Philipp Geist (VIDEOGEIST) was born on February 28, 1976, in Witten, Germany. He grew up in Weilheim (Upper Bavaria). Since 1999, he has been living and working in Weilheim and Berlin.
Philipp Geist works internationally as a multi-media artist in the mediums of video, performance, photography and painting. In September 2007, he realized the video installation “Time Lines” on the entire front of the Palazzo delle Espozioni in Rome at its re-opening after it had been closed for five years. The installation was opened by the mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, and was seen by approx. 20.000 visitors. In 2005, he realized the large project “Winterzauber” (“Winter Magic”) for the Lake Side Restaurant in Zurich and in 2006, he opened the Salon Noir within the context of the exhibition “Melancholie, Genie und Wahnsinn” (“Melancholy, Genius and Insanity”) in the Berlin Neuen National Galerie. Together with the symphony orchestra OBC Barcelona and the Finnish sound ensemble Pan Sonic, Geist opened in 2004 the Sonar Festival in Barcelona. His works were shown at the Dissonanze Festival in Rome, at Clubtransmediale in Berlin and at the Mutek Festival in Montreal which is renowned for new media. He has exhibited his live video performances internationally at the Central House of Artists (CHA) in Moscow, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London, the National Gallery in Warsaw (Zacheta) and at the opening of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.
In his video-room-installation “RIVERINE ZONES CONNECTED” Geist shows video recordings of rivers from different international locations. With underwater-video-cameras, he records the world under water. It is an attempt to get in touch with our immediate, but distant reality, an artistic discussion with the element water. Geist points out a part of our reality that is usually hidden from us. As in Geist´s other art projects, the form and content of RIVERINE is conditioned by the place where the work is being presented, most of all in art galleries, but also in other places like Club11 in Amsterdam. The project has passed the following stations so far: Köln, Berlin, München, Chiemsee, Bremen and Dresden. A highlight was the exhibition in the Three-Walls-Gallery in Chicago in April 2007, supported by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA).
He has been invited to give courses and workshops, for example in the summer academy in Dresden in 2006 and in the “Württembergischen Kunstverein” in Stuttgart in the context of the interdisciplinary festival CAMP in August 2007. In the same year he joined the jury of the BackUp-Festival in order to evaluate the submitted films.
He has taken part in various group exhibitions, for example in the Illustrative 2007 in Berlin where he presented his his multi-channel-Installation “Paradise Lost” based on the engravings by Gustave Doré.
Further projects are characterized by their complexity and the integration of the location, the sound and moving images. In the end of 2006 he contributed visuals to the DOM-project, performing with the saxophonist Johannes Enders in a church in Weilheim.
Music and sound play an important role in Philipp Geist´s works. The music influences the speed of the images, the intensity of its effects, its colours and contents. In the course of this process an audo-visual merging is created, leading to the fact that images, music and the location can be experienced in a new, synaesthic way. Geist selects the images live and as the music is generally improvised, the images are found and modified spontaneously.
Geist worked together with zither soloist/composer Leopold Hurt and electronic musicians Hannes and Andi Teichmann (Gebr. Teichmann) for the project Hurt Teichmann Geist. Moreover, his collaborative work with Dirk Dresselhaus (SchneiderTM) and Ilpo Vasäinen (Pan Sonic) resulted in the “noise” music project “Angel”.
It was through photography and painting that Geist gradually made his way to video art. He had his debut as a painter at the age of 18. For the presentation of his artworks he selected an unusual location: a forest in Polling, Upper Bavaria. A number of exhibitions of his pictures and photography followed thereafter in the Stadtmuseum Schonau and Munich (slideshow with Console/Martin Gretschmann),
In the year 2000 Geist created a video composition for the musical piece “Jolanda” by the Weilheimer Avantgarde jazz ensemble Tied & Tickled Trio (with Markus and Micha Acher (“The Notwist”) as well as with jazz saxophonist Johannes Enders and others). From that time onward his works have been sought after at international video and digital art festivals such as the Biennale in Santiago de Chile, “Kurzfilmtagen” in Regensburg, the media tower in Graz, “Filmwinter” in Stuttgart and the Electronic Art Festival in Warsaw. Geist’s subsequent projects included the production of music video clips for Phonem, Tied & Tickled Trio, Console, Philip Boa, Angel, beigeGT, Ephy and Kpt.michi.gan.
