Upcoming

The Sea Is Glowing

24. April – 12. July 2020
Group Show, Exportdrvo, Rijeka

An international group exhibition which deals with the invisible economics linked to the sea. With their works, world-respected artists deal with unusual and radical phenomena, from strange online shops to the empires of amateur pornography and other golden coasts.

In the geographical sense, Europe is a maritime continent: considering the ratio of the length of the coast to the total land surface, Europe has more contact with the sea than any other continent. For Rijeka, the port, as well as the sea, is not only a place of loading and unloading or the arrivals and departures of boats. The port is the heart of the city and symbolically important for the identity of the city. This is why the sea, i.e. new forms of work and economy which are connected to the sea, is extremely important for both Rijeka and Europe.

The Sea is Glowing exhibition focuses primarily on new invisible economies that are inextricably linked to the sea, such as the exploration of oil and ores in the depths of the sea, the establishment of offshore tax havens on the coasts and the launch of libertarian start-ups in self-sufficient colonies which float in international waters. All of the mentioned activities are part of the new economies which include new forms of work (such as care and welfare) or new forms of capital circulation (such as free ports). Considering the (occasional) specificity of their tax models, port cities such as Rijeka are very important for such types of economies. The exhibition brings together the works of artists who investigate unusual Amazon shops, the increasingly present outsourcing of healthcare, “the black chimneys” and deep-sea mining, the hidden offshore havens, the dark empires of amateur pornography and other golden coasts.

The curator of the exhibition is Inke Arns (DE), famous for her work in media art. She is the artistic director of the Dortmund Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) organisation and the curator of numerous international exhibitions that have been shown around Europe and the world – from Berlin, Glasgow and Warsaw, from Ljubljana and Nova Sad, all the way to Moscow, Tel Aviv and Hong Kong.

A Ripple in the Data Flow

16. – 29. April 2020
Group Show, Pfizer Building, New York

Location: Pfizer Building, 630 Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11206
Opening reception: Thursday, April 16, 2020, from 7-9 pm

The exhibition proposes a series of questions that happen all the time and is ignored by most people under this Internet era and the age of global connectivity. What kind of self-awareness and mindset do users have when they are actively, passively, and indirectly accessing and using data? Do users control this information intake and output in a completely rational way, or do they naively browse a large amount of information without being aware of the invasion of data? Are they or even infatuated with the network world, of all and with the many kinds of information, to bring pleasure, convenience, and fantasy it offers?

Curated by Xinchen Du

Artists: Aram Bartholl, Xingyang Cai, Gregory Edwards, Huang Guaier + Wang Runzhong, Xiang Geng, Tao Hui, Marc Lee, Molly Soda, Ziyang wu, Esther Xu, Payne Zhu, and more TBA

Current

On entering a living being. From Social Sculpture to Platform Capitalism

27. March – 24. May 2020
Group Show, Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin

Eintritt in ein Lebewesen. Von der Sozialen Skulptur zum Plattformkapitalismus
On entering a living being. From Social Sculpture to Platform Capitalism

When Joseph Beuys coined the phrase of the “social sculpture” in the 1970s, he was not aware of the development of the internet at the same time. However, in interviews and lectures he frequently hints at the possibility of a new kind of medium, that would allow the audience to participate and that could serve as a plattform for political debate and action.

With the international proliferation of the internet and the possibility of communication and cooperation that it has delivered, it is timely to compare its promise with the utopian ideas of Joseph Beuys. Has the net enabled new forms of collective creativity? Or does it serve as a means to turn this
“general intellect” (K. Marx) into raw material that companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter et al use to make a profit?

The exhibition with works by approximately 38 artists reflects the methods by which companies such as YouTube, Google, Fiverr or Amazon Mechanical Turk have made the exploitation of the creativity of their users into a business model. About half of the works were created in response to the current
“platform capitalism”. A selection of older works traces the idea of “collective creativity” back to original emancipatory ideas from the early days of the Internet such as “crowd sourcing” and finally to Joseph Beuys’ “social sculpture”.

