from the devoutness to the future of the media art scene, and concentrated on the crisis-ridden present, with new digital & analog works. Life instead of Artificial Life, present instead of the future. They called their current direction “New Media Arte Povera”. For the solo show STR acted in the sense of not wasting material. In the sense of “Recycling Surplus to save Nature”, they also used the surplus, the fall out of their studio as samples for new work, besides digital prints on cloth. A personal material, recently often used by Elisa Rose, were her worn panties, recycled to yarn. Stills from the AVcompositions, performed at Lentos Kunstmuseum, now became stitched pieces of art, transfered into real material. In addition, a limited edition music cassette had been produced.

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Violently Y/ours—recycling surplus -> to save nature, solo exhibition, Galerie Hofkabinett, Linz 2010

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2009–2010 left: Morgen + Übermorgen = Out, mixed media, 94 x 47 cm, Frankfurt/Main 2010, courtesy of Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz.

right: Borderhack, C-Print, 30 x 40 cm, Frankfurt/Main, 2004. Violent-phosphor, mixed media installation, Frankfurt/ Main, 2010. Cosy Atmosphere, light box, 24,5 x 30 x 12,4 cm, Frankfurt/Main 2005, courtesy Sammlung des Niederösterreichischen Landesmuseums.

Exhibition view, Galerie Hofkabinett, Linz, 2010.

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2009–2010 Sit-In/Out, AV-performance, Dresdner Bank, Raum für Kultur, Frankfurt/ Main, 10. 2. 2010. For the performance Sit-In/Out, in one of Frankfurts bank-skyscrapers, Elisa Rose created new <hand made> art pieces as elements of the installation & again recycled her worn tights, this time not as fabric, as done for a recent exhibition, but instead working with a microscope, discovering a black grid under microscopic circumstances. Gary Danner played, besides performing his latest experimental electronic music, his trustworthy Rickenbacker 330 semi-acoustic live in Frankfurt for the first time.

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Sit-In/Out, AV-performance, Dresdner Bank, Raum für Kultur, Frankfurt/Main

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2009–2010

The Jingles always follow the concept of a classical commercial jingle with a signature tune, a slogan and a certain dramaturgy. STR Jingles are not like one thinks about a jingle: short and just advertisment. They are long (up to 40 min.), dealing with different themes, sometimes with a strong political content like the last STR Jingle 2010, which is asking for a basic income to change the world. Earlier jingles concentrate on the influences of digitalization on (media-) art like the first jingle, which is called “Neue Umstände (New Circumstances)” or the jingle from 1990 “Public Brain Session” in which the artists use the radio as a “mind-machine” and explore the different use of archives and interfaces. The STR-JINGLE 2003 “(SPAM!)” is based on two texts which could pass the spam filter of the email software and looks on the change of our perception of time. So, listening to all Station Rose Jingles gives an overview about the use of sounds, voice and music over the last 22 years! Enjoy on http://kunstradio.at!

Naturband, video, KUNSTHALLE wien, 1985/86, contribution to the videocompilation Videorama, Art Clips from Austria, Vienna, 2010. One of the first studio productions of Rose and Danner, two years before the opening of Station Rose. They produced Naturband during their studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where they started to work together live audiovisually in 1983/84. The clip reflected the preoccupation of the artists with nature, with distortion, as well as the animism inherent in technology and nature, as well as their preference for a special lo-res image quality, which they applied to their TV-program & natively in the net since then. Naturband later became a live-STR webcast in 2000. The exhibition Videorama travelled to Henze & Ketterer Gallery, Bern, Switzerland, and ParaSite, Hong Kong, among other places, and is still touring. A publication with 2 DVDs edited by the Kunsthalle Vienna was published by Benteli Verlag.

E l isab e th Z imm e rmann ( pr o d u c e r Ö 1 K u nstra d i o - R a d i o k u nst ) , 2 0 1 0

Listen to all Jingles: http://kunstradio.at http://www.stationrose.com/music/kunstradio.html

STR Jingle 2010, C-Print, 67 x 100 cm, Frankfurt/Main 2010

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STR Jingle 2010, Kunstradio Ö1/ORF 2010, Naturband, KUNSTHALLE wien, 2010

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2009–2010 Close-Up_410, AV-installation and performance, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt/Main 24. 4. 2010 The installation included liveperformative moments, where Rose & Danner were actively changing and updating their AV-room during 7 hours (7pm–2am).

The marathonesque installation with sound system & 6 beamers gave the opportunity to see & hear the artists play & develop their leitmotif Close-Up_410.

