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

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.

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?“

found on Invalidenstr. Berlin

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

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.