CV
karla kracht
artistic name of Alexandra Zitzmann *1975 in Germany
Karla Kracht builds retro-futurist worlds from hand-made puppets, live cameras, and circuit boards. Based in Barcelona since 2004, she trained in Germany, the UK, and Spain.
Her performances are constructed entirely by hand: dark rooms where small film sets, motorized figures with glowing LED eyes, objects suspended from the ceiling, and live-camera feeds collapse into a single cinematic space. Sound, light, and voice do the dramaturgy together. What the audience enters is neither theatre with projection added, nor video art with performers added. It is its own form, built from scratch, and she has been making it since before the category had a name.
What fills these spaces she builds entirely herself: the figures, the sets, the electronics, the molds for casting mechanical parts, and the software patches that sequence light, sound, image, and interaction in real time. The form developed around 2008, while she was making live video for dance productions and music performances in Spain. Render times made live response impossible, so she built her own miniature film sets and switched to live camera, creating something between stop-motion, video art, and live performance. One table became many. One figure became a stage full of creatures. She has been touring this work internationally ever since, in contexts where nothing quite like it existed before.
These works include “Ghost in the Machine,” “What Humanity Taught Us,” “Divine Cyborg #17: Dancing with the Ghosts,” and the forthcoming monograph “High-Tech Ghosts for a Low-Life Future.” All of them are set in post-sapiens futures, narrated from the perspective of beings who came after us.
Her work has been presented at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; Figurentheaterfestival Erlangen//Nürnberg/Fürth; Taipei Puppetry Art Center; Azkuna Zentroa Bilbao; Lafayette Media Art Festival, Colorado; mARTadero Cochabamba; Seoul DFesta; and House of Natural Fibre, Yogyakarta, among others.
Residencies in Taiwan, South Korea, Chile, Bolivia, Germany, France, and Spain have shaped this practice. She has received support from the Goethe Institute, Institut Ramon Llull, Acción Cultural Española, the European Cultural Foundation, and the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan.
For extended CV: https://bit.ly/3MHEa5D
education
2001 – 04. Studies of Graphic Design & Media Art. University of the West of England, Bristol.
2003. Erasmus Exchange. Universitat de Barcelona
1998-2000. Studies of fine Art and English. Universität Dresden.
1996-1998 Studies of Spanish, History of Art and Italian. Universität Leipzig.
awards. [selection]
2023 Blaue Nacht Nürnberg Art Award. Germany. Second Place. Taoyuan Fine Arts Awards. Taiwan. Honorary Award
2022 Festival Illo. Mallorca, Spain. Best dramaturgy. Teatre Principal de Palma. Special Creation Grant. Spain
2021 International Theatrical Festival Valise. Łomża, Poland. Grand Prix.
2019 Kotor Festival. Award for best performance
2018 PUF Festival Croatia. Award for most innovative work
2007 Short listed for VAD Festival’s International video art competition
residencies and grants. [selection]
Karla has participated in residency programs around the world, including Taiwan, South Korea, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Bolivia, Chile, France, and Indonesia. Featured locations include Azkuna Zentroa Bilbao, Spain; NAVE, Santiago, Chile (2024); Fundació Cuixart, Palafrugell, Spain (2023); Taipei Digital Art Center in Taiwan (2020); Le Jardin Parallèle, Reims, France (2019); Fundacja Photon, Krakow, Poland (2018); Seoul Art Space Geumcheon in Korea (2017); Soulangh Cultural Park, Tainan, Taiwan; Schloss Bröllin, Germany (2016); Incheon Art Platform in Seoul, Korea (2013); and House of Natural Fiber in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2008).
She has received support from the Goethe Institute, the Ramon Llull Institute, the Spanish Cultural Action, the European Cultural Foundation, the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan, and the Seoul Arts Foundation, to name a few.
workshops and talks. [selection]
She holds workshops and talks on her artistic practice at institutions including Troikatronix, Berlin (2026), National Taiwan University of Arts (2024), SHU-TE University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2023), Colorado State University in Fort Collins, USA (2022), Hangar de Barcelona (2021), the queer-feminist network Gefährliche Arbeit in Berlin (2021), CEF Audiovisual School, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (2020), the National University for the Arts Singapore (2017), and Unima Spain (2017), among many others.