Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV)

Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) was founded in Dortmund in 1996. The association is conceived as a platform for the production, presentation and communication of contemporary (media) art within the relevant discursive contexts. Thanks to intensive thematic concentration and wide-ranging activities – exhibitions, workshops, conferences, programmes of performances, films, and lectures – HMKV now plays a central part within an international network concerned with contemporary art deploying new media.

Media art in the PHOENIX Halle

The media-art exhibitions staged by HMKV since 1996 command recognition at regional, national and international level. Since late 2003, the venue of these shows has been the PHOENIX Halle, a site of 2,200 square metres that formerly served as the spare-parts warehouse of the Phoenix-West steelworks in Dortmund-Hörde. Important shows mounted during the past decade include: Reservate der Sehnsucht, Dortmunder U (1998); Muntadas, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund (2003); Games – Computerspiele von KünstlerInnen PHOENIX Halle, Dortmund (2003); The Wonderful World of irational.org, PHOENIX Halle, Dortmund (2006), Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow (2007); Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Novi Sad (2008); History Will Repeat Itself, PHOENIX Halle, Dortmund (2007), KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2008), Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2008), Goethe-Institut Hong Kong and HK Film Archives.

Grants and awards

Since 2000, HMKV has been in charge of the applications procedure for the NRW state grant for media artists. In 2007 and 2008, HMKV was a nominee for the art associations’ prize awarded by Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Kunstvereine (ADKV) and Art Cologne.