Jakob Wassermann - German and Jew
Installation, Jewish Museum Franken, Fürth
Three-channel Film Installation, 55 min. HD; 6 Lenticular Panels, A0 Format, Lightboxes

To mark the 150th birthday of Jakob Wassermann (1873, Fürth), Arnold Dreyblatt has created an installation that focuses on Wassermann‘s autobiographical work, My Path as a German and a Jew (1921). Dreyblatt invited eleven people of different backgrounds and ages to read from pre-selected sections of Wasserman‘s forensic analysis of German-Jewish relations - the result is a 55-minute scored three-channel film installation.

In an adjoining space, Dreyblatt has created a series of six illuminated lenticular panels for which he has selected photographs of Wasserman taken by Jewish photographer Grete Kolliner in Vienna in 1920, as well as texts from the original publication. Each work contains several layers of images and texts that have been read in the film installation, both of which can be perceived fragmentarily from different viewing positions.

3 lenticular transparent prints, lightbox, frame, 160 x 230 cm

Commissioned and purchased by the Jewish Museum Munich. Exhibited as part of the exhibition: "The Last Europeans. Jewish Perspectives on the Crises of an Idea", curated by Felicitas Jelinek-Heimann.

The installation consists of transparent lenticular prints installed in three light boxes as a composition of 500 x 230 cm. Each work contains up to six text layers, which can be percieved in fragments from different viewing positions and which "overwrite" each other as in a deconstructed "palimpsest". The chosen texts, selected in collaboration with curator Felicitas Jelinek-Heimann include Agnes Heller, Ludwik Zamenhof, Bernard-Henri Lévy, André Gkucksman, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Jaques Derrida und Jürgen Habermas appear in three languages: German, English and Esperanto. With the exception of Zamenhof, these texts by European intellectuals, philosophers and activists reflect on the ongoing European crisis and reflect a grave personal disappointment in the collapse of enlightenment and liberal values, not only in Europe, but worldwide.

Single channel audio, Mono Loudspeaker
Speaker: Alexa Dvorson

Exhibited as part of the exhibition: "Internal Clocks' at the Culterim Gallery, Berlin located in a former air-raid shelter. The exhibition was curated by Claudia Breitschmid, Annabelle von Girsewald and Samuel Haettenschweiler. The installation also included "Screen Memory" (2018), an earlier video work by Arnold Dreyblatt.

The installation is comprised of two works in dialogue with one another. As one enters, the video display “Screen Memory” illuminates the space. In the site-specific audio work "interim", a pre-recorded voice and environmental soundscape addresses and questions the public as to the spatial context and history of the site.

"A female voice. The spoken word is about space, its curves and corners. The text is vague, it is complex. That is exactly what memory is. It is almost never clear, always that 1% of doubt. Have you become aware of your feelings now? It is all very vague. But aren’t memories also sometimes very confusing?" - Brigita Sinistaj

4K Projection, Stereo Sound, Reading Desk with Light, Hardcover printed musical score, Framed LP Edition

Solo Exhibition, Yellow Solo Project Space, Berlin 2021

In 1947, Edgard Varèse composed five-minutes of unfinished fragments for orchestra titled “Tuning Up”, referring to the tuning and preparatory ritual of every live orchestra performance in which musicians gather on the concert stage before the actual concert program begins. The static yet continually changing dynamic timbre of the orchestra warm-up is often overlooked.

In reflecting on Dreyblatt’s forty-year career in musical minimalism and media art, the classical preparatory ritual of the orchestra “warm-up” is examined in a video and audio installation. Archival recordings of over fifty orchestra warm-up sessions have been edited digitally into a seamless composition in which the short durations of these pre-concert moments are prolonged. The resulting digital recording was then transcribed and notated as a musical score for orchestra. The gaze of the orchestra conductor in performance has been mapped in real-time using eye-tracking software and wearable capture tools.

Conductor, Score Transcription: Paul Brody

Eye-Tracking Realization: Dr. Markus Schönberger, iMotions A/S, Copenhagen Denmark

Camera: Veit Lup – Martin Wolff

The production of “Warm Up” was supported by: Recherchestipendien im Bereich Bildende Kunst Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa Abteilung Kultur, Berlin, 2020

Special Thanks to: iMotions A/S, Copenhagen Denmark

Curated by Hajnal Nemeth

Inspired by “Rolywholyover  A Circus” by John Cage in a realization for an Archive.

Exhibited in “TRANSFORMING ARCHIVES - Arbeit am Gedächtnis”, Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Multimedia room installation with 77 changing objects from the Archives of the Akademie der Künste, BerlinRotating Exhibition, Wall and Spatial Installation, Score, Live Video Recording

In the spirit of "Rolywholyover", "Archive Carousel" is a non-hierarchical composition that revolves around the Archival holdings of the 325-year-old Akademie der Künste in Berlin, selecting 77 objects to generate 28 simultaneous, non-linear events. Initially, the process-oriented research project centered around an open forum in dialogue with the archivists to determine a potential list of objects. The archival holdings include textual materials (transcripts, correspondence), publications, drafts of works, art-works, museum objects, audio tapes and books from artists’ estates. The diverse and heterogeneous objects selected for "Archive Carousel" are a result of their origin from all archive divisions.

Dreyblatt's non-linear score provides an individual index, finding aid and presentation rhythm for all objects in the “visual depot”, determining how the presentation changes and thus abolishing the hierarchies between arts and materials: no artefact or document competes with another. The exchange of the archive objects according to the score are displayed as a film loop within the exhibition.

With a non-linear temporal score that provides each object with its own indexing, research resources, and presentation rhythm, "Archive Carousel" suspends hierarchies between the arts and the materials in a space that includes a built-in "viewing depot". Among the decontextualized objects, no artifact or document competes with another.

Since the 1990s, visual artist and composer Arnold Dreyblatt has applied the scoring of overlapping time sequences in varying performative installation formats. “John Cage’s pioneering work Theater Event No. 1 (Black Mountain College, 1952), in which artists on site carried out simultaneous activities of their choice within a prescribed time frame, while moving through the audience, is to this day an important reference point for my artistic work.” (A.D.). He referenced this work most recently in 2015 in his interactive installation Performing the Black Mountain Archive at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin.

John Cage’s Rolywholyover A Circus (1993) is a randomly generated composition in four movements: Museumcircle (museum loans, Circus (works of art), Cage-Gallery (works of art by Cage) and Media space.(2) Originally, Cage and the curator Julie Lazar had planned to compile a list of loans from museums around the world for the project, from which the specially developed ROVER computer program was to pick random objects. At the time, the low rate of digitization of museum collections prevented the realization of this idea. Instead, the two regional museums located 30 and 60 miles respectively from where the work was realized participated in the project. The Circle changed according to the specifics and regional museum density. Depending on the space available at the particular venue, the Circle comprised between 30 and 60 museum objects. The Circus, on the other hand, represented the densest part of the composition, as it was a kind of index of John Cage’s life and work, centered around availabilities and aesthetic and personal preferences. In the site-specific room design, the objects were presented in “play” or “reservoir” mode. In the spirit of "Rolywholyover", Arnold Dreyblatt references in "Archive Carousel" the notions of Circus and Circle, which describe the processes of circulation.

Anke Hervol, Arnold Dreyblatt

Two Channel Video Installation, two channel, SD Video, B & W and Color, 4:3 Format, Stereo Sound; CRT Monitors, Wood Platforms, Media Players

Exhibited and concieved for the exhibition:
“Artistic interventions in the new exhibition: "In the wake of the SS: images, voices and clichés: SS-Guards of the Women's Concentration Camp Ravensbrück”, 2020

Video 1: 21 :53 min, 2020; German with English subtitles
Video 2: 22:54 min, 2020; German with English subtitles

Speakers: Yvette Goetze-Hannemann, Sabine Kotzur

Recording: Zeitzeugen TV, Berlin; James Wehse, camera and editing; technical advice: Martin Wolff; Text translation: David Haney ; Transcription: Anne Steinhagen

Supported by German Federal Cultural Foundation

Arnold Dreyblatt has developed a two-part film installation: Two female speakers, who address the audience directly, give advice on how mothers should raise their children and how women should behave in National Socialist society.

