Book Launch at gestalten space Berlin
Aram Bartholl in Conversation with Evan Roth
To celebrate the release of Aram Bartholl’s first monograph Aram Bartholl: The Speed Book, Gestalten will host a talk with the artist in conversation with Evan Roth. Fellow artist and researcher Evan Roth will start the evening by introducing us to the experimental work of Aram Bartholl, which explores the place where space and cyberspace mingle and mangle each other—a realm that uses as little technology as possible while still speaking a digital language. Together, they will guide us through wonderfully skewed visions of our society under the influence of the internet. On this occasion, Evan Roth will also present a series of his own new web-based pieces. We’ll ring out the event with drinks and music.
Aram Bartholl’s work explores the power structures, the social systems, the cultural innovations, the inner dynamics, the languages, and the products that are shaping our age. His new book, which is being released internationally this month, is the artist’s first comprehensive monograph offering entry to his diverse oeuvre.
‘How To Vacuum Form’
http://youtu.be/eE26y-r63vY, track byDanny Dive Thru
I am very pleased to finally publish this new project I’ve been working on the last couple months (def. not a Speed Project ;) It was premiered last week at my solo show opening ‘Reply All’ at [DAM] Berlin. If you are in town drop by, check out the show and make your own mask! FOR FREE!!
‘Reply All’
Solo show: Aram Bartholl, January 28 – 10th March 10 2012
[DAM] Berlin, Neue Jakobstr. 6/7, 10179 Berlin
Materials:
- polysterol 1-1,5 mm, 23 x 33 cm
- plaster
- hose, hose connectors
- clamps
- vacuum hand pump, (camping supply)
- toaster
- wooden board, rods
- stop watch
- original, prototype or master mask to make copies from
Tutorial:
- positive plaster cast from mask
- additional plaster modeling (chin and forehead) optional
- negative plaster cast from model to obtain master mold
- include hose, hose connector and holes for decompression in the cast
- toaster parts rearranged to heating board, mounted on stand
- heat 1mm polysterol approx. 2 min in 6cm distance
- and keep pumping !!
Vacuum forming is a quite old technique and is used a lot in mass industry especially packaging and such. The lid of your coffee cup is vacuum form i.e. Students in product design are used to vacuum form their prototypes, it’s a very common technique in that field. You also find all kinds of tutorials on the web how to build your own DIY vacuum former (Instructables). The one I am proposing is less flexible in what you can produce but are able to produce the same piece in a rather fast cycle (2:30 min) The setup above was inspired by this video.
I think we live in a super interesting era. This is just the start of a paradigm shift from mass industry production to self DIY fabrication. And it s going to get very interesting with all the patents and copyright issues for physical objects very soon. Like Cory Doctorow puts it: “… to fight what we thought was the final boss at the end of the game, but it turns out it’s just been the mini-boss at the end of the level, and the stakes are only going to get higher.” I am super curious to see someone print a pair of Nike sneakers on the new makerbot replicator or just imagine Apple would sue everyone because your DIY tablet looks like an iPad. It might happen soon. – Aram Bartholl 2012
Build your own vacuum forming gear today. Copy, experiment and remix! Start coping physical things! And keep pumping!! ;)
Transparent Guy Fawkes
“You don’t know the power of the dark side! We are Legion. The force is with you. Expect us. Join the dark side !”
Darth Fawkes
“How To Vacuum Form”
by Aram Bartholl 2012
Solo Show Opening & Book Launch at [DAM] Berlin, Jan 27
… the announcement below is stolen from the [DAM] Berlin website. Expect a couple new pieces, exclusive offline art for the opening!! (… to be published online soon after), lots of DIY and the ARAM BARTHOLL book launch!! I am very excited about all this, hope you can make it!! CU in 2 weeks !! :)
Aram Bartholl
Reply All
January 27th, 7–9 pm Opening + Book-Release Aram Bartholl – The Speed Book, Gestalten-Verlag, 2012
[DAM] Berlin, Neue Jakobstr. 6/7, 10179 Berlin
Performance “How to Vacuum Form” by Aram Bartholl
19:30 Uhr: Book launch of Bartholl’s first monograph Aram Bartholl – The Speed Book, which will be published by Gestalten Verlag. The publisher, art critic and curator Domenico Quaranta gives the introduction.
Exhibition: January 28th – March 10th 2012
———————————————————–
Gallery [DAM]Berlin presents Berlin based artist Aram Bartholl (*1972, Bremen) in his first solo exhibition, whose works create a dynamic tension between online- and real-life. In 2011 Bartholl was partaking in exhibitions by MoMA, Pace Gallery New York and [DAM]Cologne.
His pieces are cutting-edge – not just product of observation, but formed by thought-provoking impulses that Aram gives and by the subsequent independent existence of the artworks created by the user. His interventions in public space, his readymade-like installations and sculptures are based on a do-it-yourself-culture with regard to personal creation and responsibility as well as the Internet’s popular icons with whom Bartholl confronts us in reality. But Aram Bartholl’s artworks are not to be seen as entirely digital: they deal too much with space, are too haptic in their approach, and the awareness of potential political influence is too intense – his pieces push out of gallery and museum surroundings into the city space, into society.
Things, that seem to be trivial parts of the internet, irritate the viewer as soon as they confront him in the physical world: In Are you human? a CAPTCHA-code, used by web services to differentiate between human request and automated scripts, is applied in aluminium form onto murals and gallery walls. A screen with illuminating pixels turns out to be a hand crafted object operated by a candle. In a subtle but accurate way Bartholl reveals discourses concerning the power of a digitally affected world, e.g. in his successful, often quoted project Dead Drops, consisting of USB-sticks, mured into city walls, that refuse data exchange via the internet structures established by big global companies.
