New Works On Chinese Paper, Hong Kong

April 2023
Florian Mehnert, Hong Kong

Florian Mehnert © 2023




Framed Work On Paper, Private Collection Hong Kong

April 2023
Florian Mehnert, Hong Kong

Florian Mehnert © 2023




The Art Experiment 11 DAYS

| WORK BIOGRAPHY |
The white lab rat, threatened by a weapon that could be triggered via the internet, was to live in Florian Mehnert‘s art installation for eleven days.
The internet world followed the livestream in an uproar. A worldwide shitstorm and numerous death threats followed.
The art experiment `11 DAYS ́ went around the world. How did the interactive art experiment work?
Why was the experiment ended on the seventh day instead of the eleventh?
Was the audience itself the lab rat in the end?
Florian Mehnert publishes for the first time what really happened.
`11 DAYS´ gives a frightening insight into a society controlled by aggression and hatred.
Available in bookstores. ISBN: 9783750494503
more about the project 11 DAYS

March 2023
Florian Mehnert, 11 DAYS

Florian Mehnert © 2023





NEW PHOTOGRAPHS, Hong Kong

February 2023
Florian Mehnert, Hongkong

Florian Mehnert © 2023




New Works On Paper, Hong Kong

January 2023
Florian Mehnert, Hongkong

Florian Mehnert © 2023





Publication FREEDOM 2.0

now available in bookstores

ISBN 9783756827701
> more about the project FREIHEIT 2.0

December 2022
Florian Mehnert, Freiheit 2.0

Florian Mehnert © 2022



Projection, Long Night of the Museums, June 2022 Stuttgart

3D animation of moving profiles created by users of the App FREEDOM 2.0., Florian Mehnert © 2022


LIGHTOBJECTS

free hanging wall installation, # more about the light objects

March 2022
Florian Mehnert

Florian Mehnert © 2022



LIGHT@LOST

permanent light installation

LOST Architekten, Basel, Schweiz

January 2022
Florian Mehnert

Florian Mehnert © 2022



DATA TO LIGHT

permanent light installation, Stuttgart

Der Landesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit, Lautenschlagerstr. 20, Stuttgart, 3. + 4. OG
# more about data to light

July 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Florian Mehnert © 2021


July 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Florian Mehnert © 2021

# more about data to light

Social Distance Stacks Stuttgarter Ballett

Making Of Social Distance Stacks, Stuttgarter Ballett, Florian Mehnert © 2021

Februar 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks, Stuttgarter Ballett, Florian Mehnert © 2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


Februar 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks, Stuttgarter Ballett, Florian Mehnert © 2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


Februar 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks, Stuttgarter Ballett, Florian Mehnert © 2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


February 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks, Stuttgarter Ballett, Florian Mehnert ©2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


February 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks, Stuttgarter Ballett, Florian Mehnert © 2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


February 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks, Stuttgarter Ballett with Florian Mehnert



Social Distance Stacks Indoor swimming pool

Making Of Social Distance Stacks, Indoor swimming pool, Florian Mehnert © 2021

February 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks Indoor swimming pool, Florian Mehnert ©2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


February 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks Indoor swimming pool, Florian Mehnert ©2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


February 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks Indoor swimming pool, Florian Mehnert ©2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


February 2021
Florian Mehnert, social distance stacks

Social Distance Stacks Indoor swimming pool, Florian Mehnert ©2021
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de



Social Distance Stacks Theater Freiburg

Making Of Social Distance Stacks, Theater Freiburg, Florian Mehnert © 2020


Dezember 2020
Florian Mehnert, social distance

Social Distance Stacks, Theater Freiburg, Florian Mehnert © 2020
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


Dezember 2020
Florian Mehnert, social distance

Social Distance Stacks, Theater Freiburg, Florian Mehnert © 2020
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


December 2020
Florian Mehnert, social distance

Social Distance Stack, "Lonesome Woman", Florian Mehnert ©2020
prints of limited edition available in various formats on request: studio@florianmehnert.de