At the center of this artistic exploration is authoritarian education under National Socialism. The quotations used in the first work are taken from contemporary books and magazines of the 1930s, such as the NS Women's Watch and several other guidebooks that were supported by Nazi propaganda and that pointed the way ahead for the educational methods of the Nazi national community.

The question of the after-effects of such methods after 1945 forms the core of the second work - using the example of Johanna Haarer's guidebook on infant care: “The German mother and her first child”. Published in 1934, the book became the basis for the "mother training courses" of the Nazi leadership. Until the 1970s, Haarer's book, in a version cleansed of National Socialist propaganda, was found in almost every household in the Federal Republic.

Installation
White wall text, SD video projection B&W, 4:3, four channel Audio

Neue Berliner Kunstverein (N.B.K.), Berlin
Curated by Michaela Richter
Arnold Dreyblatt’s research has been supported by a residency at the Center for Arts, Science and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2014–2015); project realization in cooperation with the Studio für Elektro-akustische Musik, Academy of the Arts, Berlin.

Dreyblatt began his research into the cognitive phenomenon of the “Resting State” during a residency at the Center for Arts, Science and Technology at MIT in 2014-15.

Cognitive scientists are exploring those forms of information processing that occur when the brain is not involved in the accomplishment of specific tasks and when there is little or no outside stimuli. Subjects are exposed to a low-stimulus environment in which light and sound signals are employed, interrupting introspection at random intervals with verbal and visual cues.

In “The Resting State”, Dreyblatt focuses on the methods with which researchers attempt to document and test this essential aspect of consciousness while at the same time turning the recipient into a test subject.

Archival footage from numerous sources brings together excerpts from films showing neurological and psychological tests from the 1930s to 1960s; experiential reports and questions by test subjects and queries by researchers quoted on the walls and in the sound track question the central role that visualization and language play in our understanding of internal mental states. process of individual “mind-wandering” comprehensible.

Text by Michaela Richter, Curator >>>

Numbered Archival Containers, Paper, Hand Stamp

At the invitation of artist Vadim Zahkarov, Dreyblatt turns his attentions to reference his own extensive archival collections. 49 Archival Containers reference contents in Arnold Dreyblatt’s personal archive collection containing project documentation and original archival documents.

The contents are displayed in archival acid free archival standard containers, each numbered with label entries and a red hand stamp. The containers are displayed in a 7 x 7 wall grid.

First Exhibited: Freehome Berlin, 2019

Color Transparencies, Light Box, Size Variable

Images of File Folders and Documents printed on cutout transparencies as a virtual archival table.

Exhibited: Freehome Berlin, 2019

Video Projection 16:9 Size Variable; Silent; 28:36; Loop

Created for the exhibition “Lapse” as part of the Lux series at Museolaboratorio Ex Manifattura Tabacchi, Citta’ Sant’Angelo (PE) Italy, September 1 to September 30, 2018.

For the exhibition, Dreyblatt created a new video work “Screen Memory” (2017) to correspond with six of his early analog video which were also shown.

Gentle wind subtly creates Moiré patterns in a screen window.

>>> Catalogue

Lapse, 2018 Audio-Video Installation 7-Channel Video Installation; 7 automated monochord instruments, surround 5.1 sound installation, vitrines with archival documents

A site specific audio-visual exhibition by composer and media artist Arnold Dreyblatt. Curated by Marco Marzuoli and supervised by director Enzo de Leonibus as part of the Lux series at Museolaboratorio Ex Manifattura Tabacchi, Citta’ Sant’Angelo (PE) Italy, September 1 to September 30, 2018. The exhibition, installed in eight spaces within the Museolaboratorio, explored the relationship of Dreyblatt’s early video work from the 1970’s to his research into string vibration and to his emerging career as a composer within an immersive exploration of visual and audio perception.

Video Installation
For the exhibition, Dreyblatt created a new video work “Screen Memory” (2017) to correspond with six of his early video works were produced at State University at Buffalo, Center for Media Study from 1974-76 and Digitized from analog 1/2inch videotape at ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Media), Karlsruhe in 2017. The showing of these works represented a European Premiere and the first showing since a presentation at Anthology Film Archives in New York in 1976.  These analog works explore stroboscopic color non-optical imagery and flickering moire patterning and were dispayed on the cathode-ray monitors for which they were originally created.
Historical videos Displayed: “Burst”, “Uranus, “Fluctuations, “Carbon”, “Lapse”, “Baby Essentials”.

Sound Installation
Accompanying the video works was the premier of the multi-room sound installation “Monochordo”, (2018) in which seven tuned monochord instruments are each fitted with a timed magnetic feedback and driver system which sets the strings into vibration resulting in a rising and falling chorus of harmonic resonance. The installations each had an individual amplifying system. Engineer Magnetic Driver System:  Filippo del Trappeto
The electronic sound tracks of two video works mixed in space with the “Monochordo” installation.

“Turntable History” (2009) a  5.1 Surround Installation produced by Nepenthes Mastering Berlin in 2009 was installed in a circular domed space.  The sounds were produced on the “Siemens Magnetom Maestro Class Magnetic Resonance Imaging System” (MRI) from the Radiology practive of Dr. Anne Sparenberg in Berlin.

Archive
In five glass vitrines which were constructed especially for the exhibition, archival documents and works were displayed from the Dreyblatt Archive (1973 – 2003), referring to his origins in film and video art, his studies with The Vasulkas, La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Lucier, his research into the acoustics of strings and tuning and related ephemera from the time period.
“the magic square tuning system and how i got there”, A unique Box Edition created in 2007 for Jörg Hiller was included in the archival presentation.

„A String When Sounded Makes Many Sounds at Once“, 8mm Film by Edye Weissler from 1982, was screened at the exit from the exhibition.  The film is the only moving image documentation of his early american ensemble in preparation for a concert at Real Art Ways in Hartford in 1982.

 Lux 03. Lux is a research program between contemporary music and visual art. A project to promote a different form of art, in the context of museums/galleries conceived as artistic spaces of knowledge.

Thanks to Rosano P

(Gedächstnispalast Leuk)

Stiftung Schloss Leuk, Wallis, CH Table, Chairs, Lamps, 12 channel Audio Playback System

For the Schloss Leuk Foundation (Stiftung Schloss Leuk) in Wallis, Switzerland, Arnold Dreyblatt created a new work involving local historical archives and object collections. His artistic work is concerned with the social practice of the archive and the associated technical dispositives in space (archival holdings, burocratic forms) and in computer science (digital databases, search tools). He juxtaposed historical documents from politics, the catholic church (social and political structure from above) and from the everyday life of the population (private archives, private collections and letters).

Live Performance: The performance took place in the entrance hall of the medieval castle, following a dramaturgical score by the artist. 10 invited non-professional readers from Leuk and surroundings performed a text choreography in the space, composed by Arnold Dreyblatt from local archive material. Reading lamps indicated the beginning and end of individual yet simultaneous readings, forming a mosaic of voices. The score was displayed in the hall.

Installation: All readings were pre-recorded at the studios Radio Rottu Oberwallis. The recordings were played back at the site of the individual readings in live performance and syncronized with the reading lamps so that the live performance could be experienced as an installation during later opening times (without live performers).

Installation: “Kartothek” (Lower Level) A virtual treasury of local historical objects („Collection Pro Leuka“ appears solely as a data map with voice and text. In the centre of the room, an unfilled Pro Leuka inventory card from the collection appears on the floor, containing the terms and order criteria with which museum workers and archives receive documents and objects from posterity. A recorded voice reads the data from 50 inventory cards, allowing the visitor to visualize the archived historical objects.