‘Everything develops extremely fast on the net. I have the urge to create something that deals with the topic, but that endures anyway,’ says Aram Bartholl about this de-digitalisation of the digital. Where media art, urban intervention and interactive performance meet he asks basic sociocritical questions, thinks about our cultural memory. The rapid development of the digital age is slowed down in his artworks, it is liberated of its technological appeal and exposed for intentional examination. For example his new project Dust: Bartholl wants to convey the worlds most played computer game landscape from Counter Strike – a virtual space, a place seen by millions of people that is fixed in their visual memory even though they were never able to really ‘enter’ it – into an accessible 1:1 model made of concrete.
With the performance and installation shown at the exhibition for the first time, Bartholl, who is active in net political circles like the Chaos Computer Club, turns towards the symptom of an already existing frontier crossing of digital and analogue world: The Anonymous-movement and its characteristic comic-inspired Guy-Fawkes-masks, that are its distinctive mark and protection of identity. They have gained huge media presence thanks to the civil movement Occupy Wallstreet as well. The Anonymous-movement pushes forward the idea of a free, net-based information- and creativity-collective – a kind of global brain, that develops political capacity to act without hierarchic organisation and without determined identity.
The exhibition ‘Aram Bartholl. Reply All’ is part of the associate programme of Transmediale 2012.
———————————————————-
ARAM BARTHOLL
The Speed Book
- Publisher: gestalten
Editor: Domenico Quaranta
Design: Manuel Bürger
- Release Date: January 2012
- Format: 21,6 x 28 cm
- Features: 268 pages, full color, hardcover
- Language: English
https://shop.gestalten.com/aram-bartholl.html
With essays by:
Josephine Bosma,
Jonah Brucker-Cohen,
Jon Cates,
Lindsay Howard,
Alessandro Ludovico,
Evan Roth,
Bruce Sterling,
Brad Troemel
About This Book
Aram Bartholl’s work explores the power structures, the social systems, the cultural innovations, the inner dynamics, the languages, and the products that are shaping our age. This first comprehensive monograph offers entry to an oeuvre in which space and cyberspace mingle and mangle each other, a realm that uses as little technology as possible while still speaking a digital language.
Aram Bartholl: The Speed Book features savvy experiments with transitions from the virtual to the physical: USB sticks embedded into walls, buildings, and curbs; giant real-life versions of Google’s red map markers positioned in public spaces; portraits generated from search results. An introduction by editor Domenico Quaranta as well as essays by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, art critics, and fellow artists guide readers through a wonderfully skewed version of reality under the influence of the internet, something Sterling refers to as Bartholl’s “self-created twilight zone.”
More About This Book
This first comprehensive monograph offers entry to Bartholl’s entertaining art in which space and cyberspace mingle and mangle each other—a realm that uses as little technology as possible while still speaking a digital language.
Aram Bartholl: The Speed Book features savvy experiments with transitions from the virtual to the physical: USB sticks embedded into walls, buildings, and curbs; giant real-life versions of Google’s red map markers positioned in public spaces; portraits generated from search results. An introduction by editor Domenico Quaranta as well as essays by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, art critics, and fellow artists guide readers through a wonderfully skewed version of our society under the influence of the internet, something Sterling refers to as Bartholl’s “self-created twilight zone.”
Book Glasses
A new piece from the glasses series and one of my favorite pages of my upcoming book! :) To be in the shelves very soon!
Perceptive and entertaining investigations of digital culture.
Edited by Domenicio Quaranta
Design by Manuel Bürger
‘S Bahn’
Great low(high)tech cartoon reality mix by Markus Neidel, student at HAW Hamburg
Super!
Just moved into my new temporary work space at Supermarkt, Brunnenstrasse, Berlin. (untill the fire-ashes-mess in Gerichtstr. is cleaned up …) Handwritten wifi passwords are awesome!! (and always wrong ;)
Offline Bookmark
(Birthday present from/by Nico Princen, great read that post, thx man!! :)
‘The coming war on general computation’
Happy new year everyone!! One of my New Year Resolutions is to get more active on this blog again. ‘Sorry I haven t posted …’ ;)
The anual congress by Chaos Computer Club germany (#28C3, the 28th year) last week was great. I had a lot of fun with a new piece in progress there and as ususal many interesting dicussions. Cory Doctorrows talk on ‘The coming war on general computation’ turned out to be the unofficial keynote. :) He draws a very good picture how closed hardware will affect the freedom in computation. Check it out below!
Check all talk recordings at https://www.youtube.com/28c3 or direct and torrent downloads at FEM. I also recommend How governments have tried to block Tor or Politik hacken
In a Pecha Kucha Lightning talk I present Dead Drops on day 3!
‘Curious Minds: New Approaches in Design’
Curious Minds: New Approaches in Design
The Israel Museum
December 16, 2011-April 30, 2012
Location: Nathan Cummings Building for Modern and Contemporary Art
Curator by Alex Ward
The exhibition presents about 30 international designers from Europe, Asia, and the US whose works map out new territories and encourage a new discourse about the role of design in shaping the world of tomorrow. Some of these designers also address – under the umbrella of Critical Design – social, political, and environmental concerns, bringing together new partnerships between designers and researchers of other fields such as science or biology.
