news

research

Breathing Data

The artistic research project “Breathing Data” is based on a self-experiment. Under investigation is the effect of personalized measurement techniques (bio feedback, body tracking, self-quantification) on individual behavior, and vice versa. The application area of the research is breathing. Throughout the project, the focus is on the interaction between the objectively collected data and the subjective state of mind determined by introspection. This “dialogue with the data” will generate a narrative in which the distinction between perception and measurement, between consciousness and body, and thus between mind and matter will be set in vibration. the project is part of the SNF-funded research project Latent Spaces at ZHdK Zürich.

Doku wiki: https://breathing-data.multiplace.org

project

TammTamm – Artists informing Politicians

Installation view TammTamm at „Agents & Provocateurs“, HMKV Dortmung (2010)

The campaign “Tamm-Tamm – Artists Inform Politicians” took place in Hamburg in 2005/06 and was a protest against the newly planned Maritime Museum. In order to complement the ongoing HafenCity urban development project with a cultural “attraction”, the Hamburg City Parliament had offered the controversial private collector Peter Tamm a large historic building and 30 million euros to transfer his private maritime collection into a museum. The organizers of the protest assumed that the collection did not meet the scientific standards of a public museum and that the notorious right-wing collector would use the premises to celebrate his authoritarianism.

The campaign took the political leaders into responsibility. For each elected member of Hamburg’s parliament, an artist acted as godfather/ godmother and engaged in a personal dialogue with the politicians in order to provide background information on the project. Documentation of each encounter was collected on a website, which proved to be an effective tool against the opportunism of the local media.

https://artwarez.org/projects/tammtamm/

live

Datafication and Embodiment: An open-ended talk

14 June 2023 / Kunsthal, Aarhus, Denmark

Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder, artist researchers who currently work together at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK), will explore digital abstractions and material embodiments as two mutually constitutive dimensions of reality that frame each other in incomplete and non-deterministic ways.

https://www.kunsthalaarhus.dk/en/Events/2023-Talk-And-Workshop-By-Felix-Stalder-Og-Cornelia-Sollfrank-Datafication-And-Embodiment-An-Open-Ended-Talk

exhibition

Continuous Shift

Konsthall Kristianstad / 2022-2023

The intersection between the digital and the artistic has received a lot of attention in recent years. Many have heard expressions like AI, crypto, NFTs and blockchain but what do they mean and what relationship do they have to contemporary art? Much of what has been presented in the media as digital art has left us both curious and confused.

What is the human relationship with technology and digitisation in an age when they seem to be completely fused? Can the differences between life, art and technology be discerned? How do professional contemporary artists work with ever new digital possibilities?

For Continuous Shift, the art gallery invites six arists whiose work enable active encounters between art and technology and raise awareness for this relatively niche genre. Through physical and visual experiences that activate multiple senses, visitors can experience the digital art world in our space. In the Kristianstad Art Gallery’s premises, unique spaces will emerge that demand our attention.

https://regionmuseet.se/kalender/continous-shift/

project
Writing the History of the Future, ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2019

net.art generator

Since 1998
The net.art generator is a computer program (Perl script) which collects and recombines material from the Internet to create a new website or a new image. Since its launch in 1998, it became a classic of net art and got legendary due to its ability to keep connecting to new discourses and thus constantly updating itself.

net.art-generator.com

project

#purplenoise

Since 2018
#purplenoise is an interdisciplinary technofeminist research group that uses real-life events to explore social media as the arena for protest and political activation. The group was initiated in 2018 by Cornelia Sollfrank.

https://purplenoise.org/

live

Cyberfeminism Index Book Launch and Reading

trust.support / Berlin / 25 January 2023

Book launch of Cyberfeminism Index together with Mindy Seu (New York). In Cyberfeminism Index (cyberfeminismindex.com/), hackers, scholars, artists, and activists of all regions, races and sexual orientations consider how humans might reconstruct themselves by way of technology. Edited by designer and researcher Mindy Seu, Cyberfeminism Index includes more than 700 short entries of radical techno-critical activism in a variety of media, including excerpts from academic articles and scholarly texts; descriptions of hackerspaces, digital rights activist groups, and bio-hacktivism; and depictions of feminist net art and new media art.

https://trust.support/events/cyberfeminism-index-book-launch-and-reading

live

We don’t die – we multiply!

