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born 1950, German research artist. Her multidisciplinary background – fashion design, art and drama, computer graphics – made her an expert in the world of art, computer science, and media technology. Her research projects are based on interface design and new forms of communication. The design of interfaces as a toy, a tool, a space, and a situation is the basis of communicative action and is the motivation for her exploration of mixed realities – the linking of physical and virtual space. Her interest is to bring poetry and an aesthetic of interactivity into media art. In opposition to the theory of the disappearing body, she uses digital interfaces as a playful interaction of bodies, art and technology. Her main research topic is to extend the concept of interaction and communication on the base of perceptive processes. In 2000 the english »Time« ranks Monika Fleischmann among the »People to Watch«.

Education

1966 Humanistic Fürstlich Fürstenbergisches Gymnasium Donaueschingen (Standard grade at grammar school).
1966-69 Study of fashion design at the Friedmann College of Fashion in Zurich, Switzerland. Worked in fashion design until 1973 in Munich, Rome, Berlin.
1974-76 Abitur at Silbermann Abendgymnasium in Berlin (A-levels at secondary school)
1977-83 Postgraduate Studies in Visual Arts, Drama and Education Science at the Berlin University of the Arts (former Hochschule der Künste) with 1. state examination
1984-86 trainee teacher with 2. state examination in art, drama and play amongst others with Prof. Helmut Hartwig (Aesthetics/Mediation of Art), Prof. Diethard Kerbs (Art- and Media Education), Prof. Hans Martin Ritter/Prof. Wolfgang Nickel (Drama and Play for Educational Science), Prof. Robert Kudielka (Aesthetics and Theory of Art), Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm (Architecture Theory), Prof. Cillie Rentmeister (Gender), Prof. Klaus Heinrich (Philosophy).

Professional Appointments: Employment

In 1988 she was co-founder of Art + Com, Berlin, a research institute for media arts & communication. 1992 she was awarded with the »Golden Nica for Interactive Art« of Ars Electronica for »Home of the Brain«, the first immersive VR-Installation . 1992/93 Fellow at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, and Guest Researcher at the GMD – the german national research center for information technology in Sankt Augustin / Bonn. Since 1994 she has been artistic director of the Institute for Media Communication at the GMD, the german national research center for information technology in Sankt Augustin; since 1997 she has been head of Media Arts Research Studies, the MARS – Exploratory Media Lab at the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. 1998/1999 member of the management board of the new program for New Media and lecturer for Media Art and Interactive Information Space at the University of Art and Design Zürich (CH). In 2002 the MARS Lab is amongst the 15 international Media Art & Technology Labs to present media art research projects in the exhibition »emocao artificial« invited by Itau Cultural in Sao Paulo.

Since 2005 Monika Fleischmann is Head of both, the MARS – Exploratory Media Lab at Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis und Information Systems in Sankt Augustin/Bonn and the eCulture Factory in Bremen. In 2007 the Fraunhofer »eCulture Factory« in Bremen is awarded as one of the »365 places in Germany – Land of Ideas«, an Initiative of German President Horst Köhler and Deutsche Bank.

Honorary Appointments: Academic Expert

Since 2002 appointed by the german federal minister of culture, Prof. Dr. Julian Nida-Rümelin, as a member of the advisory board for the program of the House of World Cultures, Berlin.
2001 Member of Task Force Swiss Peer-Review. Evaluation expert for Swiss program of media studies, Chair Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmitt, Vice-President ETH, Zürich.
1997/98 Member of the european consortium of the »Intelligent Information Interfaces (I3)« program.
1997/98 Member of the advisory board »Knowledge,Information,Communication« of EXPO2000 Hannover.
1997 Member of the expert review board »Strategic Research Foundation«, Stockholm. Evaluation of new media
institutes in Sweden with Andrew Lippmann (MIT Media Lab, Boston), Gillian Crampton-Smith (Royal College of
Art, London), Jakob Nielsen (Sun)
1996 – 2003 Member of the advisory board for New Media of the Goethe Institute, München.