Aram Bartholl at [DAM] Berlin

In cooperation with the last Transmediale 2012 which ran from 31 january until 5 february under the title “in/compatible” in the HKW the gallery [DAM] Berlin is showing the first solo exhibition of new media artist Aram Bartholl (*1972 in Bremen) who lives and works in Berlin. In “Reply All” Bartholl deals in different ways with the topics of computer and internet and constantly blurs the borders between the real and the digital world.

In various positions Bartholl demonstrates discourses of power in the digital world. The human being seems submitted to the laws of the binary code. However, the people also have free access to information worldwide. The artist’s works don’t come to live only because of looking at them but more of the thougt-provoking impulses which Bartholl initiates. They come to a life of their own that is emerged through the participation of the viewer. Space, feel of the surface and political potency mark Bartholls works and aren’t only bound to digitalism. The medium of the internet is treated critically, mocked, projected into the analogue world and becomes a punching ball of our imagination.

Next to the entrance door of the gallery one finds a USB flash drive in the wall. Years ago the intervention became popular as Dead Drops and made itself independent from the artist very fast. By now 775 dead mail boxes in brickwork cracks all over the world allow to suck the data on a laptop and to storage own data on the flash drive as well. On that one at the gallery [DAM] Berlin there ought to be data of the finance office which is localized in the same building complex, says the gallerist.

When you enter the gallery you first see the signs of protest of the public intervention called “Open Internet”. The words “open” and “internet” blink in a not ignorable neon writing. With this intervention from the last year Bartholl claims free access to the internet. He configurated a so-called 3G hotspot on his mobile phone so that every person in his direct surrounding could use the internet for free.

As if such a free access was a paradoxon, on the opposite of “Open Internet” the visitor sees five CAPTCHAS made of aluminium hanging on the wall. We all know the squiggled letters and numbers that check if the user has a human identity before he can recall a webbased service. In 2009 Bartholl embedded the captchas as an urban installation in tags on walls – here at the gallery [DAM] Berlin they don’t need the link to coded names anymore.

Concerning the topics of information and orientation Aram created three QR-codes. If one would photograph them with a smartphone and with the help of a barcode reader app one ends up on the website of Google search. In this case you’re linked to the sites of new media artists like Vera Molnár or Petra Cortright. The galerist adds that this artwork can be seen as Bartholl’s hommage to the linked artists.

The information that the user not directly asks for but which is served him in striking detail can be found in Bartholls series “15 Seconds Of Fame”. Four pictures show the artist himself who is running after the Google streetview car in the Borsigstraße, Berlin Mitte. People who now search the Borsigstraße on Google maps probably get amused by the excessive gestures of a running Aram Bartholl. He understands this work as an answer to the well-known moment of 15 minutes of fame in everyone’s lives which was proclaimed by Andy Warhol – in our days Aram gives everyone only 15 seconds of fame.

To mix impressions of the real and the digital world Bartholl plans to rebuild one level of the egoshooter game Counterstrike in a city. Two models and drawings attribute to his plans. For those who play this computer game very often every corner and every stair is probably more real than the world beside the computer. Analogue and digital doesn’t mean for Aram to be understood as antithetic data. They are the same – only in another shape.

How easy digital data can be visualized with the help of analogue technique shows the following artwork. A cylinder gets its rotation from some burning lights under the rotation blades. The input, seen on the backside of the cylinder, remembers on a binary code made of red, yellow and blue foil. The output is designed as a screen with different colour circles which are lightend in RGB – the colours of the computer. A simple mechanical construction is turned into an analogue equivalent of a computer.

Throughout the exhibition the visitor finds videos which document the working process of an art piece. In “How to…” Aram makes these processes public which are ususally hidden in the unknown. Here, he acts as an eloquent smart-ass who knows the rules of the art business.

As well as in his work “How To Turn Code Into Art”. Here he demonstrates which dangers the internet contains. In 2008 the Federal Constitutional Court decided to forbid a trojan which was designed by the government to observe the user. The treated person was not only eavesdropped and spied on but also all the actions on the keyboard and in the internet were monitored. In consequence to this juridical decision the html-code of this trojan was printed by the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).

Bartholl uses this print like a ready-made. The viewer gets aware that misuse can come from the highest position in society and that the scary reality of an unconcrete binary code seems quite unspectacular. Moreover in the video he explains:

“I recommend using a black frame, because a black frame means: You know what you’re doing and you are serious about it.”

His work here is framed in white.

That Aram Bartholl is considerd to be part of the hacking and DIY-movement embodies the staged workshop table on which one finds masks made of plastic. During the opening of this exhibition visitors could use the casting technique of forming vacuums with the help of a rebuilded toaster. Misbuildings were also left over. The model of the mask is always the same: the one of Guy-Fawkes from the film “V for Vendetta” (2006). With the link to the anonymous movement Bartholl signals that we have to jam and destroy misuse and grievances in our digitalized society.

Most of the masks beeing left are transparent. Aram sees himself as a responsible revolutionary. The hero should stand by his actions and must not destroy the system without any reason. The masks hang on the wall and the ceiling of the gallery as if they constantly appeal to that issue.

The exhibition by Aram Bartholl can’t be seen as a full width of his works and ideas. However, it is complex enough to get an insight and to be curious what’s coming next from him.

Aram Bartholl: “Reply All”, until 10 march 2012 at the gallery [DAM] Berlin. Literature: Aram Bartholl – The Speed Book. Gestalten Verlag 2012, 39,90 Euro.