[spectre] *My [public] space*

[Marieke Istha]

*My [public] space*

May 24 – June 21, 2008
opening May 23, 5:00 p.m.
Netherlands Media Art Institute

Aram Bartholl, Hasan Elahi, Martijn Engelbregt, Kota Ezawa, Dora García, 
Susan Härtig, Jill Magid, Eva and Franco Mattes a.k.a. 
**0100101110101101.ORG**, Eduardo Navas, Guy Ben-Ner, Marisa Olson

The exhibition 'My [public] space' is a follow-up to the exhibition 
'Territorial Phantom'. In the previous exhibition the occupation of and 
claims to space by corporations, organizations or countries was central. 
My [public] space goes more deeply into the blurring of private and 
public information and spaces.


The copious use of digital, network and mobile technologies has had an 
enormous influence on our concept of public and private space, and calls 
up new questions about the conditions for these environments. Public 
space is not longer something that we can leave or exclude. Through 
wireless technologies – chat, mail, GSM – the public is everywhere: in 
our homes, our beds and even our bodies. What is private any more? What 
consequences does this muddying of the public and exposure to the public 
gaze have? Public space has become a ‘hybrid’: an entanglement of the 
public and private spheres.

The phenomenon of the changing concept of private and public space is 
twofold: on the one side there is a growing wish to express ourselves 
publicly via the media; on the other, public space is becoming more 
controlled and limited than ever. With their t-shirts, animations, 
games, installations and websites the artists in this exhibition throw 
light on this phenomenon in diverse ways.

For instance, in their work Hasan Elahi and Jill Magid employ mechanisms 
and technologies of control in public spaces for their own private 
stories, and with an enormous camera Martijn Engelbregt asks passers-by 
on the Museumplein what they think of being filmed. The works by Eduardo 
Navas and Marisa Olson respond in various ways to taking private 
information into the public domain of the internet. Guy Ben-Ner really 
is doing the same thing, but in the publicly accessible (though private 
property) model rooms at IKEA.

With her game Dora García responds in an abstract manner to the gray 
areas around the borders between the public and private, with a quiz 
with unanswerable personal questions which nonetheless must be answered 
yes or no. Eva and Franco Mattes aka 01001011101011101.org respond in an 
abstract, synthetic way to the phenomenon by taking a performance that 
was all about impinging on someone's private space by forcing them to 
squeeze past naked bodies in order to enter some place, and re-enacting
it in Second Life.

Susan Härtig's tent makes a really private and mobile space possible, 
somewhere that no mobile telephone or other device using radio waves can 
find. And finally, by revealing what is normally invisible on internet 
or via RFID technology, the t-shirts by Susan Härtig and Aram Bartholl 
address today's hybrid space.


Open: Tuesday through Saturday and the first Sunday of the month from 
1:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Admission 2,50 (1,50 with discount)

Thanks to: BeamSystems

For more information: Marieke Istha, communication istha at nimk.nl

Website: www.nimk.nl