The Faculty of Artistic Education and Curating of the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts Poznań and the City of Poznań invite you to an open lecture by Franz John entitled 'Light on Earth', which will take place on 21 March at 7:00 p.m. in the Atrium of the University of Arts in Poznań, Al. Marcinkowskiego 29.
After graduating in visual communication from the University of Würzburg (1980), Franz John was involved in cameraless photography, new and old media at the interface of human and machine perception. He has held guest professorships and artist residencies in San Francisco (Headlands Center for the Arts), Ohio State University, Paderborn University, University of Michigan, Künstlerdorf Schöppingen, Auckland University of Technology and Oldenburg University. Franz John has received numerous artistic fellowships, including Künstlerdorf Schöppingen, ZF Kunststiftung we Friedrichshafen, Neustart Kultur, Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn, Neustart Kultur, Kulturwerk der VG Bild-Kunst.
In his artistic projects, Franz John deals with nature and the possibilities of its media representation. His work combines intensive research and scientific analysis with living, haptic and useful installations in public spaces. Since 2011, Franz John has been producing his own dye solar cells from plant pigments to use them as a sustainable source of energy for his artistic works. The special feature of these dye-sensitized solar cells is that their photosynthetic functional components represent a sustainable and eco-friendly technology.