Art Academy Kassel / 4 – 6 Novmeber / 2022

Panel discussion as part of the conference „Arbeit an den Strukturen – Praxisbasierte Forschung in documenta- und Ausstellungsstudien“ (Working on structures – practice-based research in documenta and exhibition studies). The panel addressed the combination of institutional and artistic archiving practices as a way of maintaining temporary, ephemeral, project-based and collective practices by the example of the Old Boys Network. Participants: Dušan Barok, Birgitta Coers and Cornelia Sollfrank. Moderation: Malin Kuht.

https://kunsthochschulekassel.de/willkommen/veranstaltungen/events/arbeit-an-strukturen-praxisbasierte-forschung-in-documenta-und-ausstellungsstudien-tagung.html

research

Latent Spaces – Performing Ambiguous Data

Zürich University of the Arts / since 2021

The research project Latent Spaces takes place in the datafied contemporary and is based at Zürich University of the Arts. The term latent space refers to a (technical/conceptual) realm in which different possibilities co-exist before one (or more) become realized, and it refers to ambiguity, the state in which different valid readings co-exist within a system of meaning. Drawing on the strength of artistic practices, the project develops and performs these perspectives in individual projects not just through critical reflection but also through artistic interventions/creations. Participants include Dr. Felix Stalder, Dr. Alexandre Puttick, Shusha Niederberger, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Gordan Savicic and Dr. Cornelia Sollfrank. Funded by SNF.

http://latentspaces.zhdk.ch/

exhibition

WetWare

New York / June 2022

WETWARE showcases nine artists to celebrate and support their work and the upcoming publication CYBERFEMINISM INDEX. The curator Mindy Seu presents seminal cyberfeminist artworks as NFTs in collaboration with the New Museum and Feral File. Artists include: Cornelia Sollfrank, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Linda Dement, Mary Maggic, Morehshin Allahyari, Prema Murthy, Shu Lea Cheang, Skawennati, and VNS Matrix.

https://feralfile.com/exhibitions/wetware-tkl

writing

My first NFT – and why it was not a live-changing experience

Cornelia Sollfrank / 31 May 2022
From Commons to NFTs” is an (expanded) writing series initiated by Shu Lea Cheang, Felix Stalder & Ewen Chardronnet. Cautioned by the speculative bubble (burst) of NFTs, the series brings back the notion of commons from around the turn of the millennium to reflect upon and intervene in the transformation of the collective imagination and its divergent futures. Every last day of the month Makery publishes a new contribution of these “chain essays”. Fifth text by Cornelia Sollfrank.

https://www.makery.info/en/2022/05/31/english-my-first-nft-and-why-it-was-not-a-life-changing-experience/

PDF

writing

obn_a – A situated Archive of the Old Boys Network

The text is a critical reflection by Cornelia Sollfrank on building an archive of the Old Boys Network. The work was part of „Networks of Care“ that offered a platform at nGbK Berlin in 2021, enabling an exchange of ideas and information between practitioners and experts concerning strategies for dealing with artistic estates, private and public archives, or idle documentation volumes. Editors: Anna Schäffler, Friederike Schäfer, Nanne Buurman, AG Networks of Care, nGbK, Berlin.

https://ngbk.de/templates/ngbkberlinmelior/shop/index.php?letter=N&lang=

PDF

live

Encounters in the Archival Commons

Berlin / 25 March 2022

Panel discussion as part of the conference „The Whole Life. Archives & Imaginaries“ at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.
.....

https://www.hkw.de/de/programm/projekte/veranstaltung/p_195904.php

live

Archiving a Network – the Case of the Old Boys Network

Hong Kong / 17 March 2022

New Approaches to Collecting and Preserving Complex Research-Based Art and Art Projects, Museum M+. Presentation and Workshop together with Dušan Barok and Anna Schäffler.

exhibition

NfTNeTArT – from Net Art to Art NFT

panke.gallery and Office IMPART / Berlin / February – March 2022

The exhibition NfTNeTArT – from Net Art to Art NFT brings together nine international artists that use algorithmic or generative systems as their artistic language. Confronting recent technologies and blockchain applications, the artists‘ strategies range from aesthetic or narrative, to critical or rather performative investigations. They equally explore the limits and possibilities of NFTs. Featuring historical net art activities next to very recent works developed specifically for the occasion, the exhibition creates a dialogical environment in which classic network phenomena and cutting-edge technologies interact. Artists: Kim Asendorf, LaTurbo Avedon, Sarah Friend, LIA, Jonas Lund, Rhea Myers, Rafaël Rozendaal, Cornelia Sollfrank, Harm van den Dorpel.

