OUBEY MINDKISS 5thAnniversary – This Special Kind of Happening Thrilled Everyone who Was There

On 5 May 2015 OUBEY MINDKISS celebrated the anniversary of the project launch in the same place where, five years ago, on 23 March 2010, it took its first tentative steps in the public spotlight at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe.

What follows is the first photo-reportage of the event. A short video is now being prepared and will be online shortly.

OUBEYs PhotonPainting POW, the key visual of the 5th Anniversary was suspended in the great atrium to greet the arriving guests.

OUBEYs original works accompanied by their companion Encounter Videos were shown for the first time in Karlsruhe– the city where they were created many years ago.

Some people came by in the early afternoon to give themselves plenty of time to see everything there was to see.s

The Special Happening kicked off with a marvelous surprise. SennerJazz filled the atrium with the unusual sound of alpine horns playing melodies by George Gershwin.

Dagmar Woyde-Koehler welcomed the large company of assembled guests. With a twinkle in her eye, she placed the 5th Anniversary in the context of the great anniversaries of the year: 100 years of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, 25 years of the Hubble Space Telescope, and 5 years of OUBEY MINDKISS!

Friends and partners of OUBEY MINDKISS, who were unable to make it to Karlsruhe, sent videos of greetings and congratulations from New York and Berlin. Stefan Sagmeister, a partner of the very first hour, Director Bernd Müller, Webmaster Jurgen Altziebler and Christoph Brosius, who together with their team developed the OUBEY Digital Discovery. Please click here to view the video of their best wishes.

In his inspirational welcome address, Professor Peter Weibel, Director of the ZKM, took the opportunity to explore what is actually meant by a MINDKISS in the intersection of science, philosophy and daily life. So he put the audience in the mood for experiencing it themselves.

The internet is the main channel by which the project communicates with its worldwide community. On the evening of the Happening too.

Unfortunately Professor Peter Kruse wasn’t able to attend himself but his video talk situating the OUBEY MINDKISS Project in the context of present day societal developments was followed by the audience with the keenest interest and gave plenty of food for thought and animated discussions thoughout the rest of the evening. The video with Peter Kruse’s provocative and insightful thoughts will go online next week on OUBEYs YouTube Channel.

The questions he dealt with and a great many other issues were touched on in the conversations Dagmar Woyde-Koehler had with her guests.

Each guest also had the opportunity to meet with one of OUBEYs paintings in an Open Encounter. Unfortunately time was too short to give everybody who wished to participate the opportunity to do so which we very much regret and hope that at some point soon in the future the occasion to remedy this will present itself.

The Digital Discovery experience was not only an extraordinary kind of highlight, it was also a world premiere. With this special technology interactive experiments in discovery can now be made with five of OUBEYs paintings. Click here to read more.

At the end of the evening all the guests were anxiously awaiting the result of draw to see who would be the proud new owner of the PhotonPainting POW, in its large format size as presented at the ZKM. The lottery was open to all the guests.

The lucky winner of OUBEYs PhotonPainting POW was Eve who had come all the way from Paris specially to be at the evening. Even if everyone in the room was hoping they would be the one to take this painting home with them, everybody warmly congratulated the winner for her tremendous stroke of luck.

The whole happening went off with great conviviality and good humor with many guests staying for more than three hours to sup their fill of what was offered on show. As someone remarked on one of the Tweet Sheets where guests could leave their comments, “This place really rocks you!”

We would like to say a big thank you to all those whose generous support and cooperation helped make the evening the success it was, and particularly Peter Kammerer.

The photos were taken by Uli Deck, who also photographed the project’s launch five years ago.