There was no time schedule handed out for the performative moments. To keep track and follow the story, visitors had to come back frequently. The evening was hosted by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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Close-Up_401, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt

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Performances & Install ations

(1988–2010)

1 2 3 4 5 6

Station Rose Vienna PublicBrainSession/PBS, Soft Targets, Munich LogInCabin, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna Augenclick—Pheromonic_Hungry Walking Blues, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz Sit-In/Out, Dresdner Bank, Raum für Kultur, Frankfurt Close-Up_410, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt

(1:14) 1988 (6:32) 1991

(6:01) 2008

(1:54) 2009 (3:20) 2010 (3:31) 2010

AV-Sessions (1992–2009) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

DigitEyes (8:26) 1992/93/08 PublicBrainSession/PBS-egyptian (3:27) 1993 Flash_1 (2:23) 1993 FAB 505 (2:23) 1993 PBS-KBD (2:19) 1993 Etüde 4 (1:17) 1996 L.A.H (3:54) 1998 Motionshake (2:02) 2004 Zufall (4:12) 2000 Laufrad (2:22) 2004 gluub 3 (4:07) 2004 boogie504 (4:50) 2004 bagger-take2.1 (5:22) 2005 waldzer-take4 (3:57) 2005 channel1-take2 (4:09) 2005 Fußgängerzone (3:56) 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Tuerktrack Gunafa Public Brain Session (excerpt) Jubilee Dave (live version) hart Digit Eyes zzzz Deadhead Digital Bohemian Lifestyle hyene Phosphoric Brain Massage L.A.H. Korn Peterson Triptonize Question Mark (live) brumme It’s so hip SCSI Tatiampel Tupper LogInCabin Gatling CloseUp_410

(3:41) 1988 (4:45) 1989 (2:03) 1990 (1:54) 1991 (2:11) 1992 (0:35) 1992 (4:02) 1992 (1:22) 1992 (2:34) 1993 (1:17) 1995 (4:21) 1995 (4:58) 1997 (3:46) 1998 (4:28) 1999 (3:55) 2000 (4:40) 2001 (3:36) 2002 (2:23) 2006 (0:34) 2007 (2:27) 2008 (0:19) 2008 (4:20) 2008 (2:56) 1990/2008 (3:04) 2009 (4:24) 2010

All tracks recorded at Station Rose Studio in Frankfurt, except track 1 (recorded at Station Rose Studio Vienna), track 2 (recorded at Midex Studio, Heliopolis Egypt), track 7 (recorded at SEL I/S/C Frankfurt), track 23 (recorded at Station Rose Studio Vienna). Gary Danner: electric and acoustic guitars, electric bass guitar, theremin, keyboards, nintendo ds, saz, vocals, percussion, drums. Elisa Rose: vocals, text.

All AV-tracks recorded at Station Rose studio in Frankfurt. All AV-Session tracks recorded live@home, except 10, 16. Elisa Rose: video-editing & composing, vocals, text. Gary Danner: music. Camera: Station Rose, Ernst Stratmann, Ernst Pabeschitz. Postproduction and Programming: msm-studios.com ©+℗ Station Rose 1988–2010.

Total running time: 81:37

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Audio-CD and DVD

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Written, programmed, recorded and produced by Gary Danner, except track 2 (recorded by Raja Rais), track 7 (recorded and coproduced by Atom Heart). Postproduction Audio-CD by Jens Fischer.

Total running time: 74:42

Documentation of creative work 1988–2010

2010 Sit-In/Out, audiovisual performance at what is music?, Raum für Kultur, Dresdner Bank, Frankfurt/Main Violently Y/ours, solo exhibition, Gallery Hofkabinett, Linz Close_up_410 in cooperation with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, audiovisual installation and performance, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt/Main Station Rose Jingle 2010, Kunstradio ORF 2009 Videorama — Kunstclips aus Österreich, Kunsthalle Wien, New York, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Peking See This Sound, audiovisual performance, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz Interstellar Overdrive — A Tribute to Syd Barrett, enhanced CD Third Ear Tokyo, in cooperation with Atom™, CD presentation, Yachtklub, Frankfurt/Main Ornamental 409, installation, FAZ-Lounge, Staedelmuseum, Frankfurt/Main Ornamental 409, new works on fabric LogInCabin, media sculpture, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna 2008 Transmediale/Moving Forest, Berlin 20 Digital Years: webcasts, publications, art products, web database “STR Digital Archive 1988–2008”, live-performances, exhibitions, “media sculpture” Feature story in international artmagazine EIKON Station Rose — 20 Digital Years — the Movie at KUNSTHALLE wien, ursula blickle videolounge LogInCabin, media sculpture, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna Station Rose Jingle 2008, Kunstradio ORF Austrian State Stipend for the Fine Arts 2007 CIMATICS AV Festival Brussels, AV-performance Second City/Capture your City, Ars Electronica, performance SKUG Journal für Musik, editorial on Dubstep INPUT 2007, Lugano, panel and presentation on “Art in TV” Stepper EP, audio online-release art_clips, exhibition and DVD participation, ZKM Karlsruhe/ Germany 2006 ://on Demand, artist book, Revolver Archiv für Aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt/Main ://on Demand, audio online-release live@home, audio online-release Playing Now, audio online-rerelease Paraflows Vienna, lecture M12 Berlin, performance and lecture Guestlecture and performance, Staedelschule, Frankfurt/Main

