Current Events

Are we there yet?

14. February – 16. May 2025
Group Show, Nome gallery, Berlin

NOME is pleased to announce are we there yet?, a group exhibition that critically examines issues of police brutality, mass incarceration, discrimination, immigration, and state surveillance. The show draws its title from a work by Kameelah Janan Rasheed, whose aphoristic text-based practice often grapples with complex societal questions. As with many of her works, are we there yet? carries multiple meanings, symbolizing both a push for equality and the darker undercurrents of state violence. The exhibition invokes Rasheed’s question to probe the spread of authoritarianism in contemporary society.

Artists: Camae Ayewa, Sadie Barnette, Aram Bartholl, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, James Bridle, Paolo Cirio, Cian Dayrit, Priscilla Dobler Dzul, Navine G. Dossos, Igor Grubić, Kite, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Voluspa Jarpa, Ahmet Öğüt, Dread Scott, Myriam Zarhloul

Moving Image Perspectives

22. December 2024 – 30. June 2025
Solo Show, Annka Kultys Gallery, London

ANNKA KULTYS GALLERY is pleased to present Greetings From Germany! (2024), a single-channel video by German artist Aram Bartholl, a poignant critique of police activities on the streets of Berlin, underscoring the potential of art to confront and illuminate complex truths. This presentation is part of Illuminated: Moving Image Perspectives, the gallery digital programme, which will take place over the course of a year, and offer unique insights into new media artists using film, video animation, as well as their latest technological explorations, including blockchain and advanced technologies such as AI.

Aram Bartholl’s, video Greetings from Germany! (2024), uses the technology of AI as a space of opportunities to explore disturbing policies around modern urban policing. The ironic title belies a serious underlying message about police activity on the streets of Berlin — a reminder that art can be a powerful tool to consider truth more fully.

For this work Bartholl chose a single image from a recording of an anti-war demonstration in Berlin where police were involved. Using this single frame, Greetings from Germany! presents six alternative realities generated by different AI video systems. The unfolding events are unsettling, playing with notions of certainty. It is difficult to know precisely what is happening as figures morph into one another. Lines are blurred between police, demonstrators and bystanders and precisely what is happening – one figure appears to dance. As the video is shot from the point of view of the audience, (reminiscent of smartphone streaming), the work gives the impression of the viewer being a witness to events unfolding. This creates a sense of immediacy, yet questions of veracity soon arise. The use of a variety of video generators shows how each of these commercial AI models give a slightly different angle to the ambiguous narrative. Shockingly, however, in the final shot, the ambiguity disappears as the viewer is confronted by a distressing clip of found footage of the incident.

This work is about holding a mirror to society, making visible aspects of public policy that might be easily overlooked or disregarded. By using one of the major tools of contemporary society – AI, Bartholl here encourages the viewer to look again, reconsider definitions of what constitutes the real, and catalyse conversations around critical issues.

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.

Instruments of Surveillance

21. September 2024 – 2. May 2025
Group Show, National Communications Museum, Hawthorn, Melbourne

As the race to create an artificial general intelligence (AGI) accelerates, questions of surveillance are more important than ever. Is it human or machine? And how can people equip themselves with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate technological futures?

Instruments of Surveillance grounds an age-old and contentious topic in the human and the everyday. From government spooks, data-extraction and activism through to generative AI, this exhibition unravels the interface between human and machine, inviting audiences to unpack the technologies that people use to surveil and their role in it.

Interact with a robotic commission by Louis-Philippe Demers. See an original WWII Enigma Machine, along with wiretaps and prototypes from the Australian Federal Police. Engage with commissions by Leah Heiss and Emma Luke, Kate Crawford, Aram Bartholl and Weniki Hensch among others.

This exhibition is curated by Jemimah Widdicombe (NCM) in collaboration with Dr. Tyne Sumner, current ARC DECRA fellow at the Australian National University.

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Upcoming Events

Jahrestagung Intervenierende Künste

9. – 10. May 2025
Talk, Hau 2, Berlin

Die Jahrestagung 2025 des SFB Intervenierende Künste findet statt am:

Freitag, 9. Mai 2025, 18 bis 22 Uhr und
Samstag, 10. Mai 2025, 10 bis 20 Uhr

Sie wird organisiert von der Arbeitsgruppe „Digitaler Aktivismus“ in Kooperation mit dem HAU Hebbel am Ufer.