Participants in the exhibition:
rAndom International
Troika
Studio DRIFT
Simon Heidjens
Aram Bartholl
Elio Caccavale
Sascha Pohflepp & Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
Veronica Ranner
Kevin Grannen
Hwang Kim
Ka Fai Choy
Studio Fons Hickman m23
Studio Mrmann (Geoffrey Mann)
Studio Glithero
Studio Unfold
Marie Blaise
Studio Makkink & Bey
Studio El Ultimo Grito
Freddie Yauner
Julian Bond
Raw Edges Design Studio
Alon Meron
David Bowen
Julius Popp
Studio Karlssonwilker Inc; New York
Studio Stefan Sagmeister
Noam Toran
Participants in the exhibition: rAndom International Troika Studio DRIFT Simon Heidjens Aram Bartholl Elio Caccavale Sascha Pohflepp & Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg Veronica Ranner Kevin Grannen Hwang Kim Ka Fai Choy Studio Fons Hickman m23 Studio Mrmann (Geoffrey Mann) Studio Glithero Studio Unfold Marie Blaise Studio Makkink & Bey Studio El Ultimo Grito Freddie Yauner Julian Bond Raw Edges Design Studio Alon Meron David Bowen Julius Popp Studio Karlssonwilker Inc; New York Studio Stefan Sagmeister Noam Toran
The Speed Book
I am very pleased to announce my upcoming book, published by gestalten to be released in mid Jan. 2012.
Edited by Domenicio Quaranta
Design by Manuel Bürger
With essays by:
Josephine Bosma,
Jonah Brucker-Cohen,
Jon Cates,
Lindsay Howard,
Alessandro Ludovico,
Evan Roth,
Bruce Sterling,
Brad Troemel
————————————————-
Thx to everyone involved in this!!
————————————————-
https://shop.gestalten.com/index.php/catalog/product/view/id/4453
Aram Bartholl
The Speed Book
Perceptive and entertaining investigations of digital culture.
Release Date: January 2012
Format: 21,6 x 28 cm
Features: 268 pages, full color, hardcover
Language: English
ISBN: 978-3-89955-393-2
About This Book
Aram Bartholl’s work explores the power structures, the social systems, the cultural innovations, the inner dynamics, the languages, and the products that are shaping our age. This first comprehensive monograph offers entry to an oeuvre in which space and cyberspace mingle and mangle each other, a realm that uses as little technology as possible while still speaking a digital language.
Aram Bartholl: The Speed Book features savvy experiments with transitions from the virtual to the physical: USB sticks embedded into walls, buildings, and curbs; giant real-life versions of Google’s red map markers positioned in public spaces; portraits generated from search results. An introduction by critic and curator Domenico Quaranta as well as essays by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, art critics, and fellow artists guide readers through a wonderfully skewed version of reality under the influence of the internet, something Sterling refers to as Bartholl’s “self-created twilight zone.”
Kaffeesätze
My favorite calendar for 2012 !! :)
found at Cafe MÖRDER, Berlin
Calendar Update
Current & upcoming shows / talks / workshops
_________________________________________________________
27.1.2012 – 15.3.2012
Reply All
Solo show, Aram Bartholl at DAM Berlin, Berlin, Germany
16.12.2011- 30.4.2012
Curious Minds: New Approaches in Design
Design & Architecture dept. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Curated by Alex Ward
24.11.2011 – 12.12.2011
Tracing Mobility
Exhibition, Workshops, Symposion
by Trampoline at HKW, Berlin, Germany
with: Frank Abbott, Aram Bartholl, Neal Beggs, Heath Bunting, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Miles Chalcraft, Simon Faithfull, Yolande Harris, Folke Köbberling & Martin Kaltwasser, Landon Mackenzie, Open_Sailing, plan b, Esther Polak & Ivar van Bekkum, Gordan Savicic, Mark Selby, Michelle Teran
3.11 – 12.12.2011
TECHNO-ECOLOGIES
XIII International Festival for New Media Culture, Riga, Latvia
with: Bart Vandeput / Bartaku, Ingo Günther, Grégory Lasserre un Anaïs met den Ancxt / Scenocosme, Lynn Pook, Julien Clauss, Mathieu Lehanneur / Le Laboratoire, Gilberto Esparza, Ricardo O’Nascimento, Javier Busturia, Jingni Wang / Popkalab, Thomas Thwaites, Ulrich Vogl, Raul Nieves, Gerard Rubio, Jordi Bari / BlablabLAB, Julian Oliver, Aram Bartholl, Danja Vasiliev, Ben Dromey, Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits, Jānis Garančs, Mārtiņš Ratniks un RIXC.
9.11.2011
Lunch Bytes (3) – Digital Material
Panel discussion, Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum with Goethe Institute, Washington DC, USA
with: Aram Bartholl, Artie Vierkant, Rudolf Frieling, Hasan Elahi
9.11.2011
Ping Pong vidéo n°20
Video screening, Art Center of Pau
with: Ivan Argote, Aram Bartholl, Art Oriente Objet, Christophe Girardet, Hans Gissinger, Djamel Kokene, Astrid Nippoldt, Elisa Pone, Laurent Sfar & Sandra Foltz, among others
2.11. – 23.11.2011
Macht im öffentlichen Raum
Lecture series at DAZ , Berlin, Germany
organized by Space Strategies class Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee,
with: Aram Bartholl, Brad Downey, Julius von Bismarck, Le van Bo
31.10.2011
Lecture & Workshop
at Game Design Department Zhdk, Zurich, Switzerland
21./22.10.2011
What’s next?