Over the last decade, a number of companies have made a business model out of offering plattforms for the sale of creative work on the web as online services or “microjobs”. Through providers such as Amazon Mechanical Turk or Fiverr, creative services such as texts, designs, videos or apps can be commissioned for prices that are often far below the fee that a professional designer would charge. In many ways, the artistic works that were once thought of as “crowd sourcing art” – a genre that has its own Wikipedia entry by now – today seem like naive anticipations of these exploitative practices,
which in turn have also been reflected by artists in recent years.

The exhibition brings together works that comment on and criticize the “gig economy” that has emerged, and by juxtaposing them with works from the nineties and noughties, places them in a historical context that ultimately dates back to Joseph Beuys’ “social sculpture” – some of the artists involved even explicitly referenced Beuys and his slogan: “Everyone is an artist.” The exhibition will be accompanied by events that address the model of “platform capitalism” in the cultural sphere in discussions, video presentations and lectures.

Participating artists:
Cory Arcangel, Joseph Beuys, Aram Bartholl, Natalie Bookchin, Irene Chabr, James Coupe, Andy Deck, Constant Dullaart, Mark Flood, John D. Freyer, Aaron Koblin & Daniel Massey, Steffen Köhn, JODI, Miranda July & Harrell Fletcher, Olia Lialina, Jonas Lund, Judy Malloy, Michael Mandiberg, Neozoon, OMSK Social Club, Nam June Paik, Mark Salvatus, Sebastian Schmieg & Silvio Lorusso, Ralph Schulz, Guido Segni, Johannes StÜttgen, Alex Tew, Amalia Ulman, Van Gogh TV

Curated by Tilman Baumgärtel, Hochschule Mainz

The Supermarket Of Images

11. February – 7. June 2020
Group Show, Jeu de Paume, Paris

We live in a world that is increasingly saturated with images. Their number is growing so exponentially – each day more than three billion images are shared on social networks – that the space of visibility seems to be literally inundated. As if it can no longer contain the images that constitute it. As if there were no more room, no more interstices between the images. This brings us closer to the point that Walter Benjamin imagined, almost a hundred years ago now, as “the one hundred percent image space”. Faced with such an overproduction of images, questions need to be asked, more than ever before, about their storage, management, transportation (even if it is electronic) and the paths they follow, their weight, the fluidity or viscosity of their exchanges, their fluctuating values – in short, questions about their economy.

In the book from which this exhibition is derived1, the economic aspect of the life of images is called iconomy. 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 the economy in general, whether in terms of unprecedentedly large storage spaces, the scarcity of raw materials, labour and its mutations into intangible forms, or in terms of value and its new manifestations, such as cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, however, these works also question what happens to visibility in the age of globalized iconomies: caught up in an incessant circulation, the image – any image – appears increasingly like a freeze frame (arrêt sur image), that is as a temporary crystallization, as the provisionally stabilized balance of the speeds that constitute it.

In the supermarket on display here, images of the economy always involve the economy of the image. And vice versa, as if they were the recto and verso of the same page.

Particiapting artists:
Kevin Abosch, Aram Bartholl, Taysir Batniji, Samuel Bianchini, Robert Bresson, Sophie Calle, Maurizio Cattelan, Emma Charles, Chia Chuyia, Minerva Cuevas, DISNOVATION.ORG, Antje Ehmann, Sergueï Eisenstein, Max de Esteban, Harun Farocki, Sylvie Fleury, Beatrice Gibson, Máximo González, Jeff Guess, Andreas Gursky, Li Hao, Femke Herregraven, Lauren Huret, Geraldine Juárez, William Kentridge, Yves Klein, Martin Le Chevallier, Zoe Leonard, Auguste et Louis, Lumière, Kazimir Malévitch, Elena Modorati, László Moholy-Nagy, Andreï Molodkin, Ana Vitória Mussi, Trevor Paglen, Julien Prévieux, Wilfredo Prieto, Rosângela Rennó, Hans Richter, Martha Rosler, Evan Roth, Thomas Ruff, RYBN.ORG, Richard Serra, Hito Steyerl, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ben Thorp Brown, Victor Vasarely, Pierre Weiss

Curated by
Peter Szendy, Emmanuel Alloa and Marta Ponsa
Exhibition organised by the Jeu de Paume

Recent

Die kleine Intervention: Weniger Spektakel, mehr Wirkung?

