SKY, Soweto Kliptown Youth

Founded in 1987 by then sixteen-year-old Bob Nameng, Soweto Kliptown Youth (SKY) provides hope and services to some of the most neglected children in South Africa through formal and informal programs to support children and teens. As a non-profit organization and one of the oldest surviving youth centers in Soweto, SKY aims to serve the mental and physical needs of the youth of Kliptown, a suburb of the former black township of Soweto in Gauteng, South Africa.

http://sowetokliptownyouth.webs.com

GLOBALE ZKM / RW.26 − RW.30

FIVE ROOFS | FIVE CONTINENTS

RW.28 ONE…

Installed : 01-08-2015

Location: SKY, Soweto Kliptown Youth, Johannesburg, South-Africa
Curator on site: Indra Wussow, Sylt Foundation
Exhibition: GLOBALE, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany
Author: Peter Weibel

Roof Size | Font Size: 350qm | 7,2m x 28,7m
On Air: Google Earth 2015

http://zkm.de/globale-infosphere

Ghetto Biennale Haiti

The Ghetto Biennale is an invitation by the Haitian artist group Atis Rezistans to visiting Western and non-Western artists to come to Haiti and to produce work on site. Every two years they organise the Ghetto Biennale as an invitation to visiting Western and non-Western artists to come to Haiti and to produce work on site. For its fourth edition, the Ghetto Biennale invited artists and curators to explore what potentials the radical tools, Kreyòl, Vodou and the Lakou, have to offer to the contemporary world.

http://ghettobiennale.org/
http://atis-rezistans.com

GLOBALE ZKM / RW.26 − RW.30

FIVE ROOFS | FIVE CONTINENTS

http://zkm.de/globale-infosphere

REVIV

Edith-Russ-Haus, Oldenburg

EDITH-RUSS-HAUS for Media Art, Oldenburg/Germany

The EDITH-RUSS-HAUS for Media Art was first made possible by an endowment by Edith Ruß (22.1.1919 – 18.7.1993). According to her will, the City of Oldenburg was able to build a house “for the arts”. She wanted to form a site to create “art for the transition into the twentieth century.” This initiative was the genesis for the concept of a site for Media Art with both exhibition space and guest apartments.

The City of Oldenburg has a rarity in the landscape of contemporary art: The EDITH-RUSS-HAUS for Media Art, a place solely for the presentation and discussion of media art.

The concept is based on the special demands of art realized with new media. Media art often works with light, movement and the flow of digital, electronic data. Like a video with its series of consecutive images or net.art in which one clicks from one Internet page to the next, media art tends to be processual and immaterial. This is the reason why the EDITH-RUSS-HAUS for Media Art is not conceived as a museum where art is kept and collected, but rather as a place where media art is presented and discussed. This site must be seen as a channel through which information on art with new media flows. Through presentations and special events we offer a spectrum of the possibilities of media art. The focus is on the content of the artwork and technology’s influence on shaping and defining artistic ideas. Beyond the program of discussions and presentations, we will also hold exhibitions intended to address subjects which are socially relevant and future-oriented.

The site has two buildings. The first building has two levels of space for exhibitions and presentations. The second has two apartments plus one artist’s studio/apartment.

www.edith-russ-haus.de

RW.3 ON
Installed: 20-09-2008
Location | GPS: Edith Russ Site for Media Art, Oldenburg/Germany | 53.1436597,8.2087152
Author: REMOTEWORDS
Curator: Sabine Himmelsbach
Roof Size | Font Size: 144qm | 5m x 9m
On Air: –

INTERVIEW

ON

Sabine Himmelsbach, Oldenburg 2008

English

REMOTEWORDS: The Edith Russ Site for Media Art message is a short and succint ON. What do these two letters mean to an art institution that is devoted exclusively to the new media.