https://www.panke.gallery/exhibition/nftnetart/

exhibition

Writing the History of the Future

ZKM Karlsruhe / 23 February 2019 – 9 January 2022

In an extraordinary compilation, ZKM presents the main works from its globally unique media art collection. The exhibition Writing the History of the Future exemplifies the transformation of art due to the changing technologies of production, reception, and distribution. It also shows how artists anticipate media and social practices that will only become self-evident for society in general years later. As the title of the exhibition says, they write the history of the future.

https://zkm.de/de/ausstellung/2019/02/writing-the-history-of-the-future

exhibition

Open Codes. Networked Commons

Nam June Paik Art Center / Seoul / 1 July – 24 October 2021

© Nam June Paik Art Center, Bak Hyongryol

Open Codes. Networked Commons is an exhibition that provides a new way to look at the world we live in today; a world that is shaped by codes. It analyzes the digital infrastructure built and maintained by digital codes. Communication with computers is essential part of our life and we are confronted daily with computer screens and user interfaces. This exhibition, though, is designed to engage with the inherent nature and the creative potentials of computer codes, beneath the surface of the everyday user experience. In collaboration with ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

https://njpart.ggcf.kr/open-codes-networked-commons/

interview, publication

Aesthetics, Commons and the Production of the Subject

Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder / 2021

The two editors of the volume Aesthetics of the Commons (Diaphanes 2021), Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder, discuss with Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (WPCC) the potential and meanings of the digital commons in creating new subjectivities and new imaginaries on and off the internet.

https://www.westminsterpapers.org/article/id/920/

writing

The Art of Getting Organized. A Different Approach to Old Boys Network.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2021

This text explores the dynamics underlying the Old Boys Network as an hybrid form of political self-organization. Shapeshifting between a network, a group, a temporary collective, a structure, an infrastructure or a dust cloud, OBN remained elusive while building on affective involvement and activation as a their micropolitical strategy.

PDF

interview

Buen Vivir. Interview with Penny Travlou on collaborative practices in emerging networks.

Athens / 31 May 2021

Framed by her long-standing research on collaborative practices, geographer and ethnographer Penny Travlou introduces two projects she has been involved lately: Platohedro, a space, a platform and community based in Medellín, Colombia, and the Feminist Autonomous Research Center in Athens (FAC). Platohedro refers to the indigenous concepts of Buen Vivir and Buen Conocer and works on adapting them to the contemporary living conditions in urban societies, while FAC puts an emphasis on commnity-based autonomous knowledge production. Both are concerned with forms of thinking and working together that allow for creating alternatives to extractivist, colonial, racist and anti-feminist modes of (knowledge)production.

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/buen-vivir-interview-with-penny-travlou-on-collaborative-practices-in-emergin-networks/index.html

interview

SOS – Salon for Open Secrets.

Vienna / 12 May 2021

Patrícia J. Reis and Stefanie Wuschitz from Mz*Baltazar’s Laboratory interview Cornelia Sollfrank about her ground-breaking work in early Cyberfeminism until now. They discuss the dynamics of collaboration, the sharing of experience and knowledge; they talk about autonomous infrastructures, platforms of visibility and many other topics.

https://www.mzbaltazarslaboratory.org/sos-salon-of-open-secrets/

exhibition

Melting Point

Festival Acces-s / Billère (F) / 8 October 2020 – 2 April 2021

Social networks, applications, platforms, wikis… from youtubers to the creators of electrocybernetic technologies, from digital photography to interactive narratives, from net-art to webdesign, from glitch artists to virtual communities, Melting Point explores a hybrid web that can be conjugated in the plural.

https://acces-s.org/agenda/melting-point

interview

Aesthetics, Commons and the Production of the Subject: An Interview with Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder

London / 31 March 2021

The two editors of the volume Aesthetics of the Commons (Diaphanes 2021), Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder, discuss with WPCC journal the potential and meanings of the digital commons in creating new subjectivities and new imaginaries on and off the internet.

https://www.westminsterpapers.org/article/id/920/

publication

Aesthetics of the Commons

What do a feminist server, an art space located in a public park in North London, a ‘pirate’ library of high cultural value yet dubious legal status, and an art school that emphasizes collectivity have in common? They all demonstrate that art can play an important role in imagining and producing a real quite different from what is currently hegemonic; that art has the possibility to not only envision or proclaim ideas in theory, but also to realize them materially. The book collects ten essays that take up aspects of the cultural and artistic projects that were part of the research project Creating Commons, and brings them into conversation with different fields ranging from cultural, political and feminist theory, philosophy, curatorial studies, and art education.

Aesthetics of the Commons, Sollfrank, Cornelia, Felix Stalder and Shusha Niederberger (eds.), Zurich: Diaphanes (2021)
Softcover, 276 pages
Open Access PDF, 276 pages
https://www.diaphanes.com/titel/aesthetics-of-the-commons-6419

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/aesthetics-of-the-commons/index.html

interview, publication

In the Studio.

