class="image"> November 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?

Oktober 2020, MAKING-OF Landesbeauftragter für den Datenschutz, BW

SOCIAL DISTANCE STACKS - Data protectors follow the data tracks in corona times

The retreat into social distance leads not only to painful effects in social interaction with one another, but also to a greatly increased digital communication and reception.

# MAKING OF LANDESBEAUFTRAGTER FÜR DATENSCHUTZ BADEN-WÜRTTEMBERG , 28.10.2020

June, Lockdown Woodcuts

• # woodcuts overpainted

Insight into the first series of woodcuts

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.

• ...more about FREEDOM 2.0

SMARTPHONE STACKS

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.

• ...more about the SMARTPHONE STACKS

December 2019, Seminar Dataism versus Freedom

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)

• # more about the workshop

November 2019, Publication FREEDOM 2.0

Publication FREEDOM 2.0

The publication (partly in three languages: D, E, F) gives a deep informative insight into the art project FREEDOM2.0.

• # view as online book

September 2019, Panel discussion

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?

• # The eyes small, the gaze empty, Badische Zeitung 02.10.19 (german)

SMARTPHONE STACKS

Florian Mehnert's works of art are always also social criticism. This time, the artist piled up young people with smartphones on the roof of a building.

June 2019, Genshagen Foundation near Berlin© 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.

• # interaktive PDF of the research
• # Genshagen Foundation

February 2019, round table, Café of the Strasbourg Biennale

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.

• # watch video (english/français)

December 2018, "Installation of Menschentracks", Biennale Strasbourg

Installation Humantracks

Construction of the installation Humantracks (2014) at the 1st Biennale in Strasbourg Hôtel de la Poste, Rue Wencker until March 03, 2019

• more about the biennial
• more about Humantracks

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.

• Documentation of the event as PDF (german) ( Grimme Forschungskolleg, 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.

• more about FREEDOM 2.0

2018 StadtPalais StuttgartProjections of the movement profiles of the users of the app FREEDOM 2.0, StadtPalais, Stuttgart

installation, motion profiles of the APP FREEDOM 2.0

THE BEAUTY OF PRIVACY

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.

• read more...

11 DAYS

11 DAYS Florian Mehnert talks about his artexperiment "11 DAYS" in Barcelona. (english)

• ...read more

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.

• watch the photos series

C/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.