I am we_interactive image the global social media art project by Wolf Nkole Helzle
1. international usermeeting & exhibition a+gallery
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I am we_interactive image the global social media art project by Wolf Nkole Helzle
1. international usermeeting & exhibition a+gallery, Stuttgart
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After the start of www.interactive-image.org you see the interactive image, which changes always because of the upload of pictures of the users. After a short time the view is changing
into a mosaic image, which is calculated because of the profilimage of an activ user. This will be overwrite again ad infinitum. As a registered user you have access to all the functionality.
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Here we are at the other side, where all the images for the interactive image and the mosaic images coming from, the diary. It is an endless calendar, where you can upload one image per
day. You are able to set a title and to comment it with a longer text for every image. You can turn pages by month and year forwards and backwards.
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With a click onto an image, you´ll see it enlarged, together with all comments of all users. In this view you can also type a comment and it is possible to turn forwards and backwards, image
by image of the diary of this user. At the end of June 2012 we counted 10.472 comments on 5.639 images by 178 users.
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This is the view of all images ever uploaded onto this platform by all users - page by page. You can see the date and time of
the upload and how many comments are given to each image. To move over an image you´ll see the title of this image.
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This is the view of all users with their profile images - page by page. You can see name, date of registration and the amount
of images uploaded by an user up to now. These profil images are also the templates for to calculate the mosaic images.
I am we_interactive image 1. international usermeeting & exhibition The global social media art project by Germany based media artist Wolf Nkole Helzle is designed specifically for audience participation. Using a specially developed internet platform, it enables people of all nations to create their personal photographic diary. From all the photos, an overall picture is computed which interactively changes continuously with the upload of new images. In addition the participants will be able to share ideas about their images. The constantly changing over-all picture „interactive image“ will also be shown in art exhibitions. Seven weeks after the start of “I am we_interactive image”: there are 178 users from over 30 nations with 5.639 images and 10.472 comments. The sheer number of users is impressive. The conclusion: the platform is very lively and active. It is a universe of different interpretations of the diary and there are close and frequent contacts between the users. It´s not the aim but the desired effect: the user learns to understand 11 people from different regions of the world. Based on this the “1. international I am we_UserMeeting” was born – together with an unusual exhibition at a+gallery, where all participants bring in fragments of their lives: photography, art, prints, sculptures, interactive art, performances, sounds, objects, projections & hands on with the global social media art platform…from virtual to physical: I am we. The theme of usermeeting and exhibition is to transfer the virtual meetings into a physical experience, to locate them in space. Many users from Japan, Finland, Holland, France, Turkey, Greece, and from different regions of Germany signed in. www.interactive-image.org
Welcome at a+ … … and welcome to the exhibition of our featured artist Wolf Nkole Helzle. We are honoured to present our first artwork which links the real and the virtual world. This was the idea of a+ creative space and gallery when it was started one year ago by Kai Bierich and myself – an interdisciplinary platform as a venue and meeting place for interested people, exhibitions and dialogue and as an interface between real and virtual worlds. We work with different artists, architects and designers to bring experimental projects together and using different media. We organize a+ exhibitions, lectures and debates. We want to contribute to civil society. a+ creative space and gallery shall become a meeting point in the global village, an environment and community creating a mixture and a blend of the traditional and modern arts, digital technologies, social innovations and networked creativity in arts, architecture, design and societal change. a+ creative space and gallery is coworking place, ideas generator, think tank, enabler for managing ideas and creativity – a meeting point 12 in the global village. So it is our pleasure and joy to host Wolf Nkole Helzle, his project I am we_interactive image and the relational artifacts from users of his work all over the world. Wolf as a person and his global social media art represents everything which I had in my mind when we founded a+ - a perfect merger between virtual and real. Wolf is a great personcentered artist and photographer in the real world and a great creator of relational products and platforms in the virtual one. He is a philantrope and inspiring and shining when he can build up new relationships. And he is open to every new idea in the sense of my motto – creativity means combining the unexpected. So we developed together this unique concept of combining his digital internet artwork, artifacts of the users and an international user meeting. Welcome again to our wonderful venue in Stuttgart, welcome to this great real exhibition in the real world with its strong roots in the virtual world. We are looking forward to built up new flourishing real and virtual relationships worldwide to become part of a playful global consciousness. „Welcoming“ Klaus Haasis, Co-founder and curator a+ creative space and gallery, Germany
How much space needs virtuality The thoughts about virtual spaces did not pop up nowadays. There have always been dreams and visions as essential part of our existence. Not only buildings are emerging by coming out of virtual thoughts, out of our dreams. As well it was the precondition for our belief in superior environments, drawn, fotographed, filmed or software-generated. We always wanted to escape from this (…) reality and today we have the tools for this. As well we have in this space the possibility, of “being with others” and being able to share space or information with others. So space is something which is to define in a new sense. How does that influence us and: where are the additional values for our human existence? Virtual space in a former sense could provide spiritual qualities, emerging out of a dream that an artist has showing an utopian ideal. So Breughel 1562 created his painting of the Tower of Babel. It was a mental space – drawn with traditional media: oil paint on wooden panel. How could we provide with our new media additional or spiritual values? The new virtual space, which does not has to follow the rules of the physical world, gives totally other opportunities. So far we do create therein a new reality, an alternative reality, which we use and which we got used to. The boarders between the “two realities” become blurred, according Virilios statement already in 1984: „In fact, since the originary enclosures, the concept of boundary has undergone numerous changes as regards both the facade and the neighborhood it fronts. From the palisade to the screen, by way of ramparts, the boundary-surface has recorded innumerable perceptible and imperceptible transformations.“ Now - nearly thirty years later he seems to be right – the boundaries of space IS rapt down, the virtual space overtakes or performs a new reality, giving us artists and architects unexpected opportunities.