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Best of Webcasting, hr/ARD Digital, TV productions, 50 min. p. month Webcasting at www.stationrose.com 2005 Transmediale Berlin, lecture Best of Webcasting, DVD and CD release Performances and DVD-presentations at Cafe Royal, Frankfurt/Main, project space karlsplatz, Vienna, Kunstraum Innsbruck Cooky’s, Frankfurt/Main, performance Electronic Habitat 05, solo exhibition [DAM] Berlin Station Rose Jingle 2005, Kunstradio ORF Kunstuniversität Linz, Institute for Interface Culture, guestlecture Best of Webcasting, hr/ARD Digital, TV productions, 50 min. p. month Webcasting at www.stationrose.com 2004 Professorship “Media production”, University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt Electronic Habitat 03, solo exhibition, O.K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz Best of Webcasting, hr/ARD Digital, TV productions, 50 min. p. month Webcasting at www.stationrose.com 2003 Playing Field — streaming media art, in cooperation with IMG Mainz Melkweg, Amsterdam, performance (WWV festival) Montevideo, Amsterdam, lecture (as part of Playing Field) Soundcultures, Audio-Mini-CD (participation), Edition Suhrkamp/Mille Plateaux Manifestation! vinyl, label: Eternity Electronic Habitat, solo exhibition, Galerie Martina Detterer, Frankfurt/Main Professorship “Media production”, University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt Best of Webcasting, hr/ARD Digital, TV productions, 50 min. p. month Webcasting at www.stationrose.com 2002 Professorship “Media production”, University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt live@home 4, vinyl release, videoclip WYSIWYG. Best of Webcasting, hr/Late Lounge, TV productions, 4 telecasts á 50 min. p.m. Art Frankfurt, Trabant Gallery Performances at Goldfinger Club, Frankfurt/Main Cybersonica festival, ICA, London, performance Webcasts live@home No. 153 – 159 at www.stationrose.com

Kunsthaus Bregenz, performance 9.11. Netzwerke, media conference curated by Station Rose, with pingfm.org, Ralf Homann, F. E. Rakuschan, John Coate, Thomas Feuerstein, Richard Barbrook, Benoit Faucon, bizz circuits, n0name.org 2001 Inkwell.vue, online live-interview & conference at WELL Engaged, hosted by David Hudson & Jon Lebkowsky Webcast Lounge at Art Frankfurt: installation, performance & webcasting station — STR curates the exhibition of netart projects, in conversation with Daniel Birnbaum, 0100101110101101.ORG, and others (Webcasts No. 139– 143). Art production MIDI-pillows (MIDI-composition printed on cloth, limited edition for Art Frankfurt) EMAF Festival, Osnabrück, lecture, STReamed from the Webcast Lounge, Frankfurt/Main Dave — remixed, vinyl release, label: International Deejay Gigolo Records Dave — remixed, Progressive House Compilation, Choice Productions, London Smoother than Strange, on Clicks & Cuts 2 compilation, Mille Plateaux, Frankfurt/Main Spring Tour 2001: audiovisual performances — Linz/University of Arts, t.u.b.e, Munich, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt/ Main, WMF, Berlin & U60311, Frankfurt/Main (in coop. with Gigolo records) Panel V-Stream21, Linz/University of Arts t.u.b.e- stationrose.com, live-broadcast of a STR-performance on Bayrischer Rundfunk, simultaneous STReaming at www.stationrose.com Webcasts live@home No. 129–152 at www.stationrose.com STR in conversation with: e.g. FORCE Inc, Mille Plateaux/Achim Szepanski (Webcast No. 133) 10 years online (since 10.6.91): special Webcast Session summer 2001, feature at Telepolis Lecture at Bauhaus Universität Weimar, festival <type=radioborder=0> Participation in Borderhack 2.0 festival, San Diego/Tijuana, with Webcast No. 148 Smoother than strange, musicvideoclip, VIVA Participation in transfer.net/steirischer herbst, with Webcast No. 150, performance and lecture 2000 Arte/Tracks, TV-feature, incl. footage of STR live in Paris Club Transmediale, audiovisual performance, Transmediale festival, Berlin Art Frankfurt 2000: new art products (Trabant Gallery), as well as Gunafa Clubbing, in conversation with Besucherschule, Artkino, Webcasts “STR in conversation with Bazon Brock” at www.stationrose. com, Webcast No. 102 Mekka Frankfurt Offenbach, in cooperation with Moschee Projection of a STReam Kulturzeit, 3sat, TV-feature Dave, International Deejay Gigolos, Volume IV compilation, Munich Drag & Drop, Kunstraum Innsbruck, medien.kunst.tirol

186

Documentation of creative work 1988–2010

Performance and installation, in conversation with Josephine Bosma 100 Tage keine Ausstellung, Kunstverein Salzburg, performance and a conversation with Hildegund Amanshauser New Austrian Spotlight, cooperation, University of Marmara, Istanbul live@home 3, vinylrelease incl. remix by move D. Webcast day 92, videoclip, VIVA AU CIEL, Audio CD CD release & performance at Popkomm, Cologne VIVA 2/2 Step, TV-feature, 1-hour broadcast of a live-webcast Performance at rhiz Club, Vienna If only we could tell, contribution with installation/ performance, Generali Foundation, Vienna Webcasts live@home No.93–128 at www.stationrose.com private://public, Symposium Nr. 3, presentation of the book private://public, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, with Thomas Feuerstein and Stefan Weber Lecture at filesharing, Berlin STR live in San Francisco: MIDI performance at Blasthaus!/ Joypad

