“Kleine wendige Truppen” Dead Drop installation and lecture at Brecht Haus Berlin. Curated by Cornelius Puschke.
Art and economics have entertained a complex and decisive relationship since ancient times. But for over a century, what is at stake goes far beyond the mere art market: what we face now is the commodification of all that is visible.
The photographs, drawings, paintings, videos, films, digital works and multimedia installations selected for this exhibition explore the raw materials that go into creating these images, the enormous reserves and databases they accumulate in, the human (or non-human) toil involved in their creation, and the fluctuations in their value as they circulate around the world.
The exhibition offers a critical take and unexpected perspectives on the making of the great image market that structures our gaze.
We live in a world that is increasingly saturated with images. Their number is growing so exponentially – on social networks and on screens of all kinds – that the space in which we live is literally overflowing with images, as if it were no longer possible to contain them, as if there were no more gaps between them. (We could be said to be approaching the limit which, as long ago as 1929, Walter Benjamin described as “a one hundred percent image space”.) Faced with this overabundance and overproduction of images, the question of storing them, managing them, circulating them and transporting them (even electronically), their weight, the fluidity or viscosity of their exchange, fluctuations in their values – in short, the whole business of the image economy – is more pertinent now than ever before. In the book that provided the starting point for this exhibition project (Le Supermarché du visible, published by Éditions de Minuit in 2017), I suggested the word iconomie (“iconomics”) to refer to the economic dimension in the life of images.
The works and artists chosen for the exhibition cast a keen and watchful eye over these issues. On the one hand, they reflect the upheavals that currently affect economics in general, whether in terms of unprecedentedly large storage spaces, scarce raw materials, labour and its mutations towards immaterial forms of work, or in terms of value and its new manifestations, such as cryptocurrencies. At the same time, however, these artists’ works repeatedly interrogate the future of images and things visible in the age of their globalised iconomics.
In the supermarket on display here, images of the economy always involve the economics of the image. And vice versa, as if there were a recto and a verso to all of them.
Curators : Peter Szendy, Emmanuel Alloa and Marta Ponsa
Exhibition organised by the Jeu de Paume
The use of social media has become part of everyday life, established and young artists cannot and no longer want to do without it. They work with it. They are where their audience is. Once they were websites, now they’re social media, especially Instagram when it comes to visual arts.
After the protagonists of Net Art, the technology utopians of the early 1990s, soon realized that the Net would not undermine classical art institutions as exhibition venues, the next generation of artists who responded to the Internet took over. The buzzword Post-Internet Art quickly spread. The term was coined by the artist and theorist Marisa Olson: “I’m going to toggle back and forth between video and internet because some of the internet art that I make is on the internet, and some is after the internet.” What sounds like an attitude to life became a collective term for artists who, instead of making art in the browser, again made art for the exhibition space.
Social Media Art, on the other hand, takes up Net Art’s utopia of being able to democratize the art world. The audience can be reached directly via Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr and Twitter. Young artists react to social media and their content, to new features and technologies.
The show “Link in Bio. Kunst nach den sozialen Medien” at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig curated by Anika Meier presents over 50 works on how the production and reception of art change in the age of social media. The exhibition shows installations, photographs, sculptures, videos and paintings. The show is a follow-up to “Virtual Normality. Net Artists 2.0” (2018).
Participating artists: Thomas Albdorf, Jeremy Bailey, Viktoria Binschtok, Aram Bartholl, Arvida Byström, Nadja Buttendorf, Petra Cortright, Filip Custic, Constant Dullaart, Hannah Sophie Dunkelberg, Anna Ehrenstein, Oli Epp, Tom Galle, Adam Harvey, Lauren Huret, Andy Kassier, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Olia Lialina, Brandon Lipchik, Jonas Lund, Jillian Mayer, Florian Meisenberg, Marisa Olson, Andy Picci, Sebastian Schmieg, Leah Schrager, Kristina Schuldt, Thomas Webb, Steffen Zillig and many others.
Opening 16.12.2019, 18 o’clock
The exhibition is sponsored by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
The main exhibition SCREEN IT takes place on the Corda Campus, currently one of the fast growing tech incubators in Europe. But also the former basecamp of Philips where technologic innovations as audio and videocassettes or Laservision were invented that help spreading the western visual culture over the world. The dominance of this culture, linked to the omnipresence of screens is the starting point of the exhibition. Artist as Nam June Paik or Wolf Vostell already tackled the possibilities of screens in art and culture in the ’60. Paik’s famous quote “Television tortured the intellectuals for a long time… it is about time that the intellectuals torture television” clearly presents this generation ambiguous positions towards screens. This approach can easily be transferred towards our current society filled with buzz words as big data, social media, VR or augmented reality. The exhibition thus will tackle the current status of the arts towards the cultural impact of the screen fueled culture we live in.
