Current Events

Singularity

4. October – 15. December 2024
Group Show, C-Lab - Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab, Taipei

2024 Future Media FEST-Singularity Embracing the Dawn of the Singularity

In the heart of the 21st century’s digital revolution, technological advancements are reshaping human existence—our lifestyles, thought processes, and societal structures. Underpinning this transformation is the captivating concept of the Singularity, a theory both alluring and profound.

The Technological Singularity, as envisioned by mathematician and computer scientist Vernor Vinge in 1993, designates a pivotal moment when machine intelligence eclipses human intellect. This event is predicted to trigger an exponential surge in technological progress, irrevocably altering the trajectory of civilization. The academic community further understands the Singularity as an inflection point where artificial intelligence reaches a certain threshold, catalyzing a cascade of technological disruptions and an “intelligence explosion.”

High Resolution

28. September – 19. October 2024
Group Show, Postmaster 5.0 & TRANSFER gallery, New York

Postmasters 5.0 and TRANSFER
are excited to present a collaborative exhibition

It’s high time for High Resolution.

As the much needed antidote to a week of overwhelmingly static art at the fairs and the season opener shows, Postmasters 5.0 and TRANSFER will present a large-scale collaborative exhibition of digital art.

High Resolution will include several classics by pioneers of time-based media art shown along the hot-from-the-studio works by the new generation of digital artists. This high resolution, high energy, high bar exhibition will center around current ideas and technologies befitting 2024 and looking forward.

Tamas Banovich and Magda Sawon of Postmasters 5.0 and Kelani Nichole of TRANSFER are veterans who do not think like veterans.

with:

GRETCHEN ANDREW
VUK ĆOSIĆ
DAMJANSKI
CARLA GANNIS
HUNTREZZ JANOS
MARTA KUCSORA
LOVID
JENNIFER & KEVIN McCOY
ROSA MENKMAN
LORNA MILLS
EVA PAPAMARGARITI
FRANK WANG YEFENG

special appearance
ARAM BARTHOLL

Grand Snail Tour

26. September 2024 – 29. August 2025
Group Show, Urbane Künste Ruhr, Xanten Ruhrgebiet

What is the Ruhr area? An exciting metropolitan region centred around the major cities of Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg? Or a collection of scattered towns and villages from Alpen to Xanten? Or both? Does it consist of tranquil river landscapes along the Ruhr, Emscher and Lippe or is it hopelessly damaged by the scars of heavy industry? Ruhrpott, example of transformation, poverty zone – how can art open up, change and enrich this diverse region?

Urbane Künste Ruhr wants to find out and is launching the Grand Snail Tour in autumn, an artistic-performative journey through all 53 cities in the Ruhr region. Because this is an ambitious endeavour and Urbane Künste Ruhr has set itself the goal of getting to know local players, forming bonds and establishing sustainable networks, this is a three-year project.

Kick-off Grand Snail Tour in Xanten
Urbane Künste Ruhr is launching the Grand Snail Tour in autumn, an artistic-performative journey through all 53 cities in the Ruhr area. The kick-off event will take place on 26.9. in Xanten.

Urban Art Biennale

26. April – 10. November 2024
Biennial, Völklinger Hüttte, Saarbrücken

Staged at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Völklingen Ironworks, the Urban Art Biennale is one of the world’s largest exhibitions of this anarchic form of art. Departing from a conventional white cube aesthetic, the entire site of the Völklingen Ironworks is given over to a fruitful dialogue with an art form that has evolved from street art or graffiti. Established in 2011, the 2024 edition will focus on participatory urban art projects as well as political works in situ.

The World In My Hand

18. April – 31. October 2024
Group Show, Alexanser Tutsek-Stiftung, München

The World in My Hand explores the smartphone as both object and aesthetic inspiration for artistic creation. It comments on public debates surrounding the many uses of smartphones: from always-on media consumption to digital detox, from swiping and matching to ghosting and blocking, from language atrophy to information overload, from resource depletion to status symbol.