1999

crossLinks, Marstall, Berlin: participation & first Webcasting at www.stationrose.com, since 22.1.1999 on a regular basis Webcasts live@home No. 1–92 at www.stationrose.com Next 5 Minutes 3, festival, webcasting, performance, booktour, Amsterdam Galerienrundgang, Art Frankfurt, Rotari Club, Frankfurt/Main/ Offenbach Gunafa Clubbing II, performance & STReam, Space Place, Frankfurt/Main Accept The Future, performance, Bordeaux Best of Webcasting, RadioX, Frankfurt/Main Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 99, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria & Internet von 0–1, Lecture, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt/Main Playing now, CD release, Gunafa label live@home, div. vinyl releases, Gunafa label Playing Now World Tour: Earth Dance Festival, Hamburg, Trabant Gallery, Wien, U60311, Frankfurt/Main, Transmediale, Berlin, Viper Festival, Luzern, Ultraschall, Munich, STR live in Paris, Le Batofar

1998

Transmediale 98, festival, MIDI-Live-performance, Berlin 1st Decade — 10 Jahre Station Rose, publication, edition selene, Vienna Kunstradio — The 1st Decade, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria & Internet Multimedia Field Research, California, USA 1st Decade Booktour: lectures, installations, performances in Vienna (MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna), San Francisco, Hamburg (Westwerk, with Geert Lovink), Frankfurt Book Fair Construction Sounds, MIDI-live performance, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna

Telematic Cities, lecture, Gelsenkirchen, Germany World Wide Jam, contributions to Howard Rheingold’s “Digital Zeitgeist” Frankfurt Book Fair Honorable mention at “Prix Ars Electronica”, Linz, for Station Rose Homepage Auskunft, STR in conversation with F.E.Rakuschan, Depot Vienna

1996

Burning the Interface, exhibition of avantgarde-CD-ROMs, Sydney Kursbuch Internet, text contribution, Bollmann Verlag, Germany Videoconference: CuSeeMe, online with Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and others Komm 96, congress, discussion with STR, J.P. Barlow, G. Lovink a.o., Düsseldorf Popkomm 96, Cologne Electronic Weekend, Gary Danner Theremin-concert at WP 8, Düsseldorf Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 96, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria Contract with Sony Music/S3 Station Rose are appointed “Hosts of the Frankfurt Conference” and “World Wide Jammers” at Howard Rheingold’s Electric Minds <www.minds.com>, a Virtual Community project End of Digital Cocooning phase

1995

Release of CD/CD-ROM Icons, Morphs & Samples (Gunafa Records, licensed by Play it Again Sam, Germany) Mind Children, CD-Single (Gunafa Records, licensed by Play it again Sam, Germany) Field research in California, USA, cooperations with Howard Rheingold, John Coate (S.F. Chronicle), The WELL, Dr. Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna STATION ROSE — Homepage goes online: www.well.com/ www/gunafa/, The WELL, San Francisco Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 95, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria Digital Cocooning, artistic-scientific experiment Popkomm 95, Cologne, CD-ROM presentation, panel discussion Gunafa Clubbing/Internet Lounge, The BOX, Frankfurt/Main, incl. internet connection

187

1994

Chromapark, Techno-exhibition, CD-ROM presentation, Berlin MTV-The Party Zone, TV feature, London Pulseman, contribution to sampler (Frogman Records, Tokyo) Art Finale, Performance, Nürnberg/Germany Production of CD-ROM Surfing on Electronic Surfaces: 15 years of Ars Electronica Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 94, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria European Media Art Festival, panel, Osnabrück/Germany Infografia ’94, Bilbao

1997

Release of CD-Extra Phosphoric Brain Massage, Sony Music 4 Audiotracks & interactive multimedia, texts, audio Conference ELECTRIC MINDS. STR Hosts of this Virtual Community, Internet Sunflower Festival, Regensburg Nature One Festival, Rave, live-performance, Kastellaun/ Germany Popkomm 97, Cologne Ars Electronica, workshop and lecture on Virtual Communities, with John “Tex” Coate, Linz, Austria Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 97, composition for ORF/ Ö1, Austria Cosmic Circus Festival, performance, Frankfurt/Main & Berlin Technoscope, lecture, steirischer herbst, Graz, Austria Flying Network Party, University of Potsdam Montreal International Festival of Cinema and New Media, Canada Musik im Internet, lecture, University of Applied Sciences, Frankfurt/Main Release of TREE, Vinyl-Maxisingle and Video, Sony Music

1993

Station Rose Interaktiv, exhibition, Tröster & Schlüter Gallery, CD-ROM, light boxes, multiples and print-outs, Frankfurt/Main Mediale, festival, CD-ROM-presentation, Hamburg Germany-Tour (Berlin, Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg, Hannover, Bremen, Stuttgart, München, Düsseldorf, Köln) with Dj Dag Multimedia-Live-Performance, Amiga, Atari Unit n, lecture, Vienna Start up of hypermedia-label Gunafa: release of CD-ROMs, CDs and Vinyls Ebene 7, multimedia-events, performances, installations, with 5 projectors and 5 screens, Bodysonic-Sound System, Frankfurt/Main E-mail connection with Virtual Community The WELL: real time chat, ascii grafics Performance with Terence McKenna Interactiva, festival, lecture and CD-ROM-demonstration, Cologne Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 93, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria Popkomm, Cologne FAB 505, EP/Video production, No. 3 of “New Musical ExpressTechno Charts”, London FAB 505 — Vernetzte Zelle, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna Hypermedia Installation & Multimedia Sequencing live, E-mail connection with Virtual Community, The WELL, Amiga, Atari, 6 projectors and 6 screens Reise zu den Quellen, Tokyo, multimedia field research in Japan and contribution for a catalogue

