* 1970
http://www.manuluksch.com/ http://www.ambienttv.net/manu/
About
Manu Luksch is filmmaker who works outside the frame. The "moving" image, and in particular the evolution of film in the digital or networked age, has been a core theme of her works. Characteristic is the blurring of boundaries between linear and hypertextual narrative, directed work and multiple authorship, and post-produced and self-generative pieces. Expanding the idea of the viewing environment is also of importance; recent works have been shown on electronic billboards in public urban spaces and open air cinemas in remote rural places.
Her works are shown at art venues, symposia and film festivals internationally, and are included in the Collection de Centre Georges Pompidou, the BFI National Archive, and the Core Collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Awards include Outstanding Artist Award, Austria 2023; Globale Perspektiven Award 2020; ZONTA Award, 65th Kurzfilmfest Oberhausen, 2019; Open Media Award 2019; Best Feature – Moscow International Documentary Film Festival 2016; Elevate Artivism Award 2015; and the Willemer Prize by Ars Electronica Centre and the City of Linz.
Recent fellowships and residencies include AiR Internet Archive, S.F. (2022); Roberta Denning Visiting Artist & Lecturer at Stanford University (2021), AiR 2020/21 at Birkbeck’s School of Law, Open Society Fellowship 2018/19 and Honorary Associate Research Fellowship, University of Exeter (2022/23).
Her seminal concept film project, Faceless (2006), is a science fiction fairy tale compiled from surveillance video footage recovered under the UK’s Data Protection Act. The film treats CCTV images as 'legal readymades', and its scenario derives from the legal properties of the image. The film was narrated by British actor Tilda Swinton, and translated into 12 languages. Manu also collaborated with Swinton as voice artist for her film project DREAMS REWIRED (2015).
She is founding member of ambientTV.NET, an interdisciplinary collaboration with composer-mathematician Mukul Patel that has extended over 20 years.
Her works are shown at art venues, symposia and film festivals internationally, and are included in the Collection de Centre Georges Pompidou, the BFI National Archive, and the Core Collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Awards include Outstanding Artist Award, Austria 2023; Globale Perspektiven Award 2020; ZONTA Award, 65th Kurzfilmfest Oberhausen, 2019; Open Media Award 2019; Best Feature – Moscow International Documentary Film Festival 2016; Elevate Artivism Award 2015; and the Willemer Prize by Ars Electronica Centre and the City of Linz.
Recent fellowships and residencies include AiR Internet Archive, S.F. (2022); Roberta Denning Visiting Artist & Lecturer at Stanford University (2021), AiR 2020/21 at Birkbeck’s School of Law, Open Society Fellowship 2018/19 and Honorary Associate Research Fellowship, University of Exeter (2022/23).
Her seminal concept film project, Faceless (2006), is a science fiction fairy tale compiled from surveillance video footage recovered under the UK’s Data Protection Act. The film treats CCTV images as 'legal readymades', and its scenario derives from the legal properties of the image. The film was narrated by British actor Tilda Swinton, and translated into 12 languages. Manu also collaborated with Swinton as voice artist for her film project DREAMS REWIRED (2015).
She is founding member of ambientTV.NET, an interdisciplinary collaboration with composer-mathematician Mukul Patel that has extended over 20 years.
CV
Manu Luksch (b. 1970, Vienna) is an artist and film director whose practice interrogates conceptions of progress with a strong emphasis on research, participation and new forms of engagement. Her current focus is on the rise of the ‘Algorithmic City’, with a focus on corporate-governmental relationships and the social effects of predictive analytics, including psychometric micro-targeting and forms of disinformation. For her films, she has collaborated with British actor Tilda Swinton and research collective Forensic Architecture.
She is currently Artist Researcher at Radical Matter (a FWF / PEEK funded research programme at Die Angewandte and RCA), Senior Research Associate at AiDLab at the Royal College of Art, London, Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter and Resident Artist (virtual and in-situ) at The Internet Archive, S.F. 2022/23. She was recipient of the Open Society Fellowship in 2018/19, and 2021 Roberta Denning Visiting Artist and Lecturer at Stanford University.
FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS (selection)
• Globale Perspektiven Award 2020, Frankfurt (ALGO-RHYTHM)
• ZONTA Award, 65th Oberhausen Short Film Festival 2019 (ALGO-RHYTHM)
• Open Society Fellowship 2018/19
• Visiting Fellow, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London
• Winner of Austrian Film Critics Awards 2017 (DREAMS REWIRED)
• Best Feature Documentary -Let’s Dok it!, Moscow International Documentary Film Festival 2016 (for DREAMS REWIRED)
• Best Feature Documentary Soundtrack, DOK.fest Munich 2016 (DREAMS REWIRED)
• Recipient of Open Media Awards. Ars Electronica Centre, Linz
• New Approaches, professional development bursary, FLAMIN/FILM LONDON (2015/16)
• Recipient of ELEVATE Artivism Award 2015 (Graz)
• National Media Art Stipend 2012. Austrian Ministry of Culture
• Marianne.von.Willemer Prize for Digital Art 2012. City of Linz /Ars Electronica Centre
ARTIST RESIDENCIES (selection)
• Resident Artist, Internet Archive, San Francisco 2022/23
• Resident Artist, Somerset House Studios, London 2017-2022
• Roberta Denning Visiting Artist and Lecturer, Stanford University 2021
• Birkbeck’s The School of Law, University of London 2020/21
• Xenoform Labs, San Francisco 10/2019
• Videotage, Hongkong 07/2009
EXHIBITIONS (selection)
2023
Code and Algorithm. Fondacion Telefonica Madrid
None of the Above: Troubling the Story. IKLECTIK, London
Topologies of the Real: Techne Shenzhen 2022Shenzhen, Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning (MOCAPE) forthcoming
Thrill Me. Power and Magic of Music. Image and Sound in Contemporary Art. Kunsthalle Lucern, forthcoming
Scientific Musicals, Labocine
Algo-Rhythm. New York African Film Festival Short Film Selection, Film Movement Plus
2022
House of Challenging Orders, Vienna Art Week 2022
Hear/Here To See - City Songlines. launch of artist-guided walk as app for iPhone. Pushkin House, London
Artefacts of Resistance, Somerset House. in collaboration with Srilata Sircar, India and Global Affairs, King’s College London, and Mukul Patel
Focus: Films by Manu Luksch, Blickle Kino, Belvedere 21, Vienna
2021
True Fake: Artists’ Films Troubling the Real. e-flux Film & Video 2021
Printemps de Septembre – contemporary art Biennale, Toulouse
New Point of View – European Online Competition. The European Short Film Network’s THIS IS SHORT Festival 2021
Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic, Institute of Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art
Solid Roof, Severe Weather. Group exhibition at Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna
2020
SIGGRAPH 2020, DIGITAL POWER
No-Place Like the Future: new commission and online exhibition Austrian Cultural Forum New York and Washington DC
steirischer herbst ’20. Badeverbot Welle 3, Atelier Schaumbad, Graz
CaixaForum Madrid, Càmera i ciutat. Escenaris de la modernitat
CaixaForum Saragossa, Càmera i ciutat. Escenaris de la modernitat
WISE 2020, Beijing Island of New Realities VR festival
2019
CaixaForum Barcelona. Càmera i ciutat. Escenaris de la modernitat
CODAME, Art+Tech Festival, San Francisco
Films by Manu Luksch, Anarchivia/ULTRAcinema, Mexico City
La citoyenneté numérique au Sénégal? RAW Material Company, Dakar
DataLoam, AILab Vienna
Privacy Salon - Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference
2018 Kunst in Bewegung. ZKM Karlsruhe
16th Pyongyang International Film Festival, North Korea (DREAMS REWIRED)
Back to the Future. C/O Berlin
Machine vision: images, pouvoir, algorithmes. Le Bal. Paris
2017 Yebisu Art Festival, Top Museum, Tokyo
Hybrid Landscapes, Digital Catapult, London
Watched! C/O Berlin
2016 Hybrid Identities, Onassis Cultural Centre
Watched!, Hasselblad Foundation, Göteborg
Futur Non-Conformes -Disnovation, Jeu de Paume, Paris
Cinnamon Colomboscope, Colombo
Ghost on the Wire, Objectifs Gallery, Singapore
16th Seoul International Media Arts Festival
2015 La Nuit Blanche - Art Souterrain, Montreal
Social Glitch, Long Night of Museums, Vienna
Law's Pluralities, Justus Liebig University's Art Centre, Germany
Sheffield DocFest 2015
Playing With Space, firstsite gallery / LADA / Norwich Art Centre
2014 FIELDS, Arsenals National Museum of Art. Riga European Capital of Culture 2014
Creative Machines, St James Hatcham Church Gallery, London
Closer, Lewis Glucksman Gallery. Cork
Ghost on the Wire, Bermondsey Project Space. London
2013 Artists as Catalysts, Alhóndiga Bilbao
Planète Marker, Centre Pompidou Paris
