Aram Bartholl – Blog

( More physical speech bubbles … the ‘be Berlin’ city ad campaign runs already for a while, found this morning at SXF, Berlin)

DON’T MISS THE KANYE WEBST WEEK AT FFFFF.A.T. LAB !!!!

(Chat during 25c3. NOOOO, @Bre !!!!!!! THAT’S SUPER COOOOOOL !!!!!! ;;;;;;-))))))

There are just too many advertisement speech bubbles around …

“Chat” will be shown during (quite big!) STRP festival 3./4.4.09, Eindhoven, NL. I have 2 VIP full week guest passes available for you. 1st and 2nd comment on this post will make it. Check the line up! Don`t miss Aphex Twin!

V2 Lab Rotterdam invited Daan Roosegaarde and me to run each a four day workshop track during the eARTS festival Shanghai 19.-22.10.2008. The title of the workshop setup by V2 was “Urban Space. Time to Play.” The idea was to develop with chinese students a work wich would be presented in public space at the end of the festival. During these 4 days we had a lot of lectures, introductions and discussions. The students came from different schools of Shanghai and had different backgrounds, but mostly design and media design. After I introduced my style of work and a range of materials the Students were invited to develop their own concept. After four intense days of working, discussing, translating and testing my workshop track resulted in two different public space interventions. “Jump’n Run Shanghai” and
“QQ PaperChat”. Although the police intervened and we had to stop our public action we had a lot of fun and lot’s of reactions from the public audience.

I think it was for all of us (especially eARTS) quite an experiment to do this kind of public intervention in China. The people in the street were very curious and totally not used to it. I was told Shanghai plays a special role in China (yes, the city is quite special ;-) and that it was not possible to do these kind of interventions i.e. in Beijing. But let’s just try. :-) There is a lot to learn about China. There are of course strict rules in this country but it seams to me that these rules are quite flexible (to a certain extent). I got quite different feedback from chinese people on how they rate what you could or could not do in public space. Let’s join them to work on that and to extend that fuzzy border … ;-)

Thanks to all the participants. You were a wonderfull group and I hope you had a good time.
Thanks to the eARTS team: especially to Iris Huang, Xuan Xuan and Chen.
Thanks to V2 Lab: Michel, Simon, Anne and Alex.

I had a very good time and I am looking forward to learn more about Asia.

Workshop and public performance movie doucmentations

“Jump’n Run Shanghai” is an adaption of the video game Super Mario reenacted in front of the South Railway Station Shanghai on 22.10.2008.

“QQ PaperChat” is an analogue, paper based version of the popular chinese QQ chat service tested and performed in front of the South Railway Station Shanghai on 20./22.10.2008.

“Jump’n Run Shanghai” and “QQ PaperChat” movies are as well online on Youku.com the Chinese Youtube

I have that feeling 2008 (or 2007 already) is the year of the speech bubble. I keep seeing them everywhere …

Zurich was great fun. The first time that I had so many kids using Chat. All pics on flickr.

Sherwood Forlee designed a nice paire of speakers in speech bubble design. Hmm… that is maybe a good alternative for “Chat” ;-)

Thx for the link Peter!

Drew pointed me out that there are beautiful pictures of Chat and WoW taken during Futuresonic online.

Picture and copyright by Jan & Emily Dixon

Chat at Futuresonic a week ago was great fun. We started at the Acadamy before the Wire concert (pic) and then had fun in public space on Oxford road. Best anecdote happend in the end at Contact Theater. Someone with an open Skype video channel on his laptop had his online contact chatting to one of the speech bubbles via webcam. Hehe. So in the end Chat went back online.

… “OMG, Nooo, doooon’t do it. It’s too dangerous. The on- offline cycle will be closed. A black web-time hole will suck in all matter … aahhhhrg !!! “
;-)

Thanks for the nice pic, Jerry!

(btw, next Chat performance at www.next08.com german web conference in Hamburg on 15.5.2008)

I like this pic on the Futuresonic webpage art section a lot. It reminds me of something ….hmm… I don’t exactly remember. ;-)

But anyway, come and see! I’ll show three projects: “Chat”, “WoW” and brand new commissioned project “Friends”. It s going to be fun.

See you in Manchester in two weeks!

“Social Networking Unplugged” Futuresonic 2008,
Urban Festival of Art, Music and Ideas. Manchester www.futuresonic.com
1.5. – 5.5.2008

5 days and nights of live music, art premieres, exhibitions, club nights and events featuring a world-class programme of over 300 artists in 30 venues and spaces across the city centre. Futuresonic is an international festival of Art, Music and Ideas now in its 12th year occupying the orbits of both digital culture and music.

