Street names in Berlin

Vincent Trasov focused on history and changes by highlighting the phenomenon of the numerous street name changes, squares and underground stations in Berlin. "A direct expression of the rapid development of a once divided city into a vibrant metropolis" was installed nearby the former Berlin Wall.

"STRASSENBILD names the more than 60 streets, underground stations and squares which have been renamed in East Berlin. In the painting there is no direct connection between the old and the new name. They are placed at random. The work is a metaphor for the dissolve of a political system and the collapse of ideologies." [Trasov, 2011]

Trasov, V. [2011] Word Paintings. [Online]
 http://vincenttrasov.ca/index.cfm?pg=menu&filter=word%20paintings [21/01/2011]

filmtext by Mark Amerika

Investigating the links between net art, hypermedia and digital narratives and interactive cinema, Mark Amerika's Filmtext is " a hybridized online/offline storyworld experience created as a net art site"

"The work traces the nomadic movement of an alien light form known only as “The Digital Thoughtographer,” loosely inspired by the life and work of Ted Serios. The Thoughtographer wanders through an eerily empty desert landscape that looks like a synthetic rendering but is actually the Haleakala Crater in the South Pacific and other far off destinations. Set in the language of computer games, FILMTEXT’s techno music, eerie alien lifeforms, space travel, and sound collages burdened with static and transmission noises, precariously negotiate the netherworlds between sound and noise, film and literature, human body and networked being." (Center for Art and Visual Culture (2005)

Center for Art and Visual Culture (2005) Mark Amerika. [Online]

 http://www.markamerika.com/filmtext/ [16/01/2011]
Amerika, M [2011] Filmtext. [Online]
 http://www.markamerika.com/filmtext/ [12/01/2011]
Thompson, S. (2010) Mark Amerika on Digital Narrative. [Online]
 http://www.seththompson.info/html/interviews/markamerika.htm [16/01/2011]

Wolfgang Staehle

Wolfgang Staehle has worked on numerous web-transmitted work, including Palast der Republik (2006) and other topography in Berlin closely associated with the Berlin Wall and East Berlin.

"In 1996, Staehle began to produce an ongoing series of live online video streams. The first of these works was Empire 24/7, a continuous recording of the top one-third of the Empire State Building that is broadcast live over the Internet. Staehle has followed Empire 24/7 with online streams of other buildings, landscapes and cityscapes such as Berlin's Fernsehturm, the Comburg Monastery in Germany, lower Manhattan before and after 9/11." (The Trustees of Princeton University, 2007-8) 

Trustees of Princeton University, The (2007-8) Wolfgang Staehle. [Online]
 http://webscript.princeton.edu/~slashart/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=50 [16/01/2011]

New Art TV (2009) Wolfgang Staehle. [Online]
 http://www.newarttv.com/Wolfgang+Staehle [16/01/2011]

Postmasters [2011] Wolfgang Staehle:  "A Matter of Time" [Online]
 http://www.postmastersart.com/ [16/01/2011]

Staehle, W. (2006) Berlin, October 29, 2006 [Online]
 http://www.wolfgangstaehle.info/pages.php?content=galleryBig.php&navGallID=1&navGallIDquer=1&imageID=35&view=big&activeType=gall
 [16/01/2011]

Staehle, W. (2006) Palast der Republik, November 29, 2006. [Online]
 http://www.wolfgangstaehle.info/pages.php?content=galleryBig.php&navGallID=1&navGallIDquer=1&imageID=34&view=big&activeType=gall
 [16/01/2011]

Staehle, W. (2005) Alexanderplatz [Online]
 http://www.wolfgangstaehle.info/pages.php?content=galleryBig.php&navGallID=1&navGallIDquer=1&imageID=31&view=big&activeType=gall
 [16/01/2011]

Staehle, W. (2001) Fernsehturm [Online]
 http://www.wolfgangstaehle.info/pages.php?content=galleryBig.php&navGallID=1&navGallIDquer=1&imageID=12&view=big&activeType=gall
 [16/01/2011]

web+concepts

Heath Bunting's web installation _readme links each word from a newspaper article to a .com website of the same name. In this project, where "everyday language becomes totally occupied by the owners of Internet domain names utilizing almost the entire vocabulary" , one of the characteristics of the web, "an endlessly linked information space" is highlighted [Medien Kunst Netz, 2011]. 

For the project BorderXing, Bunting travelled along inner European borders and created an online "documentation of walks that traverse national boundaries", with limited web page access, challenging "the supposed liberties that accompany the concept of the Internet as a borderless space" [Tate, 2011]. Bunting creates a situation where people "are being refused at the entrance and because they require a certain appreciation of how to preserve, develop and mutually share a precarious knowledge without compromising the project as a whole". In the project Schneider [2011] calls "an electronic antidote against any virtual or real border regime", audience visiting a website out of curiosity "find they have to prove their credentials".

Olia Lialina's My Boyfriend Came Back From the War splits the screen when a viewer clicks on a text or images, leading on to further dialogues and questions, and "into subdivisions of increasing complexity" (Paul, 2003) and provides the user to drive the narrative. 

Lialina, O. (1996) My Boyfriend Came Back From the War. [Online]
 http://www.teleportacia.org/war/war.html [16/01/2011]

Medien Kunst Netz [2011] Heath Bunting «_readme» [Online]
 http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/readme/ [16/01/2011]

Paul, C (2003) Digital Art. London: Thames & Hudson.

Tate [2011] BorderXing Guide  2002 - 2003: Heath Bunting. [Online]
 http://www.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/borderxing.shtm [16/01/2011]