Tots els canvis s’han desat (All Changes Saved)

Aram Bartholl, Clara Boj + Diego Díaz, Martin John Callanan, Olia Lialina, Kyle McDonald, Román Torre + Ángeles Angulo, Carlo Zanni

Curated by Pau Waelder

Casal Solleric, Palma (Spain)
September 21, 2018 – January 6, 2019

“The internet is, in its essence, a machine of surveillance. It divides the flow of data into small, traceable, and reversible operations, thus exposing every user to surveillance—real or potential. The internet creates a field of total visibility, accessibility, and transparency.”
Boris Groys

When writing a document using the text editor on Google Drive, every few seconds a discrete notification appears on the toolbar: “all changes saved in Drive”. The software confirms that the document contents have been automatically saved on one of Google’s servers. It is not necessary to save the document, the platform does it on its own. This automatic save function is a comfort, as it prevents us from losing data through computer failure or carelessness. However, it also reminds us that everything we do on the internet is stored automatically, whether we like it or not. As Boris Groys points out, the internet is a network where data packets circulate that are constantly tracked, labelled and stored. Everything we do when we use a digital device connected to the internet is registered and stored on a remote server. And increasingly we are using connected devices for many of our daily activities, from the moment we get up in the morning to when we go to bed at night and even whilst we are sleeping. The data that is automatically gathered by the devices that surround us is added to the information we voluntarily provide by publishing contents on social networks, writing lists of things to remember on digital notes, using password managers or deciding to wear an activity tracker.

All Changes Saved is a collective exhibition with the Google Drive notification as its title, alluding to the way in which our lives are affected by the automatic save function. We trust our data to large companies and we write our biography in real time, but we are unable to control these files or what others do with them. The artworks of various national and international artists pose questions as to the construction of our personal history through the data we share, the use made of that data and the strategies to recover some sort of intimacy.

Pau Waelder
Curator

ARTWORKS

Aram Bartholl

Forgot Your Password? (2013)
8 books, bound in hard back
21 x 27 cm, 800 pages each

In the summer of 2012, the social network LinkedIn was attacked by hackers who managed to copy its entire user database. A few months later, part of the complete list of user passwords began to circulate on the internet. Bartholl has copied this list of 4.7 million passwords, arranged in alphabetical order, into eight printed volumes. Visitors can consult these books and find out if their password is among them. This work reveals the vulnerability of our data on the internet, as well as the ease with which information circulates that has been taken from the databases of companies that have been attacked. The volumes created by Aram Bartholl play with the concept of telephone directory and give files that are usually hidden a physical form that is easy to understand. By only including the passwords, these books do not violate the privacy of the users but show them that the combination of letters and numbers they so zealously guard and think no one knows is within everybody’s reach.

 

Captura de pantalla 2017-09-28 a las 13.22.56
Clara Boj and Diego Díaz

Data Biography (2017)
365 books, shelf, tablet, screen

Artists Clara Boj and Diego Díaz decided to automatically gather, in real time, all the data generated by using their mobile telephones during 2017, coinciding with the last few months of pregnancy and the birth of their second child. Data Biography is a library of 365 volumes that reflects on paper the artists’ digital footprint over the period of a year. These books contain their emails, text messages, browsing history, location and even photos shared on social networks. The intimate life of this young family is thus exposed in detail. The piece reveals the amount of data gathered daily by the devices we use every day and how these data originate from the user, by sending texts, sharing photos or publishing on social networks, and from the smartphone itself, as it constantly communicates the user’s position and provides other information whilst it is switched on, even though it is not being used. Data Biography addresses the need to write our own biography in real time and the enormous amount of data we provide almost without realising.

martin-communicate

Martin John Callanan

I Cannot Not Communicate (2015)
100 books, table, sheets of A3 paper
Courtesy of Galería Horrach Moya, Palma

In this work, Martin John Callanan has gathered together the first 100 books recommended by Amazon, based on everything he has read and bought since the company launched its recommendation algorithm more than 15 years ago. The title refers to how users of any internet service are involuntary transmitters of information, given that the data relative to their actions is registered automatically. It is no longer possible to be a mere receiver of information. There is a constant exchange of data that modifies the actual contents being accessed. This reflection is not presented as a complex technological installation but as something as simple as a library, that has become a register of the subjects the artist is interested in, even though this register was not created by him but by an Amazon algorithm. These books are not necessarily ones that Martin John Callanan has read but ones which he would supposedly like to read.

