Podcast: Folge 4 – Heimat und Flucht

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Publ. 11.10.2022

In unserer neuen Folge unseres YourArtBeat Podcasts reden wir mit Christiane Welker über Heimat und Flucht. Dabei kriegen wir einen Einblick in die Arbeit mit Flüchtlingen, erfahren warum eine Flucht schon von der Begrifflichkeit her nie freiwillig sein kann und wie wir Flüchtlinge unterstützen können. Wir sprechen auch über die Integration von Flüchtlingen in unsere Gesellschaft und erfahren, warum Angst niemals eine gute Lösung ist. Im Rahmen dessen, möchten wir euch auch deren Herzensprojekt „Wohnopia“ vorstellen. „Wohnopia“ ist ein gemeinschaftliches und Generationsübergreifendes Hausprojekt in Erfurt mit dem Ziel Wohnraum zu schaffen, der dauerhaft bezahlbare Mieten gewährleisten soll und auch als Ort der Gemeinschaft und Solidarität dient. Unter www.wohnopia.de erfahrt ihr mehr.

Jetzt die neue Folge anhören.

Neue Podcast Folge: Heimat und Menschen ohne Obdach

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Publ. 10.26.2022

In der neuen Folge unseres YourArtBeat Podcasts redet Carsten mit Sophia Vecchini über Heimat und Menschen ohne Obdach. Dabei kriegen wir einen Einblick in die Arbeit mit Menschen ohne Obdach, erfahren mehr über das Projekt „Blickwinkel“ und wie es ist, mit Obdachlosen zusammenzuarbeiten. Wir stellen uns die Frage, wie man Menschen ohne Obdach unterstützen kann und wie wir mit Stereotypen und Vorurteilen besser umgehen sollten. Für ein besseres miteinander und mehr Akzeptanz. Jetzt anhören!

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Hier geht’s zur  “Dogma2021” Homepage & Amazon Podcast


Sophia Vecchini und ihr Projekt “Blickwinkel“. Hier konnten Menschen ohne Obdach mit Einwegkameras ihr Leben festhalten. Die dabei entstandenen Bilder wurden später ausgestellt. Der Erlös wurde an die Obdachlosen ausgezahlt – die Obdachlosen wurden zu Künstlern.

Your Art Beat goes Podcast – Folge 2: Was bedeutet Heimat?

———— Filed under: Art ⁄⁄ Podcast

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Publ. 08.17.2022

In Folge 2 unseres Podcasts redet Carsten Jan Weichelt (YAB) mit den Künstlerinnen und Dozentinnen Kim Dotty Hachmann und Yvonne Michalik über das Thema Heimat.

me, my family and I_© Kim Dotty Hachmann_photo and video.jpg


Hierbei stellen sie sich die Frage, was Heimat damals bedeutet hat und wie man den Begriff in der Postmoderne definieren könnte? Wann ist Heimat
Heimat, welche Faktoren spielen eine Rolle und was hat es mit der Wurzelfamilie, Flügeln und der Suche nach sich selbst auf sich? Hört euch jetzt die zweite Folge an und kriegt Antworten auf diese Fragen und wer weiß, vielleicht stellt ihr sie euch am Ende selbst?

©Foto bei Yvonne Michalik

Hier könnt ihr euch den Podcast auf Spotify anhören.
Hier könnt ihr euch den Podcast auf anchor.fm anhören.
Hier könnt ihr euch den Podcast auf Amazon anhören.
Hier könnt ihr euch den Podcast auf Apple Podcast anhören.

Hier gelangt ihr zur Homepage von Kim Dotty Hachmann.

YourArtBeat goes Podcast: DOGMA 2021

———— Filed under: Allgemein ⁄⁄ Design ⁄⁄ Künstliche Intelligenz ⁄⁄ Podcast
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Publ. 06.2.2022

Unser #Podcast ist online!