# Social Distance Stacks Lonesome Woman

SOCIAL DISTANCE STACKS class="image"> Florian MehnertNovember 2020, Outdoor

SOCIAL DISTANCE STACKS

How important are the welcoming rituals; the shaking hands, getting close, hugs, friendly kisses on the cheek? How does the individual feel when rituals of public social proximity are not possible?

live moving profiles Florian Mehnert, FREIHEIT2.0

MOTION PROFILES via tracking

Since 2016, the app of the art project FREIHEIT 2.0 has been collecting anonymous movement profiles of its users via their smartphones. The app makes the invisible movements of its users visible. A movement profile says a lot about a person. About your whereabouts, about how long you stay in one place, about your radius of movement and also about whom your are currently meeting. Motion profiles make our social environment visible. They show who we are friends with and what habits we have every day. Additional metadata create deep insights into the private life of a person and enable perfect monitoring of each individual and a whole society. It is man's highest good, his dignity and freedom, which are destroyed by tracking technologies.

SMARTPHONE STACKS Florian Mehnert, smartphone stack

SMARTPHONE STACKS

SMARTPHONE STACKS is an artistic photo project. Florian Mehnert has stacked and photographed young people with their smartphones. (see also photo project REFUGEE STACK, 2016)
Behind the art project SMARTPHONE STACKS are important current questions:
Today, the smartphone is the main means of communication of the "digital natives". Much of the exchange takes place via WhatsApp, Snapchat and Instagram. In what ways are smartphones changing not only the way we communicate, but also the quality of our communication? Are Whatsapp and Instagram replacing differentiated discourse and personal conversation? 90% of over 959,000 apps in Google's Play Store track user behavior and deliver the data to a third-party network.
We live in the age of "surveillance capitalism" and the "privacy paradox". Although we are aware of the destruction of our privacy and dignity, we agree to the collection of our behavioural data. The SMARTPHONE STACKS visualize how the human being is reduced to a data raw material to be calculated. They create a visual access to reflect on the role of the smartphone and our privacy.

Deutschlandfunk, 02.08.2019
"Humans as data raw material", Florian Mehnert in the corso discussion (interview in german language)

December 2019, Seminar Dataism versus FreedomFlorian Mehnert

Seminar Dataism versus Freedom

The seminar will shed light on the background, the emergence and the current strategies of so-called surveillance capitalism. It begins with the birth of the Internet and leads vividly and profoundly through the complex backgrounds and strategies of the monetization of our data, up to the deep conflicts with the European guiding ideas. The seminar closes with an interactive art installation. (shown in the projection in the background)

September 2019, Panel discussionFlorian Mehnert

SMARTPHONE STACKS PANEL DISCUSSION

The exhibition of the Smartphone Stacks was opened on 27.9.2019 with a panel discussion moderated by Florian Mehnert. Three models of the project discussed together with Dr. Stefan Brink (State Commissioner for Data Protection of Baden-Württemberg) and Prof. Dr. Horst Niesyto (Media Education) about the handling of the smartphone in the age of the privacy paradox. How important is privacy for the digital natives? For which moments does the analogue remain important?

June 2019, Genshagen Foundation near BerlinFlorian Mehnert© Stiftung Genshagen

Virtual, networked, analog. Expert Day on Arts, Cultural and Political Education in the Digital Change

On June 20, 2019, around 80 experts met at the Genshagen Foundation to discuss the effects of digital change in art, culture and society. Florian Mehnert spoke here about "Dataism versus freedom 2.0".
Positions from the contemporary arts, cultural education and educational research were presented and brought into dialogue with political education. Spaces for design that make new experiences possible through the arts and education were explored, the fusion of the digital and analog worlds into new hybrid forms was identified, digital maturity was controversially discussed, and phenomena associated with digitization, such as the need to reorganize hierarchies, were discussed.

February 2019, round table, Café of the Strasbourg BiennaleFlorian Mehnert

Adapting Copyright to the Digital Environment in the EU: the impossible reform?

