Aram Bartholl – Blog

more documentation on http://datenform.de/teleinternet/documentation/

bit.ly/teleinternet

#TELEINTERNET bit.ly/teleinternet at Ars Electronica last weekend was awesome! Thanks to everyone for participating and thx to the As team for support! Most popular ‘piece’ in the show was our coinopperated coffee machine :-)

Stay tuned for more documentation …

“A new cultural economy” was the title of the symposium curated by Joichi Ito at Ars Electronica a week ago. I enjoyed a lot the brillant speakers most of them from the US and Jonah did write a good abstract on the presentations for Rhizome.

Buzz word collection: Intellectual property, copyright, creative commons, sience commons, GPL, open source, closed, amateur, creativity, remixing, sharing, crowd sourcing/computing, citizen journalism, lost authority, chaos, noise, truth, fear ….. and again and again the big examples: Music, Film and Wikipedia.

Sure we are talking about cultural economy and the example of the music economy development in last decade or the success of Wikipedia shows very well what’s going on. But in retrospective I ‘ve been missing some crucial questions:

- How will/can this whole development affect economy in general?
- What is the role of DIY (Do it yourself) and the free instructions culture development?
- In wich way will physical objcts/products be involved? (Just think of the upcoming rapid prototyping era.)
- Are we only talking about cultural/intellectual property?
- Is there a reason to wait for companies to come up with great new products like a green car, alternative energy sources or just day to day life simplicity?
- Where is the DIY mobile medicin prototyping lab kit for the 3rd world? And will medical industry do the same faults like spoiled music people?

Podcasts of all talks
Unfortunately there are no videos, but I can recommend the talk of Yochai Benkler.

Picture:
Watering cans on a graveyard in Berlin. Instead of having a few public cans everybody has its own one looked to a stand. A very good symbol on a current mindset of property in society. (with a maybe typical german twist.)

The Image Fulgurator by Julius von Bismarck (winner of a Golden Nica) was of course my favorite piece at Ars Electronica. In addition to the groundbreaking idea he did a really good job in documenting his latest interventions for the Cyberarts show at Ars Electronica. Besides a crucifix he added to Obamas speakers desk during the Berlin speech he traveled to Beijing and manipulated the most symbolic place of official China. He projected a pigeon related to the Magritte’s painting “L’Homme au Chapeau Melon” on top of Mao’s face which was then only visible to chinese tourists with digi cams. Wow! A very good way of showing the Image Fulgurator’s power. I hope that he will release that beautiful video documentation online.

A very simple, again paper based and fun interactive project by Richard The » Gunnar Green » Frédéric Eyl » Willy Sengewald got an honary mention and was exhibited at Ars Electronica this year. It reminded me of a picture of an ‘interactive’ facade I posted a while ago.

Appeel is a virus spreading through interacting individuals. Surfaces are covered by thousands of colored stickers laid out in a grid. Peeling a sticker off leaves a white spot in the grid, hence people start individually and collectively changing its appearance. Once off the wall, the stickers ask to be stuck somewhere: people begin putting them on objects, walls, people; they collect them, they compose new images, they write messages. Slowly, the little stickers spread, appearing further away from their source and occupying space.

Prix Ars Electronica 2008, Honorary Mention Interactive Art

link www.thegreeneyl.com/appeel

Ars Electronica announced golden nica winners for 2008! In the category INTERACTIVE ART Julius von Bismarck got a golden nica for the Image Fulgurator. This piece is just awesome. Congrats Julius! Good job, jury!

The Image Fulgurator is a kind of inverted photo camera physically manipulating other peoples pictures in realtime. The exact moment someone takes a picture the Fulgurator does a flash projection onto the photographed object. A sensor detects other camera flashes and synchronizes the flash projection to them. In case of the movie below tourists end up having weird text messages in their pictures. A Checkpoint Charlie sign has an additional message on it but you can’t see it in real. This is a good picture explaining the setup.

Wow! I really like this piece a lot. Just imagine what you could do with this technology. (That’s why he is going for patent.)

I finally managed to put together a documentation about Second City Ars Electronica 2007. The festival invited me to make a design for Marienstrasse, to show my work and to involve other artists in collaboration for the Second City all relating to metavers and Second Life.