Sabine Himmelsbach: ON as a signature has been perfectly selected for an institution that is dedicated to the presentation and mediation of new media art and is therefore open for new distribution contexts and formats. New media artists use all kinds of communication channels – radio, television, the Internet are platforms for their artistic interventions and aesthetic practice. In its programming, the Edith Russ Site for Media Art is reflecting THESE practices. Our exhibitions not only take place in the actual exhibition space, but also on the regional television channel “Oldenburg 1” on which we present current video art once a month, on the Internet (for example the exhibition “My Own Private Reality. Growing Up Online in the 90s and 00s”, which included mostly webbased works) or on the radio (featuring sound based exhibitions like “Sound//Bytes. Electronic and Digital Sound Scapes”).

RW: We have consciously installed an On switch but, at the same time, left out the Off switch. This seems to be symptomatic for the paradigmatic shifts that society experiences via digitalization. What does it mean to be online forever? How do you get feedback using the media to create art?

SH: This shift is indeed paradigmatic. A constantly increasing number of people is communicating through digital networks worldwide. “You” was the person of the year in 2006 in the TIME Magazine, acknowledging the efforts that users all over the world put into their online activities – be it their creation of videos on YouTube or profils on Facebook or MySpace, the upload of fotos on Flickr, writing blogs about their daily lives or political opinions, or other activities like contributing to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to name only a few. The worldwide digital networks and communities have generated a lot of social potential and a creative use of new media technologies. Of course they also contributed to the ever growing mass of information that needs to be filtered daily and the need to get away from beeing constantly ON. The feedback in the media arts resulted in a lot of artistic practice that is taking place on the World Wide Web itself, using its structures and possibilities to reach a global audience. A lot of artworks are actively engaging other users and are based on their input, creating thus new groups and communities. Examples have also been shown in the exhibition “My Own Private Reality”.

RW: On much equipment, the off switch is in any case obsolete. If the user is not yet online everyday for 24 hours, the machines are. Server and standby appliances such as modems, fax machines, wireless-Lan stations, digital receivers and much more run 24/7/365. Alone in Germany, their estimated power consumption corresponds to the production of 2 nuclear power stations. Are there actually no ecological tendencies in media art?

SH: Of course power is used by technological equipment, no doubt. Ecological strategies in media art take a different approach. They work with the potentials offered by the use of the media to comprehend ecological questions. They draw on the methods and results of scientific research and utilize global communications technologies to actively integrate the viewers into the projects. These projects revolve around the charting of data and their audio visualization. For the most part, they circumvent common scientific technological recording methods and open up new worlds of perception. Last year the Edith Russ Site for Media Art has staged an exhibition that delt with ecological questions. “Ecomedia. Ecological Strategies in Today’s Art” was looking at the idea of ecology as a communicative system. The exhibition presented projects founded on progressive ecological models as well as visions of the future. It examined the role of art and new media over and above science, technology, and ecoactivism.

RW: So – should’nt we set a good example and switch off the recorder now?

SH: OK, switch it off!

KuKuK e.V., Aachen/Raeren

Art and Culture in the “Köpfchen”
www.kukukandergrenze.org

Grenzkunstroute011 International Land Art Festival in the Belgian-German Border Landscape
www.grenzkunstroute.eu

The Belgian border pavillion at the transit between Aachen/D und Raeren/B is the location for the KuKuK and is`s art events since 2000. The KuKuK is the only still existing customs house from the 1950s. The customs house was saved from demolition and kept it`s historic mark as room for art and culture: as entrée to the neighbor, as mediator between the cultures as a modell for encounter at european inland borders. KuKuK is inviting for revival of the cross border and the location is offering the needed inspiration. Many thousand people visited the events at the KuKuK during the last years.

RW.17 ASSYL!
Installed: 19-06-2011
Location | GPS: KuKuK e.V., between Aachen/D and Raeren/B, Belgium/Germany | 50.723746,6.089776
Curator: Benjamin Fleig
Author: REMOTEWORDS
Roof Size | Font Size: 476qm | 8,5m x 30,5m
On Air: Apple Maps 4-2013

