NEW LECTURES & INTERVIEWS

By happenstance, these are mostly but not exclusively about the Connection Machine.

KUNSTHALLE WIEN in the TU WIEN, Vienna. "Radical Software" Symposium - all lectures.
My lecture: "Imagining AI in the 1980s," 28 February.

KUNSTHALLE WIEN, Vienna. Interview: "Tamiko Thiel – Radical Software," part of the exhibit "Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991", 30 April.


SPOTLIGHT ON podcast: Interviews with Lawrence Peryer

• Part 1 podcast “Tamiko Thiel: part 1 - sculpting the electronic brain.“ Very in depth podcast interview with Lawrence Peryer, including a lot of family background: MIT, Bauhaus, Japanese culture ... , 24 April.
• Part 2 podcast “Tamiko Thiel: part 2 - art at technology's edge.“ Very in depth podcast interview with Lawrence Peryer, 01 May.

ONGOING:

Until 14 Sept. 2025 @ Chiostro del Bramante, Rome

"FLOWERS. Art from the Renaissance to Artificial Intelligence"

Featuring: Forest Flux/Waldwandel, Augmented Reality wall-sized livestream.

The exhibition "Flowers Forever," curated by Franziska Stöhr and Roger Diederen for the Kunsthalle Munich, now travels to Rome in collaboration with the curator Suzanne Landau. It features Waldwandel/Forest Flux as a large, wall-sized AR livestream projection!

Until 25 May 2025 @ KUNSTHALLE Wien, VIENNA

"Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991" surveys the history of digital art from a feminist perspective, focusing on women who worked with computers as a tool or subject and artists who worked in an inherently computational way. With my 68 years, I am the second youngest in the exhibit!

The exhibit premiered at MUDAM Luxembourg, and has now followed curator Michelle Cotton as she takes over the directorship of the Kunsthalle Vienna!



Featuring the sketches and photos I did as lead product designer on the first prototype of the Connection Machines CM-1/CM-2. For more on the machines, the first commercial AI supercomputers, see my CM website.

Until May 2025 @ Paulskirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

The AR exhibit "DEMO-" AR exhibit, from wava.ar and Netzwerk Paulkirche features:

Revolution and Return, interactive AR installation, by Tamiko Thiel and /p, 2023



Silver coins of the German states, carrying the profiles of their respective German monarchs and symbols of their personal power, fall from the sky. With a touch you can transform them into the founding constitutional documents of the first unified German nation-state, which forced them to give up control of their realms in 1848.

But what happens when gold ducats of the powerful Prussian King and Austrian Emperor begin to rain down from above?

NOTES: On the first, failed attempt at democracy in Germany, in 1848.

Official City of Munich Art in Public Space:

#JulietToo
AR installation, Tamiko Thiel, 2022
Sited @ the Juliet Capulet sculpture in Marienplatz

Commissioned for the ARORA / #MakeUsVisible / denkFEmale Munich AR virtual monuments exhibit, 2022. All artworks are visible around the world as well - follow links on website.



Created by sculptor Nereo Constantini to honor the tragic, 13 year old heroine of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", the sculpture was donated to Munich in 1974 by its Partner City Verona, Italy. In the wake of #MeToo there has been much discussion of the tourist practice of rubbing (and licking) the patina off of Juliet's right breast "to bring luck".

To contribute to the discussion, #JulietToo surrounds the Juliet sculpture with her body positive avatars as amazon and as Viking shield maiden, warrior women who bared their breasts in battle as a sign of strength, rather than submission.

RECENT AWARDS:

SIGGRAPH 2024, 28 July – 1 August in Denver, USA

I will receive the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art! I am still wobbly-kneed at being named to this illustrious group, with so many true s/heros of mine! SIGGRAPH was so important for the beginning of my career as a media artist, in the early days when few art venues would dare to show VR artworks.

AWE XR Hall of Fame

I am honored to be part of the first cohort inducted into the newly formed XR Hall of Fame, including many of my s/heros and friends! Unfortunately I can't attend the AWE conferences this year due to prior committments elsewhere, I would have so loved to celebrate this together with you all! :-(

CAI Magazine's Top 20 Most Famous Digital Artists

According to the ranking algorithm on artfacts.net, I am #10 on this list! Read their description of how they came up with the rankings. Grateful that I lived to see the words "famous" and "digital" and "artists" in the same sentence in art magazines! :-)