In der ersten Folge “KI trifft Design” redet Mitgründerin Johanna Griebert mit Prof. Dr. Agnes Schipanski und Anna Roth über Künstliche Intelligenz und Design. Fakt ist: Künstliche Intelligenz umgibt uns mittlerweile fast ununterbrochen, sie vereinfacht uns das Leben. Aber ist das nur positiv zu bewerten? Was sollte man kritisch betrachten? Ist Künstliche Intelligenz ein Segen oder Fluch? Hört euch jetzt die erste Folge von unserem YourArtBeat Podcast “DOGMA 2021” an.

Spotify DOGMA 2021 – Folge 1: KI trifft Design
Apple Podcast DOGMA 2021 – Folge 1: KI trifft Design

Informationen zu den Interviewpartnerinnen:
Prof. Dr. Agnes Schipanski
Anna Roth

Skript/Redaktion: Carsten Jan Weichelt

Über YourArtBeat und den neuen Podcast:
Wir sind ein kreatives Netzwerk und haben uns in den letzten Jahren auf die digitale Kunst fokussiert. In unserem Podcast reden wir über Künstliche Intelligenz, Design und setzen ab Folge 2 einen Schwerpunkt auf das Thema Heimat: Wie wird Heimat in verschiedenen Ländern definiert? Wann ist Heimat, Heimat? Was bedeutet es, wenn man seine Heimat zurücklassen möchte oder muss? Auf diese und vielen weitere Fragen gehen wir im Laufe des Podcasts genauer ein, mit interessanten und spannenden Interviewpartner:innen aus dem Kreativ- und Kunstbereich.

Carla Marini

———— Filed under: Allgemein ⁄⁄ Art ⁄⁄ Artist ⁄⁄ Artwork ⁄⁄ Market
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Publ. 02.1.2022

“What is not critical thinking art, I call decoration” – Alfredo Jaar.

Every year Your Art Beat is looking for new artists to exhibit and sell their artworks at the YOUR ART BEAT Market. Today, we would like to introduce the new artists. The first artist will be Carla Marini, who applied and was selected for the Your Art Beat Market with her project “Ephemeral women”. Carla Marini was born in the Chilean desert. She became interested in creative work from a young age, attending workshops and everything that was related to this somehow. She moved to Barcelona in 2016 for her master’s degree in illustration. In the interview, she talks about her career as a professional artist and introduces us to her project “Ephermal women” more in detail. Carla Marini describes her own art as: feminist, expressive and colorful. With her art she wants to represent women, put them in the center of attention and thus give them more visibility, “on their full complexity, focusing on the oppression of woman in patriarchy”, Carla writes. Furthermore, her work deals with sexism and the feminicide. Important and exciting topics that her art is intended to raise attention to. Art is for Carla “[…] two main things. It’s version B of the history – the most critical, sensitive and honest narrative of it. On the other hand, for me, it’s a fight. I really believe in the political sense of art.” Nor is she critical of digital art. In her opinion, digital art can be used to create something truly new and unseen. Carla defines culture “[…] as a bunch of human expressions. It can be folklore, crafts, even street food. It’s everything happening in a specific place and time so it’s kind of a collective soul of a region. I come from a very particular region of Chile, where there is a very unique Carnival full of color, dance, and music that is really felt in society and is a sign of resistance to colonialism. I have something of it inside of me and all of this gets expressed in my art as part of my cultural identity.” So, please welcome Carla Marini to the Your Art Beat Blog! Check out the whole interview right now. Enjoy.

1. Introduce yourself and also the project, with which you had applied to YourArtBeat: “Ephemeral women”

I was born in the Chilean desert, and I inherit the love for the carnival of the North. My art comes from this imaginary, from the colors, to my interest in multiculturalism and feminism.

