Netz Werke – An Exhibition on Life on the Net
From 6 September to 4 October, 2020, we will be presenting the interactive exhibition "Netz Werke" at re:publica Campus in Berlin-Neukölln (Ziegrastraße 1, 12057 Berlin).
Here nothing is as it seems. Cardboard boxes are rattling, a robotic arm holds a mirror in front of your face, a video camera sends silent messages and a lot of things that at first seem analogue and motionless to you will open up another digital world instead.
Opening hours: 6 September to 4 October 2020, Sundays to Thursdays from 4pm to 8 pm.
Bring a face mask and headphones – and be there!
The Exhibitors
Neural Net Play – AI Emotion Classification Play
An artificial neural network is visualized as an abstract surface / GUI on Screen 1. The players lie on an examination couch. The game is passive; leveraging game mechanics: it is enough to lie there and smile - or not! Screen 2: Happiness score. The moment the grin disappears because you realize that you are classified, the Happiness score drops. Screen 3: All captured faces are shown by AI as they were trained: with gender, race and animal bias, a distorted deep dream – as a happy monkey! Margarete Jahrmann and Stefan Glasauer are the artists behind 'Neural Net Play'.
Website: http://www.margaretejahrmann.net/
Encounter
A robot observes its surroundings with a mirror. It behaves in an uncanny, life-like manner. When we approach, it observes us. We see ourselves in it, watching our every step. Curiously it approaches, following our movements, tracking our faces. Do we trust our intuitive perception? Who is observing whom? At some point the machine seems to start playing with us. This artwork by Piet Schmidt is an encounter between human and its reflection in its machine.
Website: https://pietschmidt.de/ | Instagram: piethier
AIOT – Artificial Intelligence X Internet of Things
The internet of things. For a long time a vision, today a complex reality that is all too often reduced to a simplistic image: Objects ‘speak‘ with the Internet, with a database, with the user or with each other. Let's take this thought literally: What would normal things actually say if they were provided with AI-supported language technology? How would they express themselves - and with whom and what would these things even speak? You can experience it live in this speculative work of the UDK study programme 'Communication in Social and Economic Contexts': ANY IMAGINABLE OBJECT TALKS.
Website: https://meta-dating.de
Walk your day x The new nature
Due to the global pandemic, people are stuck at home feeling isolated. The digital world becomes the safe space to meet, exchange and work together. What is the new reality? Do we stroll in a park similar to how we scroll the internet? The AR-treasure-hunt is a physical stroll through digital nature: Focus, move around, collect 3D Items for motivation and notice how you reset your mind to explore the new. Visual artist Nadine Kolodziey collaborated with Scavengar on her first AR-Walk combining storytelling, gaming and meditation/motivation as a new AR experience.
Website: www.nadinekolodziey.com | Instagram: nadinekolodziey
Ego Tunnel
The ego tunnel is an autonomous computer installation by media artist Jens Isensee. An old PC system was dismantled and all components rebuilt into a new constellation. This newly configured system is only able to observe itself (through a webcam) and reproduce the image of itself in endless repetition. In this sense it is redundant and self-contained as though the system is similarly running a film of itself. This might vaguely be reminiscent of Thomas Metzinger, a philosopher involved in neuroscience who, in his book ‘The Ego Tunnel’ describes the human ‘Self’ as a self-illusion vigorously practised by human beings.
Website: https://www.jensisensee.de | Instagram: jooooooki | Twitter: @joikay | Youtube: Jens Isensee | Facebook: joooki
SpeculativeAI / Exp. #2 (conversation)
This work by Birk Schmithuesen consists of a series of aesthetic experiments designed to make processes of artificial neural networks perceptible to humans through audiovisual translation. Exp. #2 questions an AI’s capacity for empathy and purpose while communicating with a second AI. Both systems are embodied by a light or sound object and can receive the messages of the other. The light object can hear and create images. The sound object can see and play sounds. The systems are in an ever-changing audiovisual conversation. Conceptual support: AI Center (Gijon/Oviedo/ES). 3D calibration:Felix Bonowski. Coding: Marcus Ding. Realized at LABoral (ES). Support: EMARE, Creative Europe Culture Program, ArtesMobiles.
Website: http://birkschmithuesen.com/ | Instagram: birk_schmithuesen
#ALLBLACKLIVESMATTER
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized movement originating in the U.S. that fights against every kind of racially motivated systemic violence against Black people. After the murder of George Floyd by an policeman in May 2020, the BLM movement also received a lot of attention here in Germany. This part of the exhibition by Rebecca Meyer and Lisa Michelle Ottaku is an attempt to trace the path the BLM movement has taken with the great wave of attention here in Germany. #ALLBLACKLIVESMATTER #SAYTHEIRNAMES
§54
In April 2018, the right conservative ÖVP and FPÖ government parties introduced a security law bill, that empowered the police to access all security cameras that record public spaces. This bill marked a milestone for the general surveillance of public life in Austria. This security camera by multimedia artist Patrick Senwicki is manipulated to inform the public about their rights, and not to spy on them.
