frank ROTHKAMM (born Frank Holger Rothkamm on July 2nd, 1965 in Gütersloh, Germany) is a freelancing composer, conceptual artist and computer programmer, who started as an actor at the German castle theatre in Moers and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, in the former hotel The Wilshire Royale ; and in New York (Jackson Heights), 7 blocks south of LaGuardia Airport.

His encyclopedic work is connected to a matrix of electronic music, performance art, digital media, supermodernism and historical materialism. It probes notions of the hidden within the dialectics of commercial and underground culture, an extended music concept that critically and humorously shape-shifts the role of the composer in society and gives testament to an ontology of praxis.

Until 2002 ROTHKAMM (fluxrecords.org) provided rhythm synthesis for a.o. the Hardkiss Bros., Peter Scherer, Corin Curschellas, Elliott Sharp, Alfred 23 Harth, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Lesa Carlson, and DJ Spooky; sonic concepts to a.o. Rodney Graham, Harald Fuchs, Diane Thater & T. Kelly Mason and DJ Glove; remixes for a.o. the Cranberries, Zeena Parkins, Tyrants in Therapy, and Rebekka Bakken, commercial underscores for a.o. Levi Strauss, Sears, and Philips; web integration for a.o. Warner Bros., Hewlett-Packard, Ford, BMC, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Philharmonic; track licensing under the Mrs. Blowpop, Speed Genius Overdose, Frank Genius, and Flux Records moniker; and produced soundtracks to film experiments in 3-D projection technology, among them George Lucas' "Star Wars".

Following an epiphany in Hollywood during the summer of 2002, ROTHKAMM designed the Turing Machine of sci-fi serialism : IFORMM ; that descended from his early studies with Clarence Barlow and his software emulation of Iannis Xenakis' UPIC for Science World of British Columbia in 1988.

Since 2005 his prototypical works have been published in a series of compact disc concept albums: the teenage tape experiments "Moers Works (1982-1984)", the machine trilogy of "FB01","FB02 (Astronaut of Inner Space)"& "FB03 (E Pluribus Unum)" (2002-2007), the Y2K reenactment in LAX (1998-2007), the story and long-player of "just 3 organs" (2003-2008) and his latest "Opus Spongebobicum" (2005-2008), which was issued with this biography:

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, a composer was born in the small German town of Gütersloh, the hometown of Hans-Werner Henze. It was here that Frank Rothkamm began his first piano lessons. After his family moved to Nürtingen in Southern Germany, he started to compose piano music in 1978 at the age of 12. His first Leitmotif was written on basic classical terms, so basic in fact, that he can remember it to this day. He continued to conceive music in such a manner until he had an epiphany while listening to a string quartet by Paul Hindemith on SWF radio. Frank gradually abandoned all forms of conventional notation and devised a graphic-based system of his own. This culminated in a 4-book composition for 2 pianos, in which the sustain pedals were held down at all times and the pitch movement was indicated by envelopes; much like a function is expressed in the Cartesian coordinate system. With great enthusiasm he submitted his opus to the regional state competition, the Jugend Komponiert (Youth Composes). It was promptly rejected. The judges did not consider it music. He was 14 years old.

In 1980 he moved to the town of Moers with his family, and studied Harmonielehre (study of harmony), violin and, most notably, piano with Karl Heinz Witte, a pianist renowned for his rare ability to improvise multi-voiced fugues. Frank the teenager now caught the attention of the state's avant-garde Schlosstheater (castle theater) and received commissions to compose the music for their plays. For the production of Reproduktion Untersagt (Reproduction Prohibited) Frank conceived and played a piano piece that was reproduced from a few notes of Anton Bruckner's 7th Symphony, only slowed down and stretched out in such a manner that it was all but unrecognizable.

He moved to Cologne in 1985 and while working at the University clinic transporting mentally and physically ill patients as part of his civil service, Frank formulated a simple musical language. This language consisted of algorithmic instructions given to a human (i.e. Rothkamm playing the piano) and to a machine (that is, a computer programmed in BASIC to generate tones). The resulting album, MUSIC AFTER SCULPTURES was released by the Maria Bonk Gallery in 1986, marking his debut as a recording artist and the last time he would use an acoustic piano.

Ten years, and thousands of miles later, Frank teamed up with DJ Glove in New York and released TUNING on his own Flux Records label. The album was entirely made from a recording of a women tuning a piano. Moving back and forth between New York and California over the next decade, Frank composed 93 pieces using the piano in his beloved, low serial- number Kurzweil K2000, including commercial work, remixes, video game and movie trailer soundtracks and one PRESTO CHANGO for the 1997 Disklavier festival, which was entirely made from modifications to a Josef Haydn MIDI file. In 2007, the K2000, along with most of Frank's vintage studio equipment went up in flames in the California Witch Fire.

Frank currently lives in Los Angeles and in New York. In 2008 he purchased a 1968 Wurlitzer piano from a Los Angeles thrift store. He plays it as often as his repetitive strain injury allows.