Pics info and more on the project page.

I had a great team! Thx to everybody!

A forest, half virtual, half real, on Marienstraße, Second City, Ars Electronica 2007. As in most computer games and 3D worlds, objects from the real world are “copied” or simulated in simplified form and in accordance with programming constraints. Textures are applied to 3D structures and, depending on lighting conditions, the images making up the virtual scenery are computed in real time during the game. Most trees are constructed out of two interlocking surfaces, each of which is covered with the same tree-view texture. The transparency of the gaps between the leaves and branches is provided by a so-called alpha channel in the graphics file. From a certain distance and the corresponding perspective, this abstracted form of a tree in virtual space doesn’t stand out as a simplification.

…read on & more pics on project page

This piece of carpet in front of my studio (classic berlin style) reminded me of a great loss. For 2nd City – Ars Electronica I planned a really big carpet covering whole Marienstrasse in Linz. Unfortunately city authorities didn’t allow us to realize this important element of 2nd City. Just imagine this carpet covering the street completely. Next time! :-)

Chat documentation completed!

The Chat project is a mobile performance installation that can be played by two people at a time. Just like in World of Warcraft or Second Life, the two participants communicate with each other in the form of brief text messages input via keyboard. Immediately after they’ve been entered, the written communiqués appear in comic-strip-like dialogue balloons projected above the speaker’s head.
…

read on, more pics and movie on projects site.

Robin Harper blogged some pics of 2nd City – Ars Electronica on the Linden Labs blog. I would like to share two fotos showing here phoning from RL into SL in Peter Harlanders phone booth at 2nd City.

Thanks for your visit and talk at 2nd City – Ars Eletronica, Robin!

Good friend Mirjam just skyped me this nice picture. Sorry, I had to blog this. I did’t noticed Regine walked her Blog in WoW-Style at 2ndCity – Ars Electronica. Hehe, not bad!

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!

We had a lot of fun at 2nd City. Jan is a must have entertainer for SL related events. :-)

Spontanious fight at 2nd City Ars Electronica on Monday 10.9.2007. Finally Yuichiro had an opponent.

Wow, Ars Electronica 2007 is over. I am finally back in Berlin working on upcoming stuff and Ars documentation. More movies and pics to come as soon as I sorted and edited all the material. I really had a good time at Ars. It was a lot of work and unfortunately I had very little time to talk to everybody, sorry. Next year I’ll be a plain visitor :-)

Beside the hundreds of panels and lectures during Ars Electronica here all Second Life related talks:

Main Panel Sa. 7 pm at Kunstuniversität Linz / K2 (Audimax)
Everything you ever wanted to know about Second Life

about the impact of Second Life onto future developments of digital communities.

Paricipants:
Robin Harper (Vice-president of Lindenlab, Community Development, US),
Aram Bartoll (Artist, DE),
Drew Harry (Sociable Media Group, MIT Medialab, US),
Andreas Lange (Scientist, DE)
Eva & Franco Mattes (Artist, IT/US) a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG

Talks and guided tours in Second Life
at Second City Shop Marienstrasse 4:

Do. 6.9.07 – Architecture
2 pm “New Berlin” Jan Northoff & Tobias Neiseke”
4 pm Production of Architecture” Tor Lindstrand

Fr. 7.9.07 – Metaverse
2 pm “History of Metaverse” Andreas Lange
4 pm “World of Warcraft” Joichi Ito

Sa. 8.9.07 – Art
5 pm “Synthetic performances” Eva & Franco Mattes a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG

Su. 9.9.07 – Business
2 pm “Marketing in Second Life: A Sightseeing Tour” Peter Harlander

Mo. 10.9.07 – Culture
2 pm “Nekos, Furrys and more” Jürgen Höbarth
4 pm Orkan Telhan, Dietmar Offenhuber

Panel discussion at Mobiles Ö1 Atelier / Hauptplatz

Fr 7.9. 6 pm
“Public Space – Virtual Space”, How does digital media / virtual worlds affect public city space and architecture?

