ART+COM | Joachim Sauter

ART+COM received the red dot: grand prix for the mechatronical installation "Kinetic Sculpture for the BMW Museum".

ART+COM, founded in Berlin in 1988, translates contents via interactive media and stages them in a given space, making complex topics easily accessible, for instance in museums, visitor and research centres, exhibitions and other public spaces. At that the cause remains the same of twenty years ago: to design innovative, unexpected, risky and experimental projects with an interdisciplinary team to pave the way for the future of media-based communications. The team of 70 realises projects for clients in the culture and industry sectors – ranging from screen applications and interactive installations to entire media spaces, scenographies, and medial architectures. The creative director is Joachim Sauter, a co-founder of ART+COM who studied design at the Berlin University of the Arts as well as direction and camera at the dffb (German Film and Television Academy Berlin). He is professor of art and design with digital media at the Berlin University of the Arts, as well as adjunct professor for media design and media art at the UCLA in Los Angeles.

ART+COM on “Animating a form-finding process”:
The task was to render the development and design process of a vehicle visible within a free space. In order to live up to the BMW brand and the museum of mobility, we chose to create a dynamic and compelling environment: a surface floating in mid-air and which consists of 714 metal spheres “narrates” how out of a chaotic state the first ideas were born, how competing form studies and concepts evolved, and how they eventually resolved in the car’s final shape. The freely suspended spheres make the interaction of design and technology visible and illustrate the precise interplay of many individual elements which contribute to form a convincing whole. In addition, the narrative is acoustically backed up by quotations from the designers and engineers.