Sometimes as a source of inspiration, as a canvas or as starting point for debate, the current and future generation of artists is touching the limits of technology or the impact on contemporary art esthetics, news gathering, politics, social commitment and more. The generation of digital natives, born with their fingers clued on a screen, is investigating a world with or without screens, questioning virtual worlds and augmented realities in an intriguing way.
Artists (22)
Nam June Paik
Hito Steyerl
Rodney Graham
Mounir Fatmi
Wolf Vostell
Bill Viola
Cory Arcangel
Aram Bartholl
Constant Dullaart
Jonas Lund
Tabor Robak
Tabita Rezaire
Rafaël Rozendaal
Carla Gannis
Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion
Karl Philips
Dries de Poorter
Arvida Byström
Molly Soda
Jeroen Van Loon
Olga Fedorova
Tom Galle
The exhibition Playmode offers a reflection on these aspects and on the era of gamification that contemporary societies are now experiencing, bringing together pieces by several artists, such as Brad Downey, Gabriel Orozco and Ana Vieira, who incorporate the theme while exploring new ways of seeing, participating and transforming the world, using gaming in a critical light. Picture: House of Cards #3. Brad Downey, 2007. Photo: Brad Downey
Picture of the day at Monopol Magazin: Der große Bruder des “Cybertrucks”
“Die Zukunft ist eckig: Der “Cybertruck” von Tesla (oben) und Aram Bartholls Installation/Performance “WannaCry (Weeping Angels)” 2017 im Hyperpavilion in den Arsenale der Venedig-Biennale.” 24.11.2019
More info at the project page: “WannaCry (Weeping Angels)” 2017
Last spring when I was visiting San Francisco I was wondering how to work with the Facebook sign at Menlo Park. This sculptural transformation came out …. and more new works for my upcoming solo at Roehrs & Boetsch, opening on Sept. 25th!
ARAM BARTHOLL – OPEN
Roehrs & Boetsch, Zurich
26.9.–3.11.2019, preview 25.9.
For his first solo exhibition in Switzerland, Aram Bartholl chooses to address origins, effects and legacies of our daily usage of social media through portable devices. Built on the ashes of a scaled, thin-paper model of the thumbs up sign of Facebook in Menlo Park, which burned down in a fire before the opening, the exhibition brings together in a cohesive installation a new set of printed, sculptural and video works.
Näh mir ein Funkloch
Aram Bartholl zeigt mit „Strike Now!!“, wie unser Leben stetig, aber unaufhaltsam mit dem Internet verschmilzt
Anika Meier | Ausgabe 36/2019 | der Freitag
(read)
Strike Now is a platform for discussion and exhibition about today’s working conditions in the so called ‘gig economy’. The rise of service oriented Internet companies like Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo etc created massive amounts app based self employment under often harsh conditions. Is this the new slavery of the post digital Internet commercial revolution? In which ways can workers counteract the algorithmic chains of start-up venture capital? With lectures, a panel and an exhibition Strike Now at panke.gallery will examine these and further questions.
A project by Aram Bartholl, funded by Stiftung Kunstfonds.
11. – 15. September 2019
panke.gallery, Berlin
Opening Sept. 12. 7 pm
14 SEP, 4:00 – 7:00 pm, Panel discussion
This panel brings togther three different perspectives on how the so called gig economy impacts working conditions around the globe. The participants focus ranges from artistic analysis and applied political research in the field to active union related work on the ground.
Participants: Joanna Bronowicka, Sebastian Schmieg, Akseli Aittomäki moderated by Aram Bartholl
Sebastian Schmieg is an artist who’s work engages with the algorithmic circulation of images, texts and bodies within contexts that blur the boundaries between human and software, individual and crowd, or labor and leisure. At the centre of his practice are playful interventions into found systems that explore hidden – and often absurd – aspects behind the glossy interfaces of our networked society. Schmieg works in a wide range of media such as video, website, installation, artist book, custom software and lecture performance.
Joanna Bronowicka is a sociologist and community organiser living in Berlin. She is researching the impact of technology on society at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). Until recently, she was the director of the Centre for Internet and Human Rights. Joanna has been fighting for rights of women, workers and migrants for over a decade. She is a member of Polish left-wing party Razem which has an active branch in Berlin.
Akseli Aittomäki is a dance artist and experimental theater-maker. His works involve different productions, research and activism. His art practice ranges from experimental theater to contemporary dance and philosophically motivated performance works. Critics characterize his choreography productions as ‘essayistic’. Economic questions and political protest play an important role in his research. Aittomäki was a rider for Deliveroo for over two years. He was engaged in campaigns to improve the working conditions of the riders, such as protests, strikes, collaboration with media or providing help for workers after work accidents. Deliveroo pulling out of Germany is the moment for him to share his perspective.
