Aram Bartholl

With performances, installations, workshops, and objects, Berlin-based conceptual artist Aram Bartholl seeks to explore the intersection of the physical and virtual worlds. “In which form does the network data world manifest itself in our everyday life?” he asks. “What returns from cyberspace into physical space? How do digital innovations influence our everyday actions?” In his ephemeral and experiential works, Bartholl often seeks to create offline forums for the types of discussion that usually flourish online, on Facebook, Twitter, and the like. His more physical works explore the same themes, often seeking to construct material versions of the markers of digital culture. For instance, in his well-known Map project Bartholl installs large-scale sculptural versions of the ubiquitous red Google Map place-marker in public city spaces. In his more recent performance Dropping the Internet, Bartholl constructed a lightbox with the word “Internet” (its retro style referencing its lost innocence in the age of the NSA) and dropped it to the ground—an explicit homage to Ai Weiwei’s similarly political Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn.