Exhibition opening and artist presentation: Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 7 pm
Aksioma Project Space is pleased to announce Go!Go!Go!, the first solo show of Berlin-based artist Aram Bartholl in Ljubljana. The title of the show points to the processual, collaborative and open nature of Bartholl's work, which often implies processes that develop over a longer period of time, but through many different releases and at a very high rate. Bartholl adopts the “release fast, release often and with rap music” strategy of the open source and hacker community, aptly implemented by the F.A.T. Lab - a collaborative platform he is part of. This allows him to keep the pace with reality and to work on projects that combine instant commentary with a deeper speculation on universal issues. This allows him to keep the pace with reality and to work on projects that combine instant commentary with a deeper speculation on universal issues.
This is what happens in Dust, the project at the core of this show. With this long-term project, the artist seeks to create a 1:1 scale replica of one of the most played computer game maps in the world: 'de_dust', the most popular map in the infamous first person shooter game Counter Strike. The replica will be produced as a permanent “building” made of concrete, which will make this map accessible as a large scale public sculpture. The project, which received a Rhizome Commissions grant in 2011 for the development of its starting phase, is now in its second phase, which includes the making of 1:1 scale replicas of portions of the map, in different places all over the world; thus, the project is being disseminated as a land art intervention that materialises portions of virtual public space in the real world.
For the exhibition in Ljubljana, Bartholl - in collaboration with Aksioma - will use concrete to build a 1:1 scale replica of three stacked wooden crates at an undisclosed location near Postojna. Documentation of the intervention will be available at the show together with plans and models (1:100 scale) of Dust. Made of different materials, machine produced and hand crafted, the models represent the first step in physical cultural heritage of the computer game age.
The main project will be accompanied by other recent works that thematise the relationships between net data space and public everyday life. In which form does the network data world manifest itself in our everyday life? What returns into physical space from cyberspace? How do digital innovations influence our everyday actions? These and other questions are raised by works such as: Open Internet (2012), a public intervention and light installation in which coloured LED signs, commonly used in stores, are combined and given a new purpose of delivering a message of freedom and openness; 15 Seconds of Fame (2009), a photo series in which the artist follows (and is shot by) a Google Street View car crossing the Berlin Mitte, playfully turning an inflamed public debate about privacy and surveillance into a spontaneous, joyful, over-affirmative act of self-exposure; video documentation of the F.A.T. Lab's public intervention How to Build a Fake Google Street View Car (2010), in which a fake Google car was made and sent around Berlin during the transmediale festival; and First Person Shooter (2006), a postcard that is also a do-it-yourself kit with instructions how to make a pair of glasses bearing the arm with the weapon, which represent the player in most First Person Shooter games.
Finally, the show at Aksioma Project Space will be the occasion to install some “dead drops” in Ljubljana, thus contributing to the anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space started by Bartholl in 2010, when he installed the first dead drop in New York. A dead drop is a USB flash drive installed in public space (usually in a wall) where anybody can drop and take data. Anybody can install one. Since the launch of the project, more than a thousand dead drops have been set up all around the world.
Artistic Director: Janez Janša
Executive Producer: Sonja Grdina
Text: Domenico Quaranta
Public Relations: Mojca Zupanič
Technician: Valter Udovičić
The programme of Aksioma Institute is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.
Aram Bartholl is a member of the Internet-based art group Free Art and Technology Lab - F.A.T. Lab. Net politics, DIY movement and the development of the Internet in general play an important role in his work. Beside numerous lectures, workshops and performances, Bartholl has exhibited at MoMA Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Pace Gallery (New York), [DAM] Berlin and xpo gallery (Paris). He lives and works in Berlin.
Go!Go!Go! - Presentation
The book - available in the gallery for consultation
Aram Bartholl The Speed Book
Perceptive and entertaining investigations of digital culture.
By: Aram Bartholl
Editors: Domenico Quaranta
Release Date: January 2012
Format: 21,6 x 28 cm
Features: 268 pages, full color, hardcover
Language: English
ISBN: 978-3-89955-393-2