Peter Schäfer, Lorenz Schwarz, PTV, Röser Media
Programming: Alex Wenger
Text: E.W.
Foto: Jay Young Bang
INTERVENTION
18.APRIL - 21.JULI 2010, MENDELSOHNPLATZ KARLSRUHE + HfG Karlsruhe
Mendelssohnplatz, Karlsruhe.
Our attention is focused on a large LED screen, on which, between scattered advertisements for local firms, we are drawn to an unorthodox flood of images: we recognize faces, holiday photos, everyday commodities, and take in unusual text dispatches.
"Open Screen" is a net-based sculpture, made from public contributions. There is no need for the audience to first be initiated into the surrounding discourse to understand this work. The basic human need for creative play and disclosure induces the internet user to take part in this artwork via the uploading of its own photos and text messages. Server software programmed by Alex Wenger constantly generates short new clips out of this steadily growing data source, and broadcasts them onto Röser Media's advertising screen. The material on show is no more than a cross-section of the expressive manifestations found in social networks.
The new dictatorship of the market opposes personal expression against the former consumer. This is in no way a form of subvertising, but is much more a reference to the bottom-up movement of today's media society.
OPEN SCREEN
www.open-screen.tv
KUNSTUNTERNEHMEN 10
www.kunstunternehmen.de
