Manu Luksch


Manu Luksch is an Austrian intermedia artist and filmmaker who is known for her wide-ranging critical practice that interrogates sociopolitical, legal, and technological infrastructure through interdisciplinary collaboration, the creation of participatory tools and platforms, and the instigation of novel processes. Specific works address the regulation of public space, the construction of independent media infrastructure, and widespread corporate data surveillance.
Through the 2000s, a major focus of Luksch's research was the data trace – the digital shadows cast by humans in networked space in the course of daily activities. More recently, this focus has broadened to include algorithmic management as deployed in 'smart city' contexts. Although her work is found in museums and galleries, it is also manifest in academic, activist and other non-art contexts. Luksch is perhaps best known for two film works, Faceless and Dreams Rewired.
WWW manuluksch.com𝕏 ManuLuksch

Education

Luksch initially studied at University of Fribourg in Switzerland and holds MA degrees in History and Fine Arts / Education. She travelled as a Foreign Scholar to Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok in 1993, and to Chiang Mai University in 1994.

Early career

While a student at the Academy of Fine Arts, Luksch worked with film director Peter Greenaway on his exhibition 100 Objects to represent the World as photographer and production assistant, and on the subsequent exhibition The Stairs: Munich Projection. In 1996, Luksch was appointed director of Medienlabor München, a position she held until 1998. In 1998, Luksch co-curated Art Servers Unlimited together with media theoretician Armin Medosch, the first conference to focus on a range of noncommercial initiatives to support the blend of creative, experimental, socio-cultural, artistic, critical use of the internet, hosted at the ICA London.

Filmography

3rd Quarterly Report Dreams Rewired Unknown Territories Architekturbureau Lichtpause / Blue-Sky Blueprint Make It Snow! Make It Snow! Make It Snow! Mapping CCTV Around Whitehall
  • Faceless Virtual Borders Broadbandit Highway Art Servers Unlimited
  • ''So Oder Anders''

Publications

  • Luksch, Manu. Signature or Right Thumbprint, Goethe Institute Bangkok, 1994.
  • Luksch, Manu & Medosch, Armin. Art Servers Unlimited, ASU, 1998.
  • Luksch, Manu & Medosch, Armin. ‘Apropos Art Servers Unlimited’. New Media Culture in Europe, edited by F. Boyd, Uitgeverij De Balie and the Virtual Platform, 1999.
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  • Luksch, Manu & Medosch, Armin. ‘Luksch & Medosch’. net.art 2.0. Neue Materialien zur Netkunst, by T. Baumgärtel, Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2001.
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  • Luksch, Manu. ‘From social fact to science fiction. The incident in the incidental.’ n.paradoxa, Vol. 22, 2008.

Awards and appointments

Collections

Works by Luksch are held in the