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

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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

An interview I gave during my visit at ‘Laboratoria Arte Alameda‘ in Mexico city last summer 2018.