Aram Bartholl

Is this you in the video?

Solo show, Aram Bartholl
Gallery Chaufferie, H.E.A.R., Strasbourg
New works!

April 6  — May 6, 2018
Opening April 5, 7:00 pm
 

While Facebook apologizes to the world from high up on its mountain of data, 1.4 billion user passwords party naked on the Internet. Research has shown that the ’123456′ is used for 17% of all passwords. There is so much free WiFi in the air to catch you, it is almost impossible to get online. But there is coffee, so you stay for the deep pocket packet inspection of your traffic.

Is this you in the video? Don’t click the link I sent you!

Like the pigeons’ best friend, CCTV cams squat in every high corner of the city protecting us from the future. Will they fall off or be released from their stoical non-presence? A total of 750 info screens have been removed from the still closed / never opened BER airport in Berlin because the technology is outdated. The screens had been running for six years straight without anybody ever having looked at them.

Yes, I saw this already.

Please place all your bags on the left tray. Mirrored self-checkout in an uberficial life without cueing is on autoplay. 24 likes. Thank you for being our customer today.

 
April 6 – Mai 6, 2018
HEAR, La Chaufferie
5 rue de la Manufacture des Tabacs
Strasbourg, www.hear.fr
 

All pictures at https://www.flickr.com/photos/bartholl/sets/72157689720740210/
 

Group show by the class New Media, Prof. Aram Bartholl, Kunsthochschule Kassel.

pic by sighpoutshrug
 

Don’t Show Again!

Constant alerts, requests, and notifications keep us immersed in information flowing daily across our screens. Little windows appear at the monitor’s edge and jump onto smartphone taskbars; milky overlays interfere with viewing entire web pages.

It is down to attention. User attention is now the most valuable commodity on the Internet. The online advertising industry is in real crisis. Only the biggest advertising monopolies–Google and Facebook–can still benefit from advertising revenue, while all others are left with nothing. Social media networks are saturated, user numbers are stagnating; there is an increasing fatigue with liking, sharing and posting because too many services, news items, and friend requests are competing for our attention. It seems as if faith in what is presented to us on screens is diminishing. “That’s fake” is the new standard. A limited number of meme-like headlines get global attention while important issues sink without a trace. We spend on average up to three hours a day on smartphones only to ask ourselves later what we actually achieved.

New Media students of Kunsthochschule Kassel deal with questions of attention, identity, and the use of media in a variety of ways. How do images and topics appear and spread through the Internet? What role does the screen play as a limit to understanding, and how will automation continue to change society? Overcoming the post-digital regime of attention will require new ideas and concepts that the technology-centered efficiency logic of internet platforms can never provide.
 

Participating Students:
Nicole Brauer, İpek Burçak, Echo Can Luo, Christopher Casper, Hannes Drescher, Stefan Endres, Robin Höke, Mike Huntemann, Saskia Kaffenberger, Jonas Leichsenring, Naima Omari, Didem Sandıkcı, Mario Strahl,
Video program: Lucie Friederike Müller, Jacob Höfle, Lisa Dreykluft, …

http://dontshowagain.online website by Stefan Endres

 
Reaktor, Wien
Vernissage: 19. Februar 2018, 19:00 Uhr
Öffnungszeiten: 20. Februar 2018, 10:00 – 16:00 Uhr
Geblergasse 40, 1170 Wien
https://www.reaktor.art/

 
(german version)

Don’t Show Again!

Ständig wiederkehrende Warnungen, Nachfragen oder Benachrichtigungen beschäftigen uns kontinuierlich bei der täglichen Informationsaufnahme am Bildschirm. Kleine Fenster erscheinen am Monitorrand, springen in der Smartphone-Taskleiste auf und milchige Overlays versperren die Sicht auf ganze Webseiten.