1992

Gunafa Clubbing, XS Club, Frankfurt/Main, live hypermedia performances in a club context, with e-mail connection with Virtual Community, The WELL: real time chat, ascii Grafiken, Amiga, Atari, 4 projections

Expeditionen 92 congress, performance, Munich CD-ROM production Station Rose Interaktiv. Virtuelle Realität als Neuer Grenzbereich, in cooperation with the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research and CHIP INSIDE, Amiga system Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 92, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria 37 Räume, Auguststrasse, group exhibition with Yoko Ono and others, Berlin Interactiva, festival, lecture & CD-ROM-demonstration, Cologne DigitEyes/Dave, LP/CD Production, “LP of the Week”/MTV, “The Party Zone” Virtuelle Rituale, performance, Freiburg/Breisgau

Sommeratelier, installation with computerprints, light boxes, mindmachine, videos, soundmachine, Amiga 500 computer & modem, and contribution for the catalogue, Hannover Westwerk, installation with Public Brain Session-performance, Hamburg Public Brain Tour, BRD, CH, USA, in some places with Dr. Timothy Leary Cyberthon festival (a 24-hour Adventure in Virtual Reality), performance, San Francisco steirischer herbst — “Mobile Halle”, Public Brain Session Cybergirls, exhibition of Moritz Reichelt, computerprints Last activity of STR in Vienna

1991

Move from Vienna to Frankfurt/Main Station Rose goes Online, The Well: conferences, real time chat, ascii grafics Public Brain Session, with Micky Remann, performance, TV tower Frankfurt/Main Virtuelle Realität als Neuer Grenzbereich, research work for the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research Multimedia field research in USA 1st European Software Festival, CD-ROM-demonstration Munich TV-feature with Marvin Minsky & STR-Computergrafics Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 91, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria Gunafa 2000, multiples, light boxes, videos, live-performance, exhibition, NGBK, Berlin Internet connection with Howard Rheingold in San Francisco Print outs of ascii-grafics Virtual Welcome by Dr. Timothy Leary on video Gunafa 2000, EP/CD production (No. 9 of Global Techno Power Charts, Detroit) Soft Targets, installation and performance, Munich Chill Out, videos and sounds, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt/ Main

1990

Mind Machines, Symposium Nr. 2: Cyberspace & Virtual Realities, Vienna Public Brain Session, premiere, opto-acoustic creation/stimulation of theta waves, monitors, lightsystem, PA, Vienna Das Broiler Projekt, Christoph Tannert/Berlin East, informs about “Avantgarde in the GDR?”, “Warenwerte”, videos, lecture, vinyl, Vienna Gunafa Clubbing, hypermedia installation, Public Brain Session, Techno, Vienna, Mannheim, Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main Windows, series of installations in the windows of the station with contributions by Helmut Mark and F. E. Rakuschan, Peter Sandbichler and others Art Frankfurt, light boxes, videos, multiples, catalogue Galleries Gawlik & Schorm/Vienna, Karin Sachs/Munich Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 90, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria

188

Documentation of creative work 1988–2010

1989

Gunafa Clubbing, hypermedia installation, Public Brain Session, Techno, Atrium and Skala, Vienna Arabian Sands, exhibition and concert with “The Bicycle Thieves”, light boxes, light objects, video edition, catalogue (incl. discette) and multiples, Gawlik & Schorm Gallery, Vienna in March (short intermission of field research in Cairo) Station im Aussendienst, multimedia field research in Cairo/ Egypt until July, production of light objects, fashion and audio recordings Design Wien, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, contribution Oriental Light as catalogue project, Vienna Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 89, composition for ORF/Ö1, Austria Museum des 21. Jahrhunderts, exhibition, contribution, Vienna Trash City, contribution, Forum Stadtpark, Graz Gunafa Show, multimedia performance, Ars Electronica, Im Netz der Systeme and Gunafa Pavillon, Linz Text contribution for Kunstforum, vol. 103

1988

Opening of Station Rose 11. 3. in Vienna Presentation of music cassette & light installation by Andreas Kunzmann 3 short stories by Armin Medosch, published by “Edition Rose” Fahnen und Hymnen, multimedia project for opening the Station Rose, Vienna, with contributions by Gerwald Rockenschaub, Bob Adrian, Helmut Mark, F.M. Einheit, Der Plan, Elisa Rose, Gary Danner, and others, multiple und music cassette edition Kunstradio — Station Rose Jingle 01, composition for ORF/ Ö1, Austria Die andere Wirklichkeit. Avantgarde in der DDR? Lecture by Christoph Tannert, East-Berlin Samples, Symposium Nr. 1, contributions by Fritz Ostermeier, Pita Rehberg, Thomas Mießgang, Zelko Wiener, Constanze Ruhm, Mathias Fuchs, Phoenix Presseagentur, and others, incl. Sampling Live concert, Acid House (DJ G. Rockenschaub) and light installation, Vienna Oriental Light, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, performance and installation Station im Aussendienst, on from November, multimedia field research in Cairo/Ägypten for 8 months

list of works

Sample Minds, double Audio CD, published by medien.kunst. tirol, Innsbruck 2001 (contribution)

