Dark Clouds

2020
AR sculpture
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Dark Clouds is an interactive extension of the post card series “Greetings from Berlin!” Users are invited to capture digital black clouds with their phones still rising from the Stadtschloss Berlin todays Humoldtforum. The scultpture is available through an Instagram filer at instagram.com/arambartholl

On April 8th, 2020, during insulation work in the floor area of the Humboldt-Forum two cookers with mastic asphalt caught fire and a gas cylinder exploded. Black smoke could be seen over the city, rising above the palace. Numerous Twitter users posted pictures and videos. In a surprising and paradox twist the incident added the first significant layer of authentic history to an otherwise historistic re-construction: while the visual language seemed to remind the public of the original palace’s fate, the unplanned fire itself could have been the commencement of transforming sterile veneers of a non-place into a site of local history. Sadly, the physical evidence in form of the freshly obtained patina has been erased swiftly.

Dark Clouds part of “Owned By Others” temporary project space “Museum Tropicana” right across the Humboldtforum, through end of December 2020.

Exhibitions:

  • Owned By Others, Museum Tropicana, Berlin, 2020
  • Owned by others, Museum Island Berlin, Berlin, 2021

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