MICHAEL RODEMER

Professor, School of Art & Design

Interim Director of International Engagement

Contact

Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Office: 2081 AA
Personal Website

Curriculum Vitae

M.F.A. (Sculpture), Ohio State University, 1986
M.A. (Comparative Literature), Pennsylvania State University, 1984
Graduate Studies, Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel, Germany, 1981-83
Undergraduate Studies, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany, 1976-78
B.A. (English and German), Michigan State University, 1977

Biography

Michael Rodemer's multifaceted education, acquired in the United States, Germany, and France, encompasses degrees in German, English, Comparative Literature, and Sculpture. This dual interest in the written word and in the "word-become-material" has continued to inform his work.

Following graduate studies in sculpture, Rodemer returned to Germany, where he completed a series of commissioned neon sculptures mounted in trees in German cities. While teaching as a Lektor for American Studies at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität in Tübingen, he began developing art works that combined technology, sculptural media and literary elements. On the strength of this work, he was invited to join the faculty of the Art and Technology Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he remained for three years before accepting a position at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design.

Rodemer spent the 1999-2000 academic year in Berlin as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. During that time, he taught at the Hochschule für bildende Kunst in Hamburg as well as at the Hochschule für Kunst und Design Burg Giebichenstein in Halle.

Rodemer's current art-making is split between collaborations in the performing arts and individual work on kinetic and interactive sculptures. Working with Professor Stephen Rush of the U-M School of Music, Rodemer has created two operas, for which he wrote the libretti and designed sets and costumes. Rush and Rodemer have also co-created pieces for dance as well as for various instruments in combination with video. vidGod, their first operatic collaboration, was performed in July of 2005 in Germany at the Landestheater Tübingen.

Presently, Rodemer is in Germany on his second Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship, teaching and collaborating in research at the University of Siegen in the Department of Business Informatics and New Media, while also working on his own kinetic and telepresence artworks.