Website: http://www.ostblok.org | Instagram: bilderblok
Frau Tikashi
See what surprises are in store: Frau Tikashi provides in the WTF year 2020 for sufficiently crazy social distance fun and games.
Portrait
A portrait contains the feelings and words of the artist, the spirit of the characters in the painting, and the viewer's emotional projection from the painting. In this work, the characters of the portrait will gradually imitate the facial features and expressions of the viewer. In these changes the viewer's facial expression will also be affected, then the portrait will change again. In this forth to back, watching and changing, a slow and silent dialogue is formed. The artist is Hsiao Li-Chi.
Website: https://hsiao-li-chi.com/ | Instagram: hsiao.li.chi
O.T. 1010
In his work Stefan Reiss researches in the fields of drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, projection and programming. His focus lies on the combination of art and modern technologies, research and innovation, immersion and haptic perception. The basis of his spatial sculpture O.T. 1010 are simple digital signs, which he translates from virtuality into real space. Thus makes them experienceable again with the whole body and all senses
Website: http://www.stefanreiss.com | Instagram: stefanreiss_
Overgrowth
Overgrowth is an interactive spacial video installation by Jens Isensee with integrated motion sensor, PC hardware and a short distance projector. The sensor of this interactive installation detects the viewing angle of a spectator in front of the projection and the 3-dimensional scenario is generated and displayed according to the recipients perspective. The viewers hand movements are captured as well and transferred into the virtual space. As light spots they float over the scenario and organic structures are sprouting at the corresponding places on a projected wall. The spectators interactions generate an organic structure, which is growing excessively until its complexity reaches the systems rendering limits and the players interactions are shrinking structures again. The result is a vital and diverse play of prosperity and transgression in a closed, self-regulating sphere. The spectator is thus emancipated from his passive role to become the designer of an individual sculpture. After leaving space, the generative structure resets itself, making the sculpture temporary and processual.
Website: https://www.jensisensee.de | Instagram: jooooooki | Twitter: @joikay | Youtube: Jens Isensee | Facebook: joooki
Krone kommentiert
The online forum of the Austrian tabloid newspaper "Krone" allows posts by users. However, they are first secured and approved by a specially designated team of moderators. Once published, the comments cannot be deleted by the users anymore, only the moderators can then delete them. The project by Ulrich Formann constantly compares the forum to older versions in order to find comments that were deleted at a later stage. Subsequently, they are printed out live with a thermal bill printer and therefore make the moderators' decisions of what to delete, visible.
Instagram: iphoneuli
Post virtual Garden
Post Virtual Garden is an installation by Hannah Neckel in collaboration with Felix Reutzel. A metaphorical garden as space that gives shape to the merging of online and offline spaces. Internet, dream and reality flow more and more into each other like a Photoshop document in which the different layers are superimposed over each other to create a concurrent picture. A post-virtual world that should bring our states of perception closer together.
Website: http://hannahneckel.com | Instagram: voidgirl79 & godbog
Virtual Materialism
In this interactive video installation by Jens Isensee up to four recipients are confronted with a virtual recreation of themselves out of objects and stuff. In a way they are becoming interactive ready-mades. The masks on the figures in the virtual mirror recite an acoustic collage of text fragments from the essay ’The Imaginary‘. It’s an early book by Jean-Paul Sartré which is a phenomenological study of human imagination. In it, Sartré distinguishes between perception and imagination which he identifies as humans ability for creating reality. The work also has an immersive level. The viewers which are re-embodied out of objects and things, can move around and collect virtual coins that appear out of thin air in the virtual space. They even have to do it to sustain themselves, otherwise someone else wins and the rest will disintegrate. This Win-Loose-Loop continues endlessly. The recipients could listen to the speakers, but the temptation to get lost in the spectacle is enormous. Also the exhibition environment is reconstructed in 3D to condense the experience of a reflection in this site-specific installation. This project is a cooperation between Jens Isensee and Rico Possienka. The installation is made with Kinect Sensor, Unity 3D and an ultra short distance projector connected to PC rendering hardware.
Website: https://www.jensisensee.de | Instagram: jooooooki | Twitter: @joikay | Youtube: Jens Isensee | Facebook: joooki
(Corona) TV Bot - Marc Lee
synthesis gallery is pleased to present Marc Lee’s live streaming Corona TV Bot. In Lee’s most recent work in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the latest Twitter and Youtube posts tagged with #COVID-19 and #Coronavirus are mediated in a wild continuous feed TV show (24/7). This feed features content – images, videos, and tweets – from traditional broadcast sources as well as social media content from private individuals flickering across the screen in real time. The tech equipment of the installation is powered by Grover.
