Oliver Grau

Oliver Grau ( born October 24, 1965) is a German art historian and media theoretician with a focus on image science / Visual Communication, in modernity and media art as well as in the culture of the 19th century and Italian art of the Renaissance.

Life

After studying in Hamburg ( Martin Warnke and Klaus Herding, etc.), Siena ( with Luciano Bellosi ), London and a PhD in Berlin in Bredekamp and Friedrich Kittler, taught and researched gray at the Humboldt University in Berlin, spent gas baptism holding on research Labs in Japan and USA and was after his habilitation in 2003 worked as a visiting professor at universities. Since 2005 he has held the first Chair of Visual Studies in German-speaking and Head of the Department for Image Science at the Danube University Krems. Grey 's advisory board and reviewer for several international journals, associations and foundations.

Research

His image science research priorities focus on the history of media art, immersion and emotions as well as to the history, idea and culture " busier " and telematic images, or telepresence, as well as on the development of visual scientific instruments of labor, such as online image and video databases.

Immersion

His book Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion was translated from German into much expanded form in English, Portuguese, Chinese and Croatian language, received more than 70 specialized reviews and has been cited over 600 times according to H- index in academic publications. It contains a historical comparative picture viewer theory of immersion as well as a systematic analysis of the triad of artist, work and viewer under the terms of digital art. Gray developed an explanatory model for the evolutionary history of illusion media: This resulted from the relative dependence of sensual suggestion of new potentials and these opposing forces distancing, media literacy of their viewers (Gray 2000). Gray studied at the same time interdisciplinary methods to elicit the immersion impression the viewer in digital image space, or increase: This done, especially by the interaction ( reaction of the images in real time to the user movement Gray from 1999 to 2007 ), the use of evolutionary image processes - for example by Genetic Algorithms - (Gray 1997 and 2001 ), haptic feedback, the natural design of the interface (Gray 2002), the impression for telematic presence (Gray 2000) and especially by the comprehensive design of the image display, the at least fill out the field of view of the viewer and up to 360 will increase ° horizontal and vertical ( gray 2001 and 2003). Hergebrachte mono -media approaches the illusion research attempted to overcome these studies and instead introduced terms such as Polysensualität, suggestion potential, image space, individual disposition of the viewer, Evolution of visual media and existing distance theories of Cassirer, Panofsky, inter alia, extended for Digital image spaces. Further investigations were the innovative combination of architecture and immersive motion pictures presented (Gray 2003, among others ), as well as for immersion in the history of film (Gray 2006 and 2007). The majority of publications on Immerson walk on two multi-year research projects of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft back ( ' art history and media theories of virtual reality ' and 1998-2002 ' Immersive Arts ' 2002-2005).

Emotion research

For a number of research projects at the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Leopoldina and two funded by the Volkswagen Foundation Summer Academies concerned, inter alia an interdisciplinary study of the history of steering of feelings through picture and sound out (GRAY 2005). The research of Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux and Wolf Singer expanding, was the example of Matthias Grünwald's " Isenheim Altarpiece " Leni Riefenstahl's " Triumph of the Will " and the computer game " America's Army " established the community -forming effect of emotional image and be able to a problematic Keyword the image Science explored.

Media Art History

Since 2002 Gray brought the interdisciplinary research on media art and its history as Head of the Steering Committee in an international conference series together ( cf. Gray 2007), which in 2005 for the first congress of media art history in Banff ( Canada ) led with 500 delegates. There were other global conferences in Berlin ( 2007), Melbourne (2009), Liverpool (2011) and Riga ( 2013). 2015, the international conference of the field in Montreal (see the online text archive mediaarthistory.org ) continues.

Image Scientific instruments of labor

Grey designed picture scientific work tools for the Humanities / Digital Humanities, so he headed at the Humboldt University funded by the German Research Foundation project Immersive Art, developed the team since 1998, the Database of Virtual Art, the first international Archive for Digital Art, the open source is listed on the Danube University on. As the first online archive of the Database of Virtual Art (DVA ) regularly streamed video documentaries since 2000. Since 2005, Gray is also director of the database of the Graphic Collection Göttweig, Austria's largest private graphic collection, to Gustav Klimt comprises 30,000 works by Albrecht Dürer, online since 2007.

Teaching

Grey developed international curricula for Image Science: the MA program MediaArtHistory, the Academic experts Programs digital collection management and exhibition design, visual skills CP and the Master's programs Image Science and crossmedia, also emerged with the Danube TeleLectures a new interactive lecture and discussion format that streamed internationally will.

Awards and advisory board

Gray was elected to the Young Academy of the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Leopoldina 2001; 2002InterNationes/Goethe Institute; 2003 Book of the Month, Scientific American; 2003 Gray was a scholar of the German - Italian Centre for Excellence Villa Vigoni; In 2004 he was awarded the special prize of the media Humboldt University Society, 2008 followed a gray invitation to the Olympic cultural program to Beijing, 2010 G20 summit in Seoul, 2011, POSTECH University, where he opened the Nobel laureate lecture series with two lectures.

Grey is, inter alia, Advisory Board Member of the following scientific journals and institutions: the International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics ( UK); Newsletter Photography ( GER ); IJArt Journal ( UK); EKFRASE: Nordisk Tidsskrift for Visual Culture ( N); International Journal of Art and Technology (UK ); SECOND NATURE: International Journal of Creative Media (AUS ); IMAGES Journal for Visual Studies in South East Europe; Junctures The Journal for Thematic Dialogue ( NZ); Jordan Journal of the Arts (JOR ); Revista de Estudios Global y Arte Contemporaneo (ESP ); MediaArtHistories Conference Series Board / Steering Committee ( since 2004); Interdisciplinary Research Center Humanities / Art / Technology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan (POL ); St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Institute for Cultural Research, Machina Media (RUS ).

Writings (books )

• The desire to be in the picture. For the art history of virtual reality. Dissertation. Humboldt University, Berlin, 1999.
• Virtual Art From Illusion to Immersion. MIT Press, Cambridge 2003 ( Chinese 2006, Serbian 2008, Portuguese 2009).
• Becoming image. Habilitation thesis. Art University, Linz, 2004.
• Эмоции и иммерсия: ключевые элементы визуальных исследований / Пер. с нем. А. М. Гайсина, EDIOS Publishing House, St. Petersburg, 2013.

Writings ( editions in selection)

• Imagery of the 21st Century, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.
• MediaArtHistories, Cambridge: MIT Press 2007 ( Translations in Brazil and Macedonia).
• Medial emotions. For steering of feelings through picture and sound, (together with Andreas Keil ): Frankfurt / Main: Fischer, 2005.

Published databases

• Digital Art www.digitalartarchive.at ( Database of Virtual Art), since 2000
• Media art history, since 2005 www.MediaArtHistories.org
• Graphic Collection Göttweig online since 2007 www.gssg.at