DVDs, CD-ROMs, CDs and Records selection)

Les Chansons des Perverts, Audio CD and LP sampler, Crippled Dick Hot Wax, distribution: EFA, Berlin 2002 (contribution)

STATION ROSE INTERAKTIV—Virtuelle Realität als Neuer Grenzbereich, CD-ROM with 3 audio tracks, for Commodore Amiga system, label: Gunafa, distributed by CHIP INSIDE/ Vogel Verlag, Frankfurt/Main 1992

Soundcultures, Audio-Mini-CD, edition Suhrkamp/Mille Plateaux, distribution: Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 2003 (contribution)

GUNAFA 2000, vinyl, label: Cyclotron, distribution: SPV, Frankfurt/Main 1991 DAVE/Digit Eyes, vinyl, label: Eternity, distribution: SPV, Frankfurt/Main 1992 FAB 505 EP, vinyl, label: Gunafa, Frankfurt/Main 1993 Surfing On Electronic Surfaces: 15 Years of Ars Electronica, CD-ROM for Macintosh, label: Gunafa, distribution: Ars Electronica, Frankfurt/Linz 1994 Icons, Morphs & Samples, Audio CD/CD-ROM, label: Gunafa, licensed by Play It Again Sam, Germany, distribution: Rough Trade, Hamburg 1994 Phosphoric Brain Massage, CD-Extra & vinyl, label: Sony, distribution: Sony, Frankfurt/Main 1996 Tree, vinyl, label: Sony, Frankfurt/Main 1997, distribution: Sony Construction Sounds, Audio CD, published by Vitus H. Weh/ Markus Wailand, Vienna 1998 (contribution) Oars With Ears, Audio CD, label: Respekt/Kunstradio, Linz 1998 (contribution) Playing Now, Audio CD, label: Gunafa, distribution: Neuton, Frankfurt/Main 1999 live@home 1–4 audiotracks of selected live webcasts at www.stationrose.com on vinyl, label: Gunafa, distribution: Neuton, Frankfurt/Main 1999–2002 AU CIEL, Audio CD, label: Crippled Dick Hot Wax!, distribution: EFA, Berlin 2000 Clicks & Cuts 2, Audio CD Sampler, label: Mille Plateaux, distribution: EFA, Frankfurt/Main 2001, (contribution) International DeeJay Gigolos Compilation Vol. 4, Audio CD, label: International DeeJay Gigolo Records, distribution: EFA, Berlin 2001 (contribution) Dave, re-release, label: International Deejay Gigolo Records, distribution: EFA, Berlin 2001

189

Manifestation!, vinyl, label: Eternity, distribution: Neuton, Frankfurt/Main 2003 Best of Webcasting, DVD and Audio CD, label: ZYX Music, distribution: ZYX Music, Frankfurt/Main 2005 ://on Demand, 4-track-EP, online-release, label: Gunafa, distribution: finetunes.net, Frankfurt/Main 2006 live@home, CD, online-release, label: Gunafa, distribution: finetunes.net, Frankfurt/Main 2006 art_clips.ch.at.de, DVD sampler, ZKM Karlsruhe/Germany, Hatje Cantz, 2007 (contribution) Stepper EP, 4-track-EP, online-release, label: Gunafa, distribution: finetunes.net, Frankfurt/Main 2007 Interstellar Overdrive—A Tribute to Syd Barrett, enhanced CD, in cooperation with Atom™, label and distribution: Third Ear Japan, Tokyo 2009 VIDEORAMA, DVD sampler, Kunsthalle Wien, Benteli Verlag, Bern 2009 (contribution) Violently Y/ours, limited edition cassette, label: Gunafa, distribution: difficult, Frankfurt/Main, Linz 2010

Books (selection) Station Rose. Arabian Sands, Vienna: Gawlik und Schorm Gallery, 1989 (sold out) “Im Netz der Systeme”, in Kunstforum, vol. 103, Cologne 1989 “Intelligent/Ambient Techno” and “Surfing on Electronic Surfaces—15 JAHRE Ars Electronica”, CD-ROM, in Intelligente Ambiente, Ars Electronica catalogue vol.1+2, ed. by Karl Gerbel, Peter Weibel, Vienna: PVS Verleger, 1994 “Die Ästhetik von Techno”, in Techno, ed. by Philipp Anz, Patrick Walder, Zurich: Verlag Ricco Bilger, 1995 artists@Home—Künstler im Internet”, in Kursbuch Internet, ed. by Stefan Bollmann, Mannheim: Bollmann Verlag, 1996

Station Rose “1st Decade”, Vienna: edition selene, 1998 Station Rose “private://public”, Vienna: edition selene, 2000 “Dauer, Simultanität, Echtzeit”, in Kunstforum, vol. 151, Cologne, 2000 “Netart Webcast 105, 4.5. 2000. Station Rose in conversation with Josephine Bosma”, in Sample Minds, ed. by Stefan Bidner, Thomas Feuerstein, Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2004 Station Rose “://on Demand”, Frankfurt/Main: Revolver Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, 2006 “Everything is so Analog out There”, in Interface Cultures, ed. by Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mignonneau, Dorothée King, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2008

