Aram Bartholl – Blog

“Speculative Privacy: Practical and impractical things you can do to your phone” is a lecture-workshop-performance format I presented at the Datapolitics conference track during the annual International Summer festival, Kampnagel, Hamburg on August 20th.

First the audience got stickers on their smart phone cameras at the entrance (in true Berghain manner) and then was instructed to do a few tests and look up settings on their devices during the talk. In the second half of the presentation everyone was invited to the stage to test different tools and materials on their phones while we kept discussing todays privacy questions. Some of the ‘mini workshops’ are useful others don’t really make sense but offer a strong therapeutic moment to ‘grill’ your mobile phone in a non destructive way.  You always wanted to flush your phone in the toilet or bury it in cement? This is your chance! Have it vacuumed in a plastic bag and dip it in paint or through it in other actions!

All slides of the talk and related links here! : http://datenform.de/talks/kampnagel/

Aram Bartholl, 2016

…more pictures on flickr!!

How to cement in your phone in a non-destructive way!

Aram Bartholl: Speculative Privacy
Aram Bartholl ist Konzept- und Medienkünstler. Im Mittelpunkt seines Interesses steht die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der zunehmenden Digitalisierung unseres Alltags. In seinen oft humorvollen Arbeiten überführt er Items aus der Netzwelt ins Analoge, um bspw. die Allgegenwärtigkeit von Internetunternehmen wie Google sichtbar zu machen. In seinem performativen Workshop TRANSPARENCY zeigt er welche digitalen Spuren bei der Benutzung von Smartphones entstehen und welche Möglichkeiten es gibt, diese zu verwischen.

Thanks to the Kampnagel team for making all this possible!

http://www.kampnagel.de/de/programm/datapolitics/
20. August 2016, 18:00 – 19:30 (Halle P1)
Kampnagel, Hamburg

Good friend Christoph Meierhans shows a piece called: “Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation, and Bill Clinton, Former President of the United States. Microsoft Government Leaders Forum Africa 2006 Cape Town, South Africa July 11, 2006″ at UPDATE II, biennal for digital art Gent, Belgium.

Wow, what a long title. But probably just the name of the file he is ripping with this nice installation. If you are around Brussels just take a look at this by machines reenacted conference before the exhibititon is closing.

UPDATE II, biennal for digital art
kunstenplatform zebrastraat
zebrastraat 32/001, 9000 Gent, Belgium

exhibition: 20/04/2008 until 06/07/2008
opening hours: wed-sun 14:00-18:00

“Remarks by…” is a re-enactment by computers of a conference on the evolution of computer technology and itʼs assumed benefits for the african continent. Originally taking place in Cape Town, south Africa, on July 11 2006, the conference features Mr. Bill Gates, Mr. Bill Clinton, Mr. Cheik Diarra, Chairman of Microsoft Africa and moderator of the talk, Ms. the Minister of Education of South Africa, a minister from Kenya, as well as three audience members asking questions.
The installation includes eight computers of different brands, generations and types, all comfortably placed on the chairs of a conference room. Each computer plays the role of one of the lecturers or audience members, speaking their respective lines with their generic synthetic voice. The words are heard through the integrated loudspeakers of the computers.
As a computer talks, itʼs screen flashes according to the rhythm of the voice, from black to white, respectively from white to black, depending on the skin color of the person speaking.
Throughout the 80 minutes loop of the re-enacted conference, the visitors may enter the conference room and take place on one of the free seats in order to listen to the speakers, next to the computers playing the roles of their fellow audience members.
As is usual in long lectures, some listeners ocasionally get sleepy. When computers get sleepy, their screensaver turns on. When this occurs for a longer period of time, soft snoring sounds might be heard.

(original transcript of the conference available at: www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/2006/07-11GLFAfrica.mspx)

The Landreform carousel yesterday was great fun. In the beginning the fire was really big and we thought for a moment the event might end up in SUPERFLEX style. ;-)
Best piece I’ve seen so far at BB5.

Some more pics on trendbeheer.com through comments by kolonel. Thx!

LANDREFORM Carousel
by Matthias Einhoff, Philip Horst, Markus Lohmann, Harry Sachs, Daniel Seiple

www.skulpturenpark.org/
www.berlinbienniale.de

Landreform from Aram Bartholl on Vimeo.

At the “Nachtcafe” series of Schaubühne Berlin is tonight a Second Life involving performance “Wonderland” on the program.

Update:
Pics of the event on flickr.

The ongoing Urban Interface exhibition in Berlin features some really nice public space pieces and performances. Tomorrow I will definately check out the Mitting performance by Oliver Hangl. I saw his talk at TESLA some days ago and his wireless headphone walk concept for 70 people seamed to be very promising. Who wants to join? By the way I like the name Mitting. A nice combination of Mitte and Wedding.

Thu, April 26, 6 pm Performance-tour Mitting, starting point: uib headquarters. Torstraße 161, Berlin-Mitte. The tour lasts 2-3 hours. the number of participants is limited to 70. Please bring your ID for deposit.