Kay Itting builds signal devices.
A signal device captures, transforms, and transmits. The method is older than electronics. Magic systems, radio, VJ practice, dub studios, and neural models all run on it. Each is the same operation in the materials of its period.
The signals are typography, icons, and signs; moving image and video; sound and music; neural models. Words sealed in translucent paraffin at brick scale, rearrangeable into a working text-cut-up machine. Laser-engraved mirrors set in concrete. Found 16mm and 8mm film treated chemically and rerecorded. Four incompatible video sources running simultaneously through a mixer. An endlessly repeating plea running through a boom box. World radio signals from 75 countries trained into a single neural model. A video archive in which decay and content are stored as one body.
The work is not about technology. The method has not varied. Different materials, same operation.
Photo: Andreas Peyerl
Lives and works in Paris.
Founder, with Elsa For Toys and Hans Otto Richter, of the Berlin artist collective mediamorph (1990) and the video art group Stressjets. Over the decade that followed, the collective produced more than 350 live video shows and installations at clubs, raves, festivals, museum openings, and public events, for audiences from small floors to 1.2 million at the Love Parade. Studied photography at FAS Berlin (Fotografie am Schiffbauerdamm) in the class of Sibylle Bergemann.
Exited the scene in 2002 when commercial capture and regulatory closure had ended the condition that made the work operational. Worked from 2002 to 2022 as DJ and photographer, then as concept and content lead for brand and corporate communications. The commercial work was the same faculty applied in a field that pays: reading signal systems from inside, noticing what is about to become legible before it is named.
Returned to art practice during the 2020–2022 period. KIKI BOOOM was conceived in Berlin during the first lockdown, 2020. The full body of work came together during a residency at La Gare Expérimentale in Paris and the resulting solo exhibition KIKI LAND, November 2023. Performed live with original Stressjets material in Berlin in 2025, for the first time in over twenty years.
Current research
PICATRIX / Ġāyat al-Ḥakīm. A counter-communication device, signal talisman, and ritual for insurgence. A neural audio model trained on world transmissions the model cannot resolve. The output is the ANTI-VIRUS. In production. First performances 2026, premiere 2027.
LOOP. A generative system that reactivates 13 hours of live video art, produced between 1990 and 1996 inside Berlin’s techno scene, as source material for new live and recorded work. Feasibility test April–August 2026.
Selected Exhibitions, Performances and Collaborations
Die Macht der Nacht, München / Düsseldorf / Athen / Berlin (1989-1992) // Loveparade, Berlin (1990-2000) // Space Agency, Berlin (1991-1992) // Trans Paris Rêves, Paris (1991) // Documenta IX in collaboration with Van Gogh TV (1992) // In Circular Motion – A Video Mantra / with Cosmic Baby (1992) // Chromapark 1-3, Berlin (1994-1996) // Sonar, Barcelona (1994, 1995) // art futura, Madrid (1994) // La Fura Dels Baus, Berlin (1994) // Steirischer Herbst, Graz (1996) // Grand Opening of the Museum for Contemporary Art Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (1996) // pop mix / vol. II, shift Gallery, Berlin (1996) // 10 Years Fall of the Berlin Wall, New York (1999) // Berlin Achtung! / Cultural Capital of Europe, Helsinki (2000) // over 350 live performances and video installations (1990-2001) // Represent! Berlin, Barcelona (2003) // Herbert Grönemeyer “Mensch” Tour (2003) // Kunstverein München (2004) // BOUM at P.O.P., Berlin (2013) // Artist residency and KIKI LAND Part 1, Solo Exhibition at La Gare Expérimentale, Paris (2023) // BAFFI at Studio Swimmingpool, Berlin (2025) // Body of Work II, Performance “RAVE://RHIZOME.92/” at Studio 1111, Berlin (2025) //
Awards: Bayerischer Staatsfilmpreis (1994) // HAL-Award (2001) // Platinium for the DVD „Die Ärzte – Killer“ (2001) //
Publications: LOCALIZER 1.0 – The Techno House Book, Die Gestalten-Verlag (1995) // Mehr Licht, Merve Verlag (1999) // Nachtleben Berlin: 1974 bis heute, Metrolit Verlag (2013) PDF //
Photography & Commissions: SZ-Magazin // QVEST // Jetzt // Blumenbar Verlag // Die Gestalten Verlag // Metrolit Verlag // Nivea // 3000 // Playboy // Herbert Grönemeyer // Wella // Lucky Strike // raros //