Nederlands:Hartware MedienKunstVerein (Q167260)

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Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) was founded in 1996 in Dortmund and serves as a platform for the production, presentation, education on and contextualisation of contemporary and experimental media art. Through its strong commitment to the field of media art over the past ten years HMKV has developed into a unique organisation in Germany.

However, media art is not understood as a technical genre. Rather, media art, which is a heterogenous field, is characterised by a specific contemporaneity which includes a broad range of different (electronic, digital, but also analogue) media. It is the topical and conceptual discussion of our contemporary world based increasingly on media and technological structures that makes for the contemporaneity of media art. HMKV's exhibitions are characterised by their broad definition of media art and by positioning the field of media art very consciously in the broader context of contemporary art.

HMKV is embedded in regional as well as international networks and organises exhibitions, film, video, and music programs, performance and lecture series as well as conferences and workshops. In addition to that, HMKV hosts since 2000 the grant program of the State of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) for media artists (f) from NRW. Since April 2006 HMKV also hosts the executive office of the Medienwerk NRW, an association of regional media art organisations.

Since the founding of HMKV many international media art exhibitions have taken place - amongst them in 1998 the much acclaimed exhibition Reservate der Sehnsucht (Reservations of Desire) at the huge former - now derelict - Union Brewery Dortmund. After a large-scale exhibition project in the urban public space of Dortmund („Plan B - Kunst Raum Stadt", 2000) Hartware curated projects in Rotterdam, Duisburg, Amsterdam and Copenhagen in 2000 and 2001. From 2001-2002 various exhibitions took place at the 400 sqm large exhibition space at Güntherstr., e.g. Kontrollfelder. Programmieren als künstlerische Praxis (Control Panels. Programming as Artistic Practice, 2002). In early 2003 HMKV organised, at Dortmund's Museum am Ostwall, the first comprehensive retrospective internationally of the Spanish media artist Antoni Muntadas (who in 2005 was awarded the Spanish National Prize).

Since 2003 HMKV makes use of the PHOENIX Halle Dortmund, a spectacular 1895 factory hall measuring 2.200 square meters belonging to the giant former steel production plant of Phoenix-West. HMKV's activities have received international recognition. In 2007 HMKV has been nominated for the ADKV-ART COLOGNE Award for Art Associations (Kunstvereine). With its activities focussing on the production, presentation, mediation and the discursive contexts of media art Hartware MedienKunstVerein plays an important role in an international network focussing on contemporary art and media.

In 2004 the exhibition "Games - Computer games by artists" (2003) was awarded the Innovationspreis des Fonds Soziokultur. The International Association of Art Critics, AICA, German section, called „Games" the "special exhibition of the year 2003", along with "Art from the GDR" at the New National Gallery in Berlin. Since then, many exhibitions have taken place at PHOENIX Halle, among them in 2004 the "Nam June Paik Award" of the Kunststiftung NRW (2004), "on Disappearance" (2005), "Glamour and Globalisation" (2006), "mit allem rechnen. Media art from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania" (in cooperation with the Museum am Ostwall, 2006), "The Wonderful World of irational.org. Tools, Techniques and Events 1996-2006" (2006), and currently, as a cooperation with KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, History Will Repeat Itself (2007).

In 2007 HMKV started touring its shows to the CCA Glasgow (irational, June - July 2007), KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin (History, Nov 2007 - Jan 2008) and the Museum for Contemporary Art Novi Sad (irational, 2008).

In all its projects, HMKV puts great emphasis on the cooperation with external curators. The most important exhibition projects have been developed as cooperative projects, like e.g. "Control Panels" (2002, with Andreas Broeckmann, Berlin), "Games" (2003, with Tilman Baumgärtel, Berlin), "vom Verschwinden" (2005, with Ute Vorkoeper, Hamburg), "Rekorderrennen" (2006, with Anne Bergner, Munich), "The Wonderful World of irational.org" (2006, with Jacob Lillemose, Copenhagen) and currently "History Will Repeat Itself" (2007, with Gaby Horn and Katharina Fichtner, Berlin).

In addition to exhibitions, HMKV organises international conferences and workshops on media art and net culture, like e.g. 404 Object not found - What remains of media art? (2003), Heimatwechsel (2004), Perspectives of net art (2005), the 4th International „Readme" Festival on Software Art and Culture (2005, with Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, Moscow), How I learned to love RFID (2006), Media Art and its Areas of Action (2006), and Satellite Voyeurism (2007)