Mario Klingemann
Bio
Mario Klingemann, alias Quasimondo, is what you get when you cross the analytic mind of a coder with the creative fervor of an artist and add a little bit of mad scientist mentality to the mix.
In his aim to surprise himself and his audience he constantly tries to explore uncharted territories in order to discover unseen beauty and unthought ideas. Over the past years he increasingly focussed on machine learning to explore the field of artificial and augmented creativity.
A key factor in his work is the drive to overcome limitations by creatively repurposing and recombining objects and systems to reveal their hidden qualities.
His creations have been exhibited in international art shows and won acclaim among critics as exemplary pieces of net art. Pieces like his Neural Network portraits, Lowpoly Bot, Mona Tweeta, ScribblerToo, Flickeur, or Dada Visualization have made their way into uncounted best-of lists and got featured in many articles. In 2015 he won the Creative Award of the British Library, currently he is machine learning artist in residence at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris.
Mario enjoys sharing his explorations and discoveries on design and technology conferences worldwide, has co-founded the Munich FabLab and is working as a freelance code artist building creative tools, mobile apps and media installations.
Session
Better Living Through Lasers
Your mother already told you: it's good to play outside.
So whether you are a designer or a programmer - if you just spend all day in your digital world you might be missing out on some of the fun that is outside there waiting for you in the analog world. And you might neglect some hidden talents in you that you didn't even know you had.
Laser cutters are one way to jump the gap between the digital and the analog world and they are now at the point at which computers were 20 years ago: not yet affordable for everyone, but if you really want one you can get one or at least gain access to them via various services.
I am lucky enough to have a laser in my basement for about a year now and since it's a constant source of joy and amazement I want to share a bit of that experience in this talk.
I'll show you how this thing works, what you can do with it, how it allowed me to take projects which only existed on the screen into the real world, how you can fail in entirely new ways and how it allows me to explore new territories and new ideas.