Since I was little, I have been attracted to art, and I was always in a constant back and forth between the visual and performing arts, so I was always taking in workshops on everything related to that…it was obvious that I would finally study art at university. I studied performing arts, after a while, I started worked on visual poetry and performance… In 2016 I moved to Barcelona -the city where I am currently based- to study a Masters’s degree in Illustration…

Conceptually my research has always been around identity, thinking in the concept of otherness, in many ways, because I want to bring forward elements of it that historically have not been appreciated.

My work lately has been a journey between abstract and figurative portraits of women, it is a kind of metaphor for the disappearance of women in the patriarchy…in every possible way. From the symbolic to the literal, the extreme expression of sexism…the feminicide.
Also it is a personal reflection of my knowledge of feminism regarding the deconstructions you must make in order to be coherent.

2. Where do your ideas come from?

The core idea comes from social injustice, political issues, and whatever happens around that triggers something uncomfortable inside me.
Besides, living in Barcelona is a deep dive into different cultural expressions…It could be a photography exhibition, a lights festival or a concert…anything that nourishes your brain. Definitely being in a place full not only of art, but also full of cultural diversity and life is a shot of bubbling energy.

3. What inspired you especially for the project “Ephemeral women”?

Initially, the project was something related to the concept of ephemeral forms that disappear and get visually destroyed. It started as an investigation of what deconstructions of the portrait of a woman means and it was very visceral.
Working on that I realised that I was speaking about the literal disappearance of women due to feminicide.

In the process of developing the series I have been doing a thorough research about other topics regarding feminism, such as the beauty myth, gender roles, sexual violence,etc.
One of the main focuses of the series has been the double oppression of racialized women in society, which was inspired by a reading “Women, race and class” by Angela Davis.

4. How do you work on your creative (creation) processes?

I usually start with a very precise idea in my mind, a clear defined image and then I start exploring the technique. Only a few times I prepare a sketch because the process for me is getting the image as tangible and accurate as possible.

I also like to surprise myself during the process and let the mistakes take place as mistakes are really where you learn from the most.

I’m really obsessed with the initial image and in the last project, for example, I wanted to mix abstract and realism, using collage technique and acrylic. Therefore, this serie immediately developed in a very natural and organic way.

5. What advantages do you personally see in digital art?

Digital art allows us to create something really new and unseen nowadays as many expressions of arts have been explored already. Therefore, as technology advances, the more digital artists can embrace them and get new possibilities out of them. I can say -thinking is everything done- the digital artist has a potential in her hands that analogic artists usually don`t have.

6. What do you want to express with your art, or does it change with each project? Or, for example, is there always a consistent main element/theme?

I’ve always represented mostly women in my artworks. At the beginning of my career, I started drawing portraits and then I touched topics around racial hierarchy and migration, ending up with the representation of women only. As much as I got deeper in women issues and the power of patriarchy I started focusing on women’s portraits as this moves me. In any case it has always been about identity and the concept of “otherness”. I finally committed myself to feminine portraits and feminism and I decided to portrait only women as historically, they have been represented as muses and beauty objects. I want to put them in the centre, giving them visibility on their full complexity, focusing on the oppression of women in patriarchy.

7. What does “art” in general mean to you?

Art for me is two main things. It’s version B of the history – the most critical, sensitive and honest narrative of it. On the other hand, for me, it’s a fight. I really believe in the political sense of art. Call me naíf or call me pretentious, but I really believe if I can touch and “crack” someone in any way I’m on the right path. It is a giant dichotomy and that on the one hand I believe that there is nothing to do and nothing will chancge, and on the other hand I hace the impertinent need to try again and again to change something, no matter how small, that generates a minimun movement in some place… Like Gramsci said: “Pessimism of Intelligence, optimism of will”.

8. What does “culture” mean to you?

Culture is a bunch of human expressions. It can be folklore, crafts, even street food. It’s everything happening in a specific place and time so it’s kind of a collective soul of a region. I come from a very particular region of Chile, where there is a very unique Carnival full of colour, dance and music that is really felt in society and is a sign of resistance to colonialism. I have something of it inside of me and all this gets expressed in my art as part of my cultural identity.