Es geht um Aufmerksamkeit. Die Aufmerksamkeit des Users ist heutzutage das höchste Gut im Internet. Die Online-Werbebranche befindet sich dabei in einer handfesten Krise. Nur die großen Werbemonopole Google und Facebook können noch von Werbeeinnahmen profitieren, alle anderen gehen leer aus. Viele Social Media Networks sind gesättigt, Nutzerzahlen stagnieren, eine allgemeine Müdigkeit zu liken, zu teilen und zu posten macht sich breit. Denn zu viele Dienste, Nachrichten und Freundschaftsanfragen konkurrieren miteinander. Es scheint, als wenn der Glaube an das, was uns auf dem Screen präsentiert wird, schwindet. „Das ist doch fake“ ist der neue Standard. Einzelne wenige Headlines mit Memecharakter erreichen weltweite Beachtung, während wichtige Themen untergehen. Wir verbringen tagtäglich im Schnitt bis zu drei Stunden am Handydisplay und fragen uns am Ende, was wir dort eigentlich getan haben.

Die Studierenden der Klasse Neue Medien der Kunsthochschule Kassel beschäftigen sich in vielfältiger Weise mit all diesen Fragen um Aufmerksamkeit, Identität und Mediennutzung. In welcher Art und Weise entstehen und verbreiten sich Bilder und Themen im Netz? Welche Rolle spielt der Screen verstanden als Grenze und wie wird Automatisierung unsere Gesellschaft weiter verändern? Das post-digitale Regime der Aufmerksamkeit zu brechen, erfordert neue Ideen und Konzepte. Die technikzentrierte Effizienzlogik der Internetplattformen wird diese nicht liefern.
 

20.1.2018, 7:00 pm – Installation/performance – ‘Your parcel has been delivered (to your neighbour)’

For his ongoing installation Aram Bartholl collects different objects and materials of the contemporary commerce and public space to rearrange them at the exhibition space. The elements refer to radical shifts in markets, rising control and a life under the influence of constantly improved algorithms, startup pressure and ‘bullshit jobs’. Over the period of the exhibition the installation is rearranged and changes in dialogue with the audience.

25.1.2018, 7:00 pm – Workshop – ‘Got a few minutes?’

Got a few minutes? is an open workshop format which invites the audience to experiment in a series of actions and micro performances. With different tasks involving a range of contemporary devices and objects the participants execute and invent unique interactions. Consume, control and privacy are some of the core topics which serve as a basis for this examination of the hyper commercial contemporary life.
 

IMPORT PROJECTS
KEITHSTRASSE 10
10787 BERLIN
http://import-projects.org/
 

Your parcel has been delivered (to your neighbour)

‘Your parcel has been delivered (to your neighbour)’ is a performance and ongoing installation that involves rental bikes being retrieved from public space and placed in the private gallery space. Rental bikes in public usually fall over at some point, or get kicked over by pranksters. Nobody cares. All rental bikes collected are laid out—their quasi-natural status—on the floor of the gallery. A PTZ (pan tilt and zoom) CCTV dome camera, typical for surveillance in public, auto-tracks and records the process. Visitors are invited to become a temporary owner of one of the bikes by renting it.

In recent years, Internet startup market logic has reached far beyond classic online markets. More and more ‘IRL’ economies are being affected by the ‘disruptive’ force of the new business model from California. With the efficiency of networked software, low-wage outsourced labor, and data delivering customers the only goal is growth. The startup doesn’t need to be profitable. In fact, one of the golden rules is not to make a profit, not to pay tax, and to be much cheaper and smarter than everyone else until competitors go bankrupt.

In the beginning, this ‘game’ was played solely within data-based information business. Google and Facebook led the way and showed us how to make money from user data while giving away products for free. Today, we are witness to slow changes in the cityscape. Streets have been crowded with delivery vans for years. Delivery businesses boomed in the wake of ever-increasing online shopping. Order anything! They’ll deliver it to your neighbour immediately. Instant rental cars, gamified Pokemon crowds, and bicycle food delivery armies followed. Very recently, Berlin’s public space has become crowded with at least 20 different brands of rental bikes. New startups, local and international. All of them have the same old idea: “Rent a bicycle where ever you are!” All of them burn a lot of VC (venture capital) money and bikes increase to possibly become the monopoly in this field.

Public space is increasingly inhabited by advertising and corporate models. The colorful bikes scattered all over the city are a very visible sign of the uberfication of private life and commercialization of public space.

Aram Bartholl, 2018
 

Through the use and lens of digital tools and technology, Stream Capture asks how we might engage with a reimagining of the natural environment if we cannot physically enter it. The work in the exhibition explores human perception, simulation, mapping, time and scale shifts, and historical study and preservation. The exhibition offers a sense of the future and the possibility of movement from place to place (here to there) and from time to time (present to future).