The curators, Dr Jörg Garbrecht and Katharina Wenkler, have chosen a narrative approach to the exhibition. In eight chapters, they summarize various aspects and debates surrounding the smartphone, ranging from the launch date of our daily digital companion to its characteristic touchscreen and the contractions of time and space it enables. Deeply personal moments – such as Ai Weiwei’s selfie at the moment of his arrest or Sergey Melnitchenko’s photograph of his son during a blackout in Kyiv – appear alongside themes of perception and presentation of the self, as realized in the glass sculpture Stability by Julija Pociūtė. Other subjects include: looking for love online, as in Ariane Forkel’s Casanova’s Kabinett or John Yuyi’s Tinder Match; the complexities and pitfalls of digital communication, for example in the works of James Akers or Alejandra Seeber; and the smartphone as a means of staying in touch during pandemic lockdown isolation, for instance in the work of George McLeod. Edward Burtynsky’s photograph of lithium mines in the Atacama Desert calls attention to the topic of raw materials for electronic devices.

With works by:
Tornike Abuladze, James Akers, Ai Weiwei, Kate Baker, Aram Bartholl, Tillie Burden, Edward Burtynsky, Yvon Chabrowski, Julia Chamberlain, Rachel Daeng Ngalle, Erwin Eisch, Ariane Forkel, Shige Fujishiro, Valentin Goppel, David Horvitz, Artem Humilevskyi, Gudrun Kemsa, Zsuzsanna Kóródi, Brigitte Kowanz, George McLeod, Sergey Melnitchenko, Jonas Noël Niedermann, Julian Opie, Cornelia Parker, Katie Paterson mit Zeller & Moye, Julija Pociūtė, Rebecca Ruchti, Karin Sander, Jeffrey Sarmiento, Alejandra Seeber, JanHein van Stiphout, Jolita Vaitkute, Sascha Weidner, John Yuyi, Jeff Zimmer

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Upcoming Events

Catalog release: “Ihr Paket ist abholbereit”

16. November 2024
Talk, Kunsthalle Onsabrück, Osnabrück

Liebe auf den ersten Blick

26. October – 3. December 2024
Group Show, Springhornhof, Neuenkirchen

Die Stiftung Springhornhof wurde gegründet, um das Lebenswerk der 1998 verstorbenen Ruth Falazik weiterzuführen. Als Galeristin hat sie bereits in den 1960er Jahren aus dem historischen Spring­ hornhof einen Ort für zeitgenössische Kunst ge­ macht. Als spätere Kunstvereinsleiterin gelang es ihr, namhafte internationale Künstlerinnen und Künstler in das Heidedorf zu locken, um neue Werke im Dialog mit Natur und Landschaft zu entwickeln.

Die obere Etage gehört den Künstlerinnen und Künstlern des Ensembles von mittlerweile mehr als vierzig frei zugänglichen Skulpturen und Installa­ tionen, das vom Springhornhof stetig weiter ent­ wickelt wird. Großzügig haben sie Fotografien, Skulpturen und Objekte für den Verkauf zugunsten der Arbeit der Stiftung zur Verfügung gestellt. Die Schau führt eindrucksvoll vor Augen, welche Band­ breite künstlerischer Positionen die Neuenkirchener „Kunst­Landschaft“ mittlerweile umfasst:

Elmgreen & Dragset, Rupprecht Matthies, HAWOLI, Gabriela Albergaría, Hartmut Stielow, Mutter/Genth, Martin Reichmann, Kaori Tomita, Verena Issel, Aram Bartholl, Ulrich Eller, Harald Finke, Stefan Kern, Micha Ullman, Rolf Jörres, Timm Ulrichs, Christiane Möbus, Volker Lang, Carl Vetter, Anna Guðjónsdóttir, Will Beckers, Gisela von Bruchhausen und viele mehr.