FACE THE FACE
A Speed Show on the Post-Digital Self
curated by
Anika Meier & Aram Bartholl
5.7.2019, 7:00 – 10:00pm
Internet Cafe – Midnightshop
Schönhauser Allee 188, Ecke Torstr., 10119 Berlin
Participating artists:
Lisette Appeldorn, Jeremy Bailey, Nadja Buttendorf, Petra Cortright, Constant Dullaart, Tom Galle, Lauren Huret, Johanna Jaskowska, Andy Kassier, Hanneke Klaver, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Echo Can Luo, Ines Marzat, Jillian Mayer, Andy Picci, Selam X
Social media algorithms have a preference for faces. People prefer friends to strangers and are more comfortable with the familiar in general. This preference applies to their own faces, too. Studies have shown that people like their mirror-reflected face most because that is how they are used to seeing themselves. “The selfie,” writes Nathan Jurgenson, “lets us share that mirror-view, what we see when contemplating our self, considering what we are.” Science is not yet convinced of what the critics are absolutely sure of: people who take selfies are narcissistic exhibitionists.
These days, when a person takes a photo to their plastic surgeon, it is of their own face. Smoothed and beautified by Snapchat and Instagram filters, it is the new ideal. Filters make people feel attractive. Masks and filters function as a barrier between the individual and the world, and people have always felt the need to change themselves by wearing makeup, getting plastic surgery, donning masks ,or using filters that simultaneously hide and reveal. Mask culture, thousands of years old, is currently undergoing a digital renaissance. Software-driven face-recognition apps on smartphones enable a new, shared experience of this ancient tradition. “The self one tries to express tends to be new, exciting, confessional, sexy, etc., because it plays as an advertisement. Identity is a series of ads for a product that doesn’t exist,” writes Rob Horning on digital identities.
In the early 1980s Lynn Hershman Leeson addressed the ways media changes the view of the self and promotes stereotypical norms in her series “Phantom Limbs.” Jeremy Bailey has been playing with floating, 3D objects in front of the camera since the early 2000s. The elaborate hardware and tracking programs he began with have now completely disappeared into the smartphone. Petra Cortright started using commercially-available webcam software with basic effects and folklore-inspired filters to create her series of YouTube portraits in 2009.
Now, a new generation of net artists is reflecting on the presentation of faces in the digital age. @AndyKassier, for example, explains in his video how to make the perfect selfie, while @jillianmayer gives tips on how to hide from surveillance cameras with makeup in her tutorial. @andypicci uses filters to criticise the desire for image cultivation in the era of social media and @johwska addresses the sort of beauty ideals promoted by celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner every day. The @selamxstudio collective, in turn, shows what happens when a beauty AI does Kyle Jenner’s make-up.
http://speedshow.net/speed-show-face-the-face/
The SPEED SHOW exhibition series was conceived by artist Aram Bartholl in June 2010. The basic idea of this exhibition format is to create a gallery like opening situation for browser-based internet art in a public cyber cafe or internet shop for one night. The exhibition format is free and can be applied by anyone at any place.
‘Common Ground’, Aram Bartholl 2019
Werkleitz Festival 2019
Modell und Ruine [Model and Ruin]
May 25–June 10
modell-und-ruine.werkleitz.de
The 2019 Werkleitz Festival Modell und Ruine [Model and Ruin] curated by Daniel Herrmann and Alexander Klose presents the works of 13 international artists as part of the Bauhaus Centenary celebration. Their projects are developed for the festival and play with the tension between the phenomena of models and ruins and their relevance in modern history. The works will be shown from May 25 to June 10 2019 in Dessau, Germany.
As powerful images, models—much like ruins—serve to construct history, explain the present and generate the future. The recurring rise and fall of Dessau seems somehow to draw such connections together like a burning glass. The exhibition parcours connects the classicistic Georgengarten with the classical modern architectural ensemble of the Meisterhäuser and the historicistic Mausoleum. The intention is to present Bauhaus in the larger context of the 250-year history of the modern age.
The featured artists are:
Haseeb Ahmed (US/BE), Rosa Barba (IT/DE), Aram Bartholl (DE), Michael Beutler (DE), Haris Epaminonda (CY/DE), Holmer Feldmann feat. Piotr Baran (DE), Angela Ferreira (MZ/PT), Nikolaus Gansterer (AT), Christoph Girardet (DE), Cornelius Grau (DE), Romain Löser (FR/DE), Andrea Pichl (DE) and Magdalena Rude (DE).
RAUM SCHROTH im Museum Wilhelm Morgner
Soest, NRW http://www.museum-wilhelm-morgner.de
11. Mai – 30. Juni 2019
Die Stiftung Konzeptuelle Kunst widmet dem Medien- und Konzeptkünstler Aram Bartholl eine Einzelausstellung im RAUM SCHROTH im Museum Wilhelm Morgner.
