ATHENA'S HISTORY

The year of 1995 had just begun - Klaus Dieter Schönfeldt and Thorsten Scheerer were talking about the Information Society and came to the conclusion that "time's up to establish an initiative that cares for people's information needs!" - Athena ...

April 1995
• Established as a non-profit Information Providing Service by Dirk Dinger, Klaus Dieter Schönfeldt and Thorsten Scheerer, Mannheim - Furtwangen - Berlin, with the aim to collect, organize, distribute, and provide information mainly concerning the fields of contemporary art and science.
  
  May 1995
• Thorsten Scheerer sent a fax to Klaus Dieter Schönfeldt. He asked: "How about taking Athena on the Web?" - this should be a joke, but Mr. Schönfeldt did not recognize ...
  
  June 1995
• ... as a consequence Athena's World Wide Web premiere took place in Furtwangen, Germany, on 6th of June.
• Participation in the exhibition project "Info-Amt: Boxenprojekte", Shedhalle Zürich, Switzerland, from June to December.
  
  August 1995
• Premiere of The Joseph Beuys Online Index.
  
  January 1996
• Athena - Information Providing Service was renamed Athena - W3 Researches and Education.
• Re-design of the web site.
• Start of the co-operation with the Institute for Art History and TightRope, Web project of the School of Fine Arts in Saarbrücken, Germany, edited by Jens Geelhaar. The project ended in April 1997.
  
  May 1997
• Prof. Dr. John F. Moffitt, New Mexico State University, contributed the Joseph Beuys Online Index in English language.
  
  June 1997
• TV-feature of Athena broadcasted on German VOX-Television in "Click - Multimediamagazin" on June 6th and June 8th 1997.
  
  May 1999
• Athena moved from Furtwangen to Heidelberg. New server location: Institute of Art History, University Heidelberg, Germany.
  
  October 2001
• Athena left Heidelberg. New URL: http://athena.formstreng.net. We try to keep up all other URLs as long as possible.
  
  August 2002
• Temporary co-operation with the FIU Publishing House (Free International University). Joseph Beuys related literature had been offered at Athena's book shop.

Mail to the goddess... Since the day Athena went on the Web, people send mail and comment on our pages - like this netizen from domain aol.com:

Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 09:44:04 -0500
From: [...]@aol.com

"[...] I have now had time to go through your entire pages, and the deeper I go -- the more impressed I get.
First of all, the look of the entire site is just breathtaking. It follows the logo - clarity, simplicity, beauty. And everything I read has depth. [...]
And now, a comment about the service your group is offering. It is not just a smart idea -- it's brilliant. It's like Einstein coming up with E=Mc2.
The net is exciting, we all love the net -- but few have stopped to observe that it is filled with clutter. I mean FILLED. And here is your group offering to cut a neat clean pathway through the clutter so people can get to the heart of the data they need...
All I can say is, every university, every corporation, every being on this planet should know about you [...]"