BodyClassPimp01
Olia Lialina

Hyves Body Class Pimp (2013-2017)
Six digital prints on plexiglas, 150 x 84 cm

Between 2010 and 2011, Olia Lialina explored the public profiles of Hyves users. Created in 2004 and active until 2013, this social network was very popular in Holland, particularly among young immigrants, and even competed with Facebook. The artist was particularly interested in the way this platform allowed its users to personalise their pages and how codes were established as to how to present themselves to the world through the images they chose for their profile picture and wallpaper. Using these elements, she created a series of compositions that contrast the wallpaper image and the profile picture, selecting ones where the person cannot be recognised. Presented as a series of digital prints, Hyves Body Class Pimp reveals a creative use of the contents published by these young users and tries to create a portrait of them. In these compositions, the observer can see themselves reflected and consider how they project their own image on the internet and how the elements they use to do so can be gathered and manipulated.

exhausting-a-crowd
Kyle McDonald

Exhausting a Crowd (2015)
Installation, projector, computer

In 1974, author Georges Perec, a patient observer of daily life, decided to describe everything that occurred in a square in Paris over a period of three days. The resulting text, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (1974), inspired Kyle McDonald to create this piece, which includes a recording of a public space and software that allows the people found there to be labelled and comments about them to be published. The work is stored on a website, allowing users to try out this method of surveillance and create short narratives and dialogues about an everyday scene. Nowadays Perec’s literary experiment would be perceived as an act of surveillance and could even be considered suspicious by the authorities who, monitoring the square, detect the presence of an individual observing the place and systematically taking notes. An attempt at exhausting a place can now be carried out automatically thanks to computer vision and artificial intelligence, whilst the possibility of labelling other people reminds us that we are always exposed to the eye and comments of other people, even those who observe us without being seen.

Captura de pantalla 2017-09-28 a las 13.23.17
Román Torre and Ángeles Angulo

THERO (2016)
Custom devices and software

THERO is a device in the form of a sculpture, a router, open-source software and a freely-replicable 3D printed object. Inside a casing in the form of a truncated cuboctahedron is a Raspberri Pi 3 processor that manages the internet connection of any device connected to one of its ports or accessing a wireless network created by the sculpture. On the front, a mobile part allows the user to decide, at any time, the type of connection to the internet they want: secure (encrypted), without access to social networks or completely disconnected from any internet access. Using this device, the artists suggest a reflection on the conditions of privacy of our internet access and promote solutions that users could freely use thanks to the development of open-source software and an object that can be made using a 3D printer. At the same time, the intriguing presence of this sculpture, which the artists describe as a talisman, leads us to think about how we trust technology and glorify its products almost to the level of cult objects.

zanni-hunp1ng
Carlo Zanni

Hunp1ng (2018)
Sculpture, clay, incense and sweets, 26x40x40 cm
With support from Marsèll

Carlo Zanni finds inspiration in an accessory that allows the web cam or any computer to be covered, creating a sculpture that leads us to reflect on user privacy and the way that computers store a tiny piece of our lives. Hunping (soul jar) is a ceramic urn found in the tombs of the Han dynasty. The urn is placed in the tomb, next to the deceased’s belongings to hold their soul, which would enter it through one of the openings, and supposedly contained fruit. Zanni’s sculpture evokes this urn with its complex shape and fragile but heavy materiality, making it difficult to use. Like the Hunping urn, this piece becomes a ritual object, destined to preserve the user’s intimacy as if it were storing their soul.