Symposion at University of Cologne, Institut für Kunst & Kunsttheorie
with: Aram Bartholl, Matthias Böttger, Holm Friebe, Johannes M. Hedinger, Timo Meisel, Torsten Meyer, Sebastian Plönges, Konstanze Schütze, Wey-Han Tan
24.7. – 7.11.2011
Talk to Me
MoMA Department of Architecture and Design. New York, USA
Organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, and Kate Carmody, Curatorial Assistant,
—————————–
32 min, Janez Janša
Skype Drawing, 32 min, Janez Janša,
6 x 10 cm, pencil / colored pencil on paper
by Aram Bartholl
2011
‘Podcast for my father’
As recommended by Fefe and Frank Rieger I am sending my parents the latest podcast episode of “Alternativlos” #20. :)
How To Turn Code Into Art
[1st published on fffffat]
Art aware hackers!! Your code can be art! Yes, no kidding!! Just follow the super easy tutorial below and make art today!!
Recent events have shown again that computer code and its power is still underestimated by the public and governments. The way software is written, it s quality, openess, closedness etc. has a very high impact on which way society is taking. Some small changes or features in code can result in an enormous loss of democratic values or lead to a hidden surveillance state. Because comparably only few people can read and understand code it is so important we communicate it, discuss it in public and make it art! :)
Congrats to the CCC for revealing and revers engeneering this incredible piece of software and to FAZ (a leading german news paper, circulation of 360.000) which went of the charts by printing 5 full pages assembler code. Awesome!
Germany’s Chaos Computer Club published the sourcecode for a piece of malware used by the German government to spy on citizens. The software was discovered in the wild and reverse engineered. It can be used to spy on or control remote PCs. Because of flaws in the software, anyone who was infected with this by German police was vulnerable to spying by “anyone on the street.” The German supreme court banned the use of trojans to spy on German citizens in 2008. ….
Pieces at Pace
Google Portrait series at ‘Social Media’ Pace gallery NYC, Sept. 2011, 70 x 70 cm, edding, edding, char coal, stamp ink, all on paper
Are You Human? series at ‘Social Media’ Pace gallery NYC, Sept. 2011, dimension variable, up to 100 x 45 cm, 3 mm aluminum anodized, laser cut
How to make a gallery more social
1. Drill a hole!
2. Install a DeadDrop!
3. Share more files :)
DeadDrop #644 was installed for the show “Social Media” at The Pace Gallery,
510 W 25th St, NYC – 9/16 – 10/15/2011
Participating artists: Christopher Baker, Aram Bartholl, Emilio Chapela, David Byrne, Jonathan Harris, Robert Heinecken, Miranda July & Harrell Fletcher, Sep Kamvar and Penelope Umbrico
Great show! Thx to the team for awesome support!
Aram Bartholl 2011
‘Ready for update!’
9.9. – 1.11.2011
Ready for upgrade!
[DAM] Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Group show with JODI
All pictures on flickr!
Rhizome Interview
[Recent interview with Joanne McNeil published on Rhizome]
Artist Profile: Aram Bartholl
While studying Architecture in the 90s my focus was bound to the early web, computers and games. Working in these worlds was much more attractive with all the possibilities of the universal machine. Why draw plans by hand when you could design impossible spaces in 3D (and play first person shooters in them)? I was then interested to combine the spaces. How would digital space influence real life in the city? What would return from virtual worlds into every day public life? In my thesis project “Bits on Location” I was interested to combine city space and the Internet and I developed a series of proposals for how Internet could unfold in physical world. Back then this was called ‘Location Based Services’, today a lot is already in the field or on its way. (FB places, 4sq, Gowalla, navigation etc).
In the early-mid 2000s I started building objects like the Counterstrike crates de_dust. It seemed like the next logical step. Will it look like this when virtuality bleeds into real life?! A lot of the works from that time inherit this question. Later this gesture of reenacting/rebuilding computer space became sort of a cultural ‘mainstream’ on the web. Just search for IRL Super Mario on Youtube. I’m not exactly sure how to put it but it feels like this was an era where we needed to reprocess the digitalization of society, a way to achieve ‘post digital consciousness’. The gaming community was one of the first ones to go through this phase of awareness but for a big part of society the process is still going on.
One thing I found interesting about Dead Drops was that it seemed to invert the romantic imagination of ‘cyber space’ as a mediated virtual reality like the Matrix and early William Gibson novels. In reality, cities are the real networks. Dead Drops seems to force a ’slowing down’ by making the speed of transfer happen at a human, rather than digital pace. Did you conceive of dead drops as being a means of protest against continued ‘cyber space-ing’ of our cities?
Yes, you are very right. I don’t believe much in the sort of classic idea of cyberspace like in the Matrix. I don’t see us floating in sodium liquid our brains directly connected to cyberspace. This won’t happen soon. Second Life represented this vision for a short moment but Facebook today is much more likely our ‘Matrix’ although it works in a different way. It is interesting to study how digital space unfolds in physical space in the city and in communication.
Like the de_dust crates from 2004, Dead Drops is very much a symbol for the unfolding process of Internet in Real Life. I love the gesture of directly connecting your $3000 notebook to the dirty curb and the image of the USB port in the brick wall. A house or part of the city literally becomes data storage. Yes, I like very much the slowness and simplicity of these kind of projects. “Hmm… I need to go to that place and I don’t even know what’s on there…maybe even a virus!“ It is interesting how people perceive a flash drive in public as dangerous because it is in the street but most viruses are on the Internet, not on flash drives. We are connected all the time through all kinds of services, devices and clouds and it is very much foreseeable we are getting more and more dependent on them. Besides the slow down effect Dead Drops is also a lot about freedom and uncontrolled communication.