Not sure what Your Art Beat Market is exactly? YOURARTBEAT Market is a digital marketplace dedicated exclusively to art trading, interactions and transactions between buyers and sellers. YOURARTBEAT intentionally opens the market to newer and unconventional visuals and digital art.

DOGMA 2021 – KI und Technik: Segen oder Fluch?

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Publ. 01.19.2022

Your Art Beat e.V. und Strollology präsentieren die Folge 0 des Podcasts “DOGMA 2021”, der ab März 2022 weitergeführt wird.

In Folge 0 geht es um die Idee “DOGMA 2021”, also wie sie zustande kam und was Matthias Welker (YAB) und Lars Roth (Strollology) überhaupt unter DOGMA 2021 verstehen und für was DOGMA 2021 generell stehen kann. Es geht um technologischen Fortschritt und wie wir als Gesellschaft damit umgehen. Wer bestimmt wen? Ist KI und Technik ein Segen oder Fluch? Was sind die Vor- und Nachteile? Ein Gespräch und eine Diskussion.

Summer Art Festival @ Computerspielemuseum – präsentiert von Your Art Beat, Strollology und Dogma2021

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Publ. 08.22.2021

Am 03. und 04. September 2021 heißt das Computerspielemuseum Euch herzlich zum Spielen, Tanzen und Entdecken willkommen.

Im Rahmen des Summer Art Festivals @ Computerspielemuseum“ stellen sich verschiedene Künstlergruppen vor, die ein Programm aus Musik, Digitaler Kunst und Fashion bieten. Die Veranstaltung findet Freitag (03.09.) und Samstag (04.09.) auf der Terrasse des Computerspielemuseums Berlin statt und beinhaltet unter anderem einen Stoptrick Schnupperkurs, eine Freestyle Cypher Competition und eine kreative Performance des Modelabels SYLD.
Strollology präsentiert „Dig Yourself Out Of The Shit“ als Fassadenmedium. Abschluss des Events wird der Live Kick-off Podcast von Dogma2021 zum Thema Technologie, Kreativität und Gesellschaft sein (Samstag, 20:00 Uhr / Moderation: Karim Bartels / Speaker: Dr. Matthias Welker -Your Art Beat e.V. und Lars Roth –Strollology / max 20. Personen).

Das Computerspielemuseum, der Your Art Beat e.V. und Strollology freuen sich auf Euren Besuch! See you!

PROGRAMM

Freitag

16:00: Stage Piano – Rosanno Snel

18:00: Stage Piano – Rosanno Snel

Samstag

14:00: Führung auf der Karl-Marx-Allee – Achim Bahr, Stalinbauten e.V.

15:00: Stoptrick Schnupperkurs – Dominik Mader & Ben Lützow

17:00: Tanz Performance – Ela & Rubén

18:00: Line in Cypher Competition – Sadi da Kid, Pdro420, Liuz

19:00: Kreative Performance – SYLD mit DJ Diana May

20:00: Dogma2021 Panel – Live Podcast #wirsinddogma

DURCHGEHENDES PROGRAMM

Interactive Game – Yuxi Long

VR Booth – Your Art Beat

Digital Artworks – Michael Filmovi

Virtual School – Aizhan Sagayaneva

Kunst aus dem Computerspielemuseum

Fassadenmedium DYOOTS

Blickwinkel II – by Sophia Vecchini

———— Filed under: Art ⁄⁄ Exhibition ⁄⁄ Market ⁄⁄ photography
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Publ. 03.25.2021

For her exhibition “Blickwinkel”, Sophia Vecchini let people without shelter become artists, as they were allowed to capture their everyday lives with a disposable camera. Sophia Vecchini conceived an exhibition from the resulting material. “It’s a nice feeling to give people the chance to be seen: with their perspectives, their courage and look at the world.” The exhibition can be summed up as unique, human and inspiring. Why? Read the interview and learn more about the special project “Blickwinkel”. If you haven’t read the first “Blickwinkel” interview with Sophia yet, you can find it here.

