MediaArtHistories Award will be presented posthumously to Werner Nekes

The award of the international conference series „On the Histories of
Media Art, Science and Technology“ will be presented at Danube
University Krems on November 23, 2017 to the well-known collector, film
artist, and theorist Werner Nekes.

For more than several decades, German film director Werner Nekes
(1944-2017) assembled what is widely regarded to be the most exceptional
private collection on cinematic pre-history. With over 40,000 objects,
the collection represents the history of art and image media with a
comprehensiveness that is unrivaled, and that substantially contributes
to contemporary study into visual perception, optical technology, and
the media informatization of lived experience. For these achievements,
among others, Werner Nekes is considered one of the most important
pioneers of MediaArtHistories. The Conference Jury is pleased to
recognize Werner Nekes for his commitment to field by conferring this
posthumous award.

Born in Erfurt, Germany, Werner Nekes began his career as an
experimental filmmaker in the 1960s. Over his career, he made more than
50 short and long films. One of the most famous is “Uliisses”
(1982), in which Nekes translated James Joyce’s literary technique
into the visual language of cinema. A film titled “Johnny Flash”
(1985) parodying German Schlager music, and with Helge Schneider in his
first leading role, also gained huge popularity. At the young age of 25,
Werner Nekes was appointed as professor for experimental film at the
University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Later, he held professorships in
Wuppertal, Offenbach and Cologne, and gave numerous lectures and
presentations both in Germany and internationally. Nekes received
several awards for his work, among them the “BAMBI Award” and, on
several occasions, the “Deutscher Filmpreis” (German Film Prize). 
In addition to his artistic work, Nekes achieved international
prominence thanks to how with creativity and vision he innovated his
unprecedented archive for the pre-history of film. This collection
contains graphic stills prints and stills, instruments used in
anamorphic projection, optical devices, rare publications and
documents–among other objects.
Nekes presented selected objects from his collection in his documentary
“Media Magica I. […]” in 1986, which was telecasted in over 50
countries. And today, the Nekes Archive continues to be exhibited all
over the world, and is regarded to be an important fundament to
MediaArtHistories. 

MediaArtHistories-Honorary Award

Werner Nekes, who passed away in early 2017, receives now posthumously
the MediaArtHistories-Honorary Award. This prize is awarded after an
international proposal and jury procedure, and in 2015 was previously
given to American art historian Barbara Stafford.

The appraisal of Werner Nekes will take place at the Re:Trace 2017
Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, to be
held in November 23-25, 2017 in Krems and Vienna, Austria. There, more
than a hundred international attendees will discuss consequences of the
latest media revolution(s), new methods in the field of Digital
Humanities, as well as the future archiving and conservation of media
art. The award ceremony itself will take place at Kunsthalle Krems on
November 23, 2017.

The executive committee for the Conference Series and MediaArtHistories
Award Jury comprise: Prof. Dr. Sean Cubitt (Goldsmith), Dr. Andreas
Broeckmann (Lüneburg), Prof. Dr. Oliver Grau (Danube University), Prof.
Dr. Linda Henderson (Austin), Prof. Dr. Erkki Huhtamo (Los Angeles),
Prof. Dr. Douglas Kahn (Sydney), Prof. Dr. Martin Kemp (Oxford), Prof.
Dr. Machiko Kusahara (Tokyo), Prof. Dr. Tim Lenoir (Duke), Prof. Dr.
Gunalan Nadarajan (Ann Arbour), and Prof. Dr. Paul Thomas (Sydney).

More information:  http://www.mediaarthistory.org/retrace