Open Data Summit, Museum of London
Urban Wandering, Barbican. London
FACELESS I, Museumsquartier Vienna
After City, JCCAC Hong Kong
Momentum: Women/Art/Technology, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Out of Control II, Ars Electronica Centre, Linz
2012 Mal au Pixel Festival. La Gaité Lyrique. Paris
Out of Control, Ars Electronica Centre, Linz
Forum of electronic arts, The Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève
FACELESS. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
Taking the Waters, Aldeburgh Music, Snape, Suffolk
for earlier dates check online
FILM FESTIVALS (selection)
Screenings of documentary film SING AND CRY, CRY AND SING (2021)
62nd Kraków Film Festival 2022
DIAGONALE Austrian Film Festival 2021
Screenings of short film ALGO-RHYTHM (2019)
Donaufestival, Krems 2022
Vienna International Shorts: Young Curators. Filmmuseum Vienna 2022
Afrika Filmfestival Hamburg 2021
Afrika Filmfestival Köln 2021
5th Ramsgate International Film & TV Festival
28th African Film Festival 2021, Virtual Cinema Lincoln Centre. New York City
25th Traveling Series 2022 African Film Festival New York (venues in New York, Portland, Maine; Berkeley, California; Baltimore, Maryland; St. Louis, Missouri and Puerto Rico)
Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2020
63rd bfi London Film Festival: Short Film Competition 2019
65th Int. Short Film Festival Oberhausen, International Competition 2019
36. Documentary and Video Festival Kassel 19, International Competition
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, International Competition 2019
38th Uppsala International Short Film Festival, Short Film Competition
Antimatter 2019, Victoria, Canada
13th Glasgow Short Film Festival, International Competition
DIAGONALE 2020 Festival of Austrian Film, Short Film Competition
43rd Norwegian Short Film Festival
Vienna Shorts 2020: Austrian Competition
F.A.M.E. #5 – le festival international de films musicaux. La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris 2019
Screenings of feature film DREAMS REWIRED (2015) / selection:
44th Rotterdam Film Festival (World premiere);
41st Seattle International Film Festival (US Premiere),
Orphans X, Library of Congress – AV Archive, Virginia;
Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2016;
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2016;
FilmForum New York (US Cinema release 2015);
CPH:DOX, Copenhagen 2015;
Ulster Festival of Art and Design, Belfast 2015;
25th Message to Man International Film Festival St Petersburg;
32nd Jerusalem Film Festival
Broadcasts: ARTE/ZDF, SAT3, ORF, Pro7
US sales & distribution (cinema, DVD and VOD): Icarus Films
A complete list of screenings and press coverage is online at www.DreamsRewired.com
ARTISTIC DIRECTORSHIPS
1997-ongoing
ambienttv.net / Ambient Information Systems, London
Founding member and Lead Artist of interdisciplinary arts production and R&D hub based in London. Until 2016 it included an event space and artist in residence programme.
1995-1997 MedienLabor München
Artistic Director. Programming the artist-in-residency program, public lectures, workshops. Consulting cultural organisations on the integration of digital media and internet in their creative work flows; Head of R&D team of the EXPO2000 online presence and the first ever website of the City of Munich.
Works
- »Smart City ABC« 2016
- »Dreams Rewired« 2015
- »Kayak Libre« 2010
- »Faceless« 2002
News
12.11.2023
Manu Luksch recipient of Outstanding Artist Awards 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OrZNNsVMJQ
Manu Luksch recipient of Outstanding Artist Awards 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OrZNNsVMJQ
Exhibitions & Events
Publications & References
Luksch Manu. Kayak Libre. London: Manu Luksch, 2016.
Doyle, A., Lippert, R., & Lyon, D., eds. and Martin Zeilinger, ed. ‘Appropriation and the authoring function of surveillance in Manu Luksch’s Faceless’, in: Eyes Everywhere. The Global Growth of Camera Surveillance. London: Routledge, 2011.
Luksch Manu/Patel Mukul. Ambient Information Systems. London: ambient.publishing, 2009.
Burnham, Clint. Chapter "Postmodern Aesthetics as Obscene Super-ego: Anxieties of Photography" in Function/fiction : utilitarian images reconfigured – Sylvia Grace Borda, Tacita Dean, Rod Dickinson, Michael Klier, Manu Luksch, Chris Marker, Pavel Pavlov, Walid Raad et . ISBN: 9782922135329; 2922135322 th ed.Montreal: Publisher Dazibao Gallery, 2009.