Aram Bartholl – Blog

Olaf Val does great projects. I you happen to be close to Basel these days you definately have to take a look at his solo show!

[plug.in]
St. Alban-Rheinweg 64
CH-4052 Basel
www.iplugin.org

Quick, rough-and-ready fixing of computer hardware problems are known as “Monkey Up” to hackers. This jargon expression is used for situational, conciously temporary practices of improvisation. As the titel of the exhibition the term is transfered from hacker- hardware to general areas of life. What kind of changes to everyday life does the digital cross-linking bring about, what kind of problems arise in wider societal contexts?

The word “Monkey” rouses associations, notions, and images, that exhibits such as the digital climbing wall “DIGIGRIPPER” and the entirely syntetic mouse cage “Spielotop” in the exhibition provoke. The abstract of digital media is put in contrast to organically grown life. The exhibition “Monkey Up” works with the effects of this contrast between bodies and pixels. The audience climb an oversized display and hold on to its illuminate Dots. By cresting the DIGIGRIPPER they experience digital states with there own bodies. Every-day oscillation between real and digital surroundings is traded on a sensual level. More often than previously we face the task of transformation from the virtual to the real; in this context we confront the challange to form something concrete from the diffuse and complex. This process propagates a kind of undertow and is coined by acceleration. Coping with the sum of the excessive demands, we live in a permanent provisional improvisation; a “Monkey Up” life. In many areas we feel very comfortable with the vivid and creative developments of the improvisation and welcome this process as inspiring and facinating. The exhibition “Monkey Up” sensitises to the shortfalls and nuances through the video work „To My Precision”. Thus moments of longing for backpedalling and room for reflection emerge. From this consciousness a balanced handling of digital media is aspired to in the workshop accompanying the exhibition. Every participator builds a portable computer game. In the process a substantial understanding of media is drafted. Digital media is made accessible and demystified on the fundamental level of hard- and software.

A nice one. Printed jeans customized in real time from a Second Life sweat shop. Hmm maybe I should go in series with my Nokia 6600 pair of jeans …. ;-)

Double Happiness Jeans premiered at the
2008 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah
www.doublehappinessjeans.com

The new parking meter in Berlin Mitte.
Wow! What a clear interface design. ;-)

(Kosmar’s notebook sticker collection…)

The one-day workshop I gave yesterday at Play08 17.-20.9.08 Potsdam, DE was great fun. The group in my workshop reflected on computer game experience in relation to day to day life. After my presentation the participants were invited to get involved in some paper work. ;-)

Thx for the invitation!
Thx to Philip Preuss for support!

Stay tuned for the Lab08 presentation/exhibtion on Saturday. Lab08 shows existing work and is developing a group piece during the four days of play08.

More pics on flickr.

Lab08 team:

Jonas Hielscher (Köln)
http://www.pixelsix.net

Karin Lingnau (Köln)
http://www.karinlingnau.com/

Leif Rumbke (Hamburg)
http://www.rumbke.de/

Thomas Hawranke (Köln)
http://www.susigames.de

Richard Gutleber (Karlsruhe)
http://www.susigames.de

Marek Plichta (Potsdam)
http://marek.monoid.net

Unreal Tournament rabbit by Karin Lingau at Play08 Potsdam, DE.

Nice!

(Frankfurt vs. Berlin, found on Kopenhagnenerstr. Berlin)

Joachim is showing a new work on upcoming Wednesday at NewBerlin Second Life/Real Life. He will present a movie of his own lawsuit reenacted in Second Life dicussing copyright issues in relation to art. See you there!

Wednesday 17.09.2008
Screenings 20:00 h and 22:00 h
At headquarter YOUin3D.com Hannoverschestr. 3 10115 Berlin

“A new cultural economy” was the title of the symposium curated by Joichi Ito at Ars Electronica a week ago. I enjoyed a lot the brillant speakers most of them from the US and Jonah did write a good abstract on the presentations for Rhizome.

Buzz word collection: Intellectual property, copyright, creative commons, sience commons, GPL, open source, closed, amateur, creativity, remixing, sharing, crowd sourcing/computing, citizen journalism, lost authority, chaos, noise, truth, fear ….. and again and again the big examples: Music, Film and Wikipedia.

Sure we are talking about cultural economy and the example of the music economy development in last decade or the success of Wikipedia shows very well what’s going on. But in retrospective I ‘ve been missing some crucial questions:

– How will/can this whole development affect economy in general?
– What is the role of DIY (Do it yourself) and the free instructions culture development?
– In wich way will physical objcts/products be involved? (Just think of the upcoming rapid prototyping era.)
– Are we only talking about cultural/intellectual property?
– Is there a reason to wait for companies to come up with great new products like a green car, alternative energy sources or just day to day life simplicity?
– Where is the DIY mobile medicin prototyping lab kit for the 3rd world? And will medical industry do the same faults like spoiled music people?

Podcasts of all talks
Unfortunately there are no videos, but I can recommend the talk of Yochai Benkler.

Picture:
Watering cans on a graveyard in Berlin. Instead of having a few public cans everybody has its own one looked to a stand. A very good symbol on a current mindset of property in society. (with a maybe typical german twist.)