Current Events

Home Smart Home

8. March – 21. April 2024
Solo Show, Kunstverein Rotenburg, Rotenburg

For the exhibition “Home Smart Home,” Aram Bartholl equips the tower of the Kunstverein Rotenburg with a variety of home surveillance cameras. In addition to hidden cameras, known as “Nanny Cams,” Bartholl also experiments with 360° “Lightbulb” cameras equipped with lights and speakers. The market for surveillance cameras in the private sphere has grown tremendously in recent years. The desire for control over one’s own private space is reflected in this development and is part of the digitally driven society marked by a loss of trust.

The Art Tower, 4 Floors – 122 Steps – 24 m.
Originally slated for demolition in the mid-90s to make way for parking space for the “Ronolulu” leisure pool, the disused fire brigade water tower was on the chopping block. However, Peter Möhl, the former managing director of the municipal utilities and thus the owner of the tower, envisioned a meaningful repurposing. Together with the vice chairman of the Art Association, architect Jürgen Lohmann, the idea was born to convert the tower into a gallery.

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Transmediale Exhibition: you’re doing amazing sweetie

31. January – 14. April 2024
Group Show, Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin

Exploring the horror of content, the 37th edition of transmediale you’re doing amazing sweetie questions how logics of content production determine and frustrate our relations to technology. The festival takes place from January 31 to February 4, 2024 at silent green Kulturquartier, Akademie der Künste, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The festival’s main exhibition will be on view at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien.

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Decoding the Black Box

27. January – 2. June 2024
Group Show, Galerie Stadt Sindelfingen, Sindelfingen

Die Ausstellung Decoding the Black Box bringt Künstlerinnen und Künstler zusammen, die Licht in diesen dunklen Raum und die Prozesse werfen, die sich in ihm ereignen. Sie legen dabei nicht nur die Funktionsweisen digitaler Technologien wie beispielsweise von künstlicher Intelligenz offen, sondern visualisieren zugleich die Auswirkungen, die sie auf unsere Wahrnehmung von Realität und unser In-der-Welt-Sein haben. Während sie die ökonomischen und machtpolitischen Strukturen der digitalen Technologien und insbesondere des Internets transparent machen, zeigen sie Gegenentwürfe für eine dezentralisierte, humanere und demokratischere Nutzung ebendieser auf.

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Upcoming Events

Urban Art Biennale

26. April – 10. November 2024
Biennial, Völklinger Hüttte, Saarbrücken

Killyourphone workshop

13. April 2024
Workshop, Transmediale exhibition hosted by Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin

14:00 – 16:00

Killyourphone is an open workshop format. Participants are invited to make their own signal blocking phone pouch. In the pouch the phone can’t send or receive any signals. It is dead! This workshop was run for the first time at the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg end of 2013.

Recent Events

Stitch Incoming!!

25. March 2024
Curatorial, Speed Show at Web Cafe, Athens

Monday 25th of March, 7:00 PM at Web Cafe, Eptanisou 40, 113 61 , Kypseli – Athens

with:
!Mediengruppe Bitnik with Selena Savić & Gordan Savičić , Ingrid Hideki, Joanna Bacas, Kyriaki Goni, Maria Mavropoulou, Marina Gioti, Marsunev, Nadja Buttendorf, Theo Triantafyllidis

Curated by Aram Bartholl & Socrates Stamatatos

Speed Show lands in Greece, the country of souvlaki, the sun (yes we can claim that they originated a celestial body), ouzo, feta, an enormous financial debt. Currently, Greece is also trending for all the wrong reasons namely, gentrification, queerphobia, state crimes and more dystopic incidents.
As 2024 unfolds, we find ourselves amidst a whirlwind of confusion, bombarded with a cacophony of online horrors to consume, an attention span further abbreviated by TikTok’s algorithm and the barrage of incoming stitches.

Stitches Incoming serve as a conduit for creators to engage and converse, traversing from one topic to the next. They have evolved into a new social fabric, weaving connections within an ever-shifting digital and physical landscape while also serving as a testament to personal and collective traumas, both past and present.

What unites the participating digital artists? Perhaps everything and nothing simultaneously… Departing from the traditional Speed Show setup, where artworks are carefully stacked inside internet cafe computers, and drawing inspiration from the structure of TikTok stitches, each piece seems to propel the conversation forward, or perhaps uses the next as a springboard for its own narrative.

Stitch this and stitch that, we have everything you ever wanted (maybe) ! Are we stuck in an infinite loop of sh*tposting, valuable content, the highlight of social issues, personal and interpersonal experiences?
Maybe! Come and find out…

More info on Speed Shows at https://speedshow.net/stitch-incoming/

Killyourphone workshop

23. March 2024
Workshop, Transmediale exhibition hosted by Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin

14:00 – 16:00

Killyourphone is an open workshop format. Participants are invited to make their own signal blocking phone pouch. In the pouch the phone can’t send or receive any signals. It is dead! This workshop was run for the first time at the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg end of 2013.

