The Pictoplasma Portrait Gallery

Exhibition at Kaufhaus Jandorf, Berlin, May 111, 2014

Publication and Diaporama Performance on tour in Fall/Winter 2014/2015

Over the past decade the Pictoplasma Festival in Berlin has tirelessly hosted, fostered, and promoted an
interdisciplinary investigation of character worlds in the digital age. To celebrate its 10
th
year, Pictoplasma
will stage an exhibition that brings together new works by the 100 artists, designers, illustrators, and
filmmakers who have most influenced the project from the start. The premiere of the Pictoplasma Portrait
Gallery will be held at the Kaufhaus Jandorf in Berlin, a vast, vacant early 20
th
century shopping temple.
Later, the exhibition will be presented at MARCO, the Museum for Contemporary Arts in Monterrey. An
interdisciplinary publication will survey the theoretical underpinnings of the project, also drawing upon the
extensive Pictoplasma archives. Finally, a diaporama performance, which playfully addresses the themes
in the publication, will tour Europe and the USA.

At the turn of the last century a new figurative aesthetic arose out of the technical limitations of the early
commercial Internet. Graphically reduced figures made of pixels and geometric forms were small enough
to be sent using 56K modems. Deployed to promote websites and trigger empathy in their viewers, these
lively creatures emerged as the new denizens of the digital age. And their evolution has continued to
keep pace with technological hybridisation and ever-more complex image worlds throughout all media.

Pictoplasma has been charting the spread of this aesthetic phenomenon since 1999. In the beginning it
collected thousands of figures in an online archive that has been since preserved in a series of illustrated
books; conferences and exhibitions in Berlin, New York, Buenos Aires, Paris, and Madrid regularly bring
together the protagonists of the scene from around the globe and communicate the image worlds to a
broad public. In this way Pictoplasma continues to fathom out the limits of face creation and animism.
What are the minimum requirements needed to pass for a face and at the same time arouse maximum
empathy in the viewer? The interesting thing here is that reduction and abstraction seem to be the ideal
stylistic means for creating the invented identities that are the key to the various parallel worlds of
contemporary culture today.

Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the project investigates the genealogical dimensions
of this figurative aesthetic. More than one hundred international illustrators, designers, and artists are
creating portraits for an ancestral gallery that will be presented in The Pictoplasma Portrait Gallery
exhibition in Berlin in May 2014. The portrait has been chosen for good reason: even this classical form of
representation has always been less about recreating a person's appearance than bringing out their
personality as they look back at the viewer from inside the image. At the same time the portrait genre
has undergone constant change, through first analogue and then digital photography. The ancestral
gallery presents paintings, busts, sculptures, animated video portraits also extending the list to
accommodate the currently inflationary trend for taking self-portraits with a cellphone, the so-called
selfie, which was word of the year 2013 in the Oxford English Dictionary. An Open Call invites artists,
designers, and illustrators to draw or otherwise portray characters in the moment of photographing
themselves in this way. From September 2014 to January 2015 the ancestral gallery will be presented as
part of an extensive Pictoplasma exhibition in the Museum for Contemporary Art MARCO in Monterrey,
Mexico.

The project was conceived in response to the ongoing discourse on digital culture and postdigitalism. It
reflects on the fundamentally pictorial dimension of cryptozoology and tracks down mythological origins. It
creates multiple connections in cultural history to the avant-garde movements of Bauhaus and
Surrealism, the fascination with masks, totems, and folklore as well as the history of animation,
pictograms, and advertising mascots. It examines the pictorial principles of graphical minimalism and its
relevance for gestalt theory and psychological aspects of the transitional object. The avatar is released
from being reduced to a user-representative in computer games and virtual worlds. According to the
Sanskrit origins of the word, an avatar is the incarnation of a deity. But what or whom do these figures
represent today without this metaphysical surplus?

In the follow-up to the exhibition in Berlin these questions will be addressed in a four-language
interdisciplinary publication featuring interviews with experts from the life sciences, cultural and
technology studies. The publication will be developed in collaboration with Cordula Daus, an author and
editor for a number of renowned art institutions. A diaporama performance merging science and fiction is
also being developed, in which these questions are taken up by actor Niels Bormann, who will initiate a
dialogue with the projected images. From fall 2014 it will tour Germany, France, Spain, the UK and the
US.


