Prof. Ralf Baecker
Biography
Ralf Baecker (*1977 Düsseldorf, Germany) is an artist working at the interface of art, science and technology. Through installations and machines, Baecker explores fundamental mechanisms of new media and technologies. In his representations and specializations of digital and technological processes he offers a poetic sight behind the surfaces of contemporary image making. At the core of his objects lies the entanglement of the virtual with the real, or rather, with the world.
With a media-archaeological outlook, Ralf Baecker digs within obsolete devices for traces and functions that are still detectable in technologies today. His work seeks to form a hybrid between contemporary digital methods and a pre-enlightenment form of thinking. As a result, he understands technology not as a tool but rather as an epistemological instrument, in order to pose elemental questions about a world perceived through technological impressions.
Baecker has been awarded multiple prizes and grants for his artistic work, including the grand prize of the Japan Media Art Festival in 2017, an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica in 2012 and 2014, the second prize at the VIDA 14.0 Art & Artificial Life Award in Madrid, a working grand of the Stiftung Kunstfond Bonn, the Stiftung Niedersachsen work stipend for Media Art 2010 and the stipend of the Graduate School for the Arts from the University of the Arts in Berlin and the Einstein Foundation.
His work has been presented in international festivals and exhibitions, such as the International Triennial of New Media Art 2014 in Beijing, Künstlerhaus Wien, ZKM | Center for Art and New Media in Karlsruhe, Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, WINZAVOD Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow, Laboral Centro de Arte in Gijon, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, Kasseler Kunstverein and Malmö Konsthall.
Since 2016 he teaches at the University of the Arts Bremen as Professor for Experimental Design of New Technologies in the Digital Media program.
link to homepage: http://www.rlfbckr.org
Selected Exhibitions
2017 Japan Media Arts Festival 2017, NTT Inter Communication Center, Tokio JP
2017 Datumsoria, ZKM, Karlsruhe DE
2017 unREAL. The Algorithmic Present, Haus der elektronischen Künste (HeK), Basel CH
2017 Interface I (Solo), Kresija Gallery, Ljubljana SLO
2016 The Paradox of Knowing Universals (Solo), Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel DE
2016 Alchemists of our Time, Ars Electronica 2016, Linz AT
2016 The Thinking Machine - Ramon Llull and the Ars combinatoria, CCCB, Barcelona ES
2016 Order + Noise. Interface I, NOME Gallery, Berlin DE
2015 Tektonics, ACT Center, Asia Culture Center (ACC), Gwangju KR
2015 CyberArts 2015, Prix Ars Electronica Exhibition, OK Center, Linz AT
2014 International Triennial of New Media Art 2014 / thingWorld, National Art Museum of China, Beijing CN
2014 Dernières Nouvelles de L’Éther, La Panacée, Montpellier FR
2013 Rauchwolken und Luftschlösser, Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen DE
2012 A Matter of Feeling, Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim NOR
2012 synergy - Lexus Hybrid Art, ARTPLAY, Moscow RU
2012 The Power of Things, Dutch Electronic Art Festival, Rotterdam NL
2011 Irrational Computing (Solo), Schering Stiftung, Berlin DE
2011 Produced @ 10 Jahre Stipendium für Medienkunst, Edith Russ Site for Media Art, Oldenburg DE
2011 Life - Science version, Center for Contemporary Art WINZAVOD, Moscow RU
2010 WeltWissen. 300 Jahre Wissenschaften in Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin DE
2010 Space Inventions. Der künstliche Raum, Künstlerhaus, Wien AT
2010 When Process becomes Paradigm, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijon ES
2010 The Poetics of Space - Sonic Acts XIII, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam NL
2009 Rechnender Raum, Kunstverein Bochum, Bochum DE
2009 Share Festival - Experiences in digital art & culture, Share Festival, Turin IT
2009 genau. mathematische Strategien und künstlerische Prozesse, Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Dortmund DE
2008 Electrohype 2008, Konsthall, Malmö SE
2008 CYNETart 2008, Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden DE
2007 Wolfgang von Kempelen. Mensch-[in der]-Maschine, ZKM Medienmuseum, Karlsruhe DE
2007 From Reality and Back, Mejan Labs / Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm SE
2007 Nowhere (Solo), Melkweg, Amsterdam NL
2006 autopsía - Sonderausstellung der KHM, Art Cologne 2006, Cologne DE
2005 Expanded Arts No. 2, Kunstverein Gütersloh, Gütersloh DE
2005 European Media Art Festival, EMAF, Osnabrück DE