 

All Changes Saved, Casal Solleric

Im Dialog mit Amazon – Mallorca Zeitung – Nr. 882 – 30. März 2017

Der britische Künstler Martin John Callanan zeigt bei Horrach Moyà das Wechselspiel von System und Mensch, Von Brigitte Kramer

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Eigentlich müssten wir alle unter Atemnot oder Platzangst leiden. Denn immer dichter legen sich die Fäden des weltweiten digitalen Netzes um uns. Immer mehr Stun- den verbringen wir vor kleinen oder großen Bildschirmen, geben Daten ein, hinterlassen Spuren. Einen Teil der Zeit im Internet verbringen wir mit Dingen, die nicht unbedingt lebensnotwendig sind. Martin John Callanan geht es nicht anders. Nur verbringt er sei- ne Zeit im Netz mit Sinnvollem. Er macht Kunst. Derzeit zeigt er sie in der Galerie Horrach Moyà an der Plaça de la Drassana.

„Martin has been alive +12858 days“, schreibt er auf seiner Web- site. Für alle Leser, die das Spiel mit Zahlen weniger lieben als Callanan: Er wurde 1982 in einer Kleinstadt bei Birmingham gebo- ren. Seit mehr als fünf Jahren lebt er in Berlin und wird als Künst- ler von der ehrwürdigen Royal Society of Arts gefördert. Damit steht er in einer Reihe mit Charles Dickens, Karl Marx oder Benja- min Franklin. Nach Palma hat ihn der Kunsthistoriker Pau Waelder gebracht. Es ist die vierte Ausstel- lung des Briten auf der Insel.

Callanan interessiert das Thema Individuum und System. In seinen Installationen unter- sucht er die Interaktion zwischen Mensch und Netz, zeichnet die Interaktion nach. Oft übernimmt oder verändert er die Funktions- weise von Programmen, Syste- men oder Anwendungen und deu- tet sie neu. Damit hinterfragt er die Zustände, demontiert unsere Gewohnheiten und sorgt auch noch für Witz und Überraschung. Der Effekt sitzt auch deshalb, weil seine Arbeiten so clean, so zurückhaltend und unterkühlt wir- ken: Bildschirme, Kleingedruck- tes, ordentlich Aufgereihtes. Im Gespräch mit ihm wird schnell die Tragweite seiner Arbeit deutlich. Dem uninformierten Besucher der Ausstellung „Actions“ entgeht sie aber, ist zu befürchten.

 

Drei Arbeiten, alle schon ein- mal ausgestellt, bilden die Schau. Da ist „I Cannot Not Communica- te“ von 2015: Eine Reihe von hun- dert Büchern auf einem blanken Holztisch. Daneben liegt eine Lis- te mit allen ausgestellten Titeln. „Das sind die Bücher, die Amazon mir zum Lesen empfiehlt“, sagt er mit einem leichten Lächeln in den Mundwinkeln. Er hat tatsächlich den Spruch „Kunden, die Artikel in Ihrem Einkaufswagen gekauft haben, haben auch Folgendes ge- kauft“ ernst genommen und die hundert ersten Empfehlungen in den Einkaufswagen gelegt. Da- runter sind Fantasy-Romane oder ein Buch auf Französisch, „dabei kann ich gar kein Französisch!“, sagt Callanan. Andere Empfeh- lungen sind einleuchtender: Bü- cher über Kunst, Soziologie, Phi- losophie, von Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck oder John Berger.

 

Seitdem er im Mai 2015 auf Amazon gehört hat, ist Callanan nicht mehr normaler Kunde des Online-Geschäfts. „Ich bin mit dem System in Beziehung getre- ten“, sagt er mit leiser Stimme, „vielleicht lüfte ich irgendwann das Geheimnis seines Algorith- mus.“ Callanan wird weiterhin auf Amazon hören, immer wieder Empfehlungen kaufen und dabei versuchen, das System zu ent- schlüsseln. Das Ziel dieser Spie- lerei wäre in dem unwahrscheinli- chen Fall erreicht, wenn Callanan schon vorher wüsste, was Ama- zon ihm empfehlen wird. Es wird immer schwieriger, den Beweis zu liefern, dass der Mensch dem Computer überlegen ist.

