Aram Bartholl (Germany)

Map (2006 - 2009)

Programme: Aleja Kwiatowa, plac Żołnierza Polskiego 2 Available from 19.03.09

Aram Bartholl – born in 1972 in Bremen, Germany. Since 1995 Aram Bartholl lives and works in Berlin. In his art work he thematizes the relationship of net data space and every day life. In which form does the network data world manifest itself in our everyday life? What comes back from cyberspace into physical space? How do digital innovations influence our everyday actions?
His art work has been shown on international art festivals such as Ars Electronica, Transmediale Berlin or Futuresonic Manchester . Furthermore he participated in exhibitions at TENT Niederlande, VOORUIT Belgium, Eyebeam New  York, Enemy Gallery Chicago, T otal Museum of Contemporary Art Seoul,  Australian Centre for Photography Sydney, eARTS Shanghai, LABORAL Spanien and Videotage Hong Kong. In more than 30 lectures and workshops Aram Bartholl presented his work at conferences at universities.
Aram Bartholl studied architecture at the University of the Arts UdK Berlin and graduated there in 2001 with the thesis  Bits on Location. This work also won him the Browserday competition in the same year . In 2007 he got an honorable mention by Transmediale and won the 17th Viedo award Bremen. For his project  Sandbox Berlin Bartholl received a project grant of the cultural Senat Berlin as well as for 2008 he was supported by a full year working grant by Stiftung Kunstfonds Germany.
Aram Bartholl is a permanent member of the Urban Media Salon founded by Mirjam Struppek and visits regularly the annual Congress of the Chaos Communication Club Berlin. From 2001-2004  Aram Bartholl has been working as a freelance concept creator and media designer for MVRDV, DMC Vienna, Fraunhofer Institut Fokus Berlin, Institut for Electronic Business und City & Bits, among others.

Map
The project Map is a public space installation questioning the red map markers of the location based search engine Google Maps. For the inSPIRACJE festival the map marker is built on a corner of Plac Zolnierza Polskiego. Google Maps considers this exact location to be the city center of Szczecin.
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps. The web interface of Google Maps makes use of small graphical icons to illustrate location related search results. The service displays the first page of 10 search results on the specific map section localized by red map markers in alphabetical order (A- J). The virtual map pins in their specific shape seem to be derived from physical, needle like map markers. But the way they are used in the digital map these markers do underlie addtional rules. On one hand the marker and information speech bubble next to it do cast shadows onto the map as if they were physical objects. When the map is switched to satellite mode it seems that they become a part of the city . On the other hand these graphical
icons of 20 pixel size stay always at the same size on the computer screen. It looks like they sit on a separate layer while ignoring the changing scale factor of the map. In relation to the displayed city map they shrink or grow while the user zooms in or out of the map. The size of the  life size rebuilt red marker in physical reality corresponds to the size of a marker in the web interface in maximal zoom factor of the map.
Transferred to physical space the map marker questions the relation of the digital information space to every day life public city space. In which way will location related data from the net become  visible in physical space? How is reality and truth balanced between the physical world and the net data space?