LX Factory, Lisbon

LXFactory
It’s in the year 1846 that a threads and fabrics Company called “Companhia de Fiação e Tecidos Lisbonense”, one of the most important manufacturing complex in Lisbon’s history, sets in Alcântara. This 23.000 m2 industrial site was, subsequently, occupied by a set of industrial use related companies.
An urban fragment, kept hidden for years, is now returned to the city in the form of LXFactory. A creative island occupied by corporations and professionals of the industry serves also has stage for a diverse set of happenings related to fashion, publicity, communication, fine arts, architecture, music, etc., attracting numerous visitors to rediscover Alcântara through an engaged dynamics.
At LXF you can actually breath the industrial environment at every step. A factory of experiences were intervention, thought, production is made possible. Staging ideas and products in a place belonging to everyone, for everyone.

www.lxfactory.com

RW.21 LISBOAFRICA
Instaled: 06-09-2012
Location | GPS: LXFactory, Lisbon, Portugal | 38.7028325-9.1785145
Curator: Noordkaap Foundation
Author: José Eduardo Agualusa
Roof Size | Font Size: 900 qm | 6m x 70m
On Air: –

USP, Sao Paulo

USP, University of São Paulo/Brazil
Escola de Comunicações e Artes
USP is one of the largest institutions of higher education in Brazil and Latin America, with approximately 75,000 enrolled students.

http://www3.eca.usp.br

RW.11 POR QUE DUVIDO?
Installed: 13-09-2009
Location: University of São Paulo, Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA/USP), Brazil | -23.5570961,-46.7242412
Author: Vilém Flusser, selected by Mario Ramiro
Roof Size | Font Size: 1860qm (Roof 1/540qm, Roof 2/600qm, Roof 3/720qm) | 6,75m high
On Air: Google Earth 2011, Apple Maps 2013, Bing Maps 2014

REMOTEWORDS is writing on the University of São Paulo, Escola de Comunicações e Artes a quotation from Vilém Flusser, who held his first professorship there. The project is being carried out on the initiative and the collaboration of the media artist Professor Mario Ramiro and his students.

KHM, Koeln

KHM, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Germany

www.khm.de

Journal der KHM N°2 | fabeln und fehler
2015
38 Seiten mit 31 Abbildungen, 17 x 24 cm, Paperback
Auflage: 3000

download as pdf:
KHMjournal_RW_2015

Akademie der Kuenste, Berlin

Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts)
www.adk.de

RW.5 OFF LIMITS FOR GOOGLE
Instaled: 16-12-2008
Location | GPS: Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany | 52.515353,13.3803765
Author: Klaus Staeck, Academy President since 2006
Roof Size | Font Size: 330 qm | 44m x 7,5m
On Air: Apple Maps 2-2013, Bing Maps 1-2014, AeroWest 7-2010

Off limits for google

REMOTEWORDS: Aerial views are hugely fascinating and very popular. You talk of forbidding photographs of the Academy of Arts to be taken from the air. Why?

Klaus Staeck: The fascination of aerial views doesn’t blind me to their possible misappropriation by providers like Google. The services offered by big search engines have an unfortunate downside. On its way to becoming a world monopoly, Google collects detailed information on its users. The evaluation of this vast amount of data is systematically deployed for advertising and politics. Big Brother is watching you. Data storage opens the floodgates to misuse. “Street view” is only one building block in the Google universe. Which is why resistance is called for. Banning photographs of the Berlin Academy of Arts is a signal to the spies in the sky and to their naïve users on earth.

REMOTEWORDS: Interestingly enough, you ban something when you know very well it only makes limited sense, since you can’t forbid Google. You thus call attention to the legal vacuum that has arisen from this new technology and proceed, based on the motto: “Google didn’t ask us and we don’t ask Google.” In addition, the action also represents a certain paradox: it is through the medium of Google Earth that your message is broadcast and thus perceptible. At the same time, your message negates the medium. How do you explain that?

Klaus Staeck: It is not about a ban, but about self-protection, about keeping yourself safe from unauthorized intervention. It’s about defending public space. Because what GOOGLE practices with Street View is the private and, in the end, the commercial appropriation of whole cities and landscapes without at the very least asking whether those concerned also consent to it. My action is a kind of self-defense against all too greedy data vultures. It is aimed at GOOGLE and at all its naïve users unaware of the danger. And also I don’t need GOOGLE to broadcast my message. It’s enough if the Academy’s neighbors can see my message to GOOGLE and that a photo taken of the action is broadcast by other media.

