Verstreute Momente der Konzentration. Urbane und digitale Räume 14.05.2005 — 17.07.2005

Real and virtual, urban and digital spaces are growing increasingly closer together. When walking or driving through the city we are at the same time moving through digital data spaces, which lie like immaterial structures over physically constructed spaces. Mobile telephones, GPS receivers (Global Positioning System), personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other handheld devices, as well as the screens attached to the facades of buildings make it possible for us to inhabit real and digital data spaces simultaneously in real-time. Lev Manovich has termed this real-space, permeated with information to such an extent, “augmented space”.

The exhibition Dispersed Moments of Concentration. Urban and Digital Spaces addresses the effects of new communication technologies on urban spaces. How do these technologies, with which we can log into the data stream at (almost) all times and in (almost) all places, change our perception of these urban spaces? How does this information that is available at (almost) all times and in (almost) all places alter our behaviour in spaces that have been “augmented” to such an extent? What is the nature of these data spaces that are spread over physically constructed architecture? And who makes use of these immaterial structures, and for what purposes?

Our surroundings do indeed increasingly consist of programmed structures that nonetheless remain invisible, as they are imperceptible to the senses. This performative programme code has direct and also political consequences for the virtual and real spaces in which we move: As this code determines what is possible in these spaces and what is not, it alternatively mobilises or immobilises those who use it. In this way Code becomes Law, or, according to Lawrence Lessig, Code is Law.

In the exhibition Dispersed Moments of Concentration. Urban and Digital Spaces twelve international artists are represented with a total of 18 works: Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil (F), Osman Bozkurt (TR), Büro für Bildangelegenheiten (D), Christoph Keller (D), Dariusz Krzeczek (PL), Bettina Lockemann (D), Nicolas Moulin (F), Elisabeth Neudörfl (D), Chris Oakley (GB), Daniel Pflumm (D), Jozef Robakowski (PL) and Heidi Specker (D). The artists examine the material and immaterial communication infrastructures of digital and urban spaces, dedicate themselves to creative ways of dealing with these spaces, analyse material, architectonic form(ula)s as well as the immaterial flow of information and refer to the ambivalent relationship between localisation and control. Their central theme is the technological / social developments occurring both on a global scale, as well as locally in the Ruhr region – a place that serves as a prime example of a dispersed moment of concentration.