Programm und weitere Informationen folgen.
Zeit & Ort
09.05.2025 – 10.05.2025

HAU 2, Hallesches Ufer 34, 10963 Berlin

Recent Events

International Day Against Police Brutality

15. March 2025
Workshop, Refuge Worldwide, Berlin

This Saturday (11AM-5PM) we welcome Ides Of March, a grass-roots initiative organised by local citizens seeking to raise awareness around the topic of police brutality, in collaboration with KOP Berlin, a campaign for victims of racist police violence.

On March 15th, 1997, the first observation of the international day against police brutality took place in Montreal, Canada, initiated by the Collective Opposed of Police Brutality as a response to extremely violent and racist behaviours perpetrated by authorities. We take this opportunity to explore the topic of police brutality on a local and global level, as well as interlinked practices of racial profiling. With the backdrop of weekly, if not daily, reports of police violence against protestors in Berlin, the topic is more relevant than ever. The event comprises an installation curated by Ides Of March with guest contributors including Aram Bartholl, which is open throughout the event, plus a panel talk from 2:30-3:30PM and free toolkits. The panel talk is titled Beyond The Shields: The Contemporary Function Of Police Brutality In Our Society and will take place in English. The speakers are Ignacio Rosaslanda (Unpublished), Gonca Sağlam (KOP Berlin), reporter Julian Daum and moderator Rahim Chattaika.

Kunstsurfer

1. – 31. March 2025
Solo Show, Your Browser, Internet

KUNSTSURFER is a browser-based art space. It runs on an add-on that recognises advertisements and replaces them with digital exhibitions. KUNSTSURFER brings art into your daily browsing. It plays with the ways online advertisements look and work. It takes over commercial space to host experimental, digital site-specific curatorial and artistic projects.‍

Facts, Fakes and Fears

22. February – 29. March 2025
Group Show, Galerie Eigenheim, Weimar

FACTS, FAKES AND FEARS
Desinformationen im Zeitalter von künstlicher Intelligenz und Sozialen Medien
Die Auftaktausstellung zum Jahresprogramm von EIGENHEIM Weimar 2025

Ort: EIGENHEIM Weimar, Gärtnerhaus im Weimarhallenpark, Asbachstraße 1, 99423 Weimar
Eröffnung: 21.02.2025 um 19 Uhr
Dauer: 22.02. – 29.03.2025

teilnehmende Künstler*innen: Gökçen Dilek Acay, Benedikt Braun, Cosima Göpfert, Frankfurter Hauptschule, Alison Jackson, Tea Mäkipää, Tommy Neuwirth, Sarah Oh-Mock, Julian Palacz, Michal Schmidt, Julia Scorna, Marcus Sternbauer, Anke Stiller, Addie Wagenknecht, Moritz Wehrmann, Lars Wild, The Yes Man, 庄睿哲 Ruizhe Zhuang

Total Screen Time: BRAINROT

1. February 2025
Group Show, panke.gallery, Berlin

After the success of the Athenian version of Total Screen Time, and after ‘Brainrot’ was voted last year’s word of the year, we are back in Berlin! No,no we are so,so back! Meanwhile, everyone seems to be obsessed with their screen time. Some are trying to downsize it, some are accepting their ‘terminally online’ identity, some perceive it as a competition, and some—as always, simply don’t care.

Enough with the heavy! We invited thirty artists to present digital works through their own personal devices, extending an intimate invitation for audiences to peer through the artist’s screen—a portal into their unique, brainrot-filled worlds. From personal and collective imagery to camp, critical takes on surveillance, viral memes, and wholesome escapism—artworks from every corner of the digital psyche are on display. This one night exhibition is about connecting, sharing in the joy of deep-frying our brains, rather than in isolation. And we think THAT’S HOT!