We conducted our first interview during the planning phase of your project “Blickwinkel”. Now, a few months later, the time has come and “Blickwinkel” is on display in the Wilmersdorfer Arcaden, a shopping mall since 24 March 2021.

Yes, I am very pleased that the exhibition now also has a second venue, namely the Wilmersdorfer Arcaden. Due to the current Corona measures, the exhibition at the Zentrum am Zoo has been postponed indefinitely for the time being. In the Arcaden, the exhibition is presented in a glass box. That’s great, because despite Corona, the shops are open for everyday needs. That’s why the arcades still have more than 10,000 visitors a day. This is, of course, a great opportunity for “Blickwinkel” to be seen (despite current Corona measures). The artworks are also offered for sale at the YourArtBeat Market. This is very important to me as I want the artists to get a financial reward too. Because they have taken the time and reflected things.

In the last interview you said that you wanted the artists to get money. But you also said that there were voices that said: Yes, but if you give money to people without shelter, they will probably spend it on drugs or alcohol.

That people without shelter always spend their money on drugs or alcohol is a prejudice, and in my project I want every artist to be seen as a human being and not as a person without shelter. Because for me, it is essential to emphasise that one should not approach people without shelter with such generalised prejudices. Moreover, for me and Katrin Lück, who is the patron of “Blickwinkel” and the Equal Opportunities Commissioner for the Wilmersdorf-Charlottenburg district, self-determination is very important. Equality means equal rights for all. We don’t tell anyone else how to deal with their money.

How many artists were you ultimately able to recruit for your project?

There are now four artists left. I distributed 14 disposable cameras. From the beginning, 20 pictures were planned for the exhibition. I achieved this goal, but it was planned that there would be one or two pictures per artist. The problem is that, on the one hand, some were not interested in taking part in such a project. Many women were not interested and I could hear a little bit from the social workers on site that women are a bit more ashamed. It is definitely riskier to live as a woman on the street and there are also many more men among the poor people without shelter. In the end, only six of the 14 cameras came back, but I also expected this because people without shelter are not always found in the same places. And if they were not there at the time the cameras were collected – yes, then that’s it. Others didn’t know how to use the cameras and had given up, which is understandable. I could not use the pictures of two of the cameras. But it is clear that disposable cameras simply do not have one hundred per cent performance as a product. I now have four male artists left and of course I am very happy about that. I have also had real contact with two of them. That means we discussed the pictures together. The two of them are simply great people and I sincerely hope that they will get something out of it financially. Both are very grateful to all the institutions that support them.

Do you know how old the artists are?

The two I have had contact with are 60 and 62 years old. Of the other two I don’t know more than their names.

If you were to describe your exhibition with three adjectives, what would they be?

Unique. Human. Inspiring. Well, I hope that others feel the same way, but I have been very inspired by this project. At least that had been one of my goals. The aim of “Blickwinkel” is to inspire people to think about certain social issues. Especially about urban poverty and homelessness; to open up a bit more, that homelessness is not just a stigma that is stuck in our heads.

The exhibition “Blickwinkel” can be seen until 30 April 2021 at the Wilmersdorfer Arcaden “WILMA” . Please pay attention to the Corona protection measures in force.

Sophia Vecchini wants to thank: Katrin Lück, Equal Opportunities Commissioner in the Wilmersdorf-Charlottenburg district & patron of Blickwinkel; Petra Schönberger; the management and team of the Bahnhofsmission am Zoo and the ZaZ, as well as all the individual case workers and social workers of the Berliner Stadtmission who have supported me; the sponsors of the tax consultancy Freiberger & Collegen; the YOUR ART BEAT Team! (Editors, Market & Virtual Booth).

