Chair for Media Environments, Faculty of Art & Design, Bauhaus University Weimar.
In her ongoing artistic research “Lichens as symbiotic performance” Ursula Damm explores cryptogamic vegetation (in particular lichens) in cities. Together with Microbiologist and artist Klaus Fritze she explores their role as border crossers between the human and the plant habitat, and as symbiotic organisms, because lichens only exist as a cooperation of fungi and algae. In a self-organizing, species-rich environment lichens colonize barren sites that are not accessible to higher developed plants.
Ursula Damm studied at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf, followed by postgraduate studies at the Academy of Media arts in Cologne. Since 1995 her installations respond interactively to architectural aspects with video tracking technology. Aside she developed numerous installations on the relationship of nature, science and civilization like «Venus I-IV» (part of the collection of the Ludwig-Museum Koblenz), «double helix swing» (honorary mention ars electronica 2006) or the «greenhouse converter». Her works have been presented internationally, e.g. at Goethe House New York; Chronus Art Center Shanghai, Ars electronica or ISEA. In 2016 she launched a permanent, interactive installation at the Metro-Station Schadowstrasse in Düsselodorf/Germany, and in 2020 a site specific permanent installation at EAWAG Dübendorf, Switzerland. Since 2008 she holds the chair for Media Environments at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, where she established a DIY Biolab and the Performance Platform at the Digital Bauhaus Lab.