Curated by:
Aram Bartholl & Socrates Stamatatos

Participating artists:
!Mediengruppe Bitnik with Selena Savić & Gordan Savičić, Afroditi Panagiotakou & Manolis Manousakis, Aleksandra Domanović, Clusterduck, Constant Dullaart, Cory Arcangel, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Darsha Hewitt, Dirk Paesmans, Esben Holk, Evan Roth, Igor Štromajer, Ingrid Hideki, Ipek Burçak, Jan Berger, Joan Heemskerk, Joana Moll, Joanna Bacas, Jonas Lund, Katerina Baxevani, Kathrin Hunze, Marsunev, Miltos Kontogiannis, Nadja Buttendorf, Nestor Siré, Niko Princen, Nora Al-Badri, Olaf Val, Ria Schöneberger, Theo Trianfyllidis

Total Screen Time is a one night group exhibition on phones! All participating artists will bring a phone with their artwork on it, which will be mounted on the walls of the exhibition space. The idea behind the show is that the audience gets to peep through the hole of the artist’s phones immersing into their artworks. LET’S BRAINROT TOGETHER! 🧠 In a collective and liberating moment we asked all artists and visitors to share their daily phone screen time during the opening. WE ARE ALL GETTING EXPOSED LOL 🎀

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Blog Archive for Tag: sociial

Site Update & “Sociial” text

January 21, 2009

It took me a while but I finally managed to update my website with these ‘recent’ projects: China Channel, Jump’n Run Shanghai and Sociial. Nothing really new but now also featuring a full translation for the Sociial project.

Sociial from Aram Bartholl on Vimeo.
Sociial is a 17-minute performance presented by four protagonists and an announcer in a stage-like situation. The four “dancers” play tennis on a Nintendo Wii game console while every 10 seconds the announcer reads out descriptions a selection of 100 Web 2.0 services. The Nintendo Wii game console, which came onto the market in 2006, has a new kind of user interface. In contrast to the usual couch potato playing modus, Wii players must exert themselves physically. A sensor can locate the position of up to four game controllers in the playing area…
… read on

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“Sociial” Pictures

December 6, 2008


All pictures of the “Sociial” performance 5.12.2008 at Weserburg Bremen on flickr. Movie documentation etc coming soon ….

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Sociial

December 1, 2008


On next friday I’ll be showing my new performance piece “Sociial” at Weserburg Art Museum Bremen, DE. There will be a a new microbutton t-shirt, wii action and Kosmar will ‘explain’ 100 Web2.0 services in 20 minutes.

17th Video Art Award Bremen

Aram Bartholl “Sociial” – Performance during the opening

Maximilian Moll “Keep the fire burning”
Stephane Leonard “The Bridge’s Song”

6.12.2008 – 4.1.2009
Opening 5.12.2008 7pm

Speakers:
Ingo Clauss / Curator of the Weserburg
Klaus W. Becker / Film-Office Bremen
Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath / Director of Kunstahalle Bremen
Anouncement of the Video Art Award winner of 2008
Guided tour through the exhibition by the Curator Marikke Heinz-Hoek on 7.12. 11:30 am.

The Videokunst Förderpreis Bremen has advanced to become an important art prize. It is not awarded to completed works, but to concepts that the prize money makes possible to be brought to fruition. This is extremely important in the area of video art, as works of video art are frequently elaborate productions that cannot be realized without financial support in the first place. Within the scope of the competition, high-quality works on video have been being produced on a regular basis since 1992. Due to the Filmbüro Bremen’s keen commitment, this success story can continue be written this year as well. The works by last year’s recipients of the prize—Aram Bartholl, Maximilian Moll, Stephane Leonard—are now being presented for the first time at a four-week exhibition
The exhibition will open with Aram Bartholl’s performance Sociial, which features the games console Wii that Nintendo introduced to the market two years ago. One of the device’s special features is a novel interface between player and computer. Players are required to exert their full physical effort. Sensors register their movements and communicate them directly to the computer game. The in part ridiculous movements are accompanied by a lecture that is no less grotesque—in an endless litany, it presents the countless merits of online services. Facebook, Myspace, studiVZ, and all the other “social networks” are lastingly changing our everyday lives. Yet how social can software be? And what impact do digital developments have on the way we coexist? Against this backdrop, the insane contortions the computer game exacts appear to be thoroughly dubious operations.
Fire is the constitutive element in Maximilian Moll’s video installation Keep the fire burning. The artist uses several projections to set fire to the exhibition space, playing with the various qualities and meanings of fire. Whether forest fire or campfire, candlelight or blaze, humankind’s relationship with fire has always been ambivalent. Fire represents warmth and light, yet it can also escalate into a destructive force. A space-consuming dramaturgy has developed out of this field of tension. However, the digitally generated, in part apparently abstract images do not follow simple narrative patterns. They create a multi-layered resonating space in which personal memories are stimulated and connect up to the images of fire to produce a special form of aesthetic experience.
Stephane Leonard works as an artist, musician, composer, and filmmaker. In his multi-part video installation The Bridge’s Song, these areas team up in a singular way. One sees New York’s Queensboro Bridge. The impressive dimensions of the bridge, its enormous pillars are transferred into the exhibition space by means of a large-format projection. It is flanked by further projections that show the urban environment, the thunderous road traffic, skyscrapers, but also a view from a gondola slowly passing by the bridge. In an interplay with the sound level, the images of the city develop striking intensity. A complex audiovisual composition evolves from the background noises of the metropolis, the rhythm of the road traffic, in which even a bridge can release its very own sound: The Bridge’s Song.