Recent Events

50 für Bad Berlin

11. – 15. September 2024
Group Show, Bauakademie Berlin, Berlin

For Berlin Art Week, the non-profit organisation Flussbad Berlin will be presenting the exhibition and auction “50 Für Bad Berlin” in the Red Salon of the Bauakademie. Fluss Bad Berlin is a civil society initiative for urban development committed to making swimming possible in the Spree Canal and, in the long run, in other sections of the Berlin Spree.

“50 Für Bad Berlin” will present works by mostly Berlin-based artists and architects who show solidarity with the objectives of the Fluss Bad Berlin project and the team behind it. They advocate a sustainable development of Berlin for the common good. They oppose the tendency to restrict for ideological reasons the debate on the future of the city (centre) to the historicising reconstruction of the Berlin of the early 20th century and the attempt to appropriate “art and culture” for that purpose. They want to emphasise instead that art and culture are closely linked to development initiatives such as Fluss Bad Berlin, which promote a more social, ecological, sustainable, and futureproof urban development.

While the works on display cover a wide range of types and techniques, they all relate to themes the Fluss Bad project addresses: for instance, in their interpretation of the essential significance of water for our world and for life, and the diverse relationships between humans and the element. They analyse the sensory, political and technical significance of water as a cultural asset, and the meaning of a free and equal access to it. They remind us that the river belongs to the city, that everyday culture belongs to high culture, and that the city is shaped by social values, which –at the same time– it is capable to mediate.

All of the pieces shown at the “50 Für Bad Berlin” exhibition will be auctioned on September 12.

List of participating artists:
Rosa Barba, Barkow Leibinger, Aram Bartholl, John Bock, Stefanie Bürkle, Thomas Demand, Oswald Egger, Olafur Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Estudio Herreros, Nina Fischer & Maroan El Sani, Simon Fujiwara, Filomeno Fusco & Victor Kégli, Graft, Katharina Grosse, Esra Gülmen, Asmund Hansteen-Mikkelsen, Annette Hauschild, Heide von Beckerath Alberts, Robert Hermann, Katharina Hinsberg, Moon Hoon, Bjarke Ingels, Inges Idee, Christian Jankowski, Peter K. Koch, Annette Kisling, Mischa Kuball, Götz Lemberg, Susanne Lorenz, Regula Lüscher, Maciej Markowicz, Maix Mayer, Jürgen Mayer H, Bjørn Mehlhus, Fernando Menis, Christian Möller, Olaf Nicolai, Lewis Pugh, Raumlabor, realities:united, Anselm Reyle, Shirin Sabahi, Michael Sailstorfer, Karin Sander, Tomás Saraceno, Sauerbruch Hutton, Erik Schmidt, Something Fantastic, Carlo Stanga, Wolfgang Tillmans, Clement Valla x Certain Measures, Michael Wesely, Haegue Yang, Tobias Zielony

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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.

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.

Blog Archive for Tag: podcast

Crossing Property Lines

July 18, 2020

Prof. Agnes Förster and Martin Bangratz from Urban planing RWTH Aachen invited me to their podcast series “Whats Next“. Below their article accompanying the conversation in German. Thx!!

 https://www.planung-neu-denken.de/podcasts/crossing-property-lines/

Crossing Property Lines

The relatively soft lockdown in Germany has forced innovation on many firms and schools, revealing the country’s shortcomings in the area of digital transformation, such as broadband access. While some of Aram Bartholl’s friends in the arts and programming scene notice hardly any difference in their routines, other, less digitalized professions have been hit hard. For Mr. Bartholl himself, teaching online has turned out to be a challenge. But what struck him most was the temporary absence of urban public space as a platform for expression. It feels liberating to see large demonstrations back in the city, both for noble and questionable causes.