MCAD Gallery
Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 9:00 a.m.–Sunday, March 4, 2018, 5:00 p.m.
Opening Reception: Friday, January 19, 6:00–8:00 p.m.

The artists featured in the exhibition work in a range of media, including prints, installation, projection, video, software, video games, sculpture, plants, and electronics.

Featured Artists

• Aram Bartholl
• David Bowen
• Tega Brain
• Nicky Case
• Gottfried Haider
• Claudia Hart
• Catarina Lee
• Jan Robert Leegte
• Sara Ludy
• Martin O’Leary
• Eva Papamargariti
• Katie Rose Pipkin
• David Reuter
• Helmut Smits
• Clarissa Tossin
• Mark Tribe

Stream Capture is curated by Ben Moren, assistant professor of media arts at MCAD.

Image credit: Sara Ludy, Pond Wave, 2017, 4K animation

Besides the Screen / Más Allá de la Pantalla, surgió con el objetivo de reunir proyectos de investigación dedicados al cine, sus instancias de distribución y consumo. Hoy en día los modos de comprender este medio se han transformado, las nuevas tecnologías influyen en los medios audiovisuales haciendo de cualquier pantalla, no sólo un dispositivo o soporte, sino una herramienta para la reflexión ambiental y sociopolítica.

En esta ocasión se llevará a cabo una mesa de diálogo, así como una exhibición especial para el cierre del Taller Aproximaciones a la Museografía Actual 2017.

Patio Colón y Auditorio LAA
Sábado 2 de diciembre

Mesa de diálogo | 15 a 17 h
Cine independiente, arte contemporáneo y sus espacios de exhibición.
Imparten: Gabriel Menotti (UFES) y Stefania Charitou (BUAP)

Exhibición | 17 a 22 h
con proyecciones, videos esféricos, instalaciones y otros trabajos audiovisuales de APOTROPIA (Itália), Polliana Dalla Barba (Brasil), Aram Bartholl & Curatingyoutube.net (Alemania), Ignez Capovilla (Brasil), Ricardo Carioba (Brasil), Carla Chan (Hong Kong), Tobias Gaede (Brasil), Claire Hentschker (Estados Unidos), Tadeu Jungle (Brasil), Evan Meaney (Estados Unidos), Chiara Passa (Itália), Giovanni Salice (Itália), Julian Scordato (Itália), Santiago Tavera (Canadá), Patrick Tarrant (Reino Unido).

Entrada libre

This tablet was part of the installation “12V” at Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017 last summer. It was used to show vistors the offline PDF data base from the router on the TV tower.  The guards who had to take care of the work and explained to visitors everything also started to use it on their own initiative as a video / picture log. This became a beautiful summary of a summer full of work,  joy, desperation; an unfiltered view of the site specific art work, visitors, neighborhood kids and nature with cable and stove. Thanks to all of you who endured the long hours at this crazy location out of Münster. ;))
ARAM

ALUHUT/Tinfoil hat workshop & lecture

Saturday 7.10.2017, 4pm;
Technische Sammlungen Dresden

part of the exhibition:

http://www.whenmachinesaredreaming.net/
21.10. – 14.11.2017

Nach dem fulminanten Start mit der Lecture von Joscha Bach, lädt das Netzwerk Medien Kunst am 7.10. zum Artist Talk mit Aram Bartholl sowie anschließendem Aluhut-Workshop. Als Kick-Off im Rahmen der Ausstellung „When machines are dreaming“ und der Konferenz „Datenspuren“ des Chaos Computer Club. Die Ausstellung sowie die Konferenz eröffnen am 21.10.2017.

*MARIMBA MIX* release PARTY!!
New MIX by Selector NUTTENDORF

Thursday Sept.21, 18:00 – 20:00, Afterwork-Sunset-Party!
Location Outdoor! Humboldthafen, Berlin -> HERE!