„How much space needs virtuality“ Kai Bierich, a+creative space and gallery owner & architect, Germany
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I see us, I see you, I see me. I am me, I am you, I am we We are the land and the shore, and the earth from above / We are nature and art and a present of love / We are stone and water and fire and ice / We are desert and sand / We are a streetmusic band / We are suns and clouds and milky skies / We are moons and stars and lullabies / We are toys and dolls and shady ground / We are voices and music and silence and sound I see us, I see you, I see me. I am me, I am you, I am we We are small things and big life / We are a cat, a reptile, a dunkey, a dog / We are a frog and a snake, we are the lovemaking snailes / We are highways and roads and hiking trails / We are trees and traffic and towers and twins / We are the spring and the longing for spring and for green / We are a grey sight in black and in white / We are chairs and benches and walls and fences / We are gardens and houses and cars and bikes / We are a spider, a fish, a bird and a bee / We are a light window and a dark willow tree I see us, I see you, I see me. I am me, I am you, I am we We are stairs and doors and desks and pools / We are tiny planets and parks, and lost spaces / We are forests and lanes and far 14 away places / We are computers and engines and ovens and tools / We are dinner dishes and dumplings we are flowers and fools / We are pride of work and professional skills / We are castles and stations and strawberry hills / We are parents and grandmas and babies and kids / We are a musician, a poet, a friend / We are lovers, just married / We are the beginning, the end I see us, I see you, I see me. I am me, I am you, I am we We are the young girl shaking her hair / We are the lady wairing a pair of new boots / We are meadows and lakes and oceans and boats / We are eyes and ears and the heart that floats in a stone / We are skin, we are blood, we are flesh, we are bone / We are reflections on water, we are the feet in the tub / We are an icecream smeared mouth, and a beer-drinking pub / We are the gladness of being, we are the madness of seeing / We are the sadness of broken and thrown away things / We are flies and creatures and feathers and wings We are a message, a writing, a question, a cry / We are laughter and wishes, we are a dream and a sigh / We are the places where we’ve never been / We are the faces, that we’ve never seen / We are the hidden, that yearns to be shown / We are the horizon that demands to be known I see us, I see you, I see me. I am me, I am you, I am we „We hear you“, 2012, Opening performance Music: Satoshi Fukushima, Composer, Japan & Poem: Christiane Maruschka Hasselmeier, Musician, Germany
People don’t like themselves This is the biggest problem of mankind. And this is the very reason why people constantly hate each other. Not enough, we are enemies; we kill each other. We throw away our waste all over the world. And we live in this garbage. Because we reduce our experience of life to a minimum: to just 1% of what is possible. Main part of this 1% is that we are forced to always evaluating and thus dividing. We divide everybody and anything into poor and rich, right and wrong, big and small. We are all kind of busy with evaluating and dividing. We are so busy, that we are incapable of perceiving all the remaining rest of 99%. Every one of us is the result of trillions of years of evolution. Since the first division of cell, life evolved to that what we are today. Everybody of us consists of 100 trillions of cells. To imagine this instantly creates a life worth living. We have to recall our origins. There are countless possibilities to do so. One is to keep a diary to experience and recall the richness of life and environment.
