Jürgen Freuer Note on a conversation

Christiane Wachsmann spoke to Jürgen Freuer in June 1991 as part of the research for her first article on the Information Department. She made a detailed note of this telephone conversation without any thought of publishing it: it was more about gathering material. Jürgen Freuer has since passed away, and there was no further exchange. This provisional text at least gives an impression of Freuer and his HfG studies. We have therefore decided to print it here unchanged.

 

Jürgen Freuer was very close friends with Oskar Wehling, who died young. He himself came to HfG "without fixed intentions." Freuer had already completed a degree (Social Sciences) and was considering what to do next. Oskar Wehling told him about the school in Ulm, and Jürgen Freuer then came to the HfG – not least because his mother lived in Ulm.

Freuer particularly remembers Horst Rittel and the mathematical foundations he taught. "If we had taken it a bit more seriously back then, we would have become the precursors of all this computer stuff – but we didn't fully grasp its significance," says Jürgen Freuer.

Tomás Maldonado and his semiotics also remained memorable to him. He was very good at conveying it to the students, even though he may not have contributed many thoughts of his own. The fundamentals of information theory had already been laid down by Norbert Wiener – the thoughts on how to systematically collect, capture, and further process data.

Regarding the Information Department, Jürgen Freuer says: "This branch was, perhaps with the exception of Dolf Sass, staffed with students who were all somewhat oriented, for example, having a degree. The teaching was a helpful crutch for us – it enormously expanded my field of vision the entire time."

About Gert Kalow, Freuer thinks he was "actually a conservative journalist" who did a few style exercises with his students, without being particularly analytical about the approach. The tenor of his teaching was "how to do things."

The solid technical training he received from [the photographer] Wolfgang Siol helped him a lot later on, says Jürgen Freuer. He worked for television and was a correspondent in Africa and Scandinavia. At first, film cameras were still being used, and Freuer benefited greatly from his knowledge of the technology and image composition, as he was often travelling alone without a camera crew.

He only vaguely remembered the film lessons with Staub – Staub actually used HfG to pursue his own interests, says Freuer. He remembers that during his time, a film camera was acquired, "a green Vetabo, 16 mm."

Important in the lessons was also Peter Hamm, who "spread over the feuilleton" and Joachim Kaiser, who was very fond of Thomas Mann.