London, 9 December 2020

Oliver Goernandt/ fotografenwerk Hamburg © 2019

Interview of Cornelia Sollfrank for Museum of Contemporary Digital Art (MoCDA), London. Maria Cynkier talks with the artist about her creative practice, generative art, the power of decentralization and commons, and resisting patriarchal structures in tech.

https://www.mocda.org/post/cornelia-sollfrank

exhibition

We=Link: Sideways

Chronus Art Center / Shanghai / 2020

Often referred to as the last Avant-garde of the twentieth century, the phenomenon largely dubbed as net art appearing in the early ’90s with the advent of the internet enjoyed an unrestrained flourishing period of prolific experimental, creative and critical engagement with the nascent new-media-fueled economy and its cultural and social ramifications. Chronus Art Center is pleased to announce the presentation of this group exhibition, featuring twenty-two works from the pioneers of net art to millennials. The works on display and online span three decades of net art practice, from arguably the first internet-era artwork of The Thing BBS in 1991 to the most current production continuing to evolve as the exhibition opens.

http://www.chronusartcenter.org/en/cac-%c2%b7-exhibition-announcement-welinksideways/

project

Le miaou our le miaou

Vienna / Guggenheim in Florisdorf / 2020

This interview with a cat is a conversation in which the speaker talks in depth with his counterpart about questions concerning art and politics. Credits: Thanks to the speaker Mark Gergis, to Manfred Miersch for sound editing, God’s Entertainment in Vienna for support and Marcel Broodthaers for inspiration.

https://artwarez.org/projects/miaou/

writing

IN THE SHADOW OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. Artistic takes on the Digital Commons.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2020.

The projects discussed in this text all make cultural products available online for free. What is special about them is that they have all been initiated and are run by small groups of artists or individual artists who provide the infrastructure as well as the contents, and they do so without a budget or any sort of official mandate. Due to their radical open access practiced in the art context, they unfold an enormous symbolic value, parallel to their practical value. In this sense, they are manifestations of current political problems rather than solutions, and their relevance lies in the complexity of the questions they are asking. Published in German in: Sich mit Sammlungen anlegen. Gemeinsame Dinge und alternative Archive. Martina Griesser-Stermscheg, Nora Sternfeld und Luisa Ziaja (Hrsg.), De Gruyter, Wien. Seiten: 85-94.

PDF

exhibition, project

I AM NOT A LOCAL GIRL

Kampnagel / Hamburg / November 2019

Video installation and participatory online theatre based on true events. DIGIFEM Festival, Kampnagel, Hamburg, 2019. The installation consists of two screens facing each other: On one screen there is a video with dreamlike sequences from various locations in Hamburg, in which the protagonist reflects from a great distance on past political events. Opposite is the projection of a „social wall“ on which flashbacks in the form of images, animations, text pieces, slogans, concepts, names, faces and places flood the social media channels of #purplenoise. The fragments create a narrative that will never be complete and yet brings hidden stories back to light.

https://artwarez.org/projects/localgirl/

interview, research

Forms of Ongoingness, Interview with Femke Snelting and spideralex

House of Electronic Arts Basel (HeK) / Basel / 16 September 2018

In this interview, Femke and Spideralex talk about their shared practice of engaging with what they call feminist technologies. They discuss their understanding of technology as an embodied practice, that bears desired relations as well as terrible connections. How can we live in ungracious times? They explore, how digital infrastructure could work differently with the help of the feminist server, which is both a real server, a need, and at the same time a thinking tool. Within this discussion, they also address questions of autonomy versus ongoingness, the role of language as a tool of investigation, and the cultural dimensions of technology like expectations of servitude behind functionality. Conducted by Cornelia Sollfrank as part of the Creating Commons research project.

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/forms-of-ongoingness/index.html

exhibition

Automat und Mensch. A History of AI and Generative Art

Kate Vass Gallery / Zürich / 29 May – 15 October 2019

anonymous-warhol_flowers@Apr_24_16.26.39_2019

In the last twelve months we have seen a tremendous spike in the interest of “AI art,” ushered in by Christie’s and Sotheby’s both offering works at auction developed with machine learning. Capturing the imaginations of collectors and the general public alike, the new work has some conservative members of the art world scratching their heads and suggesting this will merely be another passing fad. What they are missing is that this rich genre, more broadly referred to as “generative art,” has a history as long and fascinating as computing itself. A history that has largely been overlooked in the recent mania for “AI art” and one that co-curators Georg Bak and Jason Bailey hope to shine a bright light on in their show Automat und Mensch (or Machine and Man).

