Benjamin Heidersberger is a German media artist, journalist, entrepreneur and culture manager. He lives and works in Berlin and Wolfsburg.
Early life
Heidersberger studied physics, biology, and computer science at the Technical University of Braunschweig in 1978. From 1978 to 1984, he was part of the interdisciplinary artist groupHead Resonance in Wolfsburg. Along with vocalist and percussionist Peter Elsner, they conducted research on how ideas become reality in architecture, music, performance and installation.
Career
In 1984, he moved to Hamburg to work for a PC-dealer. From 1988 onward, he was an editor of the Computer-Magazine, MACup, about hardware and software, and later about art, technology, and society. In 1989, he co-founded the Ponton-Lab as an artist group and realised interactive media and TV-projects on Documenta- 8 and Documenta- IX, in Japan 1993 as well as on Ars Electronica 1986, 89, 90 and 96 under the brand Van Gogh TV. In 1992, the international project Piazza virtuale was realised, transmitting during the 100 days of Documenta daily 90 minutes of live-TV from 12 studios across Europe. The same year he curated the exhibition "Creative Software – On Men and Milestones" at Ars Electronica. In 1993 and 1994, Heidersberger taught Design of Electronic Media at Merz-Academy in Stuttgart. Ponton-Lab was formed into a full-service internet agency with up to 20 employees and realised the websites for the Lower SaxonyState Government and for the Federal Press Office and later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 1998 he launched Kulturserver, an online community for art and culture consisting of online-services for 20.000 artists similar to social media. The project was invited to present at the international conference “Cultura y Desarrollo” in Havana. In 2002, he founded the Heidersberger Institute in Wolfsburg Castle to archive and publish the work of his father, photographer Heinrich Heidersberger. The Institute collaborates with contemporary artists to contextualise that work. In the same year he was curator for netart on the 4th Werkleitz Binnale. Beginning in 2011 Heidersberger gave lectures at the Department of Media Studies and Musicology in Humboldt-University. In 2012, he curated and produced the concert of the Japanese composer Shinji Kanki, for the Alvar Aalto Festival in Wolfsburg. He realized the algorithmic piano composition Pentatonic Permutations in a series of concerts and sound installations, among others at Ars Electronica 2016. In 2017, he began curating the production-arts festival Drehmoment for the KulturRegion Stuttgart.