The politics of digital technologies, especially in relation to physical space and the city, are vital in much of your work. Is there a necessity to ‘raise awareness’ through interventions for the public about the changing fabric of our cities and homes?
I think we are living in a very crucial time period. Many decisions are taken currently regarding privacy, censorship and Internet freedom. Governments, politics and content industry (etc) try to get a grip on free communication and would love to be able to limit, filter and control the digital more than ever. Anonymous, Wikileaks and ongoing revolutions have shown lately the power of the net. Besides the city-becomes-internet-effect, Dead Drops is also a reminder to keep thinking about independent networks and open source technologies. Those might come handy in the future when everything will be buried behind filter and pay-walls. Sooner or later local ports like the USB plug will be extinct. “Save the USB port!“ ;) Local file storage will be yesterday. The iPad is a good example of how things move to the cloud currently and at some point we won’t have the saving of our data any more. “Sorry, we had to delete 7 movies, 24 music albums and 18 ebooks of your cloud space of which we couldn’t find a purchase certificate for. We would be happy to offer you the ownership of the files in question for just $29.99 flaterate, except the PDF document ’How to run a file server.’ which is rated as illegal. Best regarfs, your iCloud legal team!” ;)
Yes, I think it is important to raise awareness about these issues although I don’t want to be too moral about it. Let’s discuss this but no need to panic. The Google map marker piece should make people think about tech-society-privacy relations. ‘Map’ in a way symbolizes the massive position of Google’s gate to local filtered information and its influence on our perception of the city. Instead of building map markers it is much more likely though that Google sooner or later will enter the interactive billboard market. Greetings from ‘Minority Report’, it is all in the making…
Is there something about de_dust or Counter Strike in particular that you like? Why not cs_office or even Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six? Is its role in the history of First Person Shooter games (before Halo but after DOOM) what interested you?
Like in most of my works where I translate a situation or set of rules from a digital space to real world, a game always represents a whole genre of games or services. The floating names in the “WoW“ intervention i.e. is a very common interface feature which can be found in almost any other MMO. But then it was also interesting to take a closer look at World of Warcarft and the reasons for its popularity. Of course there are a massive number of first person shooter games out there and yes, the classic ones like DOOM II, DukeNukem3D, the Quake series or UT would be worth looking at as well. On one hand choosing Counterstrike for such a project is very much a personal decision. It represents an important milestone in my personal ‘gamography’. CS is sort of the last game I really actively played during my school-time in the late 90s early 2000s. We spent many hours of intense gaming on the very popular map Dust back then. It was one of the first 5 or 6 maps in the early beta release of Counterstrike back in 99 and will give a nostalgic feel to any gamer when you mention that name. It is funny how people responded by email when the Rhizome commission of Dust was announced. “Why aren’t you choosing Dust2 (the successor), it is way more balanced! But for historical reasons you are right: Dust was epic“ It is one of my personal old dreams to see one of these maps we spent so much time in as a real building, made of ‘blood and flesh’ (architecture analogy for concrete…)
But besides my personal memories there are also a couple good reasons why such an undertaking of building a virtual space as IRL scale 1:1 (museum-)scultpture makes sense. If this proposal comes through some day (it won t be finished by next year, read the full project description) I wouldn’t mind at all to continue and honor DOOMs first level with a real life representation (or Quake or Wolfenstein3D). Everyone who played these games will also remember the pure game-functional architecture. Why not this one? Yes, it is very much part of cultural heritage as well.
The thing is, Counterstrike was (as far as I know) the first real team play first person shooter. In a certain period of time, beginning in the 2000s, Counterstrike was certainly the most played online game and Dust the most popular map within it. Just think about how many people have seen Times Square or the Kaaba or been at Tiananmen and how many people have been in Dust. You need to know a map like Dust very very well to master the game, to win with your team. Every corner, door, crate, crack and line of sight plays an important role. Compared to games nowadays like Battlefield or the COD series, the space in Counterstrike was quite small back then. An almost compressed space of pure egocentric, game-play-optimized, virtual architecture served as a perfect playground for an endless chain reaction of emotional bursts. You spend hours and days in the same space, playing over and over the same routines with minimal variations in movement and speed, that is where the true art of game-play comes in, a high-end ballet of eye-hand coordination and decisions taken in micro seconds. Sport! Bystanders never understood that “You still play the same level!?! Thats so boring!” …
On a daily routine you happen to miss a stop or exit the wrong floor in an office building. Many places look very much alike and we use navigation systems to find our way. I always hate it when the supermarket rearranged all their products to a new supposedly much more effective and customer friendly consumer maze. Why is ketchup and mayonnaise not next to each other? I’ll never get that! (at least in DE it isn’t.) But the virtual spaces we LIVED in, spend our precious youth in are like memories carved in stone, like a Mayan temple hidden in the jungle, like a faint tattoo but full of memories from the first day. They are way more transparent and clear to us, in their artificial complexity, than all the multi-generation airport sprawls we get lost in again and again.
Age:
I was born in 1972, Bremen, Germany.
Location:
I have been based in Berlin since 1995
How long have you been working creatively with technology? How did you start?
When I was a kid we mostly played games on C64, Atari ST and consoles etc. I never was a real coding geek but the whole trouble shooting, getting things to run and hacking topic involves quite some creativity, I believe. Doing my own projects on the web, in 3D or Flash started during school time at UdK in mid-end 90’s.
