On the Contemporaneity of Media Arts
by Inke Arns (published in: Nam June Paik Award 2006, Frankfurt am Main 2006) Almost ten years ago with Language (property), Spanish media artist Daniel Garcia Andujar, better known under his company name Technologies to the People, developed a work which addressed the increasing privatisation and commodification of language. On a simple HTML page he listed phrases which have been registered as trademarks, and with that, had become the property of their respective owners, for example, “Where do you want to go today?TM” (Microsoft), “A better return on informationTM” (SAP), “Moving at the speed of businessTM” (UPS), “What you never thought possibleTM” (Motorola). By entitling this project “Remember, language is not freeTM” Andujar anticipated the disputes concerning “intellectual property”, which emerged in the following years (visible as early as the second half of the 1990s in the fierce battles for the allocation of domain names on the world wide web).
Reservate der Sehnsucht [Zones of Desire]
Reservate der Sehnsucht [Zones of Desire] 21 August- 4 October 1998 Dortmunder U 35 internatinal artists on four floors with more than 4,000 qm of industrial ruins Daniel García Andújar-Siegrun Appelt-John M. Armleder-Peter Bogers-Marie Jose Burki-Diller + Scofidio-Onno Dirker-Stan Douglas-Christoph Draeger-FLATZ-Mark Formanek-Rodney Graham-Johan Grimonprez-ipfo-Christoph Irrgang-Gerald van der Kaap-Kirsten Kaiser-Leuchtstoff-Peter Land-Antoni Muntadas-Walter Niedermayr-Vito Orazem-Tony Oursler-Jose Alejandro Restrepo-Alberto Simon-Jan-Peter ER. Sonntag-Bill Spinhoven-Allan Wexler-Andrea Wolfensberger-Thomas Wrede
The Manfred and Wilhelm Beutel’s Photo Collection
Daniel García Andújar, E, 1998 CD-ROM, 50 gerahmte digitale Prints Koproduktion: Hartware MedienKunstVerein Reservate der Sehnsucht, Dortmunder U, 1998 Im Rahmen der Ausstellung "Reservate der Sehnsucht" in der ehemaligen Union Brauerei wurde die von Daniel García Andùjar entdeckte Fotosammlung der einstigen Brauereiangestellten Wilhelm und Manfred Beutel präsentiert. Die Sammlung dokumentiert historische Ereignisse aus Dortmund, die im öffentlichen Bewusstsein der Stadt heute nur wenig präsent sind: die Jahre des deutschen Faschismus sowie die fast vollständige Zerstörung der Innenstadt während des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Der wesentliche Beitrag von Andújar bei der Präsentation der Sammlung bestand in einem eigens entwickelten geografischen Informationssystem, kurz GIS, mit dem sich von jedem einzelnen Bild der exakte Zeitpunkt der Aufnahme sowie der Standort des Fotografen ermitteln lässt.
The Manfred and Wilhelm Beutel Photo Collection
Daniel García Andújar: The Manfred and Wilhelm Beutel Photo Collection, 1998
CD-ROM, 50 framed digital prints
Coproduction: Hartware MedienKunstVerein
Reservate der Sehnsucht, Dortmunder U, 1998
In the course of the "Reservate der Sehnsucht" exhibition in the former Union brewery, Daniel García Andùjar presented a photograph collection he discovered. Compiled by the former brewery workers Wilhelm and Manfred Beutel, the collection documents episodes in the history of Dortmund which scarcely figure in the city's contemporary public awareness: the years during the Third Reich, and the almost total destruction of the inner city during World War II.
Andújar's main contribution to this presentation was a specially developed geographical information system (GIS) enabling the exact time of shooting, as well as the location of the photographer, to be determined for each picture.