Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss

Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss, 2010

Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss, PhD, is Professor of communication and education technologies in Visual Culture and head of the international Master of Arts program ePedagogy Design – Visual Knowledge Building at Aalto University / School of Art and Design Helsinki.

I coined the term Visual Knowledge Building, referring to “a visualization process of interconnected models of distributed socio-cultural encoded data representations and simulations that are structured and contextualized by a learning community.”

In my research I try to find answers to how real and virtual space interactions can generate novel forms of communicative, creative and social practices in global connected communities.

The last 20 years I worked as art and design teacher, media artist, graphic designer, author, multimedia-developer and university teacher. I am also serving as expert advisor and reviewer for a number of scientific and research bodies, including the European Commission and I have received several honors and scholarships.

My international activities as speaker, lecturer, invited scholar and researcher brought me to many institutions around the world, for example Oxford University–Internet Institute, Seoul National University–Design Talks, National Institute of Multimedia Education Tokyo, University of the Arts London, K.U. Leuven, University Hamburg, Bilgi University Istanbul, San Francisco de Quito University.

I am the author of Synthesis & Nullification. Works 1990 – 2010 (forthcoming, Springer Wien/New York, 2011), (In)visible. Learning to Act in the Metaverse (Springer Wien/New York, 2008), Virtual School – kunstnetzwerk.at (Peter Lang, 2003), and I have edited Mashup Cultures (Springer, 2010) and (e)Pedagogy Design – Visual Knowledge Building (Peter Lang, 2005).

Link to the university research database where you can find a complete list of my publications, research, artistic and other activities.

I am married to Barbara Sonvilla and we have a daughter, Felicitas, and a son, Silvius.

Contact: stefan.sonvilla-weiss at aalto.fi

kunstnetzwerk.at // 1998 - 2002
http://www.kunstnetzwerk.at/1999/html/

2012 Sonvilla-Weiss Stefan Synthesis and Nullification Works 1991-2011 Publisher: Springer Wien/New York ISBN: 978-3-7091-1028-7	2010 Sonvilla-Weiss Stefan (ed.) MASHUP CULTURES Publisher: Springer Wien/New York ISBN: 978-3-7091-0095-0 Order it from Amazon, Springer	2008 Sonvilla-Weiss Stefan (IN)VISIBLE – Learning to Act in the Metaverse Publisher: Springer Wien/New York, 168 p. 19 illus., Softcover ISBN: 978-3-211-78538-6 Order it from Amazon, Springer

About this book: This book is the first retrospective covering the career of Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss as a visual artist, graphic designer, multimedia developer, writer, researcher, educator and visionary conceptualist spanning a period of twenty years, from the early 1990s up to the present. Synthesis and Nullification is used here metaphorically, as it stands for a complex and wide ranging theoretical and practical exploration in visual culture, its quest for experimental probing and application perpetuating a state of permanent flux in the work of Sonvilla-Weiss. At the center of his work lie the multi-layered and multi-faceted social, technical and aesthetic aspects in participatory media culture, along with its diverse modes and concepts of presentation and representation. In order to better understand these processes as evolving media literacy, which is highly context-based and reliant on networked communication skills and techniques, Sonvilla-Weiss developed the concept of visual knowledge building, a framework for continuing research. Synthesis and Nullification is divided into four main chapters, which bundle in chronological order artwork, concept visualizations, installations, photographs and multimedia work. This volume contains numerous previously unpublished texts and artwork from the last two decades, allowing discovery of a whole universe of textual and visual material. Synthesis and Nullification is written for media scholars, students, artists, cultural workers, art educators, designers, media artists, art historians, communication experts, curators and interested laypersons.	About this book: This volume brings together an international community of cutting-edge thinkers and scholars together with young researchers and students, proposing a colourful spectrum of media-theoretical, -practical and -educational approaches to current creative practices and techniques of production and consumption on and off the web. Along with the exploration of some of the emerging social media concepts, the book unveils some of the key drivers leading to participatory engagement of the User, who has irrevocably changed the up-to-now mass media-driven information landscape. Mashup Cultures thus presents a broader view of the effects and consequences of current remix practices and the recombination of existing digital cultural content for individuals, groups, institutions and private-public organisations, in order to rethink existing modes of operation. The complexity of this book, which appears on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the international MA study program ePedagogy Design – Visual Knowledge Building, also by necessity seeks to familiarize the reader with a profound glossary and vocabulary of Web 2.0 cultural techniques.	About this book: Now that humans seem to have arrived at the end of their campaigns of discovery, conquest and exploitation, the virtual, infinite, digital spaces are being conquered. It was only a matter of time before the technical possibilities permitted people to construct parallel worlds in the digital universe. A ‘Second Life’ as virtual existence (Avatar) in the virtual spaces of data exerts a seductive pull on ever more people. By taking possession of the internet as a creative medium, an entirely new, globally networked culture of participation has come into being. Multiple person-computer interfaces far exceed in their complexity and lack of overview the discussion currently taking place about possible social, aesthetic, legal and political effects on individuals and communities. In(visible) engages with the cognitive, social, technological and aesthetic dimensions of a dataculture which, in the highly charged dichotomies of private/public, visibility/invisibility, individual/community, autonomy/control, attempts to mark out new routes to communicate the practices and strategies of artistic and scientific engagement.

