Christa Sommerer

Austria

Christa Sommerer is an internationally renowned media artist, researcher and interactive art pioneer. She has worked at the IAMAS Academy in Gifu (Japan), the ATR Research Laboratories in Kyoto (Japan), the MIT CAVS in Cambridge (USA) and the NCSA in Champaign Urbana (Illinois, USA). In 2004 she created, together with Laurent Mignonneau, the Department of Interface Cultures in Linz (Austria). Sommerer has been a visiting professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, the University of Tsukuba and the University of Aalborg (Denmark). Together with Laurent Mignonneau, she created some 40 interactive artworks that were shown in some 350 international exhibitions.

They have received numerous awards, including the Austrian State Art Award in the category media art. Between 2021 and 2024, their 30-year retrospective exhibition "The Artwork as a Living System", curated by Karin Ohlenschläger, will travel from the ZKM in Karlsruhe to the OK Center in Linz, the iMAL in Brussels and the Azkuna Zentroa in Bilbao. This exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive overview of his artworks in the book "Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau - The Artwork as a Living System" edited by Karin Ohlenschläger, Peter Weibel and Alfred Weidinger. It was published in 2022 in MIT Press, Leonardo Book series. More information at:

http://www.interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent