Felix
Buhler

Jimmy Schmid talks about his professional career. He shows some exemplary projects from his many years of professional activity, which can be located at the interface of two- and three-dimensional design. The second part is dedicated to design research. Jimmy Schmid explains how research is conducted in interdisciplinary teams at the Bern University of the Arts HKB. He gives insight into some of his research projects that investigate the interplay between communication design and (architectural) space. As a finale, Jimmy Schmid shows project work that he has developed with students of visual communication during his many years of teaching at the HKB. He teaches students how to orchestrate their visual language with typography to convey and communicate the intended message.

More infos on Mediendesign Ravensburg.

PYLON-Lab is founded by Julia Schmelzer and Thomas Schmelzer and presents curated exhibitions with a focus on time based, digital and new media art. PYLON-Lab focuses on encouraging audiences to engage with experimental approaches of contemporary art in a digitizing time and society.\n\nSpecialized in curating and exhibition design on- and offline, PYLON-Lab frequently collaborates with organizations and creatives on various projects.

Animated program teaser.

»Die Wichtigkeit des Banalen — Die Tür« (The importance of the trivial — The door) is a project about an object we encounter everyday in many different ways: we pass them, we decorate them, we make them safe and safer, we bang them. It is a project about the door, what it means to us and our lives.

The project consists of ten posters in the size of 1 × 2 meters. These posters are stacked behind each other and every now and then the poster shown changes. Every design is based on a found text fragment from various sources (for example ZEIT Magazine), which are used without the context of the original text. The fragment is selected by the way it tells about the door: sometimes it’s a metaphor, sometimes it’s a peculiar situation happening at doors, sometimes it just describes the object. The text is then translated into typography and graphics, always using the colors black, white, blue-violet and magenta.

These ten are part of a series of 56 other poster designs, which are presented in a white book. This layflat book is bound by hand and designed in a very simple way. The books main part is the typography (Sequel Sans by Oliver Jeschke), a typeface in the fashion of Swiss design. By using a purposeful, modernist type the poster designs come to the front — the editorial design is reduced to a bare minimum in order to not distract from the actual graphics. It’s furthermore produced to not close fully: it’s always a bit open, like some doors tend to do. The white paper imitates the daily usage of a door. After a while, it becomes dirty and looks like being opened many times — as does the door.

In five exhibition chapters, the works of twenty international digital artists contextualize the relationship between society and new media. The online show brings together art that illuminates the virtual as a medium and pushes the boundaries of technology. The show’s movens is to promote critical reflection on the power that digital tools seem to have over us today: In times of omnipresent social media, online tools and the corporations behind them are gaining unprecedented influence. At the same time, the »metaverse« also offers space for our voices and our actions – in occupying this seemingly limitless space, they can complement, overlap, and connect to form a network.\n\nThe exhibition thus offers a place where virtual art can be experienced in its natural environment. At the same time, it is a vehicle to better understand the analog world and the global society away from keyboard (AFK).\n\nThe virtual exhibition »Expanded Realities and Networked Voices. Envisioning the Ambiguity of Both Utopian and Dystopian Futures« was curated by Eva Fischer and Martina Menegon, designed and implemented by Maximilian Prag, graphics Marlene Kager.

Eva Fischer is an independent curator, cultural manager and lecturer in the field of audiovisual, immersive art and experimental media. She studied art history and cultural management in Graz, Utrecht (NL) and Vienna. Since 2006 she has been working as a freelance curator. Since 2021 she has been leading the new Viennese media art festival CIVA – Contemporary Immersive Virtual Art, which is 100% online and virtual in its first year of existence. In 2020 she founded the virtual exhibition platform »Area for Virtual Art« together with a team of artists, designers and cultural managers (a cooperation of sound:frame and Pausanio).

I created an interactive WebVR video for the event.

In the tragicomedy „Good Die My Friend“ a supposedly trivial competition between two neighbors comes to an escalation. Disregarding their surroundings, both of them destroy, driven by greed, their own habitat until a catastrophe is inevitable.\n\nThe short movie has a most human behavior at its core. Greed keeps the man alive and makes him strive for more. It defeats the will to survive: the man builds a chaos and wallows in it. And he does not change anything until a point is reached, where surviving isn’t possible anymore. But does he learn from his past or does he simply change the environment to start the chaos all over again?

The animation was created frame by frame (with some digital aid). The technique was used to emphasize the handcraft, the man can choose what he builds and how he designs his surroundings. The illustration style appears infantile and reminds us of cave paintings — the primal instincts of the human are embedded in this style.

