MEDIA ART AS THINKING SPACE

The artist duo Monika Fleischmann (1950) and Wolfgang Strauss (1951) understand interactive media art as a thinking space — a setting where perception, the body, culture, and digital systems meet. Their work creates environments where thinking is spatial, embodied, and experiential — knowledge arises through interaction rather than instruction. Drawing on Aby Warburg’s concept of the Denkraum (1929), they treat art as an epistemic medium, a place where reflection unfolds through active engagement. Instead of concealing technology behind seamless surfaces, they make its processes visible. Their idea of the performative interface turns the traditional interface maxim, "what you see is what you get," on its head. It boldly declares, "What you get is what you have not seen before." [The art of the thinking space—a space filled with data, 2020].

Their journey began in 1987 when they established ArtWork and co-founded ART+COM in Berlin. In 1989, they set up La Première Rue in Le Corbusier's Unité d'habitation in Briey-en-Forêt, collaborating with architects, artists, and philosophers to hold artistic workshops and lectures. In 1992, they joined VisWiz at GMD, and in 1997, they founded MARS Lab at the German National Research Centre for Information Technology (GMD) in Sankt Augustin/Bonn. In 2006, they launched the eCulture Factory at Fraunhofer AI in Bremen. 

Since the late 1980s, their installations have transformed data into lived experience: from Berlin Cyber City (1989), a virtual space for dialogue after the fall of the Wall; to Home of the Brain (1990), the world’s first virtual reality installation with data glove and head-mounted display; to Liquid Views (1992), where the body becomes an interface; and Energy Passages (2004), exploring language and presence as dynamic systems. [New Media Arts—The Thinking Space for Digitality, 2023]

Rather than adopting artificial intelligence uncritically, their practice creates spaces where people encounter themselves, each other, and the digital world with renewed attention. For Fleischmann and Strauss, media art is a cultural thinking space: a sensorium for reflection, a site of transformation, and an invitation to stay attentive in digital culture. Across immersive, participatory, virtual, and mixed-reality environments, their work poses a key question:

"The question is not whether machines can think, but whether humans will retain the ability to think, reflect, and act responsibly." Their current work, Mind Circuits, extends this trajectory. It creates an AI-mediated thinking space that brings historical voices, algorithmic systems, and human participants into a shared field of reflection. [Link]

Interview

Conversations – Interview by Anika Meier – 28.11.2024

Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss: Creating Virtual Worlds Like Fairy Tales

New Media Art and Virtual Reality [Link]

Internationale Auszeichnungen

2024: XR Hall of Fame, AWE Augmented World Expo, Pioneers for VR in Art and Culture

2018: ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award – Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art

2000/01: TIME Magazine ranks as People to Watch

1994: Prix Ars Electronica – Honorary Mentions – Responsive Workbench

1992: Prix Ars Electronica – Golden Nica for Home of the Brain

Awards [Link]

EXHIBITIONS  

2025 SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, Vancouver (CA) Liquid Views – Echoes of Self (2025) [Link] 

Connecting Nature, Art, and Technology, Curator: Francesca Franco
2024–2025 Tate Modern, London (UK) Liquid Views (1992) [Link]

Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Curator: Val Ravaglia
2024 Heilig Geist / König Galerie, Essen (DE) Between Zero and One (1988) [Link] 

Reimagine Tomorrow, 1954–2024. Expanded Art. Curator: Anika Meier

Exhibitions [Link]

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