MARIMBA MIX is the finest Collection of Songs based on the pre-installed iphone ringtone, worlds most famous ringtone now a days, selected by Selektor NUTTENDORF. The Marimba ringtones’ origin is based on a percussion instrument called Marimba, similar to a Xylophon. It is the national instrument of Guatemala. MARIMBA MIX is developed in the Presence of Aram Bartholl’s artwork ‘Obsolet Presence’ as seen in the cover. The art piece was installed @Humboldthafen in Berlin for one month in September 2017. The MARIMBA MIX released on the 21.09.2017 as an irl CD.

—————————————————-

UPDATE:

The party was a great success!! The mix is for DOWNLOAD available at http://nadjabuttendorf.com/marimba-mix/

Obsolete Presence

at Festival of Futurenows, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
14. – 17.9.2017

After the install at Möhnesee Obsolete Presence is currently shown in Berlin during the Futurenows festival. It is setup right next to Hauptbahnhof (central station) at the Humboldthafen. The piece will be up till October 10th.

Credits: Wasser- und Kulturbau GmbH Hönow, Thx!

Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017
10.6. – 1.10.2017

I am showing three new works at Skulptur Projekte Münster this summer.  Thermo generators which convert the heat of the fire directly into electricity play a central roll in these site specific works. Fire, in fact the first human technology serves as a power source for modern electronics and as catalyst for human communication. It was very much fun developing these new works for Münster in the past couple years. Skulptur Projekte  has a faboulus team! I want to thank everyone in the production and the curatorial team very much! Please go and see the show. It is very good! Still up till 1st of October.

Aram Bartholl, 2017

3V

3 V
Material: Aluminium, acrylic glass, thermoelectric generator, electronics, LEDs, tea candles, steel chain

The otherwise closed pedestrian tunnel which leads to the castle Münster is open during Skulptur Projekte. Five candle powered LED chandeliers light up the dark concrete tunnel. Each chandeliers consists of ten LED tea candle reading lamps mounted on an aluminum ring. With help of the thermoelectric effect the
heat of the candles is converted directly into 3V electricity to power the LED lamps. The bright and cold LED light contrasts the warmth flickr of the classic candle. Twice a day (every five hours) the guard is replacing the burned down candles.

 5V

5 V
Material: Campfire, wood, steel, thermoelectric generator, cables, electronics

Skulptur Projekte visitors are invited to charge their phone at a bonfire at the Pumpenhaus Münster. In the tradition of backing bread on a stick (Germany) or holding a sausage over a camp fire these custom made charger sticks produce 5V electricity, enough to charge the common smart phone. With help of the thermoelectric effect the heat of the fire is directly converted into electricity. As long as the thermo generator attached to the top of the stick is exposed to the flames it generates power. The user can attach his/her phone to the stick which is equipped with multi plug charging cable. Visitors gather around the warmth fire, charge their phones and have a chat.

 12 V

12 V
Material: router, stove, thermoelectric generator, cable, electronics, software, database

A standard home router is hanging in a parasitical way right next to commercial mobile phone antennas from the Münster TV tower. Vistors are invited to connect to this router with their phones. The router serves no Internet connectino but offers a large database of PDF tutorials on ‘How to live an offline life’. A thermo generator sitting on a small camping stove next to the playground provides 12 volt electricity to power the router which is connected through a 70 meter long orange cable. While the Telekom maintains one of its threet large data centers right next to the TV tower the site specific installation 12V is totally independet from powerlines or Internet connection. User can download and also upload files. Their connection cannot be traced or monitored by 3rd parties on the Internet. In its retro appearance, as a building for long range TV broadcast before the Internet the tower becomes a historic sculpture in itself.

Picture set flickr.com/photos/bartholl/sets/72157684555214574/

Skulptur Projekte catalog text

Aram Bartholl (* 1972 Bremen; lives in Berlin) deals with the possibilities and effects of increasing digitalization in his role as an installation and performance artist. Since the early 2000s he has been actively involved in the production of a digital public sphere—anonymity, open source, and hacking are the key buzzwords of this fledgling Internet generation. In 2010, as part of the project Dead Drops, he showed how conventional USB drives can be cemented into walls as dead letterboxes, thus initiating an on-going international wave of similar interventions. The drives allow data to be exchanged in the urban space without being stored and evaluated by algorithms on the Internet. Although it is normal for large amounts of data to be stored and sent on the Internet and for USB drives to be passed from hand to hand on a private basis, by publicly installing them in an urban setting, he creates disturbing situations for people and—in light of what is already happening and what might happen on any given day—fuels people’s anxieties.