https://www.katevassgalerie.com/automat-und-mensch-a-history-of-ai-and-generative-art-clone-1671652827762

exhibition

Open Scores. How to program the commons

panke.gallery / Berlin / 21 September – 12 October 2019

The exhibition OPEN SCORES brings together a series of practices through which artists articulate their specific forms of digital commons. From online archives to digital tools/ infrastructure and educational formats, the projects envision a (post-)digital culture in which notions of collaboration, free access to knowledge, sustainable use of shared resources, and data privacy are central. For the exhibition, each of the projects created a unique score to present their practice. Curated by Shusha Niederberger, Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder.

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/open-scores-how-to-program-the-commons-exhibition-catalogue/index.html

research

Creating Commons

The research project Creating Commons took place between 2017 and 2019 and was based at Zürich University of the Arts. The research conducted by Felix Stalder, Cornelia Sollfrank and Shusha Niederberger explored the relationship between digital commons and art by exploring 15 durational (post-)digital artistic projects. Funded by SNF.

http://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/

interview, publication

Ich wäre gern ein richtig guter Troll.

Portrait Künstlerin Medienkünstlerin Cornelia Sollfrank, 2019, in Berlin © Amélie Losier / Agentur Focus

Interview zur Transmediale 2019, veröffentlicht in der taz am 31.1.2019. Cornelia Sollfrank war in den Neunzigern Mitgründerin des Cyberfeminismus. Den Begriff findet sie heute nicht mehr passen. Ein Gespräch über Utopien und die Macht sozialer Medien von Marlene Halser.

https://taz.de/Interview-zur-Transmediale/!5566843/

interview

Caring Instead of Owning: About Intangible Commons

Berlin / April 2019

A conversation between Marisella Ouma (KEN) and Cornelia Sollfrank (D), moderated by Lina Brion. The conversation about different concepts and traditions of a collaborative responsibility for intangible cultural heritage took place on the sidelines of the festival „Find the File“ in April 2019 at the House of World Cultures in Berlin, where both participated in a panel discussion about accessibility and reuse of archival material. German translation in: 100 Years of Copyright, Detlef Diederichsen and Lina Brion (eds.), Matthes & Seitz, Berlin.

PDF

interview

Fürsorge statt Eigentum: Über immaterielle Commons

Berlin / April 2019

Ein Gespräch zwischen Marisella Ouma (KEN) und Cornelia Sollfrank (D), moderiert von Lina Brion. Das Gespräch über verschiedene Konzepte und Traditionen einer gemeinschaftlichen Verantwortung für immaterielles kulturelles Erbe fand am Rande des Festivals „Find the File“ im April 2019 im Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin auf Englisch statt, wo beide an einer Diskussionsrunde über Zugänglichkeit und Wiederverwendung von Archivmaterial teilnahmen. ‎ Deutsche Übersetzung in: 100 Jahre Copyright, ‎Detlef Diederichsen und Lina Brion (Hrsg.), Matthes & Seitz, Berlin.

PDF

interview, research

Experimenting with Institutional Formats. Interview with Laurence Rassel

House of Electronic Arts / Basel / 15 June 2018

In this interview, Laurence Rassel talks about her work with and inside institutions as emerging through continuous communal practice. She discusses the importance of feminist thinking, open-source technology culture, and Institutional Psychotherapy for her work of making an institution a practice of all of those involved, or in her words: instituting. Conducted by Cornelia Sollfrank as part of the Creating Commons research project.

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/experimenting-with-institutional-formats/index.html

interview, publication

Speculative Pink.

Interview by Alessandro Ludovico, published in: neural #61, Speculative Pink, 2018, pp 06-09.

PDF

writing

Post-IP Aesthetics.
Kunst und ihre veränderte Rolle in der ›Knowledge Economy‹

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2018

Kunst und Urheberrecht stehen nicht nur in einem engen Verhältnis, sondern bedingen sich als Systeme gegenseitig. Seit dem 18. Jahrhundert beruhen sie beide auf Vorstellungen von individueller Autorschaft und Originalität, die einerseits Eigentumsverhältnisse begründen und andererseits für die Autonomie des Kunstfeldes konstituierend sind. Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass das Urheberrecht im Rahmen der Knowledge Economy einen wesentlichen Bedeutungszuwachs erfahren hat und nun weniger ein kulturelles denn ein ökonomisches Recht ist, stellt sich die Frage, welche Konsequenzen dies für die Kunst hat. Der Begriff ›Post-IP Aesthetics‹ soll in diesem Text als Vorlage dienen für eine Diskussion über Kunst und ihre Funktion unter den veränderten Produktions- und Rezeptionsbedingungen einer global vernetzen Welt.