Radio- and TV-Productions Station Rose Jingle, Kunstradio/ORF, 1988–2010 Best of Webcasting, RadioX, Frankfurt/Main, 1999–2000 Best of Webcasting 1–31, weekly 1 hour, HR-Fernsehen and ARD Digital, 2002–2006

Exhibitions and Performances (selection) Oriental Light, Museum Ludwig, Cologne 1988 Gawlik & Schorm Gallery, Vienna 1989 Ars Electronica, Linz 1989, 1994, 1995 “Prix Ars Electronica”, 1997 Karin Sachs Gallery, München 1990 Cyberthon, San Francisco 1990 steirischer herbst 1990, 1997, 2001 Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt/Main 1991 Soft Targets, Munich 1991 37 Räume, Berlin Auguststrasse 1992 Tröster & Schlüter Gallery, Frankfurt/Main 1993 Interactiva, Cologne 1992, 1993 Mediale, Hamburg 1993 Chromapark, Berlin 1994 Depot Wien, Vienna 1995 Burning the Interface, Sydney 1996 Nature One Festival, Kastellaun/Germany 1997 Transmediale, Berlin 1998, 1999, 2000 crossLinks, Berlin 1999 Trabant Gallery, Vienna 1999 Next 5 Minutes 3 Festival, Amsterdam 1999 MuseumsQuartier, Vienna 1999 Le Batofar, Paris 1999 VIPER Festival, Luzern/Basel 1999, 2000 100 Tage keine Ausstellung, Kunstverein Salzburg, Salzburg, 2000 Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck 2000, 2005

190

List of Works

Joypad@Blasthaus!, San Francisco 2000 MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, 1989, 1994, 1998, 2000 if only we could tell, Generali Foundation, Vienna 2000 Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main 2001 t-u-b-e, Munich 2001 Cybersonica Festival, ICA, London 2002 Goldfinger, Frankfurt/Main 2002 Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz 2002 Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main 2002 Montevideo, Amsterdam 2003 Melkweg, Amsterdam 2003 Martina Detterer Gallery, Frankfurt/Main 2003 O.K Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, Linz 2004 [DAM] Gallery Berlin, Berlin 2005 Cooky’s, Frankfurt/Main 2005 Kunsthalle Wien, projectspace karlsplatz, Vienna 2005 Kunstuniversität Linz, Linz 2005 Städelschule, Frankfurt/Main 2006 M12, Berlin 2006 Paraflows, Wien 2006 art_clips, Ausstellung und DVD, ZKM, Karlsruhe/Germany 2007 (participation) Second City/Capture Your City, Ars Electronica, Linz 2007 (participation) Cimatics AV-Festival, Brussels 2007 Transmediale/Moving Forest, Berlin 2008 Station Rose—The Movie, Ursula Blickle Videolounge, Kunsthalle Vienna, Vienna 2008 FAZ Lounge, Staedelmuseum, Frankfurt/Main 2009 20 Digital Years—LogInCabin, media sculpture, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, 2008–2009 Videorama (participation), Kunsthalle Wien 2009 See This Sound, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Linz 2009 Violently Y/ours, Galerie Hofkabinett, Linz 2010 Sit-In/Out, what is music?, Raum für Kultur Dresdner Bank, Frankfurt/Main 2010 Close-Up_410, FAZ Lounge, audiovisual installation and performance, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt/Main 2010

Internet projects Online conferencing, The Well since June 1991 Gunafa Clubbing since 1992 Cu-See-Me conferences, 1994–1996 “Prix Ars Electronica (honorable mention)” for Station Rose homepage, The Well, 1995 Hosting of Frankfurt Conference at Electric Minds, 1996–1998 palace.com, 1997 inkwell, 2001 Webcast Lounge at Art Frankfurt, 2001 9.11. Netzwerke, symposium, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main 2002 Playing Field—streaming media art, in cooperation with Institute for Media Design, Fachhochschule Mainz, Mainz 2003

Webcasting at www.stationrose.com 1999–2006 myspace, YouTube and var. Web 2.0 projects since 2006

biographies

Lectures (selection)

born in Linz, Austria. Lives and works in Frankfurt/Main, Vienna and cyberspace. Studied Romance Languages and Art History at the University of Vienna; Video Art (Prof. Oswald Oberhuber) and Fashion (Prof. Karl Lagerfeld) at the University of Applied Art Vienna; graduated 1987.