2005 Sonvilla-Weiss Stefan (ed.) (e)Pedagogy – Visual Knowledge Building: Rethinking Art and New Media in Education. Publisher: Peter Lang Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main,New York, Oxford, Wien. ISBN 978-3-03910-609-7 / US-ISBN 978-0-8204-7001-6 Order it from Amazon	2003 Sonvilla-Weiss Stefan Virtual school – kunstnetzwerk.at Partizipative Medienkultur in der virtuellen Bildungslandschaft Österreichs Publisher: Peter Lang Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main,New York, Oxford, Wien. ISBN 978-3-03910-231-0 Order it from Peter Lang

About this book: The accelerating «iconic turn» in our society today increasingly demands the interactive representation of contextual knowledge. At the same time the use of Web-based learning environments highlight the audio-visual dimension of (e)pedagogy and the move towards practical, project-oriented curricula. Regardless of the educational field pedagogical expertise thus requires more and more understanding and control of visual elements and their interpretations.There is a growing need for visually oriented pedagogical experts such as teachers, tutors, designers and developers who are capable of community knowledge building and collaboration with other experts from different fields from both private and public sectors.The book intends to illuminate scientific and programmatic excerpts from an international community of researchers, practitioners, teachers and scholars working in interrelated fields such as Aesthetic Education, ePedagogy Design – Visual Knowledge Building, Visual Education, Art Education, Media Pedagogy and Intermedia Art Education.	Inhalt: Welche Kommunikationsstrukturen und -konzepte im Internet sind notwendig, um ein partizipatives Medienverständnis zu entwickeln? Welche Potentiale liegen in einer aktiven, kommunikativen und kollaborativen Wissenskonstruktion, die dem beschleunigten Prozess der Informationsverarbeitung und -bereitstellung Rechnung trägt?Die Gestaltung von kunstnetzwerk.at und die Einbindung dieser Online-Plattform für Kunst/Design, neue Medien und Bildung im europäischen Bildungskontext derVirtual School Europe markieren den Ausgangspunkt für eine umfassendere Darstellung methodisch-didaktischer Konzepte im Interaktionsraum computerisierter Lehr- und Lernumgebungen. Dieser Band beleuchtet – ausgehend von einer kritischen Analyse der Hard- und Softwareindustrie bis zu den offenen Strukturen der Open-Source-Bewegung – die bildungspolitischen Zielsetzungen und Veränderungen in Bildungs- und Ausbildungsprozessen und die dahinterliegenden Konzepte und Modelle formeller und informeller Lernumgebungen. Eine Vielzahl von Projektanalysen und Beispielen im kunst- und medienpädagogischen Kontext in Zusammenhang mit der permanenten Weiterentwicklung von kunstnetzwerk.at runden diese Publikation ab.