Jürgen Claus is an artist who works with greatly different techniques, like painting, film, light, or underwater installations. He is particularly known for his solar installations. His interest lies in cross-over of technology and art. He worked as fellow and research affiliate at the renowned Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in Cambridge, MA, USA. He now lives and works with his wife Nora in Baelen, Belgium, where he is the director of the Centre Overoth.
“Jürgen and Nora Claus organized the international [”SolArt Global Network":http://www.khm.de/~SolArt/] to coordinate work of artists, scientists, and theorists whose work was inspired by the sun. It was begun in the summer solstice in 1995. (…) Jürgen Claus sees the transition to solar energy as an absolute ecological necessity. He notes that the change will not happen without underlying cultural changes, and sees artists who understand solar energy as a critical element in bringing about that change. Claus creates sculptures that use solar energy." [Wilson, 2002, p.247/248]
Jürgen Claus describes three basic forms of interactive art [cf. Iskandar, 2005, p. 18]:
- Cybernetic systems: Systems that answer by reacting through sound, light, shadow, movement and the elementary energy of wind.
- Digital systems: Computer-aided interaction that is marked by real-time signal processing beyond the human’s range of perception, and the possibility to save and compute huge amounts of data with a computer.
- Organic systems: A network of technical and natural systems.
