Neu an der Fakultät:
Dr. Michael Rottmann

Dr. Michael Rottmann is an art and media scholar with a focus on histories and theories in the 20th/21st century. In his research, he is particularly interested in the relationships between art and science or technology or
media, design, creation and creative processes and their media as well as their
artistic reflection. He has published on drawing, painting, sculpture and object art as well as on art and media in the context of the (post-)digital, in particular on the digital image and the prehistory of 3D printing, as well as on visual cultures (including VJing), digital and algorithmic cultures, interface theory, diagrammatics, writing and image relations and image and logic. Further research interests include design history/theory as well as art and ecology. His working methods are characterized in particular by interdisciplinarity, a pronounced interest in the relationships between
media and society and the interweaving of theory and practice.
Rottmann's research focuses in particular on the relationship between art and mathematics, for which he wrote the book "Gestaltete Mathematik" (Shaped Mathematics), which focuses on American art from around 1960 and for which he received his doctorate in art history from the Freie Universität Berlin in 2013 after completing the media theory doctoral program of the DFG Research Training Group "Schriftbildlichkeit" at the Institute of Philosophy. In the book, Rottmann shows in particular that the mathematical is an
ingredient of a discourse on images and visuality. In writing the book, he was not only able to draw on his studies in art education/art history at the State Academy of Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart, but also from his training as a data processing specialist and professional experience as a programmer, as well as his studies in mathematics at the University of Stuttgart.

Rottmann currently lives and works in Basel (CH), where he researched and taught at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design Basel from 2017-2022 - initially as a postdoctoral fellow and first as a postdoctoral fellow and then as Senior Researcher and Principal Investigator of the SNSF Ambizione project "Automated Innovations" on machine arts in the 20th/21st century. He then worked at KIT as a postdoc in the ERC project COSE. Since the winter semester 2023/24, he has also been a lecturer in visual/art studies at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences - Peter Behrens School of Arts. He previously taught at the Karl Franzens University Graz, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Art University Linz and the Humboldt University in Berlin (Spring Academy), most recently at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.
Rottmann also curated the exhibition and catalog "Genau und anders" at mumok Vienna and gained experience in the field of digital humanities at the Vienna University of Technology with a project he initiated for the scientific processing of a historical model collection and its presentation in an online database.
Rottmann has given numerous lectures at universities as well as museums and galleries in an international context and has written for Texte zur Kunst Berlin, artmagazine Wien and the journal of the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaften (ZfM), among others.

More information: michaelrottmann.org