Frieder Nake

Frieder Nake was born in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1968, he emigrated to Canada. After positions in Toronto and Vancouver, however, he returned to Bremen (Germany) in 1972 as professor for “computer graphics and interactive systems” to take part in the controversial foundation of the university there. He stayed there ever since.

In the mid-1960s he was one of the first to create software for aesthetic objects (“computer art”). He has exhibited his work extensively world-wide, and is represented in important museums. He was a visiting professor to universities in Vienna, Oslo, U of Colorade at Boulder, Northwest Institute in Xian (China), Aarhus (Denmark), ISNM Lübeck (Germany), Basel (Switzerland), Krems (Austria), Costa Rica, Tongji Shanghai (China), Lüneburg (Germany). He is recipient of the “Bernighausen Award for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching”, Bremen. In establishing the joint Bremen program in Digital Media, he was a visiting professor to the University of the Arts, Bremen, in 2005/06. Since then, he has been teaching Digital Media at the University of Bremen and the University of the Arts.

Nake has published and lectured in probability theory, computer graphics, human-computer interaction, semiotics, theory & critique of computer science & Digital Media, art and art theory. His major publication is, perhaps, “Ästhetik als Informationsverarbeitung” (Aesthetics as Information Processing, 1974).