A round table discussion was held with local historians and collectors. The project is supervised on site by Carlo Schmidt, artist and artistic director of Schloss Leuk. The art historian Sibylle Omlin assisted with the curatorial preparation and mediation of the project.
In cooperation with Radio Rottu Oberwallis, and Tomtechnik Ried-Möre, CH

A catalog is in preparation.

Installation & Performance
300 Posters, Neon Color; 4 Tables, 8 Chairs, Platform

Protocols of the Future: The F.I.U. Files  was installed and performed as part of the exhibition “République Géniale“, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland

The Installation was on view for four days beginning on October 10th, 2018.

Reading Performances: October 12 and 13, 2018

A performance and installation based on the founding protocols of the „Freie internationale Hochschule für Kreativität und interdisziplinäre Forschung/ Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research“ initiated by Joseph Beuys, Klaus Staeck, and Heinrich Böll. The spirit of the F.I.U. was taken up and continued by various individuals and groups. As an alternative to the existing art academies, however, it was never fully implemented.

Selected historical sessions of the mostly male initiators and members of the F.I.U.‘s non-profit association were re-enacted by six female artist members of the International Artists‘ Committee (I.K.G.) and an actor as narrater. Name signs paced in front of the readers indicated the name of the active role being spoken (which were changed from session to session). The original protocols were adapted from the third to the first person so that the sessions would be invoked in the presenttense.

Quotations from the F.I.U. protocols formed a large-format text installation in the form of three hundred neon coloured posters placed on the Poïpoïdrom platform within the main hall of the exhibition. After the performances, participants and public were invited to take individual posters home with them.

Project Assistant: Anne Steinhagen 
Narrator: Peter Zumstein 

Readers Internationale Künstler Gremium (IKG):
Monika Brandmeier, Gisela Kleinlein, Silke Leverkühne, Eva Maria Schön, An Seebach, Nele Ströbel 

Graphic Design: Dirk Lebahn
Special thanks to Klaus Staeck for the use of the documents.

>>BLOG République Géniale: Artikel von Sibylle Omlin, Autorin, Co-Kuratorin BONE Performance Art Festival Bern.

>>BLOG République Géniale: Kollisionen von Sinn und Zeit - Interview mit Arnold Dreyblatt von Meret Arnold

A Performance of „John Cage’s STEPS, A Composition for Painting“.  The remains of the installation remained as part of an exhibition.

Presented at the #JohnCageSTEPS: International Workshops and Performances at John-Cage-Orgel-Stiftung Halberstadt on October 10, 2017.

The performance involved a circular reading/performance of selected texts from „An Introductory Essay to the Doctrine of Sounds containing some proposals for the Improvement of Acousticks as it was presented to the Society of Dublin, November 12, 1683“ by  Archbishop Narcissus Marsh. The original text is found in the chain library founded by Marsh in Dublin and it contains the earliest mention of the word „microphone“ in the english language. 

Selected phrases from the original documents have been printed on 380 index cards which are placed on 10 music stands arranged in a circle on white paper rolls.  One to three words are printed on each card which are then „shuffled“ by rearranging the order, so that chance occurances and meanings play an important role. As each text is read, it is dropped to the ground.

At the end of each circular movement, the reader's feet pass through an ink bay, so that the movement is the „STEPS“ is recorded on the paper below.

At the end of the performance, Ray Kass presented Dreyblatt with a copy of the Peters score of „STEPS“.

Data projection, generative software, lightbox, color transparencies

Arnold Dreyblatt’s media and archive-based installations focus on cultural memories and transcend the boundaries between new and traditional media. Innocent Questions is an on-going project that started in 2006: an oversized digital punch card was mounted onto the front of a manor house in Oslo once occupied by a National Socialist, and which today is a Holocaust museum and research centre.  In “Innocent States: Dark Numbers”, Dreyblatt references the historical punch card, identity cards, questionnaires and other archival documents to question the daily violation of personal rights and, by association, to what extent identity is manufactured by historical and current methods of registration.

A generative data projection selects from a generic list of “innocent questions” representing administrative interactions with foreigners and minority groups, then calculates and dynamically displays a digital data punch card in real time.  Located in the front of the projection wall is a light box vitrine, (8.0 x 1.0 meters), on which a collage of illuminated transparent documents are placed, referencing the international history of questionable personal data registrations.  The projection and light box display is connected digitally, so that during data calculation, the documents flicker in tandem with the projection.

Software: Jens Ewald

Dedicated to William Seltzer

Related to this work: "Innocent Questions", 2006 under "Public Art"

Exhibited and Commissioned by: “Uncertain States: Artistic Strategies in States of Emergency”, Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Data Projection, Generative Software
Commissioned by the Akademie der Künste Berlin, 2016
Software: Jens Ewald

Originally Installed in the main stairwell of the Kunstsammlung (Art Collection) in 2016, Chemnitz, built in 1910 as the King Albert Museum and commissioned by the exhibition, "Die Akademie der Künste, Berlin Zu Gast in den Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz".  
The installation was installed permanently in the foyer of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 2017.

The installation is based on a database containing biographical information on all members of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin since 1696 (2481 Members).

The software collects biographical data through word list and categorical searches, displaying the results as scrolling text according to pre-determined graphic locations.  The continually “writing” biographical fragments are in constant movement, never repeating content.  Lists of artwork titles, dates and names are contrasted with historical narratives, resulting in a surprising “peek” into the membership of the Federal German Academy of Art.

“Arnold Dreyblatt focuses his media- and archive-based installations on cultural memory, crossing the boundaries between new and traditional media. REPERTOIRE is based on the history of the Akademie der Künste: more precisely, on the data of more than 2,500 members since its foundation in 1696. The repertoire of biographical, project-related and member data relevant to individual artistic careers is taken from the database of the Akademie's archives. It ranges from the artists of the Wilhelminian period such as Andreas Schlüter, Johann Gottfried Schadow, Max Liebermann, Käthe Kollwitz, Walter Jens, Heiner Müller, Werner Düttmann to current members, including Arnold Dreyblatt himself.
According to keywords and random principle, individual dates appear on the wall, whose only common feature is membership of the Academy of Arts, formerly the "Academy of the Art of Grinding, Painting and Building", then the Royal (Prussian) Academy of Arts etc. Dreyblatt structures this personal information in a new way to highlight the international community of artists who have always contributed to the development of the art of their time.”
- Dr. Anke Hervol, Akademie der Künste

52 Adhesive Folio Images, floor-mounted
Installed in the exhibition: "Public Library", in the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek (America Memorial LIbrary), Berlin.  

The work was installed on the floor of the foyer to the library.  52 images of photographed open books representing the International pre-war Documentation Movement along with historical publications relating to the categorization of library books.  As one enters the library, one percieves what appears to be books thrown on the floor, gradually revealing their content as one proceeds.  The images are photographed rather than scanned which imparts them with a three dimensional appearance.  The structured organizational content of the books is contrasted with the seemingly haphazard and negligent distribution on the floor. 

Works by visionary figures from  the Documentation Movement such as Wilhelm Ostwald in Germany, Paul Otlet in Belgium,  Suzanne Briet in France, and H.G. Wells in England are contrasted with historical pioneers in the classification of knowledge such as  Albrecht Christoph Kayser, Conrad Gesner, Anthony Panizzi and Melvil Dewey.