Killyourphone workshop

9. March 2024
Workshop, Transmediale exhibition hosted by Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin

14:00 – 16:00

Killyourphone is an open workshop format. Participants are invited to make their own signal blocking phone pouch. In the pouch the phone can’t send or receive any signals. It is dead! This workshop was run for the first time at the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg end of 2013.

Killyourphone workshop

24. February 2024
Workshop, Transmediale exhibition hosted by Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin

14:00 – 16:00

Killyourphone is an open workshop format. Participants are invited to make their own signal blocking phone pouch. In the pouch the phone can’t send or receive any signals. It is dead! This workshop was run for the first time at the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg end of 2013.

Blog Archive for Tag: hyperpavilion

WannaCry (Weeping Angels)

May 19, 2017

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WannaCry  (Weeping Angels)

Hyperpavilion 2017, Venice Biennale 
(Official Extended Program)
Installation/Performance
Medium: printed carpet, tires, steel, wood, mirror glass, phone charger, four special forces performers,
Size: 14 x 8 x 2 m
Aram Bartholl
2017
http://hyperpavilion2017.com/
Curated by Philippe Riss
Produced by Fabulous Pictures
Opening: May 11, 2017, 12:00-3:00 pm
Exhitbtion dates: May 12 – Ocotber 30, 2017
Credits:
Torsten Oetken & Christian Buchmayr
Statement:
The German government is working on a new law to empower immigration offices in extraordinary ways. Asylum seekers without a passport who make their applications in Germany will be required to hand over all of their data. Immigration centers are being equipped with new forensic hardware and software to make complete copies of smart phones and other devices. Forcing immigrants to show their social media profiles is a strikingly efficient way to obtain proof of identity. A Facebook profile is seen as much harder to fake or lose than a passport. When the meta data on your Instagram pictures shows you’ve spent years in Libya, it may be hard to argue that you are actually a citizen of Syria. The difference is that asylum applications from Libya are not accepted. It is supposed to be a “safe country.”
The very basics of human rights and privacy rights don’t apply here any more. We now live in a world in which your social media profile is becoming more important than a passport. What will happen if you don’t have a Facebook account at all, or not even a smart phone?
What asylum seekers will soon have to endure in Germany is already, in a softer form, being implemented for everyone traveling to the Unites States and other countries. The border search exception empowers customs and border protection agents to search any electronic device. Increasingly, customs officers are asking travelers to show their social media profiles, passwords and to unlock their phones. In the future this process could be, very plausibly, automated at the entry-points and borders of many countries.
Social media is the perfect tool for commercial data mining and user tracking for marketing companies. And it also perfectly serves a governmental total control scenario, which is not some far-off, futuristic idea but a reality that is unfolding right now.
WannaCry  (Weeping Angels) at Hyperpavilion, Venice
The installation/performance WannaCry  (Weeping Angels) plays out on an 8×14 meter carpet printed with logos of more than 3000 internet marketing and user tracking companies. On the carpet, a mirror-covered, disguised, anti-riot police tank is parked. Specially-equipped security guards holding mirrored shields patrol the exhibition space and ask the visitors for their smart phone and social media profile.
“Is your phone ok? Does you Facebook still work? This is just a security measure for your safety. We had some attacks around here and just want to make sure your device is ok. … All good, thank you. Please don’t turn it off! This will help us to track any suspicious activities.”
With conversations like this, the guards cover up the fact that they are actually checking visitors’ phones (in the sense of the performance only; no data is collected). Barcodes are stuck on visitors’ phones, which are then scanned by the special unit officer. Visitors are left unsettled and wondering whether the encounter was real or part of the installation. In the context of the heavily patrolled Venice Biennale and the presence of actual armed soldiers in the Giardini, this performance works very well. The guards are present every weekend for the whole show until the end of October, 2017.
This new installation/performance produced for the Hyperpavilion Venice was inaugurated on May 11th 2017 just one day before the break out of the ransomeware virus WannaCry which led to widespread computer failures across the world. Such an uncanny correlation left me little choice but to rename the piece (formerly: Weeping Angels) with the name of the virus.
WannaCry  (Weeping Angels) evokes a dark age that we are on the cusp of entering: ever-increasing surveillance, terror attack fear and cyber-war panic on a daily basis. While we chill on our fluffy carpet at home thousands of companies retrieve and process our personal data. Increasingly military-like police control the cities while government intelligence collects massive amounts of data unnoticed every day. Is it 1984 yet?
Aram Bartholl 2017
 
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All pictures at flickr.com/photos/bartholl/albums/72157683886912096

Hyper Pavilion

May 14, 2017

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Hyper Pavilion
Venice Biennale, official extended program, Venice
http://hyperpavilion2017.com/
Exhibition dates: 13.5.-31.10.2017
Opening 11.5.2017 12:00 – 15:00h
curated by Philippe Riss, produced by Fabulous Pictures
with: Aram Bartholl, Vincent Broquaire, Claude Closky, Frederik De Wilde, LabNT2, Lawrence Lek, Claire Malrieux, Théo Massoulier, Julien Prévieux, Paul Souviron, Théo Triantaffyllidis