Aram Bartholl – Blog

I agree on most of what he says and many of these questions were raised during the “Friends” workshop I ran at Futuresonic in 2008 . Unfortunately this won t reach my 359 ex-facebook friends any more… haha.  I quit 2 days ago ….

“The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz

There has been a lot of discussion on how we can reclaim, revive and engage Public Space in Europe/West. It was very interesting to see how Public Space is still naturally used in Shanghai, China. The picture shows a kind of public marriage market wich takes place once a week (month?) in the very centre of Shanghai on People’s Square. Parents advertise their grown up kids by short notes and try to find a good match for them. A very classic offline social network, serious dating platform. :-)

I’ll be be part of the workshop “Urban Space. Time to Play” 19th – 22th Oct. next week at eARTS Shanghai. I am looking forward to it and I am curious to test China for some paper based realtime urban adventure action. Stay tuned! More info

Thanks to Theo Honohan who did write an interesting essay on my latest project “Friends“.

Aram Bartholl’s workshop Friends actualizes the processes of abstraction and distancing which are involved in the construction of contemporary social networking websites. By turning these immaterial processes into physical action and representations, the work offers a critical model of current software practice on the web.

Under the general name of Web 2.0, social networking sites provide various facilities for publishing content on the web. In the case of Flickr, the content is images; in the case of Delicious, bookmarks; Last.fm, music playlists; Facebook and myspace, general personal information. The material published on these sites is often not particularly interesting to a general viewer. Its value consists primarily in the availability of information to friends. The ability to explicitly create links of friendship between users is therefore the central feature of these sites, and the feature from which the name “Social Networking” is derived.

Bartholl’s work, which could have been titled Friends?, calls into question the value and meaning of these explicit declarations of friendship. For one thing, the mechanical nature of the process gives it a simplistic quality. Two people are either friends or they are not, according to the system. This binary coding of relationships leaves no room for gradations of familiarity from intimacy to acquaintance. This initial observation is enriched by the level of detail into which the piece goes in representing the internal abstractions of a site such as Facebook. Each level of abstraction can be seen as a distancing from reality and the site of a possible slippage between image and actuality…. continue reading

I just finished the documentation for my latest project “Friends” which has been premiered at Futuresonic 2008 a month ago. It was a lot of fun and it came out really well. Friends will be shown again during Futuresonic-Leeds and Futuresonic-London sometime 2008/2009. Don’t miss to become part of the Friends network. ;-)

link – Friends project page.

Credits:
- Thanks to Veronika Becker and Holger Lindmüller for advice, design and production assistance during preparation phase in Berlin.
- Thanks to Kit Turner (Futuresonic art production assistance) and Ben Harding (Futuresonic tech. and exhibition architecture) for the production in Manchester.
- Thanks to my exellent Friends workshop assistance Charlotte Barnes and to the volunteers: Josephine, Dan, Sofia, Maya … among others.
- Thanks to the whole Futuresonic 2008 team for support!

New project “Friends” started today at Futuresonic. Finally the workshop is up and running. If you are in Manchester drop by CUBE gallery and get your own Friends book.

All recent posts on “Friends”.

Friends

The project Friends is a workshop which translates the so-called social web – online services such as Facebook, Myspace, etc. – into a paper-based form in physical space.All workshop participants contribute a profile page to the big Friends Book and make their own personal friends booklet in which to collect as many friends as possible. With their own hand-made profile photo stamp and a large amount of prefabricated web 2.0 service stamps, users trade among each other information about their favorite online services and web activities. In order to be recognized as Friends workshop participants, users can wear a button with their own profile photo or display their Web 2.0 preferences on Friends Tattoos.

Social networks in the internet, which have become hugely popular over the last few years, have given the term “friend” a completely new meaning. In contrast to the usually restricted and time-consuming circle of friends in everyday life, in the internet it is possible to find a large number of friends quickly with just a few clicks.And only a few of these friends are actually personally known by the user. Without a great deal of effort it is possible to have hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of friends in the Internet. Who has the most friends? Who is the best-known and the most often to be seen? The development of the internet in recent years enables the individual to gratify his/her desire for recognition and attention in quite a new way.

With reference to the classic German poetry album or the friendship book in the USA, the Friends workshop takes this development as the central theme and opens a debate over the many-layered types from friendship. The time-honored paper-based technology and tools used in the workshop as well as the handicraft skills of its participants contrast with the screen-limited but highly efficient online world of the social networks. In contrast to the obvious open contact with private information in the social web, the classic paper document conceals a high degree of obligation and protects privacy.The data from the web services documented on paper during the Friends workshop pose anew the question of the private and public nature of web identities.

Who is my friend? How well do we know each other? Where do we meet?
How does the Social Web effect inter-personal relationships?

Aram Bartholl 2008

Stamps for “Friends” workshop at Futuresonic arrived. :-)
(more than 30)

Join the Friends network at
Futuresonic 2008!
Get to know cool new friends and hook up. Find out which online social networks they belong to. Extend your list of friends and let new people discover you. Get ready and take offline networking to the next level!

Join the Friends workshop to create your own paper profile page in the ground breaking big Friends network book. And take away your personal Friends booklet, to carry on collecting new friends around the city. Create your handmade profile picture and leave your mark with special stamps and ink on all your friends’ booklets. A wide range of tools and materials are provided. Show off your Web 2.0 identity in paper mode!

Instructions:

1. Sample your personal Friends booklet from high end manufactured paper sheets to start your unforgettable collection of new friends!

2. Use your hands! Cut a stamp with your web profile picture. This personal tool plays a central role in all Friends communication. Leave your traces in real life!

3. Connect! Coin your basic profile data by using Dymo label tape. All your friends can get an easy carbon copy of your basic contact info!

4. What Social Web services are you on? Stamp and customize your personal Web 2.0 info. Create a collection of Web 2.0 stamps to distribute and inform all your friends about your online activities.

5. Contribute to the big, public and constantly growing Friends book. All users of the Friends network have a profile page here! Take a look at who is already part of it! Create your personal profile page and share your digital life!

6. Find new friends! Place friend requests on user profile pages and exchange info directly via carbon copy and Web2.0 stamps. Collect and share your online identity in your Friends booklet.

7. “Yes, I am using Friends and it is great!” Create your personal button badge to find other Friends users and extend your network during Futuresonic 2008.

8. Customize and wear Friends tattoos. Wear Web2.0 on your skin! Inhale Social Web!

“Friends” tattoos arrived today.
Don’t miss the “Friends” workshop at Futuresonic 2008.
It’s going to be fun! :-)

[Actually the "flag/tail" is supposed to show the screenname for each service.]

Update: Full story, more pics and instructions on project page.

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.

For my new project “Friends” for Futuresonic 2008 I am experimenting with all kinds of real life social web variations. How about printing and pasting offline tweets in your every day life environment?

“What are you thinking?”