"There is something reminiscent of an explosion's aftermath in the way in which Arnold Dreyblatt has scattered replicas of covers and pages from the works of documentation movement's members on the floor of the AGB; their visions have become reality but simultaneously, so to speak, they have met with failure: everyone uses the Internet these days, but hardly anyone has heard of those once so obsessed with knowledge and their enlightening intentions. Arnold Dreyblatt's floor installation may thus be stepped over lightly, hardly noticing." - Karolina Walter

Performance Installation

Arnold Dreyblatt's "PERFORMING the Black Mountain ARCHIVE"  was an artistic research project which ran parallel to the exhibition concerning Black Moutain College:  "Black Mountain. An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933 - 1957", curated by Dr. Eugen Blume and Dr. Gabriele Knapstein at the the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin. The diversity of activities and personalities at historical Black Mountain College provided a fertile reservoir for the development of individual and group projects, both for public performances and for artistic research in the 'Black Mountain Archive' installed by Dreyblatt.

"PERFORMING the Black Mountain ARCHIVE"  comprised an on-site artistic residency which incorporated the daily live performance of archival material as readings, concerts and performances within a pre-planned time structure at pre-determined locations for the four-month duration of the exhibition. In "Performing the Black Mountain Archive" eleven art academies participated for a one to two-week period during which students were in residence within an Archive / Studio space. In reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of education at Black Mountain, students from sculpture, painting, media art, sound art, music, dance, theater and literature were invited.

The Archive / Studio functioned as the home station for the project, containing a working area for the students and the site of the Archive itself. Within the Studio area, students were visibly present during opening hours, pursuing artistic work and research. The students had access to the entire archive contents, which included not only the material used in the performances, but all archival documents which have been collected by the Arnold Dreyblatt over the last years. The live event periods took place from 11:00-13:00 and 15:00-17:00.

Resident students were involved in their own artistic research in the Archive / Studio Space when not actively performing and were encouraged to be present on-site during museum opening times. As event moments occur according the score, students would take the pre-selected archive files (or other materials) and proceed to the pre-selected event area shortly before the active event moment. During the pre-determined time bracket, the student reads / performs / or otherwise carries out the planned activity for the duration, and, upon completion proceeds back to the Archive / Studio Space when he or she returns the materials to the archive. The performative periods are indicated yet the specific times and locations of events are not specified. This ensures that the public discovers the live performances only as they navigate the exhibition.

The Project, "PERFORMING the Black Mountain ARCHIVE" was realized by students from the following educational institutions:
Muthesius Kunsthochschule Kiel (Fine Arts/Media Art): Arnold Dreyblatt & (Communication Design/Typography): André Heers und Annette le Fort  
Hochschule für bildende Künste Dresden (Fine Arts): Monika Brandmauer
Hochschule für bildende Künste Dresden (Fine Arts): Ulrike Grossarth
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (North American Studies Program / German Studies): Sabine Sielke, Thomas Fechner-Smarsly
Versatorium, Institut für Komparatistik der Universität Wien
Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin (Dance, Context, Choreography): Florian Feigel
Universität der Künste, Berlin (Sound Studies): Hans Peter Kuhn
Hochschule der Künste Bern (Master of Arts in Contemporary Arts Practice & Master of Arts Théâtre musical): Andi Schoon, Valerian Maly
Norwegian Theatre Academy Høgskolen i Ostfold Fredrikstad (Theater/Performance): Maria Schwaegermann
Kunstakademiet i Oslo (Fine Arts): Dag Erik Elgin
Institutionen för Konst, Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm (Fine Arts): Thomas Elovsson.  
Project Coordination: Anna Schapiro

Interview >>>
visiting academies >>>
exhibition Hamburger Bahnhof >>>

3 Video Text Projections, 2015

Permanent Installation
Ravensbrück Women's Concentration Camp Memorial

As part of the special exhibition, 'Ravensbrück 1945: The Long Way back to Life', Dreyblatt created three data projections which display the experiences of inmates when the camp was liberated. The text excerpts where selected by the Ravensbrück Memorial from their archival collections. The three text projections fade in and out rhythmically during the open exhibition periods.

Project Assistance and Video Preparation: Ofri Lapid

LED Flatpanel Displays, Wood Construction, Text Folio , 2013

Installation was installed in the glass Vitrine of the Deutschen Bank at Kurfürstendamm 29A, Berlin from July 7th until August 2nd 2013. The project was a collaboration between Universität der Künste Berlin, Institut für Kunst im Kontext and the Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, as part of the city project theme for 2013 - "Destroyed Diversity" - Berlin 1933 - 1938 - 1945. With support from Deutsche Bank, Postbank and DM Drogeriemarkt

One often encounters apartment advertisements in the glass display cabinets along the Kurfürstendamm. In a contemporary context, one comes upon a real estate announcement from the 1930's. The apartment contents on offer stand out from the customary commercial setting. The title of the installation ' Eine vornehme Wohnung' is quoted from the a historical auction catalog on the Kurfürstendamm in 1935 by the AFAG (Aktiengesellschaft für Auktionswesen.) The apartment's contents, including furniture and an extensive art collection, had belonged to a Jewish family who had been forced into emigration and deportation. Catalog texts, photos of interiors and personal artifacts have been collected from this and similar auctions by the AFAG between 1934-1938. Inspired by the design of an existing real estate advertisement display in a nearby street Vitrine, Dreyblatt has installed an box-like object within the glass vitrine to announce an upcoming auction event. One peers through ten 'Peepholes' behind which are illuminated fragmentary texts and images: commericial lists of intimate family belongs, auction legalities, art valuations and photographic details which have been cut out and disconnected from their original context. 

"In his work "Eine vornehme Wohnung: ein Angebot" (Exclusive Apartment - On offer) Arnold Dreyblatt finds a way to give immediate presence to an historical event, the auction of a complete household, including furniture, artworks, dishes, cutlery and personal items, which took place in Berlin in the late 1930ties. He succeeds in doing so by displaying the auctioneer's lists of the items in more or less the same manner they probably have been displayed in the historical moment: by advertising techniques in an advertising show-case placed on Berlin's Kurfuerstendamm. However, different to usual advertising, his installation hides partly the content of the vitrine, and - thus triggering the curiosity of the passersby - involves them in what has been a catastrophe for the presumably Jewish family which had to give up its household. By his installation, Arnold Dreyblatt, activates what I address an awareness of history in a given presence, a form of remembering quite different to the common historical consciousness, which reflects on history in a more or less noncommittal way." - Prof. Dr. Michael Fehr

Project Description >>>
"Exclusive Apartment - On offer" >>>

Data Projection, Permanent Installation, 2013

Commissioned by the Ravensbrück Memorial (Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück) for the permanent exhibition.

The permanent work is installed in the main entrance and staircase of the Ravensbrück Memorial, so that all visitors can come into contact with a chronicle of the concentration camp from its origins to its liberation.

The projected texts are based on the documentation of the camp SS and reports by former prisoners from the memorial archive. The work visualizes recorded events in the camp, from the everyday to the most important historical moments in chronological chronology.

Texts are based on documentation of the Camp SS and reports by former inmates found in the Memorial Archives. The work is chronological and is running continuously, illustrating the recorded daily events at the camp from the mundane to major historical moments, such as the arrival of inmates, executions, etc.   

As each month is randomly selected by computer software, the dates for which event information is known appear and then scroll both in German and English.

Software Markus Lerner / White Void Berlin

8 Channel Installation, Text Displays

Tonspur 52, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna
(artist-in-residence Quartier21)

Chosen texts from “A Year from Monday, New Lectures and Writings by John Cage” (1967) which were randomly chosen from a prepared list of all sentences in which either the words ‘text’, ‘writing’ or ‘reading’ occur have been combined with another source: handwritten inventory cards from the archive collection of the Jewish Musem in Berlin.  From these cards Dreyblatt selected texts which speak of the condition and readability of unnamed documents in that collection.  These two, seemingly disparate text lists were further fragmented using a version of the ‘cut-up method’ invented by Brion Gysin and often utilitized by William S. Burroughs: in which texts from unrelated sources ‘meet’ each other and create new random associations. This process resulted in a final list of 329 text items, ranging from 1 to 15 words. The list was recorded and spoken by both Sam Ashley and Ray Kass, who were recent participants in the TONSPUR Project.  A specially written software sends randomly chosen voice recordings from a database to the various loudspeakers according to pre-determined rules but leaving much to chance.  