REMOTEWORDS: For REMOTEWORDS your message is not unproblematic, since we are sitting between two stools here. If Google would boycott our project because of your action, we would be robbed of “paper and pencil”, since we use exactly the program being criticized as our artistic medium. What do you think will happen now? Will Google censure the message at its prominent place directly next to the Brandenburg Gate as it must do, for instance, for military facilities? Or will the company prove to be a good democrat via its company slogan “Don’t be evil!” and allow free speech, even as self-criticism?

Klaus Staeck: With my artistic-political work I have, since day one, sat between all possible stools. That’s all part of this form of artistic intervention. GOOGLE will of course continue its program. Let’s wait and see how the company reacts. Even the most success-indulged company has to expect that people and institutions defend themselves when their rights are intruded on. And data protection is quite simply a major civil right. There are already communities that have defended themselves on legal grounds from Street View’s spy in the sky. Since when does GOOGLE have to “prove itself to be a good democrat and allow free speech even as self-criticism”? Civil rights do not rely on good will but are valid for everyone and do not need permission.

REMOTEWORDS: Many thanks for this interview.

REMOTEWORDS: Luftaufnahmen haben eine große Faszination und sind sehr beliebt. Du sprichst jedoch ein Fotografierverbot aus der Luft für die Akademie der Künste aus. Warum ?

Klaus Staeck: Die Faszination von Luftbildaufnahmen macht mich nicht blind für eine mögliche Zweckentfremdung durch Anbieter wie Google. Die Verdienste der größten Suchmaschine haben leider eine bedrohliche Kehrseite. Auf dem Weg zum Weltmonopol sammelt Google detaillierte Informationen über die Nutzer. Die Auswertung der Unmengen von Daten wird systematisch genutzt für Werbung und Politik. Bog Brother is watching you. Durch die Datenspeicherung ist Missbrauch Tür und Tor geöffnet. “Street View” ist nur ein Baustein im Universum Google. Deshalb ist Widerstand angesagt. Das Fotografierverbot für die Berliner Akademie der Künste ist ein Signal an die Spione am Himmel und die blauäugigen User auf Erden.

REMOTEWORDS: Interessanterweise sprichst Du ein Verbot aus, von dem Du genau weißt, dass es nur bedingt Sinn macht, denn Google lässt sich nicht verbieten. Du machst damit auf den rechtsfreien Raum aufmerksam, der durch diese neue Technik entstanden ist und verfährst frei nach dem Motto: “Google hat uns nicht gefragt und wir fragen Google nicht.” Darüber hinaus stellt die Aktion aber auch ein gewisses Paradoxon dar: Erst durch das Medium Google Earth wird deine Botschaft verbreitet und damit erfahrbar. Gleichzeitig negiert deine Message das Medium. Wie erklärt sich dies?

Klaus Staeck: Es geht nicht um ein Verbot, sondern um Selbstschutz, um den Schutz gegen unberechtigte Eingriffe. Es geht auch um die Verteidigung des öffentlichen Raumes. Denn was GOOGLE mit Street View praktiziert ist die private und schließlich kommerzielle Inbesitznahme ganzer Städte und Landschaften ohne wenigstens gefragt zu haben, ob die davon Betroffenen damit auch einverstanden sind. Meine Aktion ist eine Art Notwehr gegen den all zu gefräßigen Datenkraken. Sie richtet sich an GOOGLE und an all die naiven User ohne jedes Gefahrenbewusstsein. Ich brauche auch GOOGLE nicht für die Verbreitung meiner Botschaft. Es genügt, dass die Nachbarn der Akademie die Nachricht an GOOGLE sehen können und dass ein selbst erstelltes Foto von der Aktion über andere Medien verbreitet wird.

