Tim Otto Roth was born 1974 in Oppenau/Black Forest (D). In 1994/1995 he started his studies in philosophy and politics at the University of Tübingen (D). From 1995-2000 he studied arts at the Kunsthochschule Kassel (D). In 2001 he was appointed as “Meisterschüler” with Prof. Floris M. Neusüss. 2004 he received a second final degree in the Theory of Visual Communication. In winter 2014 he defended successfully his dissertation in art and science history at the Academy of Media Studies in Cologne.
Space & the physics of art
The question about space is the golden thread through Tim Otto Roth’s oeuvre – to be expressed by the projective translation of objects into shadows, the creation of sound environments or the fascination for the nocturnal firmament. Most of Roth’s works can be considered as a plea for a “physics of art”, as they demonstrate the physical dimension of phenomena, which avoid utterly an arbitrary play of meanings and predicates. Focusing the physics means to talk about an immovable material reinsurance of phenomena in the world – or even stronger: Physicality reveals also their corporeal dimension.
Affinity between art & science
The natural sciences examine in very advanced ways genuinely artistic questions as for the nature of space, pictures or colour. This affinity animates Roth to numerous projects – often in public space – collaborating with scientists of top research institutions around the world as the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (D), TU Dresden, KIT Karlsruhe (D), the European Southern Observatory, ESA & NASA, Brookhaven National Laboratory (US), Fermilab (US) or KEK Tsukuba (JP). No wonder that the renowned Oxford professor in art history Martin Kemp has summarised Roth's novel concepts bridging art and science: "A new art is encoding a new science." [Nature 458, 836].
Roth's excursions in the borderland of art and science are all but a tribute to the current hype of scientific topics in the media. He rather comprehends the vanguard application of visualization techniques particularly in fields like particle physics, astro(particle)physics, (bio-)mathematics, molecular and neuro-biology as an aisthetical challenge for the arts. Facing this challenge sound plays a growing role in Roth’s recent works.
Heaven's Carousel 2014 in Rome: Nobel prize winner Adam Riess emphasizes, that important discoveries as the accelerated expansion of the Universe are echoed in this huge kinetic sound installation.
Awards
Numerous awards, a.o. 2004 German Light Art Award LUX.US/ Lüdenscheid and International Media Art Award/ SWR & ZKM Karlsruhe. 2009 Artist in residence at European Southern Observatory [ESO] and at CERN, Geneva (CH). 2012 guest composer at Institute for Music and Acoustics, ZKM Karlsruhe. Presentations of larger projects for instance at Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, MUMOK in Vienna (A), Library of Alexandria (EG) or American Museum of Natural History in New York. Collections as the ZKM Karlsruhe or the Daimler Art Collection list his works. Tim Otto Roth is member of the Topical Team Arts & Sciences at the European Space Agency and is associated to the federal research project [BMBF] Farbe als Akteur und Speicher. Numerous theoretical publications, a.o. on cellular automata, colour in astronomy or shadow picture. Roth lives and works in the train and sometimes also in Oppenau (Back Forest) or Cologne.