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 Category: Uncategorized

La Grande Bibliotheque ferme

May 20, 2021

In 2015 I projected 10k leaked passwords on the national library Quebec as part of a public art show in Montreal. It’s 2021 and the library is closed because of a hacked database and leaked personal info etc … ¯\_ (ツ) _/¯

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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

#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.

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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?“

“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.

 

Modell und Ruine

May 9, 2019


‘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).

0,16 – Resolution

May 9, 2019



0,16 – Resolution

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.

SFMOMA: snap+share

March 23, 2019

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

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Interview – SMAC

February 4, 2019

Interview with Aram Bartholl

With a wry sense of humour and a lightness of touch, German artist Aram Bartholl subverts the symbols and functions of the internet to draw our attention to its darker side. Through his prolific output of installations and performances around the world – from the beaches of Thailand to the Strasbourg Biennale – Bartholl dissects the back end of new media, shedding light on the capitalist imperatives that have come to dominate and track our every click and tap. How can we navigate the current – and future – digital landscape without lapsing into disillusionment, or relinquishing our agency as internet users? Ahead of his upcoming show at SMAC in Berlin, where he lives and works, Bartholl shares his take on surveillance capitalism, selfie culture, and what to expect at his new exhibition [hint: there’s a disco ball.]

Interview: Anna Dorothea Ker

SMAC: Your work acknowledges the vast possibilities presented by the internet while altering us to the pitfalls of its ever more commercialised reality. What should we be most concerned about?
Aram: I would point to questions of privacy or personal data, as well as how platforms work. We need to acknowledge that Google and Facebook are purely advertising companies. There are a lot of concerns. One thing I’m thinking a lot about is how we can escape the current monopolisation of the internet. The web of the ‘90s was very vibrant and diverse. It started as a user-driven, non-commercial space. Over time, many companies and start-ups employed it to achieve their commercial goals, and today we have five or six huge companies, with whom no-one can compete. They probably need to be broken up at some point – this is likely to come from the US.

“We need to acknowledge that Google and Facebook are purely advertising companies

How would you characterise your own internet use?
Aram: I try to avoid the big players by using an Android phone without Google on it, for example, having my own NextCloud servers at home, by avoiding Dropbox, and not ordering on Amazon any more. I try to be conscious of where I leave my data. At the same time, I use Twitter and Instagram. Most of my online input comes via Twitter. I depend on it, though it frustrates me. There’s a recipe for each – on Twitter you have to be negative to attract attention, and on Instagram you have to be positive, and post beautiful pictures. It’s very convenient to use all these platforms, but to be conscious about things is more complicated. I feel as though there’s a certain sense of fatigue with social media at the moment. Many people I know feel caught in between – it’s hard to leave these platforms, but people don’t want to be on them any more.

“ I feel as though there’s a certain sense of fatigue with social media at the moment. Many people I know feel caught in between – it’s hard to leave these platforms, but people don’t want to be on them any more.

Your work often employs tools of surveillance, such as surveillance cameras, in subversion of their purpose. Can the master’s tools dismantle the master’s house in this regard?
Aram: A surveillance camera is a valuable symbol because it’s a tool everyone understands. It’s an eye, it takes a pictures, it sends that picture somewhere else. Today it’s usually algorithms that scan them to look for, say, unusual movements. But then there’s what happens in your browser – tracking with cookies, for example, which no-one really understands.

Most people have a sense of what’s going on, but don’t feel like they can do anything about it. So I like to take these tools and use them in other ways – to have people re-think, question them. In my installation [“Pan, Tilt and Zoom”] last year [2018] I placed the cameras on the floor of the gallery. They were motorised, equipped with a tracking system they roll over the floor and seem helpless. People had other kinds of interactions with them, and hopefully questioned their purpose.

Does the right to privacy exist anymore? Have we eroded it through our collective obsession with self-surveillance – take selfie culture, and oversharing on social media?
Aram: There are two things at play here. Yes, a lot of people willingly share information on where they are and what they’re doing, but at the same time there’s this mass-scale surveillance – not in terms of the kind of government surveillance that [Edward] Snowden revealed, but rather commercial surveillance. When you walk around with your phone with the wifi on, it projects all the wifi connections to wherever you’re going. Even supermarkets have wifi tracking systems to see how you pass through the market or and when you return. We are already aware of this on a certain level – for example, when you go into a mattress store and get served advertising from them the next day. But it’s very hard to understand how this works. That happens on a very technical level, which seems very abstract to us. This is something we should be concerned about, as it’s a wild west out there right now. Companies can basically do whatever they want. Of course, since May [2018] there’s the [European Union] General Data Protection Regulation which is a first step towards regulation, but much more regulation still needs to occur.

“… it’s a wild west out there right now. Companies can basically do whatever they want. Of course, since May [2018] there’s the [European Union] General Data Protection Regulation which is a first step towards regulation, but much more regulation still needs to occur.

