Brummbaer

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Brummbaer (born 18/8/1945) is a German Digital Artist. He is well known for his work as an art director, designer, graphical artist, 3D animator, and modeler . In the 1970's he appeared as an actor in various German TV movies, and also produced and directed. In 1986 he began a career of computer graphics, and has since created several short computer-generated animations and done visual effects for movies.

Contents

[edit] Life

His fine art and underground magazine Germania brought him recognition in Europe during the Sixties, and he orchestrated light shows for such musicians as Frank Zappa and Tangerine Dream. He found his most expressive medium when he discovered the computer.

He was one of the primary computer animators responsible for the special effects in the Tristar motion picture Johnny Mnemonic (1995). He also created an innovative opener for SIGGRAPH’s 1995 "Electronic Theater", and has long been a pioneer in the world of digital animation, where he has been noted for his signature hallucinogenic style.

In the autumn of 2003 he was diagnosed with squamous head and neck cancer. During several months of chemo- and radiation-therapy he wrote an (unpublished) autobiographical novel titled “On The Street -- DXM in 1964 – or My Best Friend Jesus", which recounted his experiments with he drug dextromethorphan hydrobromide (DXM).

[edit] Career

Between 1964 and 1967 he traveled Europe as a pavement-painter and had 1967 his first exhibition of paintings at the Art's Lab in London.

1968 he moved to Frankfurt, West-Germany, where he designed psychedelic posters. (Momentarily in the show “Summer of Love” Tate-Gallery, Liverpool – Kunsthalle Schirn Frankfurt).

Spring 1968 he founded Germany's first lightshow-company, the “Exploding Galaxy”. They performed for Tangerine Dream, Amon Duul, The Fugs, Frank Zappa,etc... They also shot a Lightshow film: “Astronomy Domine” with Knollfick, (music Pink Floyd), which has been rediscovered just lately and also is shown in the above mentioned art-show “Summer of Love”, Tate-Gallery, Liverpool – Kunsthalle Schirn Frankfurt.

1969, because of his large and rare collection of Underground comics, he translated and edited Robert Crumb’s first book in Germany, which was so immensely successful that as a consequence he succeeded to create Germany’s largest comic-book-company at the time.

1971 he decided to spend the profits from the "Brummcomix" comic-book-company to publish “Germania”, Germany’s legendary underground magazine. These are the years when he is politically involved in the squatting of houses for the homeless and the legalisation of marijuana (and other nonaddictive soft drugs).

1972 -73 he spent nine month writing and recording “Maschine Nr.9”, a Radio play with Wolf Wondratschek and Georg Deuter, which has become a classic and is still played on the radio today. [1]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Actor

  • ”Der Allerletzte” (1979) (TV) (as Brummbär)
  • “Die Sweethearts”, (1977) (TV)
  • “Warum der Himmel kein Flugzeug ist” (Prod. + Dir. Wolf Wondratschek) (Praedikat besonders wertvoll)

[edit] Director

[edit] Production Designer

  • Klaus Lemke: Idole 1975 (TV),
  • Die Sweethearts, (1977) (TV),
  • Moto-Cross (1977) (TV),
  • “Der Allerletzte”, (1979) (TV),
  • “Arabische Nächte” (1979) (“Arabian Nights”)
  • Dark Seed (1992) (VG)

As Illustrator GERMAN EDITION MAGAZINES Playboy, Penthouse, Transatlantic

As Painter: Exhibition at Gallery Klinzer, Munich, “Magic Realism”

As Animator: German Television "XX, Clip-Cafe": Production design, openers, bumpers and stage design for Youth-oriented shows.

[edit] Computer Graphics

In 1986 the International Synergy Institute in Los Angeles invited him to be artist in residence to work on their Fairlight CVI computer where he created several ¾" videos: "New Worlds”, “Orient Ma Mind An Touch Ma Hal”, “Pretty Please". Another reason to live in LA was his close friendship with Dr. Timothy Leary, Dr. John Lilly, and his wife Tony. Since the introduction of the personal computer he promoted and exercised digital design, creating art for games and special effects for movies. In 1988 he worked on Futique Inc.'s "Cyberpunk Interscreen/The Mind Movie" in collaboration with Timothy Leary. Stubbornly insisting to only design on computers allowed only for a modest living by generating covers for books, records and magazines. TARCHER PUBLISHING / MONDO 2000 / HIGHER OCTAVE MUSIC

  • 1991 - 93

He was the Art Director for the game Darkseed, in the style of, and in collaboration with H.R. Giger For the movie Critters IV he created the computer graphics on a PC. The DIGITAL BE-IN in San Francisco and the ZERO-ONE GALLERY Los Angles showed his first Exhibition of electronic paintings, hosted by Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary's last book "Chaos and Cyberculture" contains many illustrations by Brummbaer.

[edit] Sony Pictures Imageworks

  • 1994 Johnny Mnemonic (Opener/Cyberspace) [http://www.groundzerofx.com/maxinfilm/1995.htm
  • 1995 L.A. SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater (Opener) "The Craft" (butterflies)
  • 1996 Odyssey into the Mind’s Eye (Opener for "Mind’s Eye”), "Computer Animation Classics" (Opener for "Mind’s Eye Classics”), "Dark Skies" (TV Series pilot) "Jonny Quest" (cartoon)
  • 1997 L.A. SIGGRAPH "Electronic Theatre" (Opener) SDDS Logo (Cinematic Opener) "En Vogue" MTV video

[edit] Other film work

  • 1998 2 1/2 minutes IMAX/3D CyberWorld (2000)[2]
  • 1999 Bill Gates' Basement (animated short)
  • 2000 - 01 "Thru the Moebius Strip" with Jean Girard Moebius - 3-Minute trailer [3]
  • 2001 - 02 Researching "Non-Photo-Real Renderers" Toto's Dream -- Animation short
  • 2003 The Story of Computer Graphics (Dir. Frank Foster, Opener/Closer)

[edit] Games

Brummbaer is credited for several games he worked on including SimCity (1989), Wolfpack (1990), Robo Sport (1991), Comanche (1992), Q*bert (1992), Shrek 2 (2004) and True Crime: New York City (2005).

[edit] Awards

  • "Bill Gates Basement" - Siggraph Animation Theatre (1999)
  • International Monitor Award - Openers/Closers (1998)
  • Imagina - Monte' Carlo - Content graphics (1997)

[edit] External links

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