13. February 2020
Performance, Brecht-Haus, Berlin

Die kleine Intervention: Weniger Spektakel, mehr Wirkung?
Mit Aram Bartholl und Helgard Haug (Rimini Protokoll)
Moderation Cornelius Puschke

Veranstaltungsort: Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus
Einlass: ab 18:30 Uhr

Anhand von Aram Bartholls »Dead Drops« (mit Live-Installation!) und Projekten von Rimini Protokoll geht es um die Frage, ob kleine, unauffälligere Aktionsformen letztlich wirksamer sind als skandalöse Groß-Interventionen.

Co Talk

11. February 2020
Talk, Co Gallery, Paris

Artist talk at Co Gallery, Paris.

8 pm, Feb 11th 2020

co.galerie
8 rue de Douai
Pigalle
75009 Paris

Museumsnacht Basel

17. – 18. January 2020
Group Show, HeK - Haus der elektronischen Künste, Basel

Museumsnacht “Fashion & Selfie”
Veranstaltung/Führung, Installation, Workshop

17.01.2020, 18:00-02:00

Am HeK erwartet das Museumsnacht-Publikum eine zukunftsweisende Ausstellung zu Mode und Technologie mit dem Titel “Making FASHION Sense”, eine riesige Selfie-Installation, eine verführerische interaktive Porträtmaschine und ein Workshop für modische Accessoires.

18.00-02.00

Die Ausstellung Making FASHION Sense widmet sich dem Thema Mode und Technologie und zeigt intelligente Kleidung, die auf die Umwelt reagiert, und aktuelle ökologische Trends im Bereich der Modeindustrie.

18.00-02.00

Die Partizipative Installation Point Of View von Aram Bartholl lädt die Besucher ein in den riesige Handyskulpturen Selfies zu machen.

18.00-02.00

Bei der interaktiven Installation LIMINAL von Louis-Philippe Rondeau kannst Du ein Zeitporträt von Dir erstellen.

18.00-01.00 (DE/FR/EN)

Walk-in Workshop Smarte Fingerhandschuhe

Im Workshop kannst Du deine Handschuhe mit leitfähigem Garn besticken, damit Du auch im Winter mit wollig warmen Händen „swipen“ kannst.

18.30, 20.30 und 22.30 (DE/FR)

Kurzführungen durch die Ausstellung

Führungen in Deutsch und Französisch / Visites guidées en allemand et en français

19.00 und 21.00 (DE/EN)

Kuratorenführungen mit Sabine Himmelsbach und Katharina Sand

Link in bio

17. December 2019 – 14. March 2020
Group Show, MdbK, Leipzig

Opening 16.12. 6pm

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.

← Archive

Blog

Face the Face – Rundgang

February 19, 2020

Student works of the class “Face the Face” on view at Rundgang Armgartstrasse, HAW Hamburg, Jan 29th – Feb 1st 2020

WiSe 2019/20 Bachelor
Kunst mit Schwerpunkt digitale Medien
Prof. ARAM BARTHOL

Das Gesicht steht im Zentrum der menschlichen Kommunikation, emotionale Ausdrücke und Grimassen finden weltweite universell übereinstimmung. Menschen sind von Natur aus darauf trainiert Gesichter besonders gut zu erkennen und sie zu erinnern. Mit einer Masken das Gesicht zu verdecken, sich unkenntlich zu machen oder in eine andere Rolle zu schlüpfen entspricht einer uralten Tradition menschlicher Kultur. Das Portrait, früher nur den Reichen als Gemälde vorbehalten wurde durch die Photographie ein Allgemeingut.

