Aram Bartholl – Blog

I love the universality of zip ties! (Yes, I know it’s about time to get a new haircut.)

I am currently out of the office. Please contact info@google.com if you need immediate assistance. I won’t return your message when I am back in the office on Tuesday, August 29, 2009. Please consider to email me again in september to get a pole position in my inbox.

(I’ll be 100% offline, I hope ;-)

WoW workshop and performance at Laguna Art Museum, July 2009.
Thx to Lev Anderson for camera and editing!

Should a 3D-space/game be part of a web-page, embedded like metaplace below or should the 2D content (browser) be part of the 3D space like in Secondlife below? Will there ba a protocol or platform which could connect all these separated 3D worlds out there (VRML didnt make it)?

Sure, games want to be capsuled in a specific atmosphere and for that reason they mostly run in standalone full screen mode. But I would love to be able to drop by at any kind of virtual space/game with a single click without installing a new client or game. I want my interface and controls to be the same everywhere. I want to be able to walk my Hubbo Hotel character in WoW….

An overview of Second Life and its competitors
The Top 10 Money-Making MMOs of 2008

I think it’s hilarious how people in SL simulate real life with all its imperfectness.

“Intellectual Property” … close your eyes and say it 10 times very slowly …
The german translation even sounds more weird. I believe this is an oxymoron.

I just read this good summary on copyright etc issues in CT (german) and felt like sharing it.  ;-)
Recommended book “Against Intellectual Monopoly” by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine,  available online for free!

I am waiting for the day when Google will ask us to ’streetview’ our own houses and apartments. “Look, Tobi has a new kitchen table. Ah, here is his bathroom.”

Check the Google streetview bike on searchengineland!

Another version of the Tweet Bubble Series: Loud Tweets. While I was putting together the concept for the whole project I said in the very beginning: ‘Everything but no LEDs!!!’. LED scroll bars are just too much the cliche of everything. Too much advertising, disco, show off and cheapness (and too much Jenny Holzer ;-). And there are already a couple of T-shirts with LED scroll tags on the market.
But then we ended up starting on this never the less. Simon did the hack with this LED name badge I got at eARTS festival Shanghai. An Arduino board does a simulated 3 button thumb press input. So each tweet is programmed letter by letter which takes a while pull a tweet from the web. And I liked that emulating human cheap device interaction. The next step would have been to connect the badge to a GSM/GPRS Arduino to make it standalone without PC but I stopped it here. The simplicity would have been lost and in the and the price to make it a standalone device was not in relation to the cheapness factor any more.

I preferred to keep it like this and to walk it in the city. I like a lot the big ad bars or train info displays next to the personal twitter feed ad. Blink blink city signage in relation to personal show off ad bar in small scale.

The Tweet Bubble Series is the result of my 3 months residency at V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media this spring.

Check the all the Twitter to RL speech bubbles versions on the project page.

Thanks to V2 lab! And special thanks to my project team Piem Wirtz and Simon de Bakker.

More pics on flickr.

New project release! Everybody who crossed my path in the last 12 months might have got one of these business cards. Another project which has been in the drawer for a while. “Are you human?” Captcha codes are omnipresent on the web since a while and I loved them from the beginning. In a certain way they tell a lot about our relation to the machine world. And btw, I am waiting for the day when they will be extinct. It’s obvious that software + cpu power will become better in reading these at a certain level. “Hu? … Waht’s that? I can’t read this ….!” And will they return in the era of Blade Runner? ;-)

Enjoy the full story and more pics here!
datenform.de/areyouhumaneng.html

I am moving away from blogger.com to wordpress. You might need to re-subscribe the feed. Blog adress is the same www.datenform.de/blog

I am preparing a nice little intervention for the german blogger conference re:publica 2.4.-4.4.2008, Kalkscheune, Berlin. Twitter community and all other microblogging users will have the opportunity to wear their profile picture/logo as a button badge. Show your web identity in real life! With small stickers of the same logo users can mark each other as followers on T-shirts/pullovers/laptops.

“Ah, it s you! What’s your nickname again?”
“How many followers do you have? Look at mine!”

I hope it’s going to be fun. More details and thoughts on this group-performance/conference- intervention in german. [To be translated soon.]

update: pic changed

Follow me!

