Van Gogh TV
Karel Dudešek, Mike Hentz, Benjamin Heidersberger, Gerard Couty, Salvatore Vanasco, Martin Schmitz, Tim Becker, Axel Roselius, Jens Heise, Ernst Pfannenschmid, Julean Simon....
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Van-Gogh-TV/49893552814#/pages/Van-Gogh-TV/49893552814?v=wall&viewas=1123417811
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/piazza-virtuale/
Artists and technicians from Austria and Germany have been working together as Van Gogh TV since 1986 in the Ponton European Media Art Lab. Some of their members developed joint projects from as early as 1979 in the Minus Delta T group. 'Piazza Virtuale' is an interactive television project that could be received all over Europe via 4 satellites for 100 days during documenta IX in 1992. Visitors to documenta could beam themselves in via videophones and cameras that had been permanently installed in Kassel and other European cities to the live broadcast called 'Piazza Virtuale'. It was possible to use telephone, fax or modem to dial into the broadcast from home. The aim of the project was to transform the mass medium of television into an interactive medium that reverses the relationship of one broadcaster and many receivers.
"In the mid-eighties, Van Gogh TV decided to filter their experiences of performance art, avant-guarde music and the traditional arts into the electronic mass media. Art thus became research. Became experimental; expeditionary; adventurous. Van Gogh Radio (present at documenta 8 in 1987, for example), was followed by Van Gogh TV. The future broadcast environment was determined to be: Interactive Television."
Originally created as a mobile project, the early works of VGTV were pirate radio and pirate TV interventions and performance actions. Working under the names PONTON and Van Gogh TV, these partner projects maintained an active profile at commercial digital expos. and at international media art festivals.
The first live TV broadcasts of VGTV were supported by the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, and broadcast on ORF2 and 3SAT.
1986: At Ars Electronica, the media simulation ContainerCity.
1987: Documenta 8, Kassel: International Radio Syndicate (pirate radio).
1987: Book Fair, Frankfurt: Mobile Radio.
1988: Osnabrück: first Van Gogh TV (pirate TV).
1989: In 1989, VGTV established its first permanent laboratory, the European Media Art Lab on Koppelstraße, in Hamburg’s Kunstatelier Werkstatt. With a permanent base, VGTV began high level experimental research into the creative use of public communication systems.
1989: Ars Electronica: European Mobile Media Art Project.
1990: Ars Electronica: Hotel Pompino (live television project).
1992: documenta IX: Piazza Virtuale
1993: Van Gogh TV begins to develop online systems for the Internet.
1994: Ars Electronica: Service Area a.i.
1996: Worlds Within, an on-line 3D multi-user communication environment for the Internet.