 

Noch mehr witzige Tüfteleien gibt’s im zentralen, mit gepfleg- ten, alten Bodenfliesen ausge- legten Raum. „Each and Every Command“ heißt die Arbeit von 2016. Sie zeigt auf sechs hellen Tischen elf dicke, graue Ordner. In ihnen sind auf hellgrauem Re- cyclingpapier „4.144.676 Wör- ter in 198.605 Zeilen“ gedruckt, wie Callanan sagt. Inhaltlich sa- gen sie gar nichts: Es ist die vom Programm Adobe Photoshop ge- speicherte Chronik der Arbeit, die Callanan in den vergangenen zwölf Jahren geleistet hat. Das Programm hat jeden Schritt bei seiner Bearbeitung von Fotos für die Nachwelt aufbewahrt: Callanan zeigt dieses Bemü- hen nun der Welt. Fast schon rührend sind die unsinnig vie- len Seiten, „acht Mal so viel wie Shakespeares Gesamtwerk“, sagt Callanan wieder mit diesem leich- ten Grinsen.

 

Die exponierte Emsigkeit des Programms wirft Fragen auf, zu Sinn und Unsinn von Archiven, von Erinnerung, von Lernen. Und die Installation hinterfragt auch den Mythos vom kreativen Prozess, dem Work in Progress: Wie wichtig ist es, die Arbeitsschritte eines Künstlers zu dokumentieren?

Trotz aller Ironie und Selbstre- ferenz gibt es „Each and Every Command“ als digitale Version in der British Library, und im Ama- zon Kindle Store kann man das Werk für zwei Pfund zum Lesen auf einem E-Reader kaufen: Nicht ganz so spannend wie die Lektüre eines Telefonbuchs.

 

Die dritte Arbeit „Departure of All“ aus dem Jahr 2013 schließ- lich stimuliert die Fantasie des Betrachters ungemein – wenn man weiß oder intuitiv erfasst, worum es geht. Callanan hat eine Anzeigetafel mit Abflugzeiten an die Wand montiert. Bei längerer Betrachtung bemerkt man, dass es sich um einen fiktiven Flughafen handeln muss. Nein, es ist die An- zeige aller Flüge, die in Echtzeit von einem internationalen Flugha- fen abheben. Die Anzeige scrollt immer weiter oben, immer neue Flüge rutschen von unten nach, sie sind alle real und die Maschinen rollen im Moment des Betrachtens irgendwo über eine Startbahn. „Man bemerkt, wie eng alles ver- knüpft ist am Himmel“, sagt Pau Waelder, „und dabei kann einem schnell ein bisschen schwinde- lig werden.“ Der blaue Himmel taucht vor dem inneren Auge auf, durchzogen von weißen Kondens- streifen, immer dichter werden sie, irgendwann ist das Netz so dicht, dass man kaum noch das Blau des Himmels sieht. Man könnte Atemnot oder Platzangst bekommen: Das Netz ist überall, nicht nur hinter einem Bildschirm.

Actions, Galería Horrach Moyà

Actions
Galería Horrach Moyà
25/3 – 7/5/2017

The work of Martin John Callanan focuses on the relationship between individuals and the systems that determine their existence, whether natural, economic, social, political, or that invisible and omnipresent data network in which we all participate. Placing himself at the centre of this research, not as a protagonist, but as a simple individual who is affected by the same systems that dominate us all, the artist elaborates patient and laborious processes with the data that he collects from his interaction with the world. The result of these processes are works that refer to both a personal experience and a condition shared by a large part of the inhabitants of the planet.

As Robert Musil states in The Man Without Qualities (1930), “living permanently in a well-ordered State has an out-an-out spectral aspect: one cannot step into the street or drink a glass of water or get into a tram without touching the perfectly balanced levers of a gigantic apparatus of laws and relations…” This apparatus, which according to Musil becomes so invisible that we deny its existence “as the common man denies the existence of the air,” is what Callanan explores in his work: each action of an individual is recorded by the system and produces some reaction, which becomes visible in the artworks selected for this exhibition.

Horrach-Moyà presents in this, Callanan’s second solo show in the gallery, a selection of recent works that explore diverse forms of representing the relation between the individual and the data that he generates, either through what he consumes, produces, or even where he goes. The works move fluidly between the intimate and the impersonal, between the analog and the digital, capturing a small part of a set processes that will not stop until the individual that generates them or the systems that sustain them cease to exist.

