On mutual practice of media art to awaken public’s awareness of climate change, Mechthild Schmidt Feist and Tamiko Thiel will present their most significant individual works as visual artists and educators in New York, Germany and Singapore.

Mechthild Schmidt Feist has engaged herself in New York environmental movement through various projects, including ‘Mirror Garden3’ which builds artificial Flora and alludes to the Icarus saga of human’s struggle to balance exploration of and interference with nature and her current project ‘L-E-S-S / Less of Everything – Esthetics of Sharing and Sustainability’ – an artistic comment on a western society of excessive consumption by combining an animation with a participatory site.

Tamiko Thiel seeks to engage the viewer bodily with virtual manifestations of climate change or potentials for alternative energy sources, where mobile devices act as magic lenses, enabling viewers to search their surroundings for visions of the future. Tamiko will introduce several of her projects, such as Water Lily Invasion presenting visions of beautiful but threatening giant mutant water lilies infiltrating our cities, attracted by the energy radiating from our portable electronic devices; and Transformation: Lehel engaging residents of a neighborhood in Munich, Germany to reflect on the past energy structure of the area, when waterwheels powered the local industries, and imagine a future with water power restored and wind power triumphant.
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Mechthild Schmidt Feist is Associate Professor for Digital Communications and Media at New York University. Building on fine arts and history background (Universität der Künste, Freie Universität Berlin), Mechthild has worked in digital media as an artist and designer since her DAAD graduate study grant and Whitney Museum fellowship in the mid-eighties. Her interdisciplinary works occupy real or virtual spaces between painting, animation, and 3d spaces. Her current topics are concerned with ethics and sustainability of our consumer society.

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Tamiko Thiel is a visual artist exploring the interplay of place, space, the body, cultural memory and identity. Her installations and artworks seek to actively engage viewers’ proprioceptive senses to meld virtual imagery with their physical bodily perceptions and the sense of place of the site, creating a new, hybrid form of reality. Currently she is Visiting Associate Professor at the Nanyang Technological University School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) in Singapore teaching Augmented Reality and Interactive Spaces.

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Please stay around after the Talk for a ‘San Art warming’ with us! There’s a garden to hang out in, a few snacks and drink to relish, and a lot of joy to share!!