Describe your experience with the tools you use. How did you start using them?
Back in the day, I was keen on learning all kinds of programs and software. I used a lot the usual software you deal with in architecture, DTP and web but it was fun to experience the evolution of those. “Oh look, there is more than one undo now! great!” (imagine!) It was quite a striking experience to lose data and projects by badly burned cheap CD Roms. “Oh! I just lost a whole semester of 3D experiments! where is it?!?“ (DropBox keeps so many versions of your files, you’ll never be able to delete them for real)
Where did you go to school? What did you study?
1995-2001, Diploma in Architecture at University of Arts Berlin.
What traditional media do you use, if any? Do you think your work with traditional media relates to your work with technology?
Although I question digital space and our entanglement with it all the time most of my work is in a way very traditional. Objects, installations, interventions, workshops, video, tangible matter, very basic electronic devices, lights (or candles ;). None of my pieces are made for the screen or in software (some collabos excepted) – although most people know my work through documentation online. That’s where the ‘Katze beißt sich in den Schwanz’ (to chase one’s own tail) ;)
Are you involved in other creative or social activities (i.e. music, writing, activism, community organizing)?
I give a lot workshops and talks at conferences. Since the Speed Show series started a year ago I am also involved more into curating and creating events. I am part of F.A.T. Lab since beginning 2009 and I very much enjoy the style of work there. My own work in terms of Speed Shows or Dead Drops network is very much a social activity and involves a lot community involvement.
What do you do for a living? Do you think your job relates to your art practice in a significant way?
I live from my art, fees for talks, workshops, grants etc. only! I quit all my jobs in 2006/7
Who are your key artistic influences?
I am very much influenced by a political driven youth, hanging out at Chaos Computer Club congress and hacker events. I was part of a group called ‘Freies Fach’ during architecture school which questioned public-private partnership city development and ran different interventions during the 90s in Berlin. I am not specifically influenced by a certain artist but I always liked a lot the work of Gordon Matta-Clark or projects like the Rachel Whiteread – House
Have you collaborated with anyone in the art community on a project? With whom, and on what?
I have of course collaborated a lot with members of FAT Lab; as a group on projects like the fake Google car or individually like with Evan Roth and Tobias Leingruber on Chinachannel. Ariel Schlesinger is a good friend and excellent artist i ve worked with on Looptaggr. I recently collaborated with Bruce Sterling and his AR team to have Dead Drops getting its own layer on Layar. And I just finished a book about my work, edited by Domenico Quaranta, desigend by Manuel Bürger (‘Digital Folklore’) which will be published by Gestalten next year. Was great working with you guys!
Do you actively study art history?
I am very practical. I love to create things, work fast and kick around ideas for projects. Art history and art theory is certainly not my biggest focus although I always enjoy a good essay on topics I feel connected to.
Do you read art criticism, philosophy, or critical theory? If so, which authors inspire you?
Hennesy Youngman is the best!! ;)
Are there any issues around the production of, or the display/exhibition of new media art that you are concerned about?
The question of how to display digital art has been around for a while. Sure, there are all kinds of options. Classic net.art considered the Internet as the true place. You just need a computer and Internet and you can access the art from everywhere. The moment you put a web based piece in a show with maybe a big installation next to it, visitors often happen to look at the install and then check their email/FB on the computer instead of clicking through the piece. The Speed Show exhibition format which I started in June last year addresses these issues. Let’s take the show to the Internet Cafe, the dedicated Internet place where you won’t get distracted by ‘old media art’ ;) I’m not saying there haven’t been smart solutions for these questions. It depends a lot what generation of digital art we talk about and how they define their medium etc. Maybe your work is just on the Internet i.e. spread over Tumblr? Or maybe it is a piece of software running offline in a dedicated machine+display hanging on a wall with an on/off button. Maybe your work is inevitably connected to a bigger service and can’t be watched separately or offline.
When it comes to art market and digital art it’s getting even more interesting. Like in photography or video there is that basic problem that you can’t really say how many copies are around. The uniqueness or edition for a photograph is assured by the gallery/artist certificate. That works actually quite well because there is at least a physical piece. In digital art, it becomes more interesting. Do you just sell the files on a drive with certificate? Sure, why not. Are the files a representation of a web/online-piece? Yes, why not. See: “My Boyfriend Came Back From the War“ by Olia Lialina 1995. Is it a multiple? Sure, Olia’s piece comes in an edition of 5 as files on a drive (4 sold!!). Does the piece stay online? Yes it does, but there is no connection to the URL. How about selling the piece with the URL as a bundle? Rafael Rozendaal is best known for that practice today. The collector is even bound by a special contract to maintain the work (keep it online) but he would also get offline files.
It is interesting to study the different ways how digital art could be sold and there’s been a lot of discussion around it lately. The reflex of trying to limit access to a piece is understandable since limitation has always been a main base for art markets. For example the MoMA was interested in showing a piece by JODI in an exhibition a couple years ago but they wanted to show an offline copy of the piece. This makes sense in the classic exhibition logic but for net.art it feels like fraud. (… eventually JODI declined to be part of the show.) But since things move on I hope that institutions like MoMA become more aware soon on how digital art and online art works. Rhizome i.e. always played an important role in supporting and maintaining digital work. ‘Keeping it online’
A lot of artist experiment with market or offline questions currently, like the http://gifmarket.net/ by Kim Asendorf & Ole Fach or the offline http://streetshow.org/ by Michael Manning. I’ve also been thinking about the dilemma of limitation and accessibility for digital art and came up with a proposal, which I started to discuss with artist friends. Is there a way of serving both interests? How about an independent peer to peer network which by encryption in bitcoin-style would be able to approve a limited edition of a piece, i.e. a gif? The file itself would become unique and at the same time there could still be millions of copies on tumblr just representing the piece. The piece doesn’t need to be bound to a URL. It might also be interesting to look up the collections a piece is in while you find it on Tumblr. Yes true, you just can put the piece on a flash drive and hand it over with a paper certificate. But why not keep this process in the medium it belongs to? I would love to see this happen in a pure digital way and I think a system like this or similar could be a big opportunity for digital art to become more present in the commercial field.