"We experience a possible conversation, never repeating and creating unexpected meanings.  During the preparation period, I lived in a studio near to this TONSPUR_passage. I often marvelled at the diversity and density of the soundscape, in which the distant sounds of Sam Ashley’s installation, “Freedom From Happiness”, mingled with the sonorites of crowds of people passing under my four windows, and resonating in the plaza and in my living space. Over a weekend, I made numerous recordings of this situation over different times of day, and then created a carpet which lies under the voices, functioning as a kind of memory of this site from a recent, yet now lost time." —Arnold Dreyblatt

Installation: Vitrines, Plexiglass, Projections, Baggage Artifact,

The centerpiece of the installation is a special travelling case which was fabricated at the Oxford Fiber Case Company in Brooklyn specifically for Dreyblatt's re-location to Berlin in 1983. The case still retains his last address in the United States in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn (in a former seaman's bar at 51 Kent Avenue). Dreyblat continued to use this case during his extensive travels to Eastern Europe during the 1980's and in my later visits back to the United States.

Surrounding this case, which is displayed as an original artifact in a glass vitrine, are two enclosed L-shaped vitrine light boxes, each 2.5 meters long to be installed on platforms just under eye-level. The light boxes form both the bottom surface and back wall of the vitrine, so that one is able to percieve information content on multiple transparent layers, which combine to form unexpected encounters of autobiographical moments. Archival materials (photos, documents and video) are printed, viewed and projected in a "forest" of document sized upright standing transparent panels in such a way that one can look and read through them to deeper layers.

Contained in these vitrines is an array of hundreds of autobiographical content items, culled from his personal archive of the last twenty-eight years, were organized and cataloged expressly for this project. As in much of his artistic work, the interplay of text, light and transparency play a pivital role in the perception of historical documentation.

The archival content represents three different information layers, which in turn mirror a network of "times", "locations" and "relations": a) USA: Family Immigration and my first thirty years b) Berlin: from 1983 to the current time; and c) Eastern Europe: Family origins and personal research.

In concieving this work, Dreyblatt imagined "looking-through" paths from New York to berlin to east europe, evoking multiple biographic identities, splintered, yet related and left open to interpretation by the viewer. During the development process, a decision was made not to provide commentary or explanation of the individual items.

The installation represents one of Dreyblatt's few works which addresses the subject of archival storage and cultural memory from an autobiographic standpoint.

"My Baggage" was commissioned by the Jewish Museum, Berlin expressly for the exhibition "Heimatkunde" (2011-2012). After the exhibition ended the installation became part the collection of the museum.

Exhibition- "Heimatkünde" >>>

Media Turntable, Data Projection, Automated Multiple Slide Projection, Mulit-Channel Sound Composition
Galerie Singuhr, Kleiner Wasserspeicher, Berlin; Produced with support of Hauptstadtkulturfonds

This text, image and sound installation was especially concieved for the circular vaulted brick space of the historical water container in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. Specific information content is derived from archival documentation concerning the history of the site. A media turntable spins animated text content around the inner and outer spaces of the space. Other sound and image sources are located at fixed locations on the peripheral walls. The text/image and sound material is percievable as fragments which appear and disapear throughout the media environment.

The central turntable contains two data projectors facing outwards which are connected to a computer. The text content is programmed to scroll out of view at a speed corresponding to the speed of rotation in reverse, giving one the impression that the text is standing still. The texts are projected on both the inner and outer circles of the space, at times hugging the multiple archways. Four stationary carousel slide projectors are controlled by computer software. Enlarged sections of original blueprints of the site are projected in black and white negative on the outer walls. A 40 minute five channel sound composition was created for five loudspeakers which are positioned throughout the space. The sound content is derived from recordings which Dreyblatt made of MRI Magnetic Resonance medical scanning. The project considers historical research and the collection of archival documentation an integral aspect of the project preparation. Under the direction of the artist, a research assistant collected historical materials from archives and official agencies.

Software: White Void, Berlin; Turntable: Andreas Marcksheffel; Slide Projection: AV Optics / Emmanuel S. Boatey; Historical Blueprints: Landesarchiv Berlin; Archive research and text preparation: Birgit Kirchhöfer; Archival Sources: Landesarchiv Berlin, Museumsverbund Pankow Archiv; Digital Recordings: "Siemens Magnetom Symphony Maestro Class" Magnet Resonanz Tomographie (MRT or MRI); Audio Recordings by: Jörg Hiller' Recording Location: Röntgenpraxis (MRT-Departement), Dr. Anne Sparenberg, Martin-Luther-Krankenhaus, Berlin

Table, Chair, Data Projection, Slide Projection
Installed in the exhibition: Recollecting, Looted Art and Restitution, Museum of Applied Art (MAK), Vienna, 2008 

Text Source: Versteigerung der kompletten Villeneinrichtung, Wien III, Kopfgasse 1. Besichtung 13., 14., und 15. Juni 1938. Versteigerung: 17., 18., 20., 21. und 22. Juni 1938; Dorotheum - Wien Versteigerungsanstalt. (Residence of Berhard Altmann).

Descriptions of individual items from a list of approximately 1400 auctioned objects are projected as black text on a white wall. The white wall defines a possible space, or room, in a real size. The projection begins at the floor, in order to simulate the scale of an actual room. A series of imagined spaces are displayed in sequence. Within each room type, descriptions of objects scroll (i.e. writing letter by letter) in actual positions in which they might be found in such a room. For instance, at the possible height of a table, a series of table descriptions from the list will begin to scroll. Above the height of the table, text descriptions of objects which might be found sitting on a table will simultaneously begin to scroll. The spaces are defined as group categories based on usage for a particular space (i.e. objects which might appear in a living room, for example), yet no indication is given as to a particular room name. Rather, one has an association to virtual room through percieved relationships between objects. No attempt is made to historically simuate an actual room based on documention. Rather, we are invited to imagine a virtual space, filled with the associations of ownership, yet no distinction is made as to value. On a table a selection from a collection of historical artifacts from the postwar Bernhard Altmann American firm (ladieswear, advertisements, publications, etc.) are projected in sequence onto a white table top which has been placed in the space. Each object is referenced in size with a measure stick. From afar, objects seem to be sit on the table, at close-up one percieves them as virtual images. These postwar objects are represented as color images, while the 'pre-war' auctioned objects are represented as dynamically written black and white text in space.

Permanent Installation, Privalite Glass, Synchronized Data Projections, Computer, Mirror
Commissioned by The Jewish Museum, Berlin and installed in the historical exhibition from 2008 - 2018

The installation consists of a glass wall consisting of eight "Privalite" glass panes (each 2.5 x 1 meter mounted in steel frames), four data projectors and a large mirror mounted in the room. The installation marks a "boundary" at the end of the main exhibition, at the site of the historical representation of the Holocaust. Excerpts from letters, diaries and reports that were written before the deportation and in the ghettos and camps, as well as excerpts from messages from the National Socialist authorities that organised the mass murder, are projected onto the glass wall. Through electricity, the active and inactive Privalite glass panes become transparent or opaque - functioning as a projection surface. The scrolling text moves on the glass wall, disappears, superimposes itself and thus creates a rhythm in the room. The texts are selected and displayed at random.

The glass panels and the projectors were synchronized with the scrolling projected text. There was one projector each for two panels, representing one document fragment. At the moment when a document pair became 'active', the glass became opaque, and the document information (left side) and content information (right side) began 'writing', letter by letter, simultaneously, at eye level. From one to four active states could be happening at any one time.

The mirrored glass mounted on a diagonal wall opens the room and reflects the dynamic movement of the displays and interchangeable panels.