The interview was conducted by Carsten Jan Weichelt

Behind Your Art Beat – An Interview with Johanna Griebert

———— Filed under: Allgemein ⁄⁄ Art ⁄⁄ Artist ⁄⁄ Digital ⁄⁄ Market ⁄⁄ Processing

Author:
Publ. 03.2.2021

Maybe you can think of [Your Art Beat] as a kind of virtual museum

It is the year 2016. In the beginning it is just an idea, but soon Your Art Beat e. V. grew out of it. Johanna Griebert has been involved from the beginning, and today we will introduce her. Johanna is the chairperson of the board of Your Art Beat, along with Matthias Welker. In the interview, we talk about the history of the association and what Your Art Beat stands for. The aim of the association is “to take a holistic view on the art, culture and creative scene and [to] dedicate itself to the protection, preservation, wide-ranging and multimedia presentation of the most diverse arts”, as Johanna says. The mission: cultural education. The main motif here is the combination of modern media technologies and interfaces of the analogue and digital world. ” Maybe you can think of [Your Art Beat] as a kind of virtual museum,” she pursues. Artists who are selected through open calls are exhibited. Their works can be bought on the Your Art Beat Market. What exactly the YAB Market is all about? What the future of YAB will look like? You can find out in the following interview. Johanna also explains why experimenting with digital media in particular is so exciting and which features should not be missing from a good exhibition.

How did the association Your Art Beat start and what are your tasks there?

I have been involved in Your Art Beat from the very beginning. In 2016, after the presentation of my final project, back then my professor, now good friend and colleague Matthias Welker approached me and described his initial ideas for a project. From the first moment, I was enthusiastic and quickly convinced that I wanted to get involved in the project. That was practically the birth of a project that later developed into Your Art Beat. My tasks were of a conceptual, curatorial, editorial and organisational nature. At the end of 2016, the project was online and half a year later, in the summer of 2017, we founded the YAB association, which I run together with Matthias as chairperson of the board.

How would you describe the association in a few sentences?

Your Art Beat e.V. is a non-profit association that takes a holistic view on the artistic, cultural and creative scene and is dedicated to the protection, preservation and wide-ranging, multimedia presentation of a wide variety of arts. We see our mission in cultural education and in this respect call for participatory events and “creative activism”. We want to conduct discourses at eye level and dissolve static role assignments of knowledge instructor, recipient and producer. “Isn’t everybody a creator and curator?” Furthermore, Your Art Beat explores the potentials of modern media technologies and the intersections of the analogue and the digital. This is a motif that can be found in various facets of Your Art Beat.

What goals have you set yourselves as an association? What does Your Art Beat stand for?

We see our function primarily in promoting artists and supporting them in their activities. To this end, we offer various services, which we put together according to orientation and objectives, in order to be able to respond to individual circumstances and requirements.
Our goal or vision is to develop a new tool (Your Art Beat Gallery), which is to be understood as a kind of immersive and multimedia knowledge repository, in which collectively generated knowledge, artistic experiences or creative processes are saved and designed as multimedia contributions. Perhaps one can imagine it as a kind of virtual museum, composed of content from society and intended to offer participation, information and pleasure at the same time. Like a museum, this collective art and creative memory should be accessible to the public.

What exactly is the Your Art Beat Market?

The YAB Market is a digital trading place dedicated exclusively to the buying and selling of artworks, with a focus on digital and media art. Here we also find “the typical YAB motif” that I spoke of earlier: The intersection of the analogue and the digital.
So the question is: how can you produce a digital work haptically or transfer it into a physical medium?
This primarily goes hand in hand with the challenge that for each work a suitable physical medium has to be found that reflects both the visual dimensional depth and the content component (“the soul” of the work). To this end, we have experimented with different materials, such as mirror glass, (normal) glass and aluminium. This allows us to offer individual products in different design and price variants.
Furthermore, we offer additional services that can be used individually. We offer clients our knowledge and professional background, roughly speaking: content-related, legal, financial, as well as logistical matters concerning private art objects.

