(via Eton | Quiet Babylon)

Althamer transformed the space of the prestigious Berlin gallery, the Neugerriemschneider, into a picturesque ruin (2003). The gallery remained open (or rather desolate) 24 hours a day, which was interpreted as a vanitas metaphor, or even a pessimistic forecast for the “art world”. (via pietmondriaan.com)

Pawel Althamer, Fairy Tale, 2006 included in “Of Mice and Men,” the 4th Berlin Biennale.

Althamer used his exhibition budget to help an eighteen-year-old Turkish immigrant named Besin Olcay avoid being sent back to Turkey by the German government. The Polish artist, once himself an illegal immigrant in Berlin, wanted to help another foreigner stay in the city legally. Olcay and his family received financial assistance, and Althamer‘s installation in the exhibition consists of a lone running shoe, which belongs to Olcay, and an open letter to Erhart Körting, the city’s senator for internal affairs. The letter, which has been signed by nearly one thousand people—including many artists, curators, and museum directors—asks the senator to reconsider Olcay’s case on “humanitarian grounds.” (http://artforum.com/news/week=200614)

I’m working on a new project with Catherine Ryan for Underbelly Arts Festival. You could help us make it happen and receive some rewards for your support: http://pozible.com/removethebridge

(via Remove Sydney Harbour Bridge by Amy Spiers and Catherine Ryan)

Fischli and Weiss, Rock on Top of Another Rock, Serpentine Gallery, London 2012

‘In Norway and here, to put one rock on top of another rock in the wilderness is the first thing you do if you want to make a mark. When you walk and you want to find your way back… you make this mark. It is a very archaic, simple thing, but it is referencing the [Robert] Venturi duck. We wanted to make something that forces you to stop your car and get out to take a photograph.’ - Peter Fischli

(via Government tears up rainbow crossing - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation))

Roman Ondak, Resistance, 2006.

“The work of Roman Ondak consists of subtle interventions into sociocultural structures, which denote processes in society that are often outside of direct public visibility. His intervention entitled “Resistance” was a performance carried out at the opening of the exhibition “Kontakt… works from the collection of Erste Bank Group” at the Viennese Museum of Modern Art (MUMOK) on March 16, 2006. The video shows a number of people who have their shoelaces untied, standing and walking around in the exhibition space. By focusing on the feet of the people at the opening, the identity of the protagonists remains hidden as the camera pans towards the floor, capturing mostly black shoes and open laces. Fellow visitors were puzzled by this intervention, since there was no direct clue as to why certain people were posing this way. Thus Ondak queries the bondage, not necessarily visible, of certain peer groups, in this case through the need of people working in the field of art to proclaim otherness as a means counterbalancing social standardization.”

http://www.kontakt-collection.net/artists/Roman+Ondak/

Palle Nielsen, Model for a Qualitative Society, 1968: http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/childs_play/

Why the physical form of smartphones and the unreliable operation of cellular networks has made hanging up the telephone impossible.

Catherine Ryan and I have uploaded to our blog documentation and a description of the work we developed during our residency at ZK/U in Berlin: http://thefuturesofthepast.wordpress.com/monument/ (via Site Dedicated to the Active Effacement and Complete Disregard of History | The Futures Of The Past)

The latest issue of Das Superpaper is focused on performance practices. I have an article in there entitled “Facetime: Intimacy and Discomfort” that looks at the rise of participatory encounters in Melbourne’s Live Art scene. (via Issue 26 | Das Platforms)

(via I wish I was as lucky as you / Richard Lewer)