Ingo Clauß

The Videokunst Förderpreis awarded by the Filmbüro Bremen is made possible by the Senator of Art, the Bremische Landesmedienanstalt, Radio Bremen, and the artists association GEDOK. The names of the new award winners will be announced on the evening of the opening, December 5, at 7:00 p.m.

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VKP 2008

November 19, 2008


Invitation to my upcoming project. More details coming soon.
[wow, the jpg algorithm has quite some problems with that color]
Wir laden Sie herzlich ein zur Eröffnung der Ausstellung am
Freitag, dem 05. Dezember 2008, um 19 Uhr.
Es sprechen
Ingo Clauß | Kurator der Weserburg
Klaus W. Becker | Geschäftsführer des Filmbüros
Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath | Direktor der Kunsthalle
Im Anschluss werden die neuen Preisträger des
Videokunst Förderpreis Bremen bekannt gegeben.
Die Kuratorin Marikke Heinz-Hoek führt am Sonntag,
dem 07. Dezember um 11:30 Uhr durch die Ausstellung.
Filmbüro Bremen e.V. | Die Kulturelle Filmförderung
Plantage 13, 28215 Bremen, Telefon (0421) 708 48 91
www.fi lmbuero-bremen.de, vkp@fi lmbuero-bremen.de
Videokunst Förderpreis | Kuratorin: Marikke Heinz-Hoek,
Organisation: Christian Meier-Kahrweg
Weserburg | Museum für moderne Kunst
Teerhof 20, 28199 Bremen, www.weserburg.de
Öffnungszeiten: Dienstag, Mittwoch und Freitag 10 – 18 Uhr,
Donnerstag 10 – 21 Uhr, Samstag und Sonntag 11 – 18 Uhr, Montag geschlossen

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Consumer Media Art

May 9, 2008

The success of Nintendo Wii shows very well how classic Media Art of the last 20 years has arrived in everyday consumer products. I am curious how the connection of physical body and digital space will evolve in day to day life in the future. This Wii Fit Parody is quite funny. Sure, you better would go out to play real soccer but the way Nintendo integrates the body as a game interface is for most people new and a striking experience. Next step is then to emancipate from the screen and to go for the physical interaction again. 😉
The concept for the performance piece “Sociial” which won me the Video Award Bremen last year also involves physical Wii action. It’ll be shown in December 2008 in Bremen. Hmm, should I try to include the Wii Fit balance now?

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Video Art Award – Bremen

December 12, 2007


I am pleased to anounce that I won a first price for a concept I proposed to the 17th video art award Bremen. Planned by Filmbuero Bremen e.V and curated by Marikke Heinz-Hoek. The opening of the exhibition of last year winners took place on 9.12.07.

More details comming soon.

Pic by Marius Watz

Udate:
#17 video award Bremen

Jury:
Astrid Nippoldt
Christian Katti
Sönke Magnus Müller

Awarded concepts:

– Aram Bartholl “Sociial”
– Maximilaian Moll “Keep the fire burning”
– Stephane Leonard “New York Street Ensemble”

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