How do you select the artists?

Every year we launch an open call in which we look for new and special talents. The 5-10 artists who convinced us the most will be presented at the YAB Market. In addition, a selection of their works is offered for sale. Within 3-4 weeks, artists and creative professionals from all over the world have the opportunity to apply with their portfolio. At the last Open Calls we got great feedback from different countries. The decisions are usually very difficult but the result is always a very meticulous and fine selection of new talents’ works. As I said before, there is a focus on media and digital art. However, in recent years, we have also been able to convince artists from more “classical” disciplines, which means that the Market can offer a refreshing diversity for sale.

Digital media – are they more a part of the independent cultural scene or have they already entered the realm of state institutions?

Digital media have also arrived in institutional exhibition venues, but in practice they are not as mature as one would expect, or wish. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see that the use of digital media is also becoming established in “traditional” or “conservative” institutions. – Of course, it always depends on how the respective exhibition house is set up and oriented. For many exhibitions, media stations etc. are not even necessary, e.g. pure art exhibitions. Either way, anyone who wants to use media in exhibitions should choose them sensibly, plan them carefully and implement them in an overall functional way.
A big challenge that I personally perceive in my job at the moment is the topic of accessibility. Especially when it comes to electronic media, there are a lot of things to consider when implementing digital applications – be it of a design, content or physical nature. It is not easy to reconcile all of these and achieve a beautiful, functional end product. I am very pleased that more attention is being paid to the topic of accessibility in the exhibition context and that it is establishing itself as an elementary component in the exhibition business – yet there is still a lot to learn on all sides.

What makes it so exciting to experiment with digital media?

What is exciting about digital media is that digital formats give us the possibilities to present and convey content in the most diverse ways. In other words, for every content you want to convey, there are different ways of preparing and presenting it. Digital media expand this spectrum and offer us further options for presenting and ultimately conveying content in its own individual and ideal way.

What is planned for Art Karlsruhe, how will YourArtBeat present itself?

We are very pleased that Your Art Beat will be present at Art Karlsruhe this year, one of the largest art fairs in Germany, and that we will be able to showcase all its facets there. On this occasion, we have also come up with something special. In addition to the booth on the Museumsmeile in Karlsruhe, there will also be a -virtual- booth online. At the moment, Your Art Beat is still working on the development of a first prototype – so I don’t want to anticipate anything at this point.

What does the future of YourArtBeat look like? – What can we expect?

The next big Your Art Beat event will be, as already mentioned, Art Karlsruhe (21 – 24 May 2021) and in parallel – as a “digital event” – the virtual exhibition booth online. This will also be the kick-off for our next Open Call, in which we are looking for the “third generation” of YAB artists whose works we will exhibit and sell at the YAB Market. Another project I am very excited about is “Blickwinkel” by Sophia Vecchini [link from Blickwinkel post]. As part of this social project, Sophia has turned homeless people into artists and let them shoot their own motifs with disposable cameras during the winter. We will soon be exhibiting a selection of these at the YAB Market and will be able to offer them exclusively. The proceeds will go in full to the artists.

What do you think are the characteristics of a good exhibition?

A good exhibition must “seduce” and “incite” me, it must have the potential to carry me away, even if the subject does not interest me at all. A good exhibition teaches me something without the feeling of learning. It shows me new perspectives and perspectives that make me reflect and question my opinion. In the best case, I not only take away factual knowledge from an exhibition, but also become more “emotionally intelligent” and learn something about the society I live in and about myself. Not every type of exhibition or exhibition theme offers the opportunity to fully exploit these possibilities, but it should have this claim. Small things can have a big impact.

The interview was conducted by Carsten Jan Weichelt.