‘Ready for Upgrade’
I am very pleased to announce a duo show with JODI at DAM-Cologne, opening this Friday …
‘Ready for Upgrade’
Aram Bartholl + JODI
DAM Cologne
Volksgartenstr.10
50677 Köln
Preview: 9th September, 6 – 10 pm
The artists will attend the preview.
Exhibition: 10th September – 29th October 2011
Special opening hours DC-OPEN:
Saturday, 10th September, 12 – 8 pm
Sunday, 11th September, 12 – 6 pm
[DAM] Cologne presents Ready for Upgrade, the first joint exhibition of three artists, who deal with the appearance and meaning of the internet. The artist couple JODI is one of the most important representatives of net art that became well-known through their works that modify codes and appearances of websites or computer games. JODI is disturbing the relationship between technology and user. Aram Bartholl’s œuvre researches the interplay between internet, culture and reality. He is not just asking what man is doing with the media, but what media does with man. The tension between public and private, online and offline, technology infatuation and everyday life is the core of his creations. In predominantly public interventions and installations Bartholl transforms artefacts of the digital world into physical reality.
‘Social Media’
I’ll show new work from the ‘Google Portrait’ series and ‘Are you human?’ series at ‘Social Media’, Pace Gallery, opening mid September… CU there!
“Social Media”
The Pace Gallery & Pace/McGill
510 West 25th Street, NYC
from September 16 through October 15, 2011.
Opening, on Thursday, September 15 from 6–8 p.m.
SOCIAL MEDIA
September 16 – October 15, 2011
Video stills from I Love Your Work, 2011, by Jonathan Harris
NEW YORK, August 22, 2011—The Pace Gallery, Pace/MacGill Gallery and the MFA Photography, Video
and Related Media Department at the School of Visual Arts are pleased to present Social Media. The
exhibition focuses on contemporary artists exploring public platforms for communication and social networks
through an aesthetic and conceptual lens. In an era of increasingly omnipresent new technologies, Social Media
examines the impact of these systems as they transform human expression, interaction, and perception. The
exhibition will feature works by Christopher Baker, Aram Bartholl, David Byrne, Jonathan Harris, Robert
Heinecken, Miranda July & Harrell Fletcher, Sep Kamvar and Penelope Umbrico.
Calendar Update
Current & upcoming shows / talks / workshops
_________________________________________________________
28.9. – 3.10.2011
AND
Abandon Normal Devices, Liverpool, UK
Festival of New Cinema and Digital Culture
23.-25.9.2011
Quasi Cinema
Video_Dumbo, New York, USA
curated by Caspar Stracke & Gabriela Monroy
with:Leslie Thornton, Aram Bartholl, Ernesto Klar, Ali Miharbi, Naho Taruishi, Andy Graydon and Ken Jacobs
22.9.24.9.2011
Open World Forum
Open Source forum Europe, Paris, France
Talk and panel.
17.9. – 4.10.2011
Experience Space
[DAM] Berlin , Berlin, Germany
with: A. Bartholl, C. Sommerer + L.Mignnoneau, Electronic Shadow, J. F. Simon, L.Hershman Leeson, LAb[au], M. Watz , N. Nickel among others
15.-27.9.2011
Blkriver 2011
BLK RIVER Festival 2011, Vienna, Austria
curated by Sydney Odigan
with: Akay / Voina Group / Aram Bartholl / BLU / Brad Downey / Christian Falsnaes / Leopold Kessler / JR / OX / Ivan Argote / Marlene Hausegger / Erwin Wurm / Zuk Club) among others
16.9. – 15.10.2011
Social Media
The Pace Gallery, New York City, US
with: Christopher Baker, Aram Bartholl, David Byrne, Jonathan Harris, Robert Heinecken, Penelope Umbrico
9.9. – 1.11.2011
Ready for upgrade!
[DAM] Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Duo show with JODI
24.7. – 7.11.2011
Talk to Me
MoMA Department of Architecture and Design. New York, USA
Organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, and Kate Carmody, Curatorial Assistant,
————————————-
Dead Drops on Layar!
Awesome!! Thanks to Bruce Sterling and his team: Layar coder Menno Bieringa & Layar artist-in-residence Sander Veenhof “Dead Drops” is officially part of the Layar Augmented Reality browser app. Like that!! :)
Thx guys! looks awesome! :)
Press release! http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond
Just 119 m to the next Dead Drop “G23” !!