REMOTEWORDS: Für REMOTEWORDS ist deine Botschaft nicht unproblematisch, denn wir sitzen zwischen zwei Stühlen. Würde Google unser Projekt auf Grund der Aktion boykottieren, wären uns “Stift und Papier” genommen, denn wir benutzen ja gerade jenes Programm, welches hier kritisiert wird als künstlerisches Medium. Was wird deiner Meinung nach geschehen? Wird Google die Botschaft an prominentem Ort, direkt neben dem Brandenburger Tor zensieren, so wie dies z.b. bei militärischen Anlagen geschehen muss? Oder wird sich der Konzern mit dem Firmenmotto “Don’t be evil!” als guter Demokrat erweisen und die freie Meinungsäußerung, auch als Selbstkritik, zulassen?

Klaus Staeck: Ich sitze mit meiner künstlerisch-politischen Arbeit seit jeher zwischen allen möglichen Stühlen. Das gehört zu dieser Form künstlerischer Einmischung. GOOGLE wird natürlich sein Programm weiter fahren. Warten wir ab, wie sich die Firma verhalten wird. Auch der erfolgverwöhnteste Konzern muss damit rechnen, dass sich Leute und Institutionen wehren, wenn in ihre Rechte eingegriffen wird. Und der Datenschutz ist nun einmal ein wichtiges Freiheitsrecht. Es gibt bereits Gemeinden, die sich juristisch gegen die Himmelsspione von Street View zur Wehr setzen. Seit wann muss sich eigentlich GOOGLE erst “als guter Demokrat erweisen und die freie Meinungsäußerung, auch als Selbstkritik, zulassen?” Freiheitsrechte sind keine Gnadenrechte, gelten für alle und bedürfen keiner Zulassung.

REMOTEWORDS: Vielen Dank für das Gespräch.

Wewerka Pavillon, Muenster

www.wewerka-pavillon.de

RW.23 IRRITANT
Installed: 13-03-2014
Location: Wewerka Pavillon, Kunstakademie Münster, Germany | 51.9523927,7.6028609
Author: REMOTEWORDS and student
Roof Size | Font Size: 4,255m x 18m
On Air: –

REMOTEWORDS was the “Guest Artist 2014” at Wewerka Pavillon Münster. The message for Wewerka has been developed with the students of “Kunstakademie Münster”.

The title refers to the pavilion and its location on the Aasee (Lake Aa) and expresses the relationship of the students to the exhibition site they themselves have used.

IRRITANT indicates a feeling of pique and can be interpreted in a positive as well as negative sense.

Another meaning of the word is irritating. Thus IRRITANT stands here in its double sense: on the one hand as a stimulation to a (provocative) discourse, on the other, as an ambivalence between art and the general public. The Wewerka Pavilion, as an exhibition hall of the Art Academy and a site for public art, is like a alien element in the landscape of the local recreational area of Lake Aa’s park, in its ability to confront the general public with art.

At the exhibition opening, a radio-controlled video drone flew over the pavilion to transmit pictures live showing a view of the roof, otherwise inaccessible to us. In other words, the drone symbolically anticipates the act that soon the observation satellites of Google Earth, Apple Maps, etc., will take over.

Kumu Art Museum Tallinn

The Kumu Art Museum was opened to the visitors in February 2006. It is the new main building of Art Museum of Estonia. The new museum building was constructed by Pekka Vapaavuori. In 2008, Kumu was honored as European Museum of the Year.

http://kunstimuuseum.ekm.ee

13/05/2011-25/09/2011
gateways
Art and Networked Cultures

Curator: Sabine Himmelsbach

The exhibition gateways. Art and Networked Culture introduces a young generation of artists whose work deals with the changing conditions of a networked world – a world increasingly transmitted through media. The artistic works presented here use various means to tackle the theme of gateways that lead to realms of action and experience in our digitally interconnected culture.

The artists invited by the Goethe-Institut in cooperation with the Kumu Art Museum as part of the program for Tallinn, European Capital of Culture 2011, use electronic networks and mobile technologies to encourage active public participation and to transmit new perceptual experiences.

RW.16 CLICK HERE
Instaled: 13-05-2011
Location | GPS: Kumu Art Museum Tallinn, Estonia | 59.436347,24.796867
Author: REMOTEWORDS
Curator: Sabine Himmelsbach
Roof Size | Font Size: 720qm | 7m x 62,5m
On Air: Google Earth 1-2013, AeroWest 7-2012