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Ursula Hentschlaeger

The Artist as a Communicator. 
Series of Online Interviews.
1992 - 1993


Looking a new technologies in the context of art was one goal of this work. Twelve interviews were done, prefer-ably using computer net-works. The connection was established over the phone, interviewees went "online" that way.

The series was created in cooperation with Rosa von Suess and Max Kossatz. The interviews were carried out in the framework of unitn with the help of a 14400 baud modem and appropriate terminal software.

A note of thanks also goes to
Eva Grubinger, Kurt Hent-schlaeger und Horst Hörtner.
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BACKGROUND
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EXPERIMENT
Ill. Transmission protocol for the interview with Ponton European Media Art Lab (cutout)
Online Interview via Mailbox: 8 simultanous participants | Screenshot 1993
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The idea for this first independent series of interviews emerged from previous engagement with oral history. The attempt to transfer this method to the present and thus to generate an up-to-date image of our day and age almost inevitably led to the world of media art. The notion of sitting opposite a person who devoted him/herself to research about binary media and using a tape recorder seemed disproportionately "old-fashioned". In conversations with Horst Hörtner and Max Kossatz the idea of using an "online" interview format was confirmed, and the series of interviews increasingly became an experiment of form. The written real time dialogues were recorded on hard disk as they took place. The questions that arose were about whether it was possible to interview people via a screen, whether electronic interviews wer different from oral ones, and how the absence of facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice and physical presence would change the interview.

Three classic "analogue" oral interviews corresponded with nine digital, written interviews (six of them direct from one computer to the other, three via mail chatbox). In the course of the series of interviews various locations were used. Some electronic interviews were imitations of the online situation because telecommunications were not immediately available to all participants.
INTERVIEWS
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PUBLICATIONS
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Ursula Hentschlaeger > Media and Basic Research > The Artist as a Communicator
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