Website: http://marclee.io | Instagram: synthesis.gallery & marcleeio | Facebook: @synthesisvr
Fragile
The installation “fragile” by Kilian Hanappi consists of five cardboard boxes, which are placed on top of each other in the middle of the room. Each of the containers is in constant movement and the collapse of the construction seems inevitable. Apart from the overall instability of the structure, knocking and scratching noises coming from inside of each box emphasize the feeling of tension and unease.
#MEMERSFORFUTURE
Memes make us laugh, they play with social conventions and subvert or reinforce prejudices. But can they also save the planet from climate change? The six posters shown here are part of #MemersForFuture, an ongoing project by international transmedia collective Clusterduck that tries to answer this question. #MemersForFuture is a continuation of the artistic and theoretical research that started with the project #MEMEPROPAGANDA, launched by Clusterduck in 2018 in cooperation with Greencube.Gallery.
Website: http://clusterduck.space/ | Instagram: realclusterfuck | Twitter: @realclusterfuck | Facebook: realclusterduck
Gender Equality – Hangzhou, Tokyo, Vienna
Gender Equality – Hangzhou, Tokyo, Vienna is a joint poster project of the China Academy of Art Hangzhou, the Tama Art University Tokyo and the University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2019. The goal was to identify topics and develop creative contributions to the ongoing debate around gender equality, a theme Sven Ingmar Thies examined with his students in his course “Poster gestalten” (design posters), in Prof. Matthias Spaetgens’ “Klasse für Ideen” (Class of Ideas). Together with his counterparts Prof. Toshio Yamagata and Prof. Zhaohui Cheng they had simultaneous exhibitions of more than 100 posters in Hangzhou, Tokyo and Vienna.
Website: http://www.klassefuerideen.at | Instagram: klassefuerideen | Facebook: klassefuerideen
Ok Doomer
How can we imagine our futures? Amidst a pandemic, ecological disasters, hate crimes, exploding cities and anti-mask protests, it’s hard to believe we have one. Departing from Mark Fisher’s famous dictum, “it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism,” #okdoomer by Julie Hart is conceived as an intergenerational wordplay based on changing perspectives – between different age groups, between an outside and an inside / between the real and virtual space – as well as a material-aesthetic reflection on a romanticization of a simple life in a society that perceives itself as overwhelmingly complex. As the boomer is replaced by a doomer, the future can’t come soon enough.
Instagram: juljeh
Six Hours Of My Facebook Feed On 15 Metres Of Toilet Paper
A program extracts a six hour excerpt of the Facebook feed. Printed onto a roll of toilet paper, it invites to physically scroll through. The countless posts leave little to no lasting impression, and in the manner of not giving a shit, make for a good toilet roll. An artwork by Ulrich Formann.
Instagram: iphoneuli
Datenpumpe/ Wikimedia
Data – It’s the ground water of internet society! Data is usually discussed in the context of monetization. But data is not burnt like oil. Data is like groundwater - it is created anew at any time, changes, flows and may only become a commodity under certain conditions. Just as a world without water is unthinkable, data is the basis for Free Knowledge, e.g. in Wikipedia. Data about our world should be freely available to everyone. #opendata
Website: https://blog.wikimedia.de/2018/09/15/daten-sind-das-neue-grundwasser/ | Twitter: @WikimediaDE
HEIMSPIEL
The video installation HEIMSPIEL highlights the impressive versatility and enormous ingenuity of the music scene. The episodes are around four minutes long and not only provide a cross-section of all conceivable musical genres of Berlin's nightlife which has been virtually at a standstill for many months and of the concert halls that have become quiet, but also of all social classes, of different fates, life concepts and ways of dealing with crisis situations. The videos feature artists like Dota Kehr, Álvaro Soler, Rainald Grebe, Alina, Tex, Senta-Sofia Delliponti, Mal Élevé, Andreas Barthelemes and many more.
The Glass Room Misinformation Edition at #rpCampus
Tactical Tech’s latest edition of the Glass Room presents this exhibition where you can explore how social media and the web have changed the way we read information and react to it. Find out about the new types of influencers, the new and old tactics they use, and the role we the users and consumers play in the way information flows and changes within that flow. We also examine the relationship between personal data, targetting and our opinions, views and behaviours, as well as the business models behind it. So far, Tactical Tech has partnered with organisations in 40 countries to host over 150 Glass Room pop-up exhibitions around the world, reaching over 120,000 people. Come and join the conversation.
Instagram: glassroom_ttc | Facebook: Tactical.Tech | Twitter: @Info_Activism
Careables
Care-receivers, healthcare professionals and designers join forces to co-create careables: tailor-made open solutions that tackle permanent or temporary disability. Careables is an open and inclusive approach to healthcare based on digital fabrication and collaborative making. This part of the exhibition is hosted together with the Global Innovation Gathering e.V. and with support from our membership in the Distributed Design Market Platform, co-funded by the framework programme “Creative Europe” of the European Union.
Website: https://www.careables.org | Instagram: careables | Twitter: @careablesorg