Ulrike Gabriel

Ulrike Gabriel was born in 1964 in Munich and is an artist and researcher focussing on generative systems. Ulrike co-founded the laboratory Codelab, Berlin where she spent some time as a director. She also worked in ecological agriculture in Argentina from 2003 to 2006. Ulrike was also a professor at the University of Art and Design HfG Offenbach (2006-2012). At this university, she led the teaching area of Electronic Media. She studied philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University from 1983–1985 and painting and applied graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1985-1991 in Munich. After that she was a post-graduate at the Institute for New Media at the Städelschule, Frankfurt (1991-1992) and a research fellow at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, department for media science (1996-1998).

Gabriel explores human reality while her work includes robotics, some VR work, installations, performative formats and painting. There is something called Perceptual Arena, and it is an interactive virtual reality installation designed by Ulrike Gabriel and otherspace. This work has been shown at V2 Exhibition and also the Netherlands and Serious Chiller Lounge in Munich. Perceptual Arena is a realtime virtual environment that explores what the mind can do. This creates an audio-visual space texture that has the interaction of the user as an important attribute. The interaction is simply to be in the space, to distinguish it and to move around and to grab on to the resulting virtual clay. This defines the space and is what’s used for the further interaction. The space matches the individual perception. The perceivable evolves through perception of it. To be involved and possibly mess up in this process can transform the world, but can also push it out of balance and therefore destroy. The use of polygons and sounds is created and always changing by the personal views. The viewer is the only thing that can manipulate what is happening. The complexity of the arena world results out of the total interrelation of all its factors which in the end all depend on the users input data. These are some things the viewers might encounter. The view onto the space, their movement in the space, a history of movement and view, a virtual sensor in the field of view which applies history onto the space, the total access with a data glove onto the space through the field of view, and the virtual clay which is object and result of all this factors.

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