Aram Bartholls Werk bewegt sich an der Schnittstelle zwischen analoger, digitaler und kultureller Realität. Das Spannungsfeld von öffentlich und privat, online und offline, von Technologieverliebtheit und Alltagsleben liegt im Kern seines Schaffens. Seine von Humor und großer Sensibilität geprägten Interventionen und Installationen bringen oft eine erstaunlich physische Manifestation der digitalen Welt mit sich und stellen unsere Konzepte von Realität und Virtualität infrage.
So ist die zentrale Arbeit dieser Ausstellung, „0,16“, eine Lichtinstallation, die das Pixelprinzip von Bildschirmen in die analoge Welt überführt. Digitale visuelle Kommunikation wird nachvollziehbar und sinnlich erfahrbar, ihre Methoden mit realen Inhalten gefüllt. Das verpixelte Bild eines lebendigen, in Echtzeit vorbeilaufenden Menschen erscheint in einer Auflösung von 0,16 ppi (pixels per inch) auf einem Schirm aus Holz, Papier und Stoff.
Map is being installed on the roof of SFMOMA for the upcoming ‘snap+share’ show. I made the first iteration of this piece in 2006, more than a decade ago—an epoch in Internet time. It is fascinating to see how much the context and meaning of this piece have changed over the years. Thirteen years wouldn’t usually be a huge timespan for a work of art to age, but in this particular case the speed of developments mean Map now looks very different. It has already become a historical work.
In 2004, Google bought Where 2 Technologies, a company that had worked on the digital map service that became Google Maps a year later. It was still the mid-early days of the web. The Internet was not as present in society as it is today, but tech giants like Google were already taking shape.
It was part of my practice back then to make such translations, to take an object from a computer game or an icon from a web service and to transform it into a physical sculpture. What would happen if I turned this 15-pixel computer icon into a real thing and put it in the city? Is this the center of the city? These and other projects were an attempt to understand how this new world of computers, networks, and screens would affect society and physical space. They were a sign of what was to come.
Today the situation is very different. We have the famous oligarchy of Internet tech giants who are constantly squeezing more data and money from every bit of communication, movement, and interaction everyone produces worldwide. They have expanded into all kinds of markets in a never-ending run of disruption with little objection or regulation from government. Today, data extraction markets are deeply woven into a very physical fabric of everyday life in cities, business, homes, and personal communication. The dualism of digital versus analog has been obliterated; everything is deeply interconnected.
Of course, it is an honor to show Map in such a prominent location at the SFMOMA in downtown San Francisco. But in a way, it is also an irony of history that this piece from 2006 is ‘coming home’ today to the heart of Silicon Valley in an era dominated by full-blown surveillance capitalism data markets.
Aram Bartoll
Map, 2019
dimensions: 900 x 530 x 20 cm
material: steel, aluminum mesh, steel cables
Thanks to the whole team at SFMOMA making this possible!!
SFMOMA: snap+share
transmitting photographs from mail art to social networks
March 30–August 4, 2019
https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/snap/
curated by Clement Cheroux
with: Thomas Bachler, Ray Johnson, Aram Bartholl, On Kawara, Joseph Beuys, Erik Kessels , Moyra Davey, William Larson, Jan Dibbets, Eva and Franco Mattes, Walker Evans, Peter Miller, Jeff Guess, Ken Ohara, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Stephen Shore, Kate Hollenbach, Endre Tót, David Horvitz, Corinne Vionnet
.
Today there have been massive demonstrations all around EU against #article13 and other paragraphs in the coming new EU copyright reform directive. The parliament will vote about this in three days. This law will only help big publishers, labels and content dealers but not the artists. It is very annoying to be used as an excuse by lobby controlled politicians that ‘the poor artist’ needs to protected while this will break Internet culture on a large scale. Required uploadfilters will give even more power to Internet tech giants Google, FB etc. Culture is based on imitating, quoting and remixing, especially online! It is very likely that you wont be able to post your own art any more….
#openinternet #article13 #saveyourinternet
pic taken by @mathieutremblin during Strasbourg visit three weeks ago, thx!
Beautiful time-laps of the setup of ‘Map’ by Jason Wittig, thx! I arrived in SF and we are doing some the final touches on the show install. “snap+share” will open to the public Saturday, March 30. Looking fwd to meet all the artists for the preview next week!
SFMOMA: snap+share
transmitting photographs from mail art to social networks
March 30–August 4, 2019
https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/snap/
curated by Clement Cheroux
with: Thomas Bachler, Ray Johnson, Aram Bartholl, On Kawara, Joseph Beuys, Erik Kessels , Moyra Davey, William Larson, Jan Dibbets, Eva and Franco Mattes, Walker Evans, Peter Miller, Jeff Guess, Ken Ohara, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Stephen Shore, Kate Hollenbach, Endre Tót, David Horvitz, Corinne Vionnet
