Since 2000, Agricola de Cologne is the brand for the multidisciplinary media artist, media art activist, curator & festival director of the same name located at the city of Cologne, but represents simultaneously also the brand for his specific artistic program.
Agricola stands for the philosophical, humanist ideas which form the context and the basis of the artist’s creative work.
In Renaissance times educated people often changed their German family names into Latin, so the German name “Bauer” (english = farmer) was changed into the latinized “Agricola”. Several painters, philosophers and humanists by name “AGRICOLA” were contemporaries of Martin Luther, for instance the famous Michael Agricola.
The city of Cologne, founded by the Romans more than 2000 years ago, represented for centuries a city of culture and art, and nowadays the city of the media, hosting an important European film and TV industry. Thus, Cologne stands for deeply rooted history, as well as for a vivid future orientated environment for art and media.
As a brand, Agricola de Cologne was inspired by another brand which is widely identified with Cologne, i.e. “Eau de Cologne”, and stands for an artistic program rooted in humanist ideas, humanity and the awareness for history, but focussed on innovative and experimental ways using art and media.
The physical artist behind “Agricola de Cologne” existed before 2000 already, when he started his artistic career as “Wilfried Agricola” in 1980, but this artist died in 1998 caused by a terrorist attack, which destroyed also a part of his physical artistic work.
When the artist was reborn on 1 January 2000, it was as an artist brand, “only”. He started as a virtual artist from point zero on a new field of artistic activities, which is called these days “new media”, “digital art” “electronic art” etc, defining in his personal case the term of being an artist in a completely new way.
In the gigantic Universe of New Art he is creating, eg. The New Museum of Networked Art aka ´ [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne, he is continuously changing and redefining his identities and expressions as an artist, i.e. programmer, multi-media developer, curator, exhibition designer, festival director, director of films and videos and much more, but also the projects and platforms he is creating. For instance, he is not only the director of JavaMuseum, but he is also JavaMuseum as the instance it is representing, like he is always the executor and responsible for his work and the work at the same time. In this way, he is recreating himself permanently.
His projects and activities, all labeled with “Agricola de Cologne”, simulate and encode a fictive reality.
Agricola de Cologne is “living” his virtual life (as a brand) in the Internet like an open book, everything he created in the context of his brand (and this is really everything) can be reviewed, perceived and experienced online by all interested users.
Only a few times a year, “Agricola de Cologne” is manifesting himself in physical space as a physical person, whereby it is not clear what this physical manifestation really represents and means, for himself and the audience.
The first name “Wilfried” was added to the name of the brand in order to make it easier to deal for users and partners with the virtual and physical status of the artist. In this way the name “Wilfried Agricola de Cologne” is partially physical, as well as partially virtual.