Elisa Rosa

Depot Wien, Vienna 1994 Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main, Offenbach/ Main 1994 European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück 1994, 2001 Popkomm, Cologne 1995 steirischer herbst, Graz 1997 Ars Electronica, Linz 1997 Fachhochschule Frankfurt/Main, Frankfurt/Main 1998 Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt/Main 1999 transmediale, Berlin 1999 Kunstverein Salzburg 2000 MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, 2000 Bauhausuniversität Weimar, Weimar 2001 Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main 2002 Institute for Media Design, Fachhochschule Mainz, Mainz 2003 Montevideo/Time based Arts, Amsterdam 2003 University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, professorship, Darmstadt/Germany 2002–2004 Kunstuniversität Linz, Institute for Interface Culture, Linz 2005 Städelschule, Frankfurt/Main 2006 Paraflows, symposium, Semperdepot, Vienna 2006 INPUT 2007, Lugano 2007

Videos (TV) Modemocracy, 1993 Tree, 1998 Holz, 1999 Webcast day 92, 2000 Smoother than strange, 2001 WYSIWYG, 2002 Best of Webcasting 1–31, 2002–2006 31 hours of video art Lips 6.2, art_clips, ZKM 2007

Teaching “Media Production”, University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Darmstadt/Germany 2002–2006

191

Gary Danner

born in Linz, Austria. Lives and works in Frankfurt/Main, Vienna and cyberspace. Studied International Business Studies at Vienna University of Economics and Business; Visual Communication (Prof. Laurids Ortner) at the Art University of Linz; Grafic Art (Prof. Oswald Oberhuber) at the University of Applied Art Vienna; graduated 1987. From 1979 to 1987 concerts in Austria and England. ‘The Vogue’s’ The Frozen Seas of Io reached number two of the Austrian Top Ten in 1981.

Since 1983 Elisa Rose and Gary Danner realize joint projects: performances, concerts, fashion shows, videos. They founded “Station Rose” in Vienna in 1988. Elisa Rose conceives and realizes the visual part, Gary Danner conceives and realizes the acoustic part.

www.stationrose.com

About this publication

Many thanks to

Graphic design: Tom Albrecht (the simple society), Rosina Huth Photo collages: Elisa Rose Text (if not stated otherwise): Gary Danner, Elisa Rose Editing and Proof-Reading: Silvia Jaklitsch, Station Rose Translation: Michaela Alex, Susanne Eder, Station Rose Cover Photo: Wolfgang Woessner/MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna Photo credits: Wolfgang Woessner/MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna: p. 156, 157; Bill Bayer: p. 28, 33, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 53, 60, 61, 166, 169; Marcel Houf: p. 32, 33; Station Rose Archive: p. 6, 30, 31, 37, 38, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 56, 57, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76, 77, 81, 82, 92, 95, 96, 99, 107, 108, 112, 114, 117, 123, 124, 127, 128, 129, 130, 146, 148, 156, 171; Jens Fischer: p. 152; Dorle Bahlburg: p. 58; Reinhard Mayr: p. 83; Stephan Wyckoff: p. 161; Edgar Herbst: p. 80; Otto Saxinger: p. 4, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 172, 174, 175; Ernst Stratmann: p. 81, 88, 140, 144, 162, 164, 165, 176, 180; Henning: p. 66; Elfie Semotan: p. 154, 158; Anke Peters: p. 137; Heribert Kansy: p. 62; Angelika Fertsch Röver: p. 78, 81; Daniel Siegler: p. 84, 90, 93; Edith Held: p. 104, 110; Thomas Feuerstein: p. 109; Bruno Vaplon: p. 94; Harry Nilsson: p. 70; Wolf Lieser: p. 141; Ernst Pabeschitz: p. 171

Peter Noever, Gabriele Horn, Howard Rheingold, Hans Diebner, Kunsthalle Wien, Elfie Semotan, Vitus H. Weh, Bruce Sterling, Ute Meta Bauer, Peter Weibel, David Hudson, John Coate, Didi Neidhart, Timothy Leary, Doug Millison, Christoph Tannert, Stella Rollig, Geert Lovink, Elisabeth Zimmermann, Silvia Jaklitsch, Tom Albrecht, Rosina Huth, Achim Fey, Terence McKenna, Otto Saxinger, Wolfgang Woessner, Bill Bayer, Jens Fischer, Martina Kandeler-Fritsch, Christian Wymetal, Bernadette Boecker, Marcel Houf, Edgar Herbst, Reinhard Mayr, Liselotte Hentschläger, Britta und Hans Danner, Kim Eva Danner-Eidlhuber, Paul Fischnaller, Marco Rühl, Dorle Bahlburg, Stephan Wyckoff, Ernst Stratmann, Henning, Daniel Merkel, Ernst Pabeschitz, Olivier Dobberkau/dkd, Stefan Bock/msm, Dominik Fritz, Anke Peters, DJ Mark Spoon, André Führer, Angelika Fertsch Röver, Edith Held, Heribert Kansy, Michaela Alex, Susanne Eder, Thomas Feuerstein, Bruno Vaplon and all who have supported us in those years.

Paper: Core Silk 150 g/qm Print: Holzhausen, Vienna DVD postproduction: msm-studios.com © Nürnberg 2010, Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, Station Rose and the authors All rights reserved Printed in Austria ISBN 978-3-86984-111-3 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de. Distributed in the United Kingdom Cornerhouse Publications 70 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5 NH, UK phone +44-161-200 15 03, fax +44-161-200 15 04 Distributed outside Europe D.A.P. Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013, USA phone +1-212-627 19 99, fax +1-212-627 94 84

Supported by Stadt Frankfurt am Main – Dezernat für Kultur und Wissenschaft, Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Kultur Land Oberösterreich