„People are crazy“ Wolf Nkole Helzle, Social Media Artist, Germany
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exhibition
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Nuray Önoglu, Freelancer, Turkey „Silhouette“, 2012, 50 x 35 cm, Photography
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Martin Zentner (alias Dora Asemwald), Writer, Germany „If I wear you“, 2012, 15“ Digital frame, Slide show
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Karin Dorothea Rehm, Artist & Art therapist, Germany „Virtual immersion“, 2012, 50 x 50 cm, Photography
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Kiki Roosma, Artist, France „The red painting“, 2012, 30 x 40 x 20 cm, Acryl on canvas on mousse
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Mirja Wellmann, Sculptor, Germany „Noices - Hauptstraße 234/1“, 2012, 80 x 80 cm, Acryl on canvas
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Ellen Bosma, Secretary, Netherlands „Without title“, 2009, 40 x 30 cm, Photography
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Angelika Anna Hagen, Interior designer, Germany „Rosered uprising“, 2012, 21 x 16,5 cm, Photography
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Antonis Giakoumakis, Artist, Greece „Black head“, 2012, 90 x 120 cm, Oil on paper (speedpainting)
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Ekkeland Götze, Artist, Germany / „Rice (Japan)“, 2011-2012, 71 x 71 cm, Earth on japanese paper on stretcher; „Rice (Japan)“, 201“1, 27 x 27 cm, Photography on paper on stretcher
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German Zoeschinger, Physicist, Germany „Schimmelturm“, 2012, 100 x 100 cm, Photography
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Wolf Nkole Helzle, Artist (D), Betty Hensel, Director (D), Masayuki Akamatsu, Professor (J) „Secret Emotions 1-4“, 2012, 30 x 30 cm, Augmented photography, iPhone / iPad / iPod
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Tatjana Ortmann, Streetworker, Germany „I am we - hunters“, 2012, 60 x 40 cm, Print on canvas
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Robert Schäfer, Artist, Germany „The old way“ and „Factory“, 2012, 2 x 20 x 30 cm, Photography
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Chris Mennel, Teacher, Germany „Fragemens of the Whole“, 2012, 70 x 60 cm, wood, 9 digital 7“-frames
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Jörg Loose, Disc record shopman, Germany „Saison zwanzigzehn 1-4“, 2010, 40 x 40 cm, Print on canvas
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Reiner Anwander, Sculptor and art teacher, Germany „Grey III“, 2007, 50 x 50 cm, Acryl on canvas
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Raija Silvennoinen, Psychologist retired, Finland „You make me laugh“, 1938, 12 x 16 cm & „Sharing memories“, 2001, 16 x 12 cm, Photography
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Mike Satow, Architect and programmer, Germany „Water 1-8“, 2004-2009, 20 x 30 cm, Photography
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Wolf Nkole Helzle, Social Media Artist, Germany „365 Selfportraits 2010-2011“, 2010-2011,118,9 x 84,1 cm, FineArtPrint
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The first big thank goes to Kai Bierich & Klaus Haasis who gave the global social media art project I am we_ interactive image with their a+gallery not only a room, but a space. The next one goes to all impuls lecturers as Kai Bierich, Ricarda Geib, Klaus Haasis, Dieter Soldan, Volker Strauss and Przemek Kuffel and to Mirja Wellmann for designing the catalogue and for her big help to organize the event. 36 So many thanks to all users of the platform, to do their
diaries and their comments. Especially the participants of the usermeeting & exhibition: Masayuki Akamatsu, Reiner Anwander, Ellen Bosma, Satoshi Fukushima, Antonis Giakoumakis, Ekkeland Götze, Angelika Anna Hagen, Christiane Maruschka Hasselmeier, Betty Hensel, Jörg Loose, Chris Mennel, Nuray Önoglu, Tatjana Ortmann, Karin Rehm, Kiki Roosma, Mike Satow, Robert Schäfer, Raija Silvennoinen, Mirja Wellmann, Martin Zentner and German Zoeschinger. And last but not least to all the small and big helpers and helps during usermeeting & exhibition, without them such an event can never be successful.
Wolf Nkole Helzle (*1950) studied painting at the Freie Kunsthochschule in Stuttgart and with Professor Harry Kramer at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Kassel, after which he worked for twenty years in the hardware and software industry. He has been a freelance media artist since 1996. Helzle works with photography, video, installation, and performances. Many of his works are of a participa tive nature. Bystanders, guests, passers-by, and visitors become part of the artistic process. One of the central themes of his artistic work is the question regarding the relationship between individual and collective. He pursues this question in both a national as well as in an international context, such as at the Ogaki Biennale in Japan or at media_city seoul in South Korea. He has received invitations from the National Visual Arts Council in Lusaka, Zambia, and from numerous German and European exhibition projects and festivals. www.helzle.com
„Thanks“ Wolf Nkole Helzle, Social media artist & founder of I am we_interactive image, Germany
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a+gallery Kai Bierich & Klaus Haasis Olgastrasse 138, 70180 Stuttgart mail@interactive-image.org www.interactive-image.org 38 www.facebook.com/a.plus.creativespace sponsered by