What can visitors to SMAC expect to encounter your upcoming exhibition?
Aram: “True Depth” refers to Apple’s technology for the iPhone X, which has infrared cameras implemented within the front camera. Whenever you look at the phone, there’s a infrared light dot pattern projected onto your face. Through measuring the distribution of these dots on your face, the software can build an actual 3D model of it. This is how facial recognition works. It’s convenient – you can unlock your phone just by looking at it – but its inner workings are invisible. For the show I have this disco ball, which represents disco – this fun, pop-culture, “let’s party” attitude, freedom. Then I have these two cameras. One projects infrared light onto the disco ball in a typical way, so dots of light are dispersed over the room, but the viewer can’t see them. The disco’s happening, but we can’t take part. The work is related to this phone technology, but it also relates to the commercial party that’s going on around us, tracking us, extracting information. All without any of it being visible to our eyes. Elsewhere in the gallery there will be the infrared view of the CCTV camera being streamed on a screen, so you can see the dot patter and get the view from the other side.

Then we have the webcam privacy screen. I saw it online and liked it very much as a sculpture – this round screen which attaches to the back of a chair. These screens are made for being on a webcam in front of a neutral background. They’re advertised as being good for business, with a blue or green background allowing you to look more professional – and you can also key out the colour and replace it. I’m interested in the simultaneous acts of looking at a screen and filming yourself while hiding what’s behind you. The process is similar when it comes to selfie culture. You see this often in the street – young kids taking ten or twenty just to get the right one. It’s very deliberate. It all ties in to the presentation of the self in a digital space, and how we cut out the noise and the background of our lives in the way we film ourselves.

This theme was explored in your recent work for the 2018 Thai Biennale, “Perfect Beach”. What sparked the idea for this work?
Aram: People fly to Thailand to find the perfect tropical beach, ones which are advertised all around us but also embody our collective idea of paradise. The empty beach has always been a symbol for freedom. The performance at the Biennale involved two performers carrying a big screen featuring an image of an idyllic beach across an already perfect beach. I was interested in confronting tourists with the question of why they went there. Because, of course, it’s never empty when you get there. Many people wanted to stand in front of the beach screen and take a picture – we’re so programmed to do that. I was hoping that would happen, but was amazed by how well it worked. But of course there were also people who were annoyed by it [laughs].

“I’m interested in the simultaneous acts of looking at a screen and filming yourself while hiding what’s behind you. The process is similar when it comes to selfie culture.

You’re currently presenting three works at the first Strasbourg Biennale, the theme of which is “being a citizen in the digital age”. What can visitors expect to experience when viewing your art there?
Aram: One work is part of the series “Are You Human?”, which is all about captcha codes. These used to be a string of characters we had to type in to prove that we’re human, but today all this has been replaced by the Google reCAPTCHA test. It has the same function, but we have to select these images, like ‘select all the cars’ you can see in the picture. On one hand, the purpose of this is to train Google’s self-driving cars, and on the other, to prove we’re human. The installation consists of this big code on the floor with twisted characters made from steel, and the reCAPTCHA prints on the wall. I’ve swapped in pictures of European borders and spam advertising text to remix this whole idea of reCAPTCHA, while drawing attention to the issue of borders, access to space and digital services.

2018 saw a slow – and far overdue – global public awakening to the risks and dangers of social media, largely due to a series of hacks and privacy scandals. What will this lead to in 2019?
Aram: Next step would be to get out of our current situation of a monopolised internet, and to take back control over our own lives. To decide what we want to do with our data. On one hand, there are policy questions, then there’s public awareness, but there’s a lot more that needs to happen on that front. The recent [January 2019] data leak that affected German politicians and celebrities invoked a paranoid press reaction. Which is perhaps good – for people to realise that we’re vulnerable. Once your information is out there, you can’t get it back. What we’re seeing now, with the links between populism and social media, makes it very easy to feel dystopian about these questions. But let’s try and stay positive. We need smart people to sit down and craft new plans that will allow us to use technology in ways that will help us, not just make a lot of money for a few.

“What we’re seeing now, with the links between populism and social media, makes it very easy to feel dystopian about these questions. But let’s try and stay positive.

Interview: Anna Dorothea Ker
Photos: Pamina Aichhorn

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True Depth

January 15, 2019

True Depth — Aram Bartholl
Solo show at SMAC Berlin

Opening event: 24.01.2019 | 19h
Duration: 25.01 – 10.03.2019
Opening Hours: Friday – Sunday, 13h – 19h

For his upcoming solo show True Depth at SMAC Aram Bartholl creates a new set of works discussing the changing circumstances of personal space in today’s screen based, app connected world. While the smartphone introduced new ways of very intimate communication, Internet advertising companies monetize in large scale on these interactions. Traveling alone in public space became the perfect situation for personal interaction on small screens. “Don’t sit next to me on the bus. I am watching gay porn.” (quote Twitter). While out with friends the restaurant bathroom turns into a place to check the phone instead of actually going there to relieve one self. Post social spaces.
The title True Depth refers to the latest iPhone camera 3D scanning technology to improve face recognition. Invisible infrared patterns questions the personal space between eyes and screen. “Where are you?”

Security Personal Information Protection High Strength Spring Anchor Collapsible

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