PDF

writing

The Surplus of Copying – How shadow libraries and pirate archives contribute to the creation of cultural memory and the commons

in: Franz Thalmair and Michael Kargl (Eds.), originalcopy, DeGruyter, Boston/Berlin.

PDF

exhibition

Top Tens

Onassis Cultural Center / Athens / 16 – 18 March 2018

Top Tens – UbuWeb in Athens presents works from the shadow library Ubu Web. Ten guest curators share and spatialise their collection by tracing their own path through the colossal mass of UbuWeb’s collection. Entering the shadow library through this exhibition changes the way we perceive art history. Part of the show is the video I DON’T KNOW by Cornelia Sollfrank.

interview, publication

Flooding the Museum

An Interview with Cornelia Sollfrank by Michael Connor, rhizome, New York. The interview was conducted on the occasion of rhizome’s publication of the Net.Art Anthology, 9 March 2017.

LINK

exhibition, project

Commons Lab

Montréal / 2017

Commons Lab took place in 2017 at Studio xx in Montréal. It was a space for exploring issues that arise at the intersection of +feminism+digital+art+commons. A strong visual language created the framework within which workshops and screenings took place. In-person and group conversations reflected and tested tools and techniques of collaboration, and produced and shared knowledge and skills. Special attention was given to the collaboration between local and translocal actors.

Project website: https://artwarez.org/projects/commonslab/

https://www.ada-x.org/en/activities/commons-lab-ressources-personnes-processus-cornelia-sollfrank/Commons

exhibition

Netzkunst im Berlin der 90er Jahre

panke.gallery / Berlin / 2 February – 22 February 2017

https://www.panke.gallery/exhibition/transmediale

— 1990s Berlin Net Art — Towards a Critical Evaluation. In February 2017, panke.gallery begins a critical evaluation of 1990s Berlin net art. Numerous early net art activities originated before the invention of graphic browser interfaces and mediating their innovative power has become increasingly difficult. Historical revision of the genre is lacking and many works have either disappeared from the Internet or become useless. This project initiates a series of exhibitions, talks, and lectures, taking first steps towards an evaluation and contextualization of 90s net art works for the long term.

project

Hacking Social Reality

Theater / Basel / 2016

Hacking Social Reality ist ein Spiel über Geschlecht als unüberwindbare und gleichzeitig unhinterfragte Grenze innerhalb der Hacker-Szene. Eine Kooperation zwischen HeK (Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel) und dem Theater Basel innerhalb der von Kevin Rittberger entwickelten Reihe COMMUNITY downlGEMEINSCHAFT IN PROGRESS.

Download PDF documentation

writing

A Pervert’s Guide to Artistic Research

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2016

Der Text gibt eine genaue Einsicht in die Praxis einer Künstlerin, die mit der institutionalisierten Form künstlerischer Forschung bestens vertraut ist. Cornelia Sollfrank stellt darin das selbst erfahrene Modell des practice-based PhD in Großbritannien vor, kritisiert es aber auch.

PDF

exhibition

PORN TO PIZZA – DOMESTIC CLICHÉS

DAM Gallery / Berlin / September 2015

PORN TO PIZZA – DOMESTIC CLICHÉS

Artists working with the Internet or digital means seize on hyperrealistic imagery and the problematic nature of the real to reflect on the influence of the Internet on domestic spheres and personal comfort zones. Some use the aesthetics of amateur films found on the net and amplify them satirically to point out the difference between banal everyday culture and high art. Visual worlds are recreated from a combination of real and digital images. The virtual creation of objects and their surfaces play an important role, as does the making of sculptures and installations with new materials in real space.

writing

Nothing New Needs to be Created. Kenneth Goldsmith’s Claim to Uncreativity.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2015

This text discusses the claims of New-York-based artist Kenneth Goldsmith regarding his artistic strategies of writing poetry and building the online archive UbuWeb. It is based on an interview Sollfrank conducted with Goldsmith on 1st of February 2013.

