Having studied visual arts and theater – and with little background in computer science – Monika Fleischmann may seem an odd choice to head the MARS Exploratory Media Lab at the German National Research Center for Information Technology in Sankt Augustin, outside Bonn.
But as far as Fleischmann is concerned, more aesthetics and less high tech are exactly what the field of computer science needs. So she's presenting cutting-edge technologies to the public through elegant mergers of art and science.
'Things are happening behind the walls of research centers that we don't know about. I want to find out and make it public.'
Her Liquid Views is an interactive installation comprising a miniature video camera and a touch-screen computer. The screen is a digital pool of water: look into it and the video camera plays back your own reflection; touch it and waves ripple out in all directions. In today's surveillance society, the piece encourages users to reflect on technology and its influence on our daily lives. Fleischmann recently launched netzspannung, an online platform to foster communication and collaboration among artists, scientists and computer experts. 'I want to give people new ways to think about technology,' Fleischmann says, 'to understand that increasingly we inhabit two worlds: the one we live in with our bodies and the one inside computers.'