We decided to use color sparingly. The texture was created from different pictures of Plasticine and colored in After Effects. They give the picture some more movement and emphasize different parts of the scene. Plasticine was used because it is a formable material, like the human forms his surroundings.

With digitization, our world seems to be becoming increasingly dematerialized. Nevertheless, it is the materiality of things that allows for an experiential space of action. Physical interfaces thus serve as mediators and communication carriers in the dialog between humans and abstract machines. While in the past the distribution of roles was still clear – the human being acts, the machine functions – we are increasingly experiencing that we “co-function” with things and that they “co-act” with us. These hybrid artifacts – between analog and digital - escape the digital world and become actors in a physical environment. Only by confronting us and rubbing up against them do the things become part of our consciousness and allow for an experiential space of action.

Andreas Muxel studied Communication Design at the University of Applied Sciences Vorarlberg and Media Arts at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. In his experimental works he deals with the intertwining of code and material and human-machine interaction. His works at the intersection of design, art and science have been exhibited and awarded internationally many times (including Ars Electronica Festival Linz, FILE Festival São Paulo, TodaysArt Festival Brussels, VIDA Award Madrid, Share Price Turin).

In 2015 founded the design studio “NEOANALOG” focusing on the development and design of hybrid artifacts and spaces. From 2013 to 2017 Andreas Muxel was professor for Interface Design at the Köln International School of Design at TH Köln. Since the winter semester 2017/2018 he is professor for research and teaching in »Physical Human-Machine Interface«" at the Faculty of Design Hochschule Augsburg.

The PL-AGV3 body suit deals with the increasing pollution of our lives. Climate change dries up the soil, causes the sun to burn from the sky, temperatures rise and large ice deposits melt. There are strong droughts on one side and devastating floods on the other. But the pollution does not just come from the environment. Every day we are bombarded with advertising and products. People dictate to us what is good, what we have to buy, what we need to look like. Hate is on the increase and people are becoming more and more divided. People stop vaccinating their children against dangerous diseases, and so come back deadly dangers. War is no longer conducted on the field, but with chemical and biological weapons from afar. Water and food are contaminated and unconsumable.

The PL-AGV3 body suit draws a picture of how protection against these influences could look like in a dystopian future. A hooded jacket made of a radiation-protective, waterproof, acid-resistant and epidemic-protecting material keeps dangers from the outside. PROTURBO closures keep the suit securely closed. The BEAK with digital e-TRIBAL filters the air and mixes it with a powerful gas. The HUD shows environmental data for a perfect orientation in a broken landscape. An additional HEALTH MONITOR provides a quick overview of your own vital data. The TEAM BADGE shows an assignment to a specific group — or can be switched off entirely.​​​​​​​

The suit equips the individual for a future without a functioning society, without humanity and compassion.

Sag, Meister is the result of a three-month preoccupation with the famous designer Stefan Sagmeister. The project consists of 4 augmented posters for a fictional talk series that each display on important aspect of Sagmeisters work or person.

The task was to embed our own design heroes spirit into our the work. Sagmeisters work is often typographically. He uses analog means to create very special, »sagmeistery« artworks. This is the concept behind every poster: use Sagmeisters methods to create some kind of work about his very self.

A modular design system was created for the work exhibition of the MD14, Media Design course at the DHBW Ravensburg. A5 fields, combined as desired, are assembled into posters and a guidance system. The use of chrome paper reflects the environment and the monochrome design illuminates in the entire color spectrum. The DIN A5 format enabled us to create a signage system that could be quickly adapted to meet specific requirements. For example, during the course of the work show, we designed directional arrows and printed them out in black and white on our copiers.

Art Direction Tobias Müller Nicolas Bernklau Felix Buhler Tobias Tapken 

Supervision Prof. Dr. Klaus Birk

Web Design & Coding Florian Windbacher 

Animated Posters Hanna Viellehner 

Social Media Dario Suppan

»Andererseits« is the magazine of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden and explores the sideshows of the theatre. Each issue is dedicated to one topic and presents its various facets.

Created as Art Director at formdusche.

Young Entrepreneurs in Science (YES) is a project of the Falling Walls Foundation and stands for cultural change in research: YES turns scientists into sciencepreneurs and opens up new career and development perspectives for them during or shortly after their doctorate.

Created as part of formdusche.

Branding and Webdesign for Dagmar Buhlers yoga practice YOGA & BIKE. Built with WordPress.

View her website.