Tim Pritlove proposed a thought bubble version of the “chat” project to me during 24c3. It could look like this piece but would you have a conversation between two thought bubbles?
But I like the cloud.

via vvork.com

thanks for the link LaserMartin!

I had a very good time in Madrid. The “Chat” performance went very well, we had a lot of fun on the street and in a bar. It is a great honor to find myself in between all these great game art classics of the “Try again” exhibition at La Casa del Encendida.

Article in “El Pais” newspaper (for all who speak spanish).

All pics on flickr.

During the opening of the game art exhibition “Try again” at La Casa del Encendida I will show “Chat” tomorrow night 8pm 10.4.2008, Madrid, ES. I wish I had a list of all invloved artist but more details will follow soon.
See you in Madrid tomorrow!

“Curated by Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes, the event is designed as a global project including the exhibition itself, a video programme, a variety of performances and concerts, and a series of films, all of which aim to showcase the work of approximately 30 creators (visual artists, film directors and musicians) who use video games as a primary material to demonstrate how it is just as natural to modify games as play with them. The exhibition will comprise installations, mono-channel videos and interactive video games, which will enable viewers to gain an insight into a selection of these works based on the concepts of simulation, violence and risk. All themes that form part of the essence of this genre, here they are examined in relation to different theories and from the varying perspectives of the participating artists.”

I am showing “Chat” and giving a talk tonight at the design conference “Inspired Lisbon F.A.Q – Future asked questions” at beautiful Palácio Valadares in sunny Lisboa. :-)

By the way, I am not a designer which they claim in the program. (or maybe, am I? hehe)

More “Chat“. Pics during CTM on flickr.

thx for the pics Ariel!
(his flickr is great!)

High res movie here.

Thanks to Club Transmediale CTM for the invitation!
Curator team: Oliver, Jan, Remco, Marc
Production manager: Dahlia

Thanks to my support team:
Frank, Andre, Tobias and Whitelabel writer Kosmar and Frank

Next and last Chat performance
during CTM on Friday 1.2.08, 22:00 – 2:00 at Maria am Ostbahnhof, Berlin.

Anreas Broeckmann habla espanol!

["Chat" at CTM]

I’ll show “Chat” at Club Transmediale next week on three nights:

- Opening of Club Transmediale, Friday 25.01.08
- After the opening of Transmediale, Tuesday 29.01.08
- and on Friday 01.02.08

Come and join!

directions:
MARIA AM OSTBAHNHOF – CTM main venue
An der Schillingbrücke/ Stralauer Platz 33/34
10243 Berlin-Friedrichshain

Public transport:
S3, S4, S8, S9 > S-BHF Ostbahnhof
U8 > Jannowitzbrücke
Bus 100, 340, 257
Night-Bus N8

Better quality quicktime here

I just updated the “Chat” project site with some new pictures and a movie of Chat action at 24c3.

Chat performance yesterday at 24C3 went very well and was a lot of fun. Tim made up a short story on the psychology of a chat bubble.

more pics on flickr

udate: thx to daniel, duracell, szahra, martel among others for support!!!

I am planning to show the latest Chat version at 24C3 Chaos Communication Congess Berlin ( 27-30.12.07 ) on sat. 29.12 from 5 pm till open end.

Merry X-mas to everybody! See you next year!

Inspired by the “Chat” pics below
somebody did send Jonah this link. An edutainment game called “Typing of the death” released for dreamcast in 2000. Instead of shoting zombies players have to type the right letters to kill them. lol

Maybe I should modify “Chat” for doing that too. ;-)

Thx for the link Jonah!

I am working on a new version of the mobile installation/performance “Chat” (premiered during Ars Electronica 07). This version will be shown during Clubtransmediale in Jan/Feb 2008. Stay tuned!

more pics on flickr

While I was performing “Chat” at Marienstrasse, 2nd City, Ars Electronica 2007 the G.R.L. guys were joking, making sure the got the biggest chat bubble. Imagine me standing with my “Chat” speech bubble next to the wall in this pic. It’s always a lot of fun having James and Evan around.

Today Tobi (aka Mr.Timemachine-Firefox-retro-plugin) who was part of my 2nd City shop team send me this link.

Somehow the project TXTual Healing by Paul Notzold appears to be a nice combination of GRL lasertagging and public speechbubbles. Check it out!

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.

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!

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)