PDF

interview, project

GWYDH – Giving What You Don’t Have

On the basis of filmed interviews, GWYDH collects and presents statements from artists whose work contributes to the production and preservation of digital commons. Artistic research project commissioned by the Post-Media Lab, Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany, 2013. Participants: Sean Dockray, Kenneth Goldsmith, Dmitry Kleiner, Marcell Mars, Piracy Project, Femke Snelting.

https://artwarez.org/projects/GWYDH/

writing

Copyright Cowboys Performing the Law

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2012

This text looks at the role of Appropriation Art in contemporary discourses on copyright and intellectual property. It discusses whether appropriation artists have been able to meet their own critical claims, and what the value of a strategy, which depends so much on the workings of the art world, could be within a copyright-critical discourse whose issues go far beyond the art world. In: Joshua Pablo Rosenstock (Ed.), Journal of the New Media Caucus, V.08 N.02: Found, Sampled, Stolen: Strategies of Appropriation in New Media, 2012.

PDF

research

Creating Worlds

Vienna / 2009-2012, European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies (eipcp).

http://eipcp.net/projects/creatingworlds/files/about/

Creating Worlds was a multi-annual research project that investigated the relationship between art production and knowledge production in the context of the transformations and crises of contemporary capitalism. Creativity becomes an ambivalent term here, “creating worlds” meaning a modulating procedure in cognitive capitalism and societies of control, but also an emerging political dimension of creativity as political imagination and invention of new lines of flight, new struggles, new worlds.
.....

project

DEJAVU®

Speculative Software, 2009.

Speculative Software. After submitting a digital template, the software generates a „quality report“. The accuracy of this report depends on the amount of originals that are available as a comparison value. The goal of using the software is to provide a „sameness index“ in the shortest possible time, which can indicate in precise percentages the related source material. Using scientific methods such as distance calculations algorithms from bioinformatics finally allow accuracy in a field where arbitrariness and inability to detect have prevailed for too long.

https://artwarez.org/projects/dejavu/

writing

THE THING Hamburg. A Temporary Democratization of the Local Art Field.

Rahel Puffert, Michel Chevalier, Cornelia Sollfrank / 2014.

THE THING Hamburg was an experimental Internet platform whose vocation was to contribute to the democratization of the art field, to negotiate new forms of art in practice, and to be a site for political learning and engagement. The authors of this this paper trace the (local) circumstances that led to the emergence of the project and take a look at its historical precursor; they reflect on the organizational form of this collectively-run and participatory platform, and investigate the role locality can play in the development of political agency.

PDF

project

THE THING Hamburg

THE THING Hamburg was an Internet platform for art and criticism in Hamburg. The platform was developed along the lines of THE THING New York and was active from 2006 to 2009. Based on artistic perspectives, THE THING Hamburg’s mission was to reflect on art and culture in various media and formats. The main ideas were to empower artists and cultural producers to speak for themselves, to contribute to the public discourse while providing a platform for the larger audience to engage with.

.

https://thing-hamburg.de

exhibition

Originale und andere Fälschungen

Edith-Russ-Haus Oldenburg / 24 January – 19 April 2009

Book launch with Herbert Hossmann, Nanna Lüth, Rahel Puffert, Joern Ebner, Sabine Himmelsbach, Cornelia Sollfrank

Link to archive of ERH

project

Revisiting Feminist Art

Hamburg (2006) / Paris (2007) / Berlin (2008)

Revisiting Feminist Art is a series of reenactments of early feminist performance art. In the act of repetition, Cornelia Sollfrank took the place of the artists she selected and fashioned a test assembly by confronting the concept of the subject of these early feminist artworks with the action theoretical concept of repetition. The relevance of the repeated work and the statement produced by it is put forward for discussion along with the diversity of feminist practices. For this series, Cornelia Sollfrank selected artists and works that had influenced her as a young artist feminist: Valie Export’s „Mappe der Hundigkeit“, Annette Messager’s „Les Approaches“, and Niki de Saint Phalle’s „Peinture au Fusil.“

https://artwarez.org/projects/refeministart/

project

Automatically Generated Authorship

Audio play, 37min, commissioned by ORF Radio, Vienna, 2004. Collaboration between Cornelia Sollfrank and Timothy Didymus, as part of the Kunstradio series „real audio literature – .ran 2“, curated by Johannes Auer. The radio play „Automatically Generated Authorship“ relates to the development of new forms of digital authorship in terms of both content and form. In the process, four different characters represent four different perspectives of the discourse around authorship. There is one male and one female computer voice each, as well as one male and one female human voice. The radio play, which is composed of spoken text, sounds and generative music, does not develop linearly, but results from permanent jumps on the time axis. And although certain content is predetermined by the authors (Sollfrank & Didymus), the final form is determined exclusively by the underlying software.

http://www.kunstradio.at/2004B/05_12_04.html

research, writing

copyright © 2004, Cornelia Sollfrank

Cornelia Sollfrank /2004

The starting point for this text is the question of who can be considered the author of a digital image collage produced by nag_05. The related investigation is based on legal research conducted in the field of copyright for computer-generated works as well as joint authorship, and aims at meticulously discussing as many legal options as possible. The text simultaneously applies and reflects legal thinking as it is performed through the adopting of legal terminology. There is also a video available in which the author reads the text to screen.