As source material, historical documents were selected from the Museum archives from two sources:
a. Letters from burocratic offices to individuals about preparations for deportation and eventual transports to the east. 
b. The last correspondances from the Ghettos and extermination camps. 

Production: 
Text Preparation and Project Coordination: Maren Krüger; Media Design: Thomas Buck; Media Realisation: White Void, Berlin

Wood, Steel, Plexiglass, Data Projection, 2008

Created for the Exhibition, "Sex Brennt - Magnus Hirschfled's Insitute for Sexual Science and the Book Burning", in the Berlin Museum of Medical History, Charité, Berlin (Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité)

In a room one percieves an oversized card catalog in black, as one recognizes from libraries and offices. The catalog contains thirty drawers, each fitted with the shining metal frames and handles which clearly identify their archival function. Within these frames, where normally the little paper cards which mark the contents of that drawer would be, the data is active and continually changing. 

The "card catalog" was also shown with other content at the Jewish Museum in Berlin in 2007 as the work "Register" with other historical content. 

Sources: Hirschfeld, Magnus: Die objektive Diagnose der Homosexualität. In: Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, Jahrgang 1, 1899, S. 4 - 35 Hirschfeld, Magnus: Psychobiologischer Fragbogen. Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, VI. Auflage, 1925 

Construction: Olf Kreisel; Software: Alexandr Krestovskij 

Exhibited: Berlin Museum of Medical History Charité, Berlin (Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité); 2008

Wood, Pentakta Lens, Microfiche, 2008

Created for the Exhibition, "Sex Brennt - Magnus Hirschfled's Insitute for Sexual Science and the Book Burning", in the Berlin Museum of Medical History is an institution of the Charité, Berlin (Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité)

A four meter long reading table with 12 holes from which light is emanating. One peers into the 'peephole' lens which magnifies a small circular image of documents from a statistical analysis by Hirschfeld from 1904 and images of archival objects from the destroyed institute in Berlin which have been printed on Microfiche in miniature. One's eyes gradually focus on an illuminated miniaturized text or an object which has been magnified to the limit of perceptual readability. 

The optics have been adapted from the "Pentakta HL100 microfiche hand reading apparatus" ('Mikrofilm-Handlesegerät im Taschenformat') which were produced by Pentacon Dresden for use in scientific research and by the State Security System (the STASI). 

Source: Hirschfeld, Magnus: Das Ergebnis der Statistische Untersuchungen über den Prozentsatz der Homosexuellen, Verlag von Max Spohr, 1904 

Construction: Olf Kreisel 

Exhibited: Berlin Museum of Medical History is an institution of the Charité (Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité); 2008

Wood, Steel, Plexiglass, Data Projection, 3 Flat Displays, 2007

At the end of a long darkened corridor, one percieves an oversized card catalog in black, as one recognizes from libraries and offices. The catalog contains thirty drawers, each fitted with the shining metal frames and handles which clearly identify their archival function. Within these frames, where normally the little paper cards which mark the contents of that drawer would be, the data is active and continually changing. 

In the lower area of this large piece of virtual furniture are three flat LCD screens, mounted vertically and partially disappearing into the black box. Here, an endless row of documents 'march' head-first into the 'machine' as if they being inputed for further data analysis within the catalog drawers above. The 'entry categories' of the series of documents are written dynamically on the face of the drawers, letter by letter in a series of 'chapters', each representing the data structure of a document. 

Due to a built-in randomness integrated into the program processes (as to location, order, and time), the display of the data will never be exactly the same when the software program repeats its sequence. These entries are derived from the questionaires and index cards from the recently found archive of the Jewish Community of Vienna during the Third Reich era. The work was commissioned by the Jewish Museum of Vienna for the exhibition, 'Ordunung Muß Sein' ('Order must be'), and is a collaboration with the archive of the Jewish Community of Vienna.

Software Programming: Alexander Krestovsky and Gregor Kö

Production: "Anlaufstelle der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde Wien" and "Jüdisches Museum Wien"

Exhibited: Jüdisches Museum Wien, 2007

Permanent Installation, Sandblasted Two-Way Glass, LED Displays

'Innocent Questions' was the winner of a closed competition initiated by the The National Foundation for Art in Public Buildings, Oslo (Utsmykkingsfondet for offentlige bygg) in 2004 for a permanent artistic work in front the Villa Grande, a villa occupied by Vidkun Quisling from 1941-1945. The Villa is currently the site of the "HL Senteret", The Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities.

In developing a concept for an artistic intervention for the Villa Grande Dreyblatt preferred not be limited by the particular historical circumstances associated with this site. He chose rather to focus on the use of the 'personal questionnaire' in population registration systems as the defining element that thematically connects the Holocaust in Norway with other genocides of the twentieth century and with the administration of foreigners and other minorities in contemporary society.

In Dreyblatt's concept for a permanent installation at the site, a list of 'Innocent Questions,' derived from historical and contemporary sources and representing a composite collective questionnaire, is contrasted with the image of a historical 'punch card.' Together, this is a representation of the collection, archiving and application of personal data by political systems for administrative and often questionable use.

The winter snow and the dramatic approach up the hill to the site call for a vertical installation as a transformation of the imposing and grotesque historical building facade. In renovating and reconstructing the 'Villa Grande,' fire and safety regulations required an external stairwell to be fixed on the facade to the left of the main entrance. I proposed to utilize the structure of the stairwell in order to physically support the installation of "Innocent Questions."

Attached to the structure of the stairwell is an array of twelve panel-boxes, mounted within a steel frame. These panels are designed to form one unified image (size: 8330 x 4070 cm.), which is perceived in three distinct optical layers:
Non-Reflective Image: Sandblasted onto the hardened surface of the outermost glass layer of each panel is a reconstruction of a historical 'punch card' , representing the reduction of the individual to number and category. This image is perceived as non-reflective, creating a heightened contrast to the reflectivity of the underlying mirrored surface.
Reflected Environment: The work functions as a mirrored wall that reflects the natural environment: the trees and sky, and the visiting public. The face of the historical building is thereby opened and partially erased.
Illuminated Texts: Mounted onto the rear of each panel within the punch card image, are words and phrases written in fixed light-emitting diodes (LED's). This textual content has been derived from historical and contemporary personal questionnaires.

The rear of the work is sealed, and the illuminated red LED texts appear as an ephemeral image, suspended in the reflecting mirror. Only the illuminated LED texts are seen through the mirrored glass, which is otherwise fully reflective of the environment. The words and phrases appear and disappear within a slow and randomly generated temporal composition perceived within the virtual punch card image. Because the appearance of illuminated words and phrases is continually changing, new combinations of words and phrases arise, igniting unexpected associations from the questionnaire entries as one passes the work. During the hours of daylight, the mirror glass reflects the trees and sky. The information layers (non-reflective image, reflected environment and illuminated text) are clearly visible. In the hours of darkness, artificial side lighting illuminates the non-reflecting sandblasted surfaces of the outer glass layer, which would otherwise be imperceptible.

Public Art Work >>>
"Innocent Questions" >>>

Wood Frame, Plexiglass, Microfiche, Lens

12 works, 90 x 70 x 5 cm. are hung in a series on a long wall. Each work contains a wooden frame, a wooden panel, a layer of reflective plexiglass, a miniature lamp, a magnifying optic, and an adjustable microfiche/microfilm holder. The optics have been adapted from the 'Pentakta HL100 microfiche hand reading apparatus' ('Mikrofilm-Handlesegerät im Taschenformat') which were produced by Pentacon Dresden for use in scientific research and by the State Security System (the STASI).

In the center of the plexiglass-covered wood panel, one finds a small hole with a lens, from which light is emanating. One peers into the 'peephole' lens which magnifies a small circular image of documents from the full collection of 98 pages which have been printed on Microfiche in miniature. One's eyes gradually focus on an illuminated miniaturized text which has been magnified to the limit of perceptual readability.