Aram Bartholl’s work has dealt with digital space since his thesis in architectural studies in 2001. Back then he started with simple interventions – taking boxes from computer games and placing them in the city. He was looking at games such as first-person shooters, where the knowledge of a virtual space is crucial to the gameplay. And he found himself wondering: what does it mean to place objects from a digital realm into physical space? Do the spaces merge, or do they still belong to separate worlds?

This dualism of what is analogue and what is digital is so intertwined these days, that we are unable to distinguish one from the other. […] Of course, everything that happens there is real, it has an effect on our lives. Aram Bartholl 06/2020

A number of techno-social upheavals of our lifetime have influenced Bartholl’s work, as he observes the permeation of digital technology. The first disillusionment around 2000, when the dotcom bubble burst, the introduction of smartphones in 2007, the rise of global Internet corporations. Aram Bartholl has followed these trends closely and is still astonished by the dynamics of these tools which are so inscribed in our society; a tweet by the American president may cause immediate reactions in the stock market or foreign relations. The effects of technological developments are also becoming increasingly manifest in our cities. An early example were delivery services that visibly affect urban logistics and business closures. More recently, electric scooters and bicycles have turned up in cities worldwide – demanding our attention with a colorful design reminiscent of animated icons back in a web 2.0 era. They are objects that seem to bring the promise of a trendy internet startup into urban space, Silicon Valley Solutionism arriving in cities around the globe. Unsurprisingly, their promise of a shift towards sustainable mobility has yet to occur, as that would require political guidance and many other factors to align.

Urban space has always been a native ground for Bartholl’s work. To him, it is more exciting than the white cube with its preconceived notions and expectations about art. Outside, the audience is random and may start a discourse that would never happen in a controlled artistic environment. To encourage people to think critically about the relationship of private property and public space, Aram Bartholl recently took rental bikes from the street to exhibit them as sculptures in a gallery. Visitors were still free to rent the bikes and take them back outside, but the project challenged people’s notions of ownership, of public and private space. In a follow-up project, Bartholl is fishing algae-covered electric scooters out of Berlin’s channels to display at Kunstraum Kreuzberg, showing once again that their promise of sustainability doesn’t hold water.

We are currently experiencing social media and the internet profoundly as a public space for discussion – in contrast to urban space – even though these platforms are run by private firms, with all the problems this entails. Aram Bartholl 06/2020

Just as private objects start to clog up public space, the digital space we perceive as public space is in fact in the hands of private corporations. Inoffensive mottos and ludic logotypes suggest harmlessness, but these firms are ultimately listed and profit-oriented. This seems problematic considering the history of privatization of other public infrastructures. Europe is hard-pressed to develop independent digital infrastructures.

In 2010, Aram Bartholl began a project that has since turned into a global movement: Dead Drops are flash drives embedded in a wall so that only the USB connector sticks out. Not connected to the internet, they constitute a statement against censorship and about the relationship between our new, digital reality, and the brick and mortar of cities. New Dead Drops still pop up, over 2.500 are currently listed globally [link: deaddrops.com]. Sharing things digitally through concepts such as open source and creative commons has led to unprecedented levels of collective production and consumption of content. Movements such as Fridays For Future or Black Lives Matter would not have been possible without the viral effects of social networks. In another recent example, the German hacker and programming community has pushed the government to adopt an open-source approach to their COVID19 tracking app.

Data should be free, Bartholl agrees, yet he urges us to consider what could happen with our data in the future. If research institutions are using photos found online to train artificial intelligence models that may ultimately be used for military purposes, it raises questions about the merit of uploading billions of images each day. And movements such as the alt-right have been quick to adopt internet and meme culture and learned to improve their own false-flag tactics.

Aram Bartholl continues his investigation of technology and space. Given the current discussion around the removal of outmoded monuments, he tinkers with augmented reality to attach digital artefacts to sculptures. And, referencing the hashtag #natureishealing, he announces that he will be fishing for more discarded bicycles in the river Spree.