PDF

exhibition, interview, project

Legal Perspective

Four legal experts elaborate on copyright issues related to the net.art generator – from a legal perspective. Four-channel video installation, (12 to 15 minutes each). German with English subtitles.

In 2004 Cornelia Sollfrank submitted the anonymous_warhol-flowers to four copyright law experts and filmed their responses. Instead of displaying prints of the automatically generated images, these expert videos were installed at [plug.in] Basel. The interviews not only illustrate the different appraisals of the situation by various experts but also clearly demonstrate the legal grey area between artistic freedom and the letter of the law resulting from artistic appropriation. Aesthetic necessities and legal logic appear irreconcilable. Thanks to the participating lawyers: Peter Eller, Munich; Jens Brelle, Hamburg; DrsRolf auf der Maur, Zurich; Dr Sven Krüger, Hamburg.
 

https://artwarez.org/projects/legalperspective/

project

Improved Television

Conceptual Internet music project, Spatial installation / 2001

At the heart of Improved Television there is a composition by Arnold Schönberg: Verklärte Nacht. The piece has first been modified by Nam June Paik (1977) who slowed it down to 25% of its original speed, after which Dieter Roth accelerated Paik’s version up to the original speed and made it his own edition (1979). Cornelia Sollfrank continued the series of modifications by making the piece available to the online audience on a virtual record player where the user can set the speed themselves. The intervention also has an installation version where portraits of the four artists are presented next to their statements with a sound piece composed by Sollfrank on the basis of all previous interventions.

https://artwarez.org/projects/improvedTV/

project

Old Boys Network

Old Boys Network was the first international cyberfeminist alliance. OBN was launched at documenta x as part of the Hybrid Workspace where it held the 1st Cyberfeminist International in September 1997. In the following five years, the network held regular international conferences, published readers and books and served as a platform for a plethora of cyberfeminist activities. An archive of OBN’s activities is currently in preparation in collaboration with documenta Archiv in Kassel.

Original website: https://obn.org

exhibition, project

Liquid Hacking Laboratory

Kunstverein Nürnberg, 1 September – 15 October 2000

The ‚Liquid Hacking Laboratory‘ was an experimental setting which has been conceived by Cornelia Sollfrank and brought together twenty-five artists and hackers. It combined three elements: a temporary media lab, public presentations, and an exhibition. The idea was to go beyond traditional conceptions of art production and art presentation, and to offer –for the participating international artists and hackers as well as for the interested public– a space for exchange and knowledge transfer.

https://artwarez.org/projects/LHL/

interview, publication

Hackers are Artists–and Some Artists are Hackers

Berlin / 10 September 1998

Interview with Cornelia Sollfrank, by Tilman Baumgärtel about Female Extension. Published in: [net.art] – Materialien zur Netzkunst, Tilman Baumgärtel, Verlag für moderne Kunst, 1999.

PDF

interview, publication

Hacker sind Künstler – und einige Künstler sind Hacker

Berlin / 10.September 1998

Interview mit Cornelia Sollfrank, von Tilman Baumgärtel. Veröffentlicht in: netz.kunst, Jahrbuch 98-99, Institut für moderne Kunst, Nürnberg, 1999. [net.art] – Materialien zur Netzkunst, Tilman Baumgärtel, Verlag für moderne Kunst, 1999.

PDF

interview, publication

EXTENSION – die virtuelle Erweiterung der Hamburger Kunsthalle

19. Juni 1997, telepolis, Heise Verlag.

Auszüge aus einem Gespräch zwischen Cornelia Sollfrank und Frank Barth, wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter der Galerie der Gegenwart, dem neuen Erweiterungsbau der Hamburger Kunsthalle. Anlässlich seiner Eröffnung am 23. Februar 1997 schrieb das Museum den ersten institutionellen Preis für Internet-Kunst aus. Sollfrank nahm dies zum Anlass, das Projekt Female Extension zu entwickeln.

LINK

project

Female Extension

Female Extension was the hack of the first competition for Internet art launched by Kunsthalle Hamburg in 1997. Sollfrank created 300 ficticious female net artists and flooded the competition with automatically generated websites. This intervention has been included in Rhizome’s net art anthology.

Original website: https://artwarez.org/projects/femext/