1976 born in Witten a.d. Ruhr, 28. February
Currently lives and work in Berlin and Weilheim (Germany)
TEACHING ACTIVITY / LECTURES / scholarship / award
07/08 2006 Lecturer for Video/ Film at Int. Dresdener Sommerakademie
03/2007 Videoabend - Motorhalle Dresden
08/2007 Lecturer for Video/ Film at Camp Festival Dresden
03/2008 Bucharest - Transcities
05/2008 Berlin - Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule BTK
05/2008 Berlin - Berliner Technische Universität - Baupiloten
06/2008 Weilheim - Stadtmususeum lectures
06/2008 Berlin Universität der Kuenste UdK "videokunst machen zeigen kaufen"
06/2008 Hamburg Elektrohaus artist talk
11/2008 Montreal Goethe Institut artist talk
07/09 2010 Arbeitsstipendium Künstlerhaus Lukas
gefördert durch das Land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Philipp Geist, geboren 1976 in Witten, aufgewachsen in Weilheim (Obb.), lebt seit 1999 in Berlin, als Künstler und Autodidakt. Er arbeitet international in den Medien Videoinstallation, Audio/ Visuelle Performance, Malerei und Fotografie, u. a. 2002: Pinakothek der Moderne, München | 2004: Sonar Festival Barcelona, Mutek Festival Montreal, Dissonanze Festival, Rom | 2005 Zürich, Winterzauber, Videoinstallation | 2006: Salon Noir, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin | 2007: Riverine Videoinstallation, Three Walls Gallery, Chicago | Videoinstallation Time Lines Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rom | 2008: Kulturforum Berlin, Time Fades | Ahrenshoop, Kurhaus, Broken Time Lines, Neues Kunsthaus Ahrenshoop | Bukarest, Riverine Videoinstallation und Fotoarbeiten | Weilheimer Stadtmuseum Lighting Times | Australien Melbourne, Urban Screens – Riverine Movie Screening | Harmating Galerie Ruf Fotoarbeiten | Vienna, white8 Gallery Einzelausstellung Fotoarbeiten & Videostandbilder | Ahrenshoop Neues Kunsthaus Riverine Zones Connected Installation | Bukarest, Außen-Videoinstallation
Geists Projekte sind in erster Linie gekennzeichnet durch ihre Komplexität in der Integration von Raum, Ton und Bewegbild.
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Philipp Geist, born in Witten in 1976, grew up in Weilheim and moved to Berlin in 1999. As an artist and autodidact, he works internationally with the mediums video installation, audio/ visual performance, painting and photography, e.g. 2002: opening of the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich | 2004: Sonar Festival, Barcelona; Mutek Festival, Montreal; Dissonanze Festival, Rome | 2005: facade installation, Zurich; Neue Nationalgalerie, Salon Noir, Berlin | 2007: Riverine video installation, Three Walls Gallery, Chicago| video installation Time Lines Palazzo delle Esposizioni,Rome | 2008: Time Fades, Kulturforum Berlin; Broken Time Lines, Neues Kunsthaus Ahrenshoop | Bucharest, Riverine video installation and photoworks | Lighting Times, Museum Weilheim | Australia, Melbourne Urban Screens – Riverine Screening | Harmating Galerie Ruf - photoworks | Vienna, white8 Gallery soloexhibition photo works & videostills | Ahrenshoop Neues Kunsthaus Riverine Zones Connected Installation | Bucharest outdoor video installation |
Further projects are characterized by their complexity and the integration of the location, the sound and moving images.