Zeig dich mit deinem Twitterlogo auf der re:publica Konferenz! Sammel jede Menge follower und lass sehen wen du alles kennst!

„Kennen wir uns nicht von Twitter?“
„Ach, Du bist das! Wie ist nochmal dein Nickname?“
„Hattest du nicht letztens noch ein anderes Profilfoto?“
„Und? Wieviel follower hast du schon?“
„Sind die colorwars nicht endlich vorbei?“
„Wo ist Kosmar? Ah, da läuft der rote Besen…“

Das Projekt „Follow me!“ ist eine soziale Intervention und Gruppen-Performance für Konferenzen und Events rund ums Web. In Anlehnung an Microbloggingdienste wie Twitter, Jaiku oder Pownce interagieren die Teilnehmer des Projektes untereinander mit den Symbolen und in den Regeln dieser Social Web Services im realen Raum.

Jeder Teilnehmer bekommt einen Anstecker und mehrere Aufklebern seines Twitter (o.ä.) Profilfotos/-logos. Der Button wird am Hemd/T-Shirt/Pullover getragen und ermöglicht anderen Konferenzteilnehmern „Twitterfreunde“ wieder zu erkennen. Mit den kleinen Profilaufklebern können sich die User dann gegenseitig als Follower/Freunde auf dem T-Shirt „eintragen“. Ganz im Stile von Twitter entsteht ein grosses Wer-Followed-Wen-Spektakel mit jeder Menge face-to-face Interaktion.

Ein wichtiges Element bei allen Social Web Plattformen, insbesondere aber bei den Microbloggingdiensten ist das Profilogo des Users. Das Profilfoto, welches normalerweise ein Portrait des Nutzers zeigt avanciert zum quasi Markenzeichen des Users. Bei der Nutzung von Twitter und Co. erscheint zu jeder Kurznachricht eines Users das jeweilige Profilfoto im Webinterface. Da die User sich nicht unbedingt persönlich kennen, nimmt das wiederkehrende Bild, in Verbindung mit den geschriebenen Nachrichten eine zentrale Funktion als Interpretations- und Projektionsfläche ein. Auf diesem schmalen Kanal der Kommunikation entsteht ein Netzwerk von Bekanntschaften, die auf digitaler Ebene eine reale Verbindung eingehen.

Wie beeinflusst das Social Web Beziehungen zwischen den Menschen? Auf welcher Ebene, der digitalen oder der physischen lernen sich die Menschen wie kennen? Wie stellen sich User im Netz dar und wie werden sie dort wahrgenommen?

Aram Bartholl 2008

I’ll be a week on early easter holiday. Have a good time!

I am not very good in tracking birthdays of friends, there always manybirthdays in spring. Addtionally skype notifies you when one of your contacts has birthday. Very handy but is it correct? Do I want that? Did I ask skype to tell everybody it s my birthday? Hmm … do I have to respond to a note because I know that he knows that I know …
I decided run an experiment. Since 5 days it s my birthday every day on skype. I got some messages, comments, emails and even phone calls. Some people were doubting, some noticed on the 3rd day. It was fun.

“Skype is a snitch.” Marius posted in a comment, very true.
(Btw, my birthday is on 27.12.)

The Sandbox Berlin took place 3.-14.10.2007.

Better quailty quicktime here.

I am still waiting for my crate. But as soon as the Speech Bubbles arrive I’ll perform them here at Picnic 07 Amsterdam. See you around.

I finished editing Chat movie today. The project is kind of similar to “Speech Bubble” but works differently. Produced by Ars Electronica this piece has been shown the first time. We had funny reactions a dialogues during Ars. It was fun watching people having public conversations and commenting the situation. The LED projectors worked very well. The construction was a bit to heavy but I’ll improve for the next version. Actually it should be very easy to follow the “talking” person. Full project site including description coming soon. It was fun!

Better quicktime quality can be found here

Pics on flickr

Thx to the Ars team for support and production!

I will be on vacation for the next two weeks. More news and links in August. Take care.

Good news! Upcoming project Chat is part of the Second City area I am working on at Ars Electronica. But I will talk about this whole Ars-Second-Life topic later.