Mirjam Struppek (Urban Media Researcher, DE)
Tor Lindstrand (Production of Architecture, SE)
Jan Northoff (Co-founder of NewBerlin in Second Life, DE)
Aram Bartholl (Artist, DE)

su 9.9 15 pm
“Second Life as a Mirror of Society” What can we learn from social phenonemon in Metaverses for Society in Real Life?

Daphne Dragona (Independent New Media Arts Curator, GR)
UlrichGötz (Game Design Zurich University of Arts, DE)
Stephan Dösinger (Concept Architect, DE)
Aram Bartholl (Artist, DE)

Looking forward to see you at Roter Krebs during Ars. The most important place during the festival ;-)

This is my new monotheistic note book sticker which doesn’t accept any other stickers next to it. ;-)

I posted already serveral times about the Tree project. Finally this project will be produced by Ars Electronica 07 for 2nd City Marienstrasse. And it’s going to be not just one Second Life tree but a small forest :-) , 4-5 trees (less than in the image) will rezz on a empty space in Marienstrasse.

I am finally back from vacation and offline time and now fully dedicated to preparation and production of all my projects, workshops and stuff at 2nd city Marienstrasse Ars Electronica 07. Ars Electronica team here in Linz is working under full steam to get everything done till the festival starts 5.9.-11.9. 2007.

First samples and objects from the all over design I did for Marienstrasse are already done. On the left you see a 50×50x50 cm default Second Life crate. In total there will be at around 25 plain and also printed cubes scattered over Marienstrasse. I love the default wood version! You find these standard cubes in Second Life everywhere.

I’ll keep you posted about progress of production of Ars Electronica 2007. It’s going to be big and fun!

Ars Electronica invited me as main artist of “Second City” which is part of the festival this year (4.-11.9.07). I am developing a concept and design involving other artists in collaboration. Besides some solo pieces like the “Tree” installation or “Chat” intervention there will be a series of workshops and installations. Most of them are especially developed for 2nd city, some like “WoW” are already known. As the title “Second City” implies metaverses like Second Life are the main topic of this part of the festival. Second City takes place in a deserted shopping street in the center of Linz. Shopping, trading and creating stuff in workshops is one of the undelaying themes in 2nd City. Beside Meatvers related pieces there will be also the the theme exhibtion and more stuff in Marienstrasse.

Artists in collaboration are: Linda Kostowski & Sascha Pohflepp, Eva & Franco Mattes, Joachim Stein, Walter Langelaar, Andreas Lange as well as Jan Northof & Tobias Neiseke and Jürgen Höbarth in the workshop and Second Life support team.

More detailed infos to come….

Second City

This year’s festival is “going public” too before the backdrop of our (involuntary) digital transparency and the (voluntary) relinquishment of our privacy. “We are very intentionally running this “public sphere risk” because this step—going public, going into the public realm—is the only logical and consistent way to approach GOODBYE PRIVACY,” said Ars Electronica Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker. In going about this, urban spaces and infrastructure serve not only as a stage but also as a medium that blends with artistic interventions and, in turn, becomes a message. The epicenter of this “infiltration” is Marienstraße, a street that seems to be a dead zone in the middle of downtown Linz. The prevalence of vacant retail spaces here strongly evokes the atmosphere of a stage set and makes pedestrians feel like they’re walking past the artificial buildings of a virtual city. Ars Electronica will put these premises to use and transform Marienstraße into Second City, into the portal between reality and artificiality. What will be staged here during the week of September 5-11 is not some sort of urban renewal program; rather, this initiative has a strictly transient, virtual character. It is real artificiality and, conversely, artificial reality. The festival’s traditional propagation is thus endowed with a new quality—not just out into the city but throughout the cityscape.

www.aec.at

Unfortunately my concept for Second City “Sandbox” at Pfarrplatz in Linz won’t be realised for Ars Electronica. But I am thinking of doing this project after Ars Electronica in Berlin in autum. In fact I shouldn’t design a whole Sandbox like I did in this image for Linz. I think it’s better to invite people for 3 days to build own objects in sandbox style. I wonder how greefing attacks could look like in RL? ;-) I love sandboxes. It’ll be fun.

Find some typical Second Life sandbox pictures on flickr.

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)