Straßbourg, February 14th, the Center for International Intellectual Property Studies of the University of Strasbourg organized in partnership with the Strasbourg Biennale of Contemporary Art a round table on the topic “Adapting Copyright to the Digital Environment in the EU: the impossible reform?”. The round table took place at the Café of the Strasbourg Biennale of Contemporary Art, Hôtel des Postes, within the framework of the Biennale dedicated to the citizen in the digital world. Florian Mehnert was talking togehter with Julia Reda, Prof. Christophe Geiger, Yasmina Khouaidjia and Giancarlo Frosio.

October 2018, Florian Mehnert: From Forest Protocols (2013) to Freedom 2.0 (2018), Art & Art Theory University of Cologne

October 2018, Art & Algorithms, NRW FORUM Düsseldorf

The series of events presents and discusses one artistic work on the topic of Big Data on each of three evenings at the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf. The first event on October 12, 2018 was hosted by the artist Florian Mehnert, who has repeatedly addressed the visualization and criticism of Big Data phenomena in his artistic work in recent years. The event was moderated by Dr. Harald Gapski (Grimme Institute). The event series Art & Algorithms was organized by Prof. Manuel Zahn (University of Cologne) and Dr. Harald Gapski (Grimme Institute) in cooperation with the NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf. The series was sponsored by the Grimme Research College at the University of Cologne.

Stuttgart, SWR 2 Interview, How does FREEDOM 2.0 works?

FREEDOM 2.0 Stuttgart

FREIHEIT 2.0, June 2018, Stuttgart
Over a period of 4 weeks Florian Mehnert intervened in public space with his project FREIHEIT 2.0 Stuttgart. His data traces were virtual and analogous on the streets through the city center up to the newly opened Stadtpalais. For 4 weeks the interdisciplinary BIG DATA colloquia with speakers from the scientific community accompanied the project.

# SWR Radio Interview, Freedom 2.0: What does Big Data have to do with freedom", 04.06.2018
# link to the talks of the Freedom 2.0 colloquia
2018 StadtPalais StuttgartFlorian Mehnert, Beauty of privacyProjections of the movement profiles of the users of the app FREEDOM 2.0, StadtPalais, Stuttgart

installation, motion profiles of the APP FREEDOM 2.0

An important element of the project FREIHEIT 2.0 is the app that anonymously stores movement profiles of its users. The app is available for free download in the app stores since 2016. In the meantime, many users have left their movement profiles all over Germany and beyond its borders in Europe.

# explore the motion profiles FREEDOM 2.0
THE BEAUTY OF PRIVACYFlorian Mehnert, Beauty of privacy, BIG DATA

THE BEAUTY OF PRIVACY

“The Beauty of Privacy” is a project that aesthetically processes and visualizes human motion profiles. Motion profiles are one of the most coveted data in the BIG DATA industry. They are collected every day by means of Smartphone Apps, Fitnesstrackers and Automobiles. The motion profiles of “The Beauty of Privacy” are from anonymous users of the app FREEDOM 2.0, which is part of art project of the Florian Mehnert with the same name. “The Beauty of Privacy” shows the aesthetic side of the disputed personal data: the beauty of the abstraction that anonymous motion profiles develop without georeferenced reference in their artistic processing.

Refugee Stacks



Florian Mehnert stacks African refugees. The stacks are his artistic response to current events. The REFUGEE STACK points out that behind every refugee is a personal story, an individual fate, a person with abilities and dreams.

Florian Mehnert, Beauty of privacyC/O Berlin, FOREST PROTOCOLS Installation © Foto: David von Becker

The FOREST PROTOCOLS

As a reaction to the NSA scandal, Florian Mehnert had installed microphones at clearings and paths in german forests over days in 2013. His installed microphones, were recording passing by walkers.

# Deutschlandradio Kultur, 16.02.2017, Interview with Florian Mehnert
# DIE ZEIT, Alles vergeben, alles egal?, von Prof. Dr. Bernhard Pörksen, 24.12.2016
# Speech by Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters at the 6th Berlin Foundation Week on Forest Protocols
# Interview Radio SRF 2 Culture, Switzerland, Florian Mehnert (mp3)

>more about the forest protocols