Pau Waelder, Curator

 

 

I Cannot Not Communicate
2015

In this work, the artist has collected the first 100 books recommended to him by Amazon, based on everything he read and bought since the online retail giant first launched its recommendation algorithm over 15 years ago.

The title refers to the condition of the user of any service on the Web as an involuntary transmitter of information: since the data concerning the actions of the user (day and time of access, duration, contents browsed and so forth) are registered automatically, it is no longer possible to be a mere receiver of information. Rahter, one constantly participates in a data exchange that leads to modifying the same contents that one is accessing. This reflection is not presented as a complex technological installation but as something as simple as a library, which becomes a record of the subject that have interested the artist, although this record was not created by him but has been elaborated by Amazon’s algorithm. These books are not necessarily those that Martin John Callanan has read, but those that he supposedly wants to read.

 

Each and Every Command
2016

This piece shows all edits done by the artist on the photo editing software Adobe Photoshop during twelve years, from December 23, 2003 to February 7, 2016. Registered automatically by the program, they are presented as a long list on 15,873 pages in DIN A4 gray paper, bound in 11 volumes. There are altogether 4,144,676 words in 198,605 lines of text, which corresponds to eight times the complete works of William Shakespeare. A record of this file is preserved in digital format at the British Library.

With this work, Martin John Callanan suggests the possibility of recording each of the actions performed in a computer, while exploring the romantic myth of artistic creation: the fascination for the creative process of the artist and the conception of the studio as a magical and intimate place where his inspiration is gleaned, translate into a sober file that methodically collects every action carried out by the artist on an image editing software. Reading this register, it is possible (if one can take an amount of time that perhaps exceeds human capacities) to follow the steps of the artist’s working process, both in the elaboration of a work and when editing his website or retouching a holiday photo. The deep knowledge of his work can be found here, buried among thousands of banal data, in a diary as comprehensive as it is, paradoxically, absurd.

 

Departure of All
2013

Displayed as an airport information panel, a screen shows all flights that are taking off from all international airports in the world, in real time. The time of departure, flight number, city of origin and destination are displayed in a sober list. Every five seconds, two or three new flights appear on the screen, as the list continues to slowly scroll upwards. The global air traffic is summed up in a small set of data that invite us to reflect on the fact that, at all times, there are approximately 500,000 people flying at forty thousand feet.

The speed with which the list is updated indicates an incessant need to move that forms a picture of our globalized society and the impact that our restless lifestyle (particularly nomadic in the art world) has on the environment. The relatively daily act of catching an airplane is actually an action that is part of a precise machinery that works on a global scale: as passengers, we participate in a flow of coordinated activities whose effects are transmitted from one hemisphere to the other. Altering this flow (as occurred, for example, with the eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010) is chaotic, and therefore it can not be stopped, as the endless list on the screen never stops.

Data in the 21st Century, V2 Rotterdam

v2-data

Data in the 21st Century explores the friction between the unpredictable reality that we live in and the desire to capture it in data.

19 December 2015 – 14 February 2016
V2_ Institute For The Unstable Media, Eendrachtsstraat 10, 3012 XL, Rotterdam

The capitalist belief that profit-seeking is the best way to manage and develop societies has sparked an unprecedented desire to abstract and quantify everything into data. In the pursuit of economic efficiency, data is money, data is power, data is everything and everything is data. Yet data is contingent on a world that is messy, irrational, unstable, and emotional. The rise of so-called big data and the emergence of technologies that are able to quantify our every move, preference and behaviour, have demonstrated where the friction lies between the unpredictable reality that we live in and the desire to capture it in data. The public program Data in the 21st Century will explore how this friction has changed and shaped our relationship to data and seeks to discuss how this relationship will develop in the future.