The twelve texts are derived from the German and Austrian Bureau of Standards for data destruction: 'Vernichten von Informationsträgern',Deutsches Institut für Normung, Berlin, and 'Aktenvernichtung',Österreichisches Normungsinstitut, Vienna.  While much of Dreyblatt's work often reflects on the process of collecting, storing and archiving information, here the text speaks of the technical and planned disapearance and destruction of our collective memory by institutions and governmental agencies.

Exhibited:
Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main, 2005
Galerie Maniere Noire, Berlin, 2017

Digital Projection, Wood Construction, 2005

One enters a high darkened space in which one percieves a black monolithic box, approximately 145 cm. high which dominates the space. One is able to move in a narrow passageway partially on two sides of this block, as one gradually percieves a rectangular sunken area, 2. x 1.35 meters, from which light emanates. From specific positions, one might percieve the movement of text on the lower surface of this depression, but since the 'horizon' of the raised floor is almost chin-level for most observers, the content and use of this 'secret' area remains unknown.

One then ascends a nearby stairwell, arriving at a second level which functions as a viewing platform. From here, one looks directly down upon this sunken area, with it's associations to graves and archaeological diggings. The surface of the depression in the floor is now fully visible, revealing an active, dynamic sea of text below, originating from a rear projection inside the block.

Textual fragments from "The Old Jewish Cemetary in Frankfurt am Main" by Michael Brocke have been chosen which contain no specific names or dates, but rather speak of the fading content and physical condition of the ancient tombstones. Additional phrases in Hebrew, selected from common expressions used in grave inscriptions of the period, create a background of floating letters. The textual fragments seem to appear from a 'sea of texts' only to gradually deconstruct and disapear again, without end, simulating a palimpsest of broken stones.

Data Projection: Alexandr Krestovsky

Exhibited and Commissioned by: Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main, 2005

Multi Monitor DVD display; 2003

One perceives an endless text dynamically fluttering on miniature black monitor. The downward flow of text from top to bottom of the screen is interrupted continually by a lateral left-right movement, resulting in an instability, and a degree of illegibility

The text is derived from textual fragments which have been collected from the card catalog of the Jewish Museum Archive in Berlin. The archive contains objects which have been donated to the Collection before the current location. The texts describe the condition of the donated objects and documents.

The work has been displayed in two forms on two occasions:
Galerie Anselm Dreher, 2003: Three miniature TFT displays hung on a wall in a dark room.

Jewish Museum Frankfurt, 2005: The work is situated in the section of the Museum in the Judengasse in Frankfurt, where an archaeological site may be entered. The monitor is positioned inside a deep brick well, and is only viewable from a specific standpoint near the entrance.

Rotating Stroboscopic Text Apparatus, 2003

A motor-driven rotating cylinder, 80 centimeters high and with a diameter of one meter, mounted on a stand. The core of the cylinder contains an wired array of 100 flashbulbs which face the outer surface. This surface is composed of multiple layers of plexiglass and film which appear white when inactive. 

Approximately every seven seconds, an extremely intensive 360 degree flash illuminates eleven circular text phrases which are inscribed into the cylinder surface. As the cylinder is slowly turns, one percieves new text fragments with each flash, which are only readable as an afterimage in the brain, white letters on a black background. 

The texts are derived from scientific texts based on the phenomena of Flashbulb Memory. Texts from: R. Brown & J. Kulik, "Flashbulb Memories", in: Cognition, 5, 1997, S. 73-99; RB Livingston, "Reinforcement, in: The Neuro Sciences", A Study Program, Rockefeller Press, New York 1967; U. Neusser, "Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Context", W. H. Freeman, New York 1982; etc. 

The installation Recovery Rotation was created in cooperation between the Festival "Conceptualisms: Contemporary Receptions in Music, Art, and Film", commissioned by the Akademie der Künste Berlin, and made possible by funds from the foundation Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken. 

Exhibited:

Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, 2003 (Commission)

Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003

Galerie Oqbo, Berlin, 2014

Plot, Black Letters on Coated Canvas, 2003

The work was installed in the Galerie Anselm Dreher in 2003. The text roll is approx. 1.20 x 5 meters and is tied with cord to the walls of the space. The material is bowed in such a way that from the given viewing platform, the text disapears into a landscape of letters on the horizon. The lines of text read backwards from the viewing point, until they disapear.

The positive black of the text gives way into a negative reading, as the white between the letters turn into rivolets, streams and navigations ways. The work addresses quesions of readablity through interruptions created by image as a reflection on the attempts of the mind to access and navigate fragments from the past, where time and visual perspective collide. 

The text is an excerpt from the "Preface" to Stages on Life's Way" (1845), Søren Kierkegaard's essay on memory and recollection. 

Exhibited:
Galerie Anselm Dreher, Berlin, 2003
Galerie e/static, Torino, 2007
Kang Contemporary, Berlin, 2023

Stroboscopic Text Installation, 2002

Three wall-mounted stroboscopes with text on film. The stroboscopes flash in a staggered six second sequence. The work is displayed in a darkened space. The texts are phrases which chosen from perceptual descriptions of "Flashbulb Memory".

Text 1: FRAME FREEZE

Text 2: EVENT RECALL

Text 3: NOW PRINT

Exhibited:
Galerie Anselm Dreher, Berlin, 2003
Gallery e/static, Torino, 2007
SMAC, Berlin, 2014 

MDF Table and Chair, Internally mounted TFT-Display and Computer, 2000

In 1925, Freud wrote a text that compares the faculty of memory to a child's toy known as a Wunderblock. It consists of a wax slab stretched with cellophane, upon which a text may be inscribed, and just as readily erased by lifting the cellophane layer up and away from the wax slab. In contrast to Freud's model, in which the pressure of the act of inscription onto the cellophane surface continues in the direction of the underlying layer of wax, in 'The Wunderblock', the original selection and entry of data has been concluded in the past. The movement originates from ROM and is held in RAM, before travelling up towards the surface.

Quite independently of our own states of presence or absence, the installation searches and inscribes autonomously. One has the impression that the underlying textual sources can never be perceived in their entirety. Because the many texts fragments are inscribed and erased simultaneously, one can read a given fragment only with difficulty before it vanishes. The model of memory demonstrated here is at once highly unstable, fragmentary, incomplete, perishable and ephemeral. The sentence fragments appearing and disappearing on the screen describe a process of finding and loss, safeguarding and destruction.

Texts from: Sigmund Freud, "Notiz über den Wunderblock", Wien 1925; "A Glossary for Archivists, The Society of American Archivists", Chicago 1992
Software: Alexandr Krestovskij

Exhibited:
Galerie Anselm Dreher, 2000
Art Forum, Berlin, 2000
Gemäldegalerie, 2001
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003
Kunstverein Hannover, 2003
Jewish Museum, Frankfurt am Main, 2005
Science Museum / Institute of Psychoanalysis, London, 2011

>>> Download Essay by Thomas Fechner-Smarsly (Dt)

Data Projection, Black Plexiglass, 1999

One thousand documents have been entered into a database which reports the life of T., (b. 1879 Paks, Hungary - d. 1943 Shanghai, China), a forgotten Central European historical figure whose multiple identities span three continents (Europe, North America and Asia) and touch on many of the most important events of the pre-war period. The work is derived from a larger collection of over 4,000 intelligence documents from State Archives in Europe and North America from the inter-war period.

The collection contains daily reports and correspondances between 1915 and 1943, forming a vast communication network in which the official traces and observations of the individual are cross-referenced to historical events, international personalities and geographic locations.

In the interactive display of 'T-Mail' new documents are chosen randomly from the database, a scan of the next document gradually slides into view as various thematic categories and cross-links are activated. Text writings are simultaneously emitted sonically as morse code, in five different sine wave frequencies which change with consecutive paragraphs.

Texts: The Public Record Office and The British Library, London; The National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Bundesarchiv Koblenz; Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Bonn, etc.