How to get YOUR art into the MoMA
[first released on FAT]
1. Visit the MoMA! (see also How to make your own MOMA artist pass)
2. See the show ‘Talk To Me‘ (July 24 – November 7 2011) curated by Paola Antonelli.
3. Hook up your notebook to one of the 5 Dead Drops and check out the art on there.
4. Just drop your own art on one of the drives and you are in!
Congrats! You have a piece in the MoMA! :) –
Aram Bartholl 2011
Since I was in the lucky position to be inculuded in the “Talk to me” show at the MoMA with the offline filesharing project Dead Drops I felt like it would be a great idea to share the possibiliy to show work in the MoMA. While visiting the ‘Talk to me’ show all artists are invited hook up their computer to a flash drive and to drop their art on one of the 5 Dead Drops in the show. Check out the art in the show! Check out all the digital art on the Dead Drops! :) And claim you have an art piece in the moma, which is true! I also recommend to apply for an anual artist pass which will allow you to come back at any time for free. If you can’t get the MoMA artist pass because your are a digital artist and therefore can’t prove to have had ‘Offline’ shows procedd as followed :) http://fffff.at/how-to-make-your-own-moma-artist-pass/
‘Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects’
July 24–November 7, 2011 at MoMA, 194 projects on display by artists and designers.
Featured projects by F.A.T. members in this show:
- Dead Drops project by Aram Bartholl,
- Eyewriter by [the EW-Team] Zach Lieberman, James Powderly, Evan Roth, Chris Sugrue, TEMPT1, and Theo Watson
- Graffiti Taxonomy by Evan Roth
- Double-Taker (Snout) by Golan Levin
BBC report on ‘When We Were Kings’
YOUR PHONE
(found in 90 Bowery Internet cafe during Evans Speed Show :)
Break The System!
I met Evan for the first time at Ars Electronica in 2006 riding the GRL wave. The following years we kept meeting up in the same shows all over the globe and became good friends. I only know a few artists who have been that influential for a whole generation of internet aware artists and art aware coders in the recent past.
I always admired Evan for his radical openness. It takes a lot of guts as an artist to open up and share your artist practice to such an extend. Creating tools, generate and share open source code that enables everyone to make and distribute art online or in public space is Evans mission. His work is full of hacks for the browser and the city! They range from clever every day micro interventions on an air plane, to digital tools which change they way of thinking for a whole generation of writers.
Evans philosophy, the crossover of pop culture and open source plays an important role not only within F.A.T. Lab. Hackers meet rappers! Richard Stallmann and Andy Warhol posing as best friends – back in the days photoshop! It already feels to me like these two fields have age-old tradition of co-operations. Yes, they will have! Thanks to Evan’s high skills in picturing this philosophy he successfully branded a young generation of art aware coders and internet aware artists with his ideas. ‘With joint forces we can beat the shit out of the systems!’ No one else knows so well how to play the click-masses for crowd sourced projects or hits the nerve better with participatory projects on the meme stream.
In the tradition of pop-art Evan deconstructs the web with great precision in its visual language and underlying code. He rearranges and combines these elements of mainstream internet and meme culture to visual iconic pieces. Or instead of breaking these systems Evan applies taxonomies to disclose the hidden rules of them. The alphabetical order of html tags or precise analysis of graffiti tags from Paris are driven yb the same thoughts!
My own work is truly influenced by Evans (and FAT labs) stlye. It was always fun hanging, discussing and co-working!
Keep breaking the system Evan!
Aram Bartholl 2011 – written for “When We Were Kings“ – Evan Roth solo speed show
Micro City
( … and super safe key ;), luggage locker, Hamburg central station)
Rencontre Arles
I’ll be showing ‘Map’ at Rencontre Arles “From Here On” “beginning of July. Since the mayor didn t allow to have the piece for 3 months in the main square of Arles, France it was set up temporary and documented. The piece itself and the pictures will be in the show. Thx to Joachim Schmidt, all curators and team for making this possible!!
with:
adrian sauer, andreas schmidt, aram Bartholl, claudia sola, constant dullaart, corinne Vionnet,
cum*, david crawford, doug Rickard, ewoudt Boonstra, Frank schallmaier, gilbert hage, hans aarsman,
hermann Zschiegner, James howard, Jenny odell, Jens sundheim, John haddock, Jon Rafman,
Josh Poehlein, kurt caviezel, Laurence aëgerter, marco Bohr, martin crawl, mocksim, mishka henner,
monica haller, nancy Bean, Pavel maria smejkal, Penelope Umbrico, Roy arden, shion sono,
tony churnside et les get out clause, thomas mailaender, Viktoria Binschtok, Willem Popelier.
Pictures by Anne Foures, thx!!
clément cheroux, Joan Fontcuberta, erik kessels, martin Parr and Joachim schmid like to invite you
for the opening of the exhibition ‘From here on’ .
this exhibition is a major statement about artists and photographers who use the vernacular,
and any other images located on internet as the starting point for their work.
By showing 36 artists we will try and give their work and this movement a new status.
the exhibition will take place from July 4 till september 18 at the Rencontres d’arles
international photofestival and is located at atelier de mécanique, 33 Boulevard Victor hugo, arles.
the opening will take place on monday July 4 at 11.30 am.
‘Making Future Collaboration’
Making Future Collaboration – FRI 8 JULY, 11AM-5PM, Broadway, Nottingham
The fusion of digital technologies, art and design has given birth to pioneering new approaches to creation that are playful, disruptive, functional and responsive. It has also enabled collaborative projects to be conceived and developed remotely across vast distances.
For this final MFW forum we are pleased to welcome Evan Roth, the inventor of the EyeWriter, a tool that gives people who have lost the function to draw, the ability to create art with the use of their eyes; and Aram Bartholl who manipulates video game design to connect the virtual with the real to present alongside our commissioned artists Hetain Patel & Barrett Hodgson, Mudlark, Brendan Oliver & Brendan Randall, and IBI.