Featured Artists
Kyle McDonald
Lev Manovich, Daniel Goddemeyer, Moritz Stefaner & Dominikus Baur
Martin John Callanan
Timo Arnall
Informal Strategies
Lane/You/Debackere
PWR Studio
Max Dovey & Manetta Berends

http://v2.nl/events/data-in-the-21st-century

Discursive Objects, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven

IMG_9768_0042w

17-25 October 2015, 11h – 18h
Gagelstraat 44, 5616RR, EIndhoven

Aldo Bakker, Maarten Baas, David Bernstein, Martin John Callanan, Chmara Rosinke, Sarah Daher & guests, The Grantchester Pottery, Richard Healy, Anton Hjertstedt, Vincent Knopper, Pieteke Korte, Nynke Koster, Pottery Yacht Club, Corinne Mynatt, n-o-m-a-n, Studio Minale Maeda, Superstudio

The first exhibition for Work at Home situates art, design, and transdisciplinary practices in the home space. In what might be a likely setting for ‘design’, outside of the white cube it presents an alternate context for how we experience contemporary art today. The presentation of ‘art’ and ‘design’ suggests a mutual inclusion of both devices which we use to frame human experience.

Beyond ‘home exhibition’ histories, the structure of the visitor experience is as a lived-in space, and presents potentials of what a contemporary collection of art and design might look like today. Presenting in the home creates a new paradigm that explores the evolving publicisation of our private space.

Press release PDF

http://wah.gallery

I Cannot Not Communicate at Vitsœ New York

I Cannot Not Communicate, Martin John Callanan at Vitsœ New York: 14–19 May
33 Bond Street
New York NY 10012
T 1 917 675 6990
newyork@vitsoe.com

At Vitsœ we like to share the work of creative people. So when Berlin and UK-based artist (and Vitsœ customer), Martin John Callanan, asked to show a new piece for the first time at our New York shop, we were happy to oblige.

I Cannot Not Communicate, consists of the top 100 books recommended to Callanan by Amazon, based on everything he read and bought since the online retail giant first launched its recommendation algorithm over 15 years ago.

The books are displayed on our trusted shelves, with chairs and tables to ensure your time interacting with the artwork is a comfortable one.

The event will take place during a busy time with New York design week and Frieze Art Fair New York occupying the city – all the more reason to take a moment to pause in comfort at our New York shop at 33 Bond Street.

To accompany the installation, Callanan has produced a pamphlet, including a text by Marialaura Ghidini. A limited number of copies are available free to visitors.

Martin John Callanan is an artist researching an individual’s place within systems. Recent solo exhibitions include Noshowspace, London, Horrach Moya, Palma and Or Gallery, Berlin. His work has been shown at White Cube, James Cohan Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Whitstable Biennale and Imperial War Museum. He is recipient of the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Visual Art.

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Die Zusammenarbeit mit kreativen Köpfen macht uns immer wieder Freude. Als uns der in Berlin und Großbritannien lebende Künstler (und Vitsœ Kunde) Martin John Callanan fragte, ob er seine neue Arbeit in unserem New Yorker Shop ausstellen könne, sagten wir ohne Zögern zu.

„I Cannot Not Communicate“ besteht aus den ersten 100 Büchern, die Callanan von Amazon vorgeschlagen wurden – basierend auf allem, was er gekauft und gelesen hatte, seit der Onlineshop-Gigant vor mehr als 15 Jahren seinen Algorithmus für Kaufempfehlungen einführte.

Ausgestellt werden die Bücher in unseren bewährten Regalen. Unsere Sessel und Tische sorgen dafür, dass es beim Kunstgenuss nicht an Komfort mangelt.

Die Ausstellung findet während der trubeligen Zeit der New York Design Week und der Kunstmesse Frieze statt – gönnen Sie sich eine kleine Auszeit von der Geschäftigkeit in unserem New Yorker Shop in der Bond Street 33.

Begleitend zur Ausstellung hat Callanan im Riso-Druckverfahren ein Pamphlet produziert, unter anderem mit einem Text von Marialaura Ghidini. Eine limitierte Auflage können geneigte Besucher kostenlos mitnehmen.

Martin John Callanan sucht nach individuellen Wegen im Kunstbetrieb. Seine jüngsten Solo-Ausstellungen fanden im Noshowspace, London, Horrach Moya, Palma und der Or Gallery, Berlin statt. Seine Werke wurden gezeigt von Institutionen wie White Cube, James Cohan Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Whitstable Biennale und dem Imperial War Museum. Er ist ausgezeichnet worden mit dem Philip Leverhulme Prize für Bildende Kunst.

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