Exhibited:
Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 1999-2000
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003

Related Web Project: http://www.leuphana.de/tmail
In the World-Wide-Web version called "T.Mail", a selection of hundreds of documents are available as navigatable HTML pages using the "Petal" browser developed by the Department of Culturual Studies at the University of Lüneburg. The information is available through multiple categorical menues, through marked text in the document scans, and through a flash geographic time-line display.
Produced in collaboration with students of the Department of Cultural Studies of the University of Lüneburg, Germany, 2003-2005

Plotted Text Scroll, Illuminated Vitrine, 1999

This archive about archives questions the permanence of data storage, presented as discussions between professional archivists and in institutional reports, most of which were collected in the internet. The archive becomes a metaphor for a resistance against forgetting and loss.

The work is presented in a darkened room which is illuminated by the antique form of an enormous paper scroll, seemingly without a beginning or an end, representing a sacred object with biblical overtones. The scroll is mounted on a wooden base containing florescent tubes, with a glass surface. Each line of text extends to 18 meters, flowing on to the beginning of the next line. The eye follows this stream of content, until one loses one's horizontal location - resulting in a shifting of one's visual attention as one springs vertically to a new starting position. 997 text fragments and thumbnail images from various digital and archival sources, collected 1993 - 1999. All entries are time-stamped from the moment of collection.

Exhibited:
Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 1999-2000
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003
Draiflesson Collection, Mettingen, 2015-16

Black room, computer data projection, suspended wire mesh, sound equipment. Size variable. 2008

An automated writing and recitation machine is found in a darkened black space. One enters a three dimensional data architecture where the process of searching, sorting and locating words and the overlapping inter-textual linkages of information are simulated optically by metaphors of transparence and complexity. Projected onto a barely visible cylindrical screen are multiple transparent layers of continually flowing historical data, which appear to be suspended in the center of the space, and which delineate the room contours with textual landscapes.

Two computers randomly search and locate thousands of words within an endless virtual page of biographical information in real time. As each word is found, it is highlighted visually and spoken out loud by a male or female voice. The voices gradually cross each other in time, creating a dialog. The viewer participates in a deconstruction of history through a non-linear and associational reading of forgotten archival fragments.

Texts from: Who's Who in Central & East Europe 1933
Design & Software Development: Luca Ruzza Studio, Rome
Software Consultant: Alexandr Krestovskij
Sound: Tom Korr

Exhibited:
Felix Meritis Foundation, Amsterdam, 1998
Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 1999-2000
Jewish Museum, New York, 2001
Arte in Memoria, Ostia Antica, Rome. 2002
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003

Wooden Table, Six Monochrome Monitors, 1996

The discussions are presented as a digital automatic writing. The computer monitors are antique, with an association for an earlier technological era. The texts are fragments of conversations which write themselves as individual voices, simulating a digital conversation.

Texts from: collection of discussions on the Internet between international Archive and Record Managers. Themes include: decay of archival materials, natural disasters, filing systems, technological advances in record management, the Patron Saint of Archiving, etc. 

Exhibited: Arken Museum for Modern Art, Cultural Capital of Europe, Copenhagen, 1996

Welded Steel Container. 

The "Time Capsule" was first exhibited within the interactive installation work, "Memory Arena" (1995-96). 

The contents are not indicated and the work is inscribed with the following text:
TIME CAPSULE
DEDICATED 22, November, 1963 A.D.
TO BE OPENED. 4 Juli, 2776 A.D.
CONTENTS UNKNOWN

"Time Capsule, a container storing historical documents and objects that is to be opened at some future date. The contents, which, may include historical documents and artifacts, are intended to reveal something about contemporary civilization to future generations. A capsule is often prepared to commemorate a notable event, such as a World's Fair or the landing on the moon. It is generally buried in the ground."

Exhibited:
Arken Museum for Modern Art, Cultural Capital of Europe, Copenhagen, 1996
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003
in the exhibition "FOUNTAIN 100" in Flutgraben e. V., Berlin, 2017

Archaeological Artifacts, Books and Documents, Glass, Earth

In an old cellar in East Berlin, two simulated 'archaeological' finds create moments for a reflection on museum display of historical artifacts. 

Behind a wooden gate, in an individual coal cell, forty 'found' handwritten notes, documents, annotated printed books from before World War II lie haphazardly on a dirt floor. Each fragment is lit and magnified by a hand magnifying glass, and numbered.
On an adjoining wall, a stone vitrine contains 'found' ceramic and glass objects from another century, also carefully numbered for display.

Exhibited:
Galerie Ozwei, Berlin, 1994

Wood, Inscribed Plexiglass, illumination, 1992

A historical hypertext becomes a three-dimensional image. A black box is divided by four lateral sheets of glass inscribed from edge to edge with layers of finely printed texts. The text layers are illuminated from below. The texts are reconstructed from the tens of thousands of biographical fragments.

As one peers into this sea of information, it is as if one stares into a bottomless well filled with multiple levels of floating texts in depth. One focuses one's eyes on any given text fragment on a given level, as the other text levels defocus and blur, becoming illegible. One's attention might wander to a remote or nearby fragment, our eyes continually refocusing as we isolate and connect a related or unrelated name or phrase. 

A grain of sand is propelled into our field of vision for a single moment, separating forground from background, only to vanish gradually into the collective ocean of memory. The intention is to realize, in three dimensions, a hypertext as a metaphorical space which contains in compressed form a database of all mankind.

Texts from: "Who's Who in Central & East Europe 1933"

Exhibited:
Galerie Ozwei, Berlin, 1992
Kulturfabrik Kampnagel, Hamburg, 1995
Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel; Marstall, Munich, 1995
Arken Museum for Modern Art, Cultural Capital of Europe, Copenhagen, 1995
In Medias Res, Istanbul, 1996
Jewish Museum, Vienna, 1997
Veletrzni Palac, National Gallery, Prague, 1997
Jewish Museum, Frankfurt am Main, 2005
Kunsthochschule Braunschweig, 2006
Draiflesson Collection, Mettingen, 2015
Kang Contemporary, Berlin, 2023

Laminated Digital prints, Wire Track

Digital prints, format DIN A1, laminated, moveable and suspended on wire track.
Texts on the subject of a robotic mass storage system in which files are ordered and physically moved by a robot monk/librarian and an American church-sect which is pursuing an extensive worldwide archiving project collecting and storing personal data.

Data is presented on a track containing large hanging plastic cards which can be moved back and forth at will, containing information on an international 'high-tech' computer frm and an American church-sect which is pursuing an extensive worldwide archiving project. 

'The Church' has been collecting and storing the personal data from over 15 Million persons from around the world for over 50 years in 1.6 million rolls of microfilm which are stored in Utah in the Western United States in a cave safe from nuclear attack. Each year 30,000 new rolls are added and the material is made accessible to the public at Family History Centers worldwide. This project is the largest of its kind ever conceived, and as its goal seeks to collect store, and digitize all genealogically useful information which can be located before eventual disappearance.

Exhibited:
Galerie Ozwei, Berlin, 1992
Kulturfabrik Kampnagel, Hamburg, 1995
Arken Museum for Modern Art, Cultural Capital of Europe, Copenhagen, 1996

Digital Paper Plot, 1992

Digital plot on paper, 91.5 cm. x 4.5 m.; mounted on wooden poles painted black, horizontally placed on floor
Texts: Who's Who in Central & East Europe 1933

Lists of fragmental details such as addresses and organizations which were sampled from the 'Who's Who in Central & East Europe' database and are printed on large endless text scrolls using an architectural plotter and are mounted on wooden poles. These scrolls represent both an archaic form of writing, seemingly without a beginning and an end, as well as a sacred object with biblical overtones.

Exhibited:
Galerie Ozwei, Berlin, 1992
Kulturfabrik Kampnagel, Hamburg, 1995
In Medias Res, Istanbul, 1996