image ethics media
Services
Concepts
I design how a process should work before it is built: an artistic identity, a live format, an editorial model, a conference or a product. The concept has to be usable by the people who will run it.
Writing
Scientific and journalistic writing, artistic identity, and copy for culture and products — documentation, user stories, essays and print. Working the text out is itself creative: it draws on analyses of identity, stories, potentials and what actually happens, and that is how a process becomes understandable, including to the people inside it.
Code
I develop intelligent tools — digital environments, VR, CMS — with a deep understanding of artistic and academic processes. That includes the shape of a submission system for hundreds of papers, or of a CMS that follows how an editorial desk actually works. Editors, learned societies, labels and artists do not work like a generic shop. The software follows that process instead of replacing it.
Artistic development
Advising and long-term development for artists and labels, from a competence in both academic knowledge and artistic practice: identity, repertoire, experimental concert formats, and the organisational and economic structures around them.
Project management
Production, funding and infrastructure for culture and music: EU-funded festivals, label structures, events, booking and public relations.
Communication
Formats that carry research or a product to an audience: salons, conferences, and a range from deep-dive articles to agentic search optimisation.
References
Since 2007 I have worked on digital developments in academia and art — freelance as Playnary — and on artistic advising, development and conception for performance and live formats. Both are central: systems and products, and how work is performed and received. Perception research sits between them.
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Ongoing · CONUTI
Technical writing, web & application development — Output.Rocks
I translate technical complexity into documentation, user stories and web for this B2B output-management product, stay close to people using it, and bring that feedback back to the product team.
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martin kohlstedt
Feb 2014 – Jan 2018 · Berlin, Weimar
Manager & artistic development — Martin Kohlstedt
I developed and managed the artistic identity, product development (3 music albums, experimental concert formats), built the full corporate infrastructure via an in-house label, sustainable networking, and coordinated public relations and campaigns.
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Aug 2016 – Aug 2017
Associated researcher — Intermodal Body Swap (MTBA)
I collaborated on VR and sensor-based art: body-swap experiments and immersive environments at the intersection of artistic practice and perception research.
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2008 – 2016
Label — Mikrokleinstgarten
I was a part of the experimental music label Mikrokleinstgarten.
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Conference system — ICON·S
Over several years I have accompanied ICON·S — including conceiving and rebuilding the society’s WordPress site into a conference system for hundreds of paper submissions.
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Editorial CMS — Verfassungsblog
Over several years I have accompanied Verfassungsblog — from an early version onward, adapting the CMS to the editorial concept and growing with the project.
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Jul 2012 – Oct 2013 · Berlin
Science communication — HIIG Berlin
Formats for science communication: the Digitaler Salon, conferences, and — at the time — the blog and Twitter, including the English-language web presence.
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Web & CMS — art, culture, social projects
Alongside larger systems work, I conceive and implement websites where the brief is often art mediation or a social or civic mission — artist portfolios, clubs, associations. What matters first is clarifying needs and audiences with the people involved; CMS setup, events, ticketing or multilingual content follows from that, not the other way around.
niklasmaranca.com · aktivlebenkonzept.de · franz-mehlhose.de
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Sep 2005 – Mar 2010 · Erfurt region
End Pilot Festival — funding, production, texts
I co-organised an internationally staffed, curated indoor music festival under EU funding — strategy, event production and funding. I wrote the texts for the festival site: programme, news, and print such as Kopymag and Eigenschub.
My chapter in Phase 0 — How to make some action (Fruehwerk Verlag, 2012) is about co-organising the festival and about project culture.
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Jan 2004 – Jan 2010
Live music & artist PR — Zughafen / Clueso
Early project management for live music and artist PR with Zughafen, including work around Clueso. I spearheaded Neue Bands Liga — from May 2006, one or two concerts a month at the Centrum in Erfurt.
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Oct 2003 – Oct 2006
Editor — Radio F.R.E.I.
I worked in the youth editorial team — programme production and organising music and literature events.
Writing samples
Contact
Interested in collaboration? Get in touch with a short outline of your project.
Academic portfolio: playnary.de