Interview with Kalus Nicolai, director of the TMA Hellerau/Trans Media Akademie in Hellarau, Dresden and developer or the concept of Tele-Plateaus materialized in the ETP European Tele-Plateaus project.
http://www.european-tele-plateaus.eu/wp/
Biographical outline of Dr. Klaus Nicolai

Born in Bad Langensalza (Thuringia) in 1954

Klaus Nicolai studied cultural science, did his PHD and was a lecturer at the former Karl-Marx-University in Leipzig until 1987. Then he was lecturer at Hochschule für Bildende Künste (University of Fine Arts) Dresden from 1987 until 1992. After that he managed various art projects, i.a. for Bauhaus Dessau. From 1995 until 2005 Klaus Nicolai was advisor for media culture at the cultural office of the (provincial capital) City of Dresden.

He was co-founder of the international festival for computer-aided art in Dresden and acted as head of the CYNETart festival from 1997 until 2005. In 2001 he initiated the foundation of the Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau e.V. (TMA). He is the spokesperson of the management board and is responsible for the project development of TMA. Klaus Nicolai started the light-sound-festival transNATURALE (www.transnaturale.de) in 2005 and acted as their artistic director until 2009. Nicolai has been managing the Dresdner Innovationsfonds für Kunst und Medientechnology (DIF) (Innovations Funds for Art and Media Technology) since 2007. (www.innovationsfonds-dresden.de).

Within this work the Trans-Media-Labor has been established at the location of the historical buildings of Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau.

By order of the City of Dresden he published an exposé on the setting up of an INNOVATORIUM a ScienceArtCenter Dresden at the end of 2007. He also works as author, project designer and mediator of the European Tele-Plateaus transnational sites of encounter and co-production (ETP)- a project funded by the European Union. Klaus Nicolai has significantly contributed to the development of interactive, virtual sound-vision-environments and their networking on an international scale for ten years. He has held an appointment as freelance lecturer at the Dresden International University since 2005.

Klaus Nicolai is the author and leading project manager of the Virtual Parliament (www.virtuellesparlament.de) an internet platform, which went online on 11th August 2009. This platform provides political information and facilitates decision-making. It contributes to the growth of a political culture within the 21st century. Furthermore he is involved in an inter-university network which aims at founding a trans-disciplinary area of study and research called interactive and networked virtual environments (IVVE) in cooperation with the IT faculty of the Technical University Dresden, the Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfbK) scenography division and the Dresden University of Music (studio for electronic sound generation).

Nicolai lives in Dresden and works as freelance project manager , lecturer and author.

For further information please see: www.cynetart.de; www.innovationsfonds-dresden.de; www.transnaturale.de and in future also www.virtuellesparlament.de