Bartholl’s installations in Münster are all based on thermoelectric devices that directly transform fire—the primeval medium of communication—into electrical energy. At the same time, the artist alludes to three construction projects that have played a key role in Münster’s urban development: the building of the palace (1767) and the canal-water pumping station (1901) and the installation of a DVB-T-antenna (2007) on top of the telecommunications tower. In the underground passageway leading to the palace square, Bartholl has hung up five chandeliers, each consisting of ten thermoelectric LED reading lamps powered by tea candles. In the event of an emergency they could serve to illuminate a shelter. At Münster’s Theater im Pumpenhaus, Bartholl has provided devices for charging mobile phones: visitors can hold sticks—equipped with generators—in a campfire to charge their phone batteries. On the playground at the base of the telecommunications tower Bartholl has set up a small stove, equipped with a thermoelectric generator that provides electricity to the router on the tower without using the Internet. Visitors can log into an offline database via Wi-Fi to download instructions for living without the Internet and upload their own files.

Bartholl’s playful and experimental work contributes to the demystification of technology. It prompts critical, self-determined, and independent interaction with the possibilities of digital networking and is based on an idea closely associated with technē: the arts are combined with craftsmanship, manual dexterity, and self-reflection.

Nicola Torke, Skulptur Projekte

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

INTERVIEW
Aram Bartholl with Vlado Velkov

V.V.: We can start the interview with the end. Your works in Münster are a kind of survival kit for post-apocalyptic conditions. Is this the new end: a day without internet?

For many people it’s a big drama if the internet goes down. Actually, it’s enough for the smartphone battery to get down to zero for panic to break out. We are dependent on devices and the internet to a great extend. If the internet were to completely go out for an extended period of time, all our infrastructure would collaps. What would it be like if there was no electricity and we had to charge our phones at a fire? Or we had to drive to a specific place in the city to get fresh data? Conditions like these are part of everyday life in other parts of the world.

V.V.: Post-digital art is frequently related to technical developments and their effects. But in your case, the focus is on people. What kind of encounters you except around the campfire?

How old are smartphones? It’s astonishing how natural it is for us to accept technological developments, along with all their side-effects, as the status quo. Social media change society and bring people closer, but they also estrange us. Charging a telephone at a campfire is an attempt to connect a very old, even archaic meeting place with our current world of communication. Work can activate devices, but, more importantly, it can reconnect people­ – not via an app, but through classic, direct contact. I expect exciting exchanges, new friendships, and much more.

V.V.:  You are one of the few artists who are consistently and actively exploring the digital shift in public spaces. What is the origin of this passion for public space?

My penchant for public space comes from my childhood in the 1970s, a politically dynamic period with manydemonstrations, parties on the streets, etc. Later I studied architecture and devoted a great deal of time to public space in all its complexity. For me, outdoor space offers much more in the way of emotions, stimuli, and possibilities than the classic white cube. Public space is always in motion; there are people, problems, the pulse of life. And I make an effort to to explore the evolution of public space through the interconnectivity and digitaliziation.

V.V.:  Is the internet a public space?

The internet isn’t a public space, even though we would like to believe it is. The news and social media platforms where we make our opinions known are 100 per cent private spaces belonging to publicly listed companies. We pay for our free use of these platforms with our data, which has been harvested by various nets and filters for some time now. My public space continues to be the city, with real people who need to prepare for all sorts of changes related to digitalization.

V.V.:  You displayed your first work of art at a Chaos Computer Club congress. Now you are an art professor, which people assume to be somewhat respectable, but you are now active in the team at the Hacker Congress. What attractions does this still have to offer?

I have been invited into a wide variety of contexts with my work. This crossover between art, internet, architecture, design, and technology has always influenced my work. I have been active at CCC events since the late 1990s, and have repeatedlyexperimented with new work and projects there. For me it is important to keep leaving behind art, reality, and the internet and question things from a new perspective.

V.V.:  Do you think it’s bold that the café where we are talking right now doesn’t have Wi-Fi?

It’s great! Nowadays there are many cafes that expressly advertise that they don’t have internet. It’s time to go offline

From the Skulptur Projekte Katalog 2017