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<b>Aram Bartholl</b><br>
<big><b>Go!Go!Go!</b></big><br>
Solo exhibition<br>
<b><br>
Aksioma | Project Space</b><br>
Komenskega 18, Ljubljana, Slovenia<br>
<a href="http://www.aksioma.org/gogogo">www.aksioma.org/gogogo</a><br>
<br>
On display through March 22, 2013<br>
<br>
Artist presentation: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://vimeo.com/61460216">https://vimeo.com/61460216</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Aram Bartholl (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.datenform.de">www.datenform.de</a>) 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.<br>
<br>
<br>
<b>Production:</b> Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art,
Ljubljana, 2013<br>
<a href="http://www.aksioma.org">www.aksioma.org</a><br>
<br>
Artistic Director: Janez Janša<br>
Text: Domenico Quaranta<br>
Executive Producer: Sonja Grdina<br>
Public Relations: Mojca Zupanič<br>
Technician: Valter Udovičić<br>
<br>
Thanks: Damijan Valenčič<br>
<br>
<br>
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.<br>
Sponsor: Datacenter d.o.o.<br>
<br>
Contact: <br>
Marcela Okretič
<br>
<b>Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana
</b><br>
Neubergerjeva 25, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija
<br>
<br>
<b>Aksioma | Project Space</b><br>
Komenskega 18, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija
<br>
phone: + 386 – (0)590 54360
<br>
gsm: + 386 – (0)41 – 250830
<br>
e-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:aksioma4@siol.net">aksioma4@siol.net</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.aksioma.org">www.aksioma.org</a>
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