In Zeiten digitaler Kommunikation hat sich die Rolle des Gesichts und dessen Abbild noch einmal besonders verstärkt. Heute tragen fast alle Menschen ein Kamera-Smartphone mit sich herum. Soziale Netzwerke und das allgegenwärtige Selfie transferiert das ‚Ich‘ auf eine weitere Stufe der digitalen Abstraktion. Virtuelle Masken, Facetune Überbeauty und endlose Social Feeds ermöglichen ganz neue Perspektiven bei der Formung des eigenen Körpers als digitales alter Ego. Andererseits Spielt die automatisierte Erkennung von Gesichtern durch Computer und Software eine immer stärkere Rolle. Angefangen bei der Unlock-Funktion im Telefon, oder automatischer Erkennung von Freunden im Fotoalbum bis hin zu riesigen Datenbanken der Internetunternehmen und staatlichen Organe sind Fotos von Gesichtern und deren Zuordnung zu Identitäten nicht mehr wegzudenken. Zunehmende Kontrolle und Gesichtserkennung im Öffentlichen Raum sind hierbei aktuell wichtige Themen in der öffentlichen Diskussion.

Die Studierenden des Kurses Face The Face haben sich mit all diesen Themen und Fragen detailliert auseinandergesetzt. Es sind unterschiedlichste Projekte in Form von Videos, Animationen, Facefilter aber auch Skulpturen, Performance, Texte oder Photographien entstanden.

All pictures -> https://www.flickr.com/photos/bartholl/albums/72157713172070588

Tagged with: + + + + + +

#BrechtDrop

February 16, 2020

As part of a discussion panel at the Brecht Haus Berlin last thursday I made a Dead Drop in the entrance hallway. Come by visit the house and drop some files!

Die kleine Intervention: Weniger Spektakel, mehr Wirkung?

Do 13.02.19:30
Installation und Gespräch
Brecht-Tage 2020, Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus

Mit Aram Bartholl und Helgard Haug (Rimini Protokoll)
Moderation Cornelius Puschke

Anhand von Aram Bartholls „Dead Drops“ (mit Live-Installation) und Projekten von Rimini Protokoll geht es um die Frage, ob die kleine, unauffällige oder parasitäre Aktionsform wirksamer ist als die skandalösen Groß-Interventionen, die ebenso schnell wieder verschwinden wie sie erschienen sind.

Tagged with: +

Wearable Dazzle – Gesichtserkennung abgeschminkt

February 14, 2020

Wearable accessories to oppose automated face recognition developed by design students of HAW Hamburg, winter semester 19/20 “Face The Face” class. ( based on Adam Harveys CV Dazzle project)

All pictures –> flickr.com/photos/bartholl/albums/72157713103071956

Radio Show:

Discussion with Anna Biseli (netzpolitik.org) at DLF radio show Kompressor about face recognition and surveillance, featuring student works of HAW Hamburg. Full article and show to listen to at –>

https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/kompressor-deluxe-gesichtserkennung-abgeschminkt

„Das Interessante an Gesichtserkennung ist, oder auch das Spannende daran, zu kommunizieren, was Überwachung heißt, das verstehen alle“, sagt Bartholl. „Bei all diesen Projekten, die sich auf kreative Weise damit beschäftigen, ist das Wichtigste, dass dadurch eine Öffentlichkeit und eine Wahrnehmung stattfindet, dass diese Themen total wichtig sind. Es geht darum, die Diskussion am Laufen zu halten und zu überlegen als Gesellschaft: Wollen wir das oder wollen wir das nicht?“

Tagged with: + + + + +

Best Friends Forever

January 11, 2020

found on Invalidenstr. Berlin

Why Berlin, Why? ;)

January 7, 2020

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-berlin-artists-transforming-trash-sculpture

Tagged with:

Der große Bruder des “Cybertrucks”

November 24, 2019

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

Tagged with: +

“Open” solo at Roehrs & Boetsch

September 22, 2019

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.

 

Tagged with: + + + + + + + + + +

Näh mir ein Funkloch

September 9, 2019

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)

Tagged with:

Strike Now!!

September 4, 2019

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.

Speed Show: FACE THE FACE

July 2, 2019

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.

Tagged with:
Archive