The project Chat is of course the next stepp coming from the project Speech Bubble. In fact the concept of Chat is even older than the Speech Bubble project.

Project description goes something like this:

Chat is an interactive installation and a performance in
public space.
Similar to online computer games like Second Life or
World of Warcraft two persons are having a conversation
by writing text messages on a keyboard. The speech
bubble floating above the participants head displays the
written words of this ‘player’ in real time. The wireless
keyboard is connected to a PDA. A very small and light
weight LED beamer projects the text messages on the
translucent speech bubble. The whole equipment and
the speech bubble are attached to a stick which is carried
by a technician. These two technicians do follow each
participant individually so that the speech bubble stays
above the ‘players’ head even if they move.
It is recommended to show this piece at night or dark
places. Crowded clubs or conferences with many people
on a spot are a good environment to run this installation.

There is a more detailed german text version which will be translated for the AEC catalogue.

More infos about Ars Electronica and Second Life coming soon. Nice projects and workshops. It sgoing to be fun.

(By the way, the comment of Ahmet made me blog this. Sure, everybody wants the interactive speech bubble. Although I do like the first version very much)

Like on the web links don’t last for every. This plazemark I did in autum in Berlin is still kind of visible. But of course it won’t work with a mobile anymore. I like the fade out.

Finally I have this new project online. I am using the same technique as in the Tagging project but on a different and very appropriate topic.

“A Google Portrait is an interactive painting which contains the Google search string of the portrayed person in encoded form. Every java enabled camera phone is capable to decode the “Semacode” called 2D-code by taking a picture of the portrait. The result leads the mobile phone browser to Google doing a search on the portrayed person’s name…”

read on at project page Google Portrait Series

Thx to Daniel, my first victim. ;-)

Holger sitting next room asked me for help today because he couldn’t find the mobile phone which was constantly making that typical connection noise on his iBook speakers. Of course he already tried to get rid of that sound by shutting off his mobile which didn’t help. I even suspected his mobile to be in stealth mode.

The solution was really simple. He had my thesis website datenamort.de open. LOL.

(My own stuff keeps tricking me, a good sign.)

The people from NewBerlin uploaded the video documentatio the public space intervention “256² “ where I marked the NewBerlin Sim of Second Life in real life Alexanderplatz Berlin two weeks ago. As you can see it was raining heavily. Although it was “painful” in the moment in the end it stresses very well this kind of temporary piece.

The Speech Bubble performance at the party of Plazes last week went very well and it was great fun. Beside some problems to spell words right there were no technical problems. I didn’t even need the second batterie. I edited the video footage some days ago. Thanks again to Ariel for helping me out documenting.

Find more pics, a high res quicktime, full concept and description at the “Speech Bubble” projects page.

Three months ago at the Second Life panel during Transmediale 07 I showed this new project “Missing Image”. The missing texture default message of unloadable Second Life clothing is transferred into real life. Find more pics and a detailed description on the projects page here.

If there is somebody ( gallery, designer, fashion label …) interested in coproducing a small series of these shirts don’t hesitate to contact me.

The solution to the 16 meter chalk line is a new piece called “256²”. Although it didn’t stop raining yesterday noon I used almost 64 pieces of chalk to mark the outline of the Second Life Sim NewBerlin (Teleport) around Alexanderplatz Berlin real life. It was a lot of fun. Check out more pics and a detailed description on the projects page here.

See also joachim’s post on this event.

Continetal Airlines provides these very high quality headphones on the airplane which have a really ugly dubble mono = stereo plug to prevent you to use these nice headphones somewhere else than in the airplane. But recently I found out that this dubble plug perfectly fits into my laptop headphone and microphone input. This turns the Continental Airlines headphones into a perfect high quality headset! You just have to abuse one of these small speakers as a microphone.
(Yes, I know you have to shout into that little speaker and the quality is really poor, but it does work!)

I am still working on the design and form of my upcoming project “Tree”. This is the current design which I like much more than the first one. Now I have to find a way to keep the lightness and transparency.

“Tree

Installation in Public Space, on schedule autum 2007

The project „Tree“ is an object imported from the 3D online world “Second Life”. The unfinished “virtual” tree becomes part of everyday life in public space….” read on