Strollology

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Author:
Publ. 01.26.2021

The term Strollology translates as walking science and stems from the English term “to stroll” = to go for a walk). Together with his wife Anna, Lars Roth founded the design studio Strollology in 2014. In addition to commercial projects, the agency is also focused on artistic projects and theoretical aspects of design. “If you’re working only in the commercial field, you can easily feel like a hamster in a wheel. It’s good for creative work to constantly expand one’s own horizon,” says Lars Roth.
In August 2020, they were part of the Karl-Marx-Allee Artwalk in Berlin together with YOUR ART BEAT. There, they presented their project “KMA Faces”. Anna and Lars photographed residents of Karl-Marx-Allee and morphed their faces with the help of a machine learning model. This was done by a Generative Adversarial Network (an artificial neuronal network) that constantly generated new variants of the KMA residents from the portraits – a work of art that will probably exist only once. “There is actually nothing that doesn’t already exist,” says Lars Roth.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, however, this might change. How? Read the full interview and learn more about Strollology.

Who is behind Strollology?
My wife Anna and I are behind it. We both studied visual communication at Kunsthochschule Kassel. The Swiss sociologist and design theorist Lucius Burckhard, who invented Strollology, taught in Kassel. I’ve always found his work exciting. I’m all into conscious perception. And Burckhardt initiated walks with the aim of sharpening participants’ awareness for their environment and adopting new perspectives. Of course, that has a lot to do with vision. In our walks through Berlin we took up the idea of Burckhardt’s thoughts and carried them on. In our blog www.strollology.com we tackled the topic in theory. In addition, we cooperated with various partners, such as Slow Travel Berlin and the B_Tours Festival, who deal with walking as an artistic practice.
Beyond that, Strollology is about conscious perception of the environment – a constant analysis and reflection of what surrounds us. There are two things that have always interested us: people and places. And I believe that places have their own aura, that is, they convey a special feeling. We often walked through Neukölln. Neukölln is an old working-class district that has changed radically several times in the course of the last century. Our intention with these walks and with Strollology in general was to create an awareness of that among the visitors. To make people aware of the things that surround them every day.
Lucius Burckhardt’s design-theoretical reflections, however, go far beyond the actual “walk”; it is much more about constantly questioning one’s own point of view – according to the saying “think outside the box”. This attitude has also increasingly been integrated into our practical work as designers. The combination of applied projects and theoretical analysis, that is what characterises Strollology for us. For example, we are very interested in artificial intelligence. We deal with this in the commercial field on the one hand and in free artistic projects on the other one.

So one could say that you are exploring the business world in order to create something new artistically?
If you look at it philosophically, then I would answer that question with yes. Strollology is first and foremost the philosophy behind our work. We humans are practically filters. We perceive all day long, for example when we walk through the city or move through the net. Our input therefore also influences our output. In our commercial projects, we try to insert our artistic input and our theoretical background. In our everyday life, in the commercial field, a lot of our work is hands on, of course. A large part of our agency’s daily routine is determined by implementing specific projects according to our clients’ wishes. But behind that is always our philosophy – mirroring what we do in the commercial sector, for example, – to rethinking it artistically, and vice versa.

You mentioned that you offered walks at the time in order to consciously perceive the surroundings. How can one imagine that? How did you guide the visitors?
We confronted participants with their own perception: What do I perceive? If I perceive something, what can I do with it? One tour, for example, was about the perception of Kottbusser Damm. The tour followed the course of a typical 18th century Sunday walk: through Cottbusser Thor out of the city on a sandy avenue to the spacious meadows of Hasenheide. This narrative corresponds to what we archetypically understand by a picturesque landscape and would call “beautiful”. Nowadays, the city has spread far beyond the former city limits, and the former rural character of Kottbusser Damm has given way to a noisy, 6-lane road. The tour was as much about creating a sense for the historical dimension of the place in the participants as it was about questioning what we consider beautiful and why.

The interview was conducted by Carsten Jan Weichelt