Aram Bartholl is a Berlin based concept artist who investigates the relationship between digital and physical space. Since 2019, Bartholl teaches art with a focus on digital media as a professor at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.

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Radio Spätkauf: Interview

June 29, 2020

This mini episode features Daniel Stern interviewing artist Aram Barthall about his recent installation “Unlock Life” which utilizes remnants of the recent bike share boom.

Find out more about at Aram Bartholl at https://arambartholl.com and see the exhibit until the 16th of August at https://www.kunstraumkreuzberg.de.

http://www.radiospaetkauf.com/2020/06/rs-mini-unlock-life/

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Post-Digital Self. Die Kunst der modernen Maskerade

April 27, 2020


MdbK Podcast #019: LINK IN BIO, 27.4.2020

Wie werden heute im digitalen Alltag die Frage & Veränderung des Gesichtes, Gesichtserkennung und Facefilter diskutiert?
In der letzten MdbK [talk]-Folge zur Ausstellung LINK IN BIO, sprechen wir mit Aram Bartholl, Hanneke Klaver und Jeremy Bailey über „Post-Digital Self. Die Kunst der modernen Maskerade“. War die Maske seit der Ur- und Frühgeschichte ein fassbares Objekt, verschwimmen mittels digitaler Technologien die Grenzen zwischen Maske und Gesicht. Der deutsche Medienkünstler Bartholl kuratierte gemeinsam mit Anika Meier die „Speed Show“ zum Thema Post-Digital Self, in der die Geschichte der Netzkunst erzählt wird. In einem Internetcafe klickte man sich so durch Arbeiten von NetzkünstlerInnen, wie Jeremy Bailey und Hanneke Klaver, die Identitätsbildung reflektieren und auf den Gesichtsfiltertrend reagieren.

SHOWNOTES
Einleitung 0:00 (Deutsch)
Aram Bartholl 2:43 (Deutsch)
Hanneke Klaver 13:00 (English)
Jeremy Bailey 20:00 (English)
Schluss 26:21 (Deutsch)

Der Kanadier Jeremy Bailey hat in seinem Video „The Future of Television“ (2012) den digitalen Gesichtsfiltertrend gewissermaßen vorhergesehen. Er arbeitet mit einer Gesichtserkennungssoftware. Die Zukunft des Fernsehens ist für Bailey im Jahr 2012, was heute die sozialen Medien sind: Orte der Identitätsbildung.

Die Serie #freetheexpression der niederländischen Künstlerin Hanneke Klaver ist eine Reaktion auf den Gesichtsfiltertrend. Mit Strohalmen, Metalldraht, Holz, Papier und Kleber stellt Klaver analog Filter her, die sie wie Bastelbögen verteilt. Mit ihren nicht standardisierten Gesichtsfiltern befürwortet sie die freie Meinungsäußerung.

Der deutsche Medienkünstler Aram Bartholl entwickelte im Jahr 2010 ein Ausstellungsformat, das aus einem Internet Café für einen Abend einen Ausstellungsraum macht. Im Rahmen der „Speed Show“ ist auf diesen Computern Netzkunst zu sehen. Kunst, die das Internet als Medium nutzt, sich mit den genuinen Eigenschaften des Internets auseinandersetzt und die Technik thematisiert, mit der sie arbeitet. Netzkunst existiert nicht erst, seit das Internet für ein Massenpublikum zugänglich geworden ist, aber die sozialen Medien machen es einem breiteren Publikum möglich, im Alltag bewusst oder unbewusst Netzkunst zu sehen.

LINK IN BIO. Kunst nach den sozialen Medien zeigte mit über 50 Arbeiten, wie sich Produktion und Rezeption von Kunst im Zeitalter sozialer Medien verändern. Die Gruppenausstellung endete mit der temporären Schließung des MdbK. Wir konnten uns glücklicherweise noch vorher mit einigen KünstlerInnen für diese und weitere MdbK [talk]-Folgen zusammensetzen.