transprivacy — Florian Kuhlmann · net art in public space, 2011

the concept

transparency meets privacy

transprivacy — Public Viewing was a media art project in the public space of Düsseldorf, realised in the autumn of 2011. The title is a coinage, a hybrid of transparency and privacy. The project dealt with a possible shift of the public and the private through the spreading use of digital media — privacy standing for the intimate among friends or the closed action within one's own four walls, transparency as a metaphor for the open, the visible, the publicly accessible. Through the ever stronger use of the internet in work and everyday life, these once-separate spheres increasingly merge.

Instead of a classical exhibition, selected international net-art works were shown as posters, plots and billboards in the city — on advertising columns, house walls, shop windows and utility boxes, each for about a week, flanked by flyer and postering actions. The line between artwork, advertising, archive and theory was deliberately dropped. There was neither vernissage nor finissage; exchange ran through the net, a blog, email and social media, alongside a discursive "Public Talking" strand on net politics and surveillance.

"Everything is real except for the unreal … Online life is real. Offline life is real." — Curt Cloninger, a Facebook conversation, 2011

in the street

works as posters and billboards

Net-based works turned into paper and paste: Google and Facebook parodies, the German state trojan "R2D2", an "HTTP 404 / justice" on pentagon.osd.mil, "PROTECT YOUR EMAIL!", and the slogan "PRIVACY is a bourgeois FANTASY" — art competing with advertising for the surface of the city.

transprivacy — Stefan Riebel's poster 'PRIVACY is a bourgeois FANTASY' — Stefan Riebel — "PRIVACY is a bourgeois FANTASY".

transprivacy — Johannes P. Osterhoff's minimalist Google search-page poster among street advertising — Johannes P. Osterhoff — "Google".

transprivacy — Philipp Teister's 'FACEBOOK — Life Sharing' poster on a dense poster wall — Philipp Teister — "FACEBOOK · Life Sharing".

transprivacy — poster 'BACKDOOR W32/R2D2.A', referencing the German state trojan — "BACKDOOR W32/R2D2.A" — the German state trojan.

transprivacy — Evan Roth's poster of an 'HTTP Status 404 — /justice' error page on pentagon.osd.mil — Evan Roth — "HTTP 404 / justice" on pentagon.osd.mil.

transprivacy — a large-format billboard reading 'PROTECT YOUR EMAIL!' — "PROTECT YOUR EMAIL!" — as a billboard.

transprivacy — Filippo Minelli's blue 'in your ass' poster on a stone facade — Filippo Minelli — "in your ass".

transprivacy — an artwork poster wrapped around a classic advertising column — A work wrapped around a Litfaßsäule.

transprivacy — a cyclist passing a wall of project posters — The street as the gallery.

transprivacy — 'PRIVATSPHÄRE ist eine bürgerliche FANTASIE' in a street with parked cars — The German version, in the street.

transprivacy — a blue 'in your ass' poster and a laurel-wreath poster on a graffiti-covered utility box — Two works sharing a utility box.

transprivacy — pedestrians walking past a poster wall, monochrom's contribution — monochrom — passers-by and the poster wall.

participants

artists & authors

Artists: Eva & Franco Mattes, Evan Roth, Filippo Minelli, Johannes P. Osterhoff, Julia Scher, monochrom, Philipp Teister, Stefan Riebel, Timothy Shearer, UBERMORGEN.

Authors / theory (Public Talking): Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti, Dr. Bernd Ternes, Emmanuel Mir, Hartmut Finkeldey, Michael Seemann, Nils Zurawski, Pico Schlick, twister.

Concept, curation and organisation: Florian Kuhlmann, Düsseldorf, 2011.