With works by the following artists: 3753% Tordal (NOR), Aaron Leighton (CAN), Aaron Stewart (USA),
Adrian Sonni (ARG), Akinori Oishi (JP), Alex Godwin (UK), Allyson Mellberg Taylor (USA), Amanda Visell
(USA), Amandine Urruty (FR), Andy Martin (UK), Anima Boutique/Eliza Jappinen (FIN), Animade (UK),
Anna Hrachovec (USA), Bakea (ES), BeeKingdom (CAN), Ben & Julia (CH/FR), Ben Newman (UK), Boris
Hoppek (DE), Brecht Vanderbrooke (BE), Bubi Au Yeung (HK), Buff Monster (USA), Bro Destruct (CH),
Charles Glaubitz (MX), Christian Montenegro (ARG), Chu (ARG), Craig Redman (AUS), Dante Zaballa
(ARG), David OReilly (IRL), Diana Beltran Herrera (COL), Doma Collective (ARG), Doppeldenk (DE),
Doudouboy (FR), eBoy (DE), El Grand Chamaco (MX), El Seor (ES), Faiyaz Jafri (NL), Felt Mistress
(UK), Fluorescent Hill (CAN), Fons Schiedon (NL), Francisco Miranda (ARG), Franois Chalet (CH), Gal
Shkedi (ISR), Gangpol & Mit (FR), Gary Baseman (USA), Gary Taxali (CAN), Gemma Correll (UK),
Genevive Gauckler (FR), Hyein Lee (HK/CAN), Ian Stevenson (UK), Jan de Coster (BE), Jason Freeny
(USA), Jeanspezial (FR), Jeremy Dower (AUS), Jeremyville (AUS), Joel Trussel (USA), Jon Burgerman
(UK), Jon Fox (UK), Jordan Metcalf (ZA), Joshua Ben Longo (USA), Juan Molinet (ARG), Juan Pablo
Cambariere (ARG), JuJu (DE), Julia Pott (UK), Juliana Pedemonte (ARG), Kimiaki Yaegashi (JP), Koralie
& Supakitch (FR), Kurt Separately (UK), Luke Ramsey (CAN), Marek Michalowski (USA), Mark Gmehling
(DE), Mark Jenkins (USA), Matias Vigliano (ARG), Matt Jones (UK), Max Grtner (DE), Melissa Godoy
Nieto (MX), Miss Van (FR), Motomichi Nakamura (JP), mr clement (HK), Mumbleboy (JP), MyMo (DE),
Nathan Jurevicius (AUS), Nick Sheehy (UK), Nina Braun (DE), Nomint (GR), Olimpia Zagnoli (IT), Ori
Toor (ISR), Osian Efnisien (UK), Peppermelon (ARG), Pete Fowler (UK), Peter de Sve (USA), Pic Pic
Andr (BE), Pleix (FR), Protey Temen (RUS), Raymond Lemstra (NL), Rilla Alexander (AUS), Risa Sato
(JP), Rob Reger (USA), Roman Klonek (DE), Ryan Quincy (USA), Ryosuke Tei (JP), Sauerkids (NL),
Shoboshobo (FR), Siggi Eggertsson (ISL), Slumberbean (UK), Steve Alexander (AUS), Sue Doeksen
(NL), Sune Ehlers (DK), Tado (UK), Ted Parker (NL), The London Police (UK), Tim Biskup (USA),
Tokyoplastic (UK), Ville Savimaa (FIN), Wayne Horse (DE), Will Sweeney (UK), Yeka Haski (RUS), Yves
Geleyn (FR)

http://portraits.pictoplasma.com


Dates & Details:
Kaufhaus Jandorf, Brunnenstr 19-21, 10115 Berlin-Mitte
May 111, 2014, open daily 12-8pm
Opening reception April 30, 8pm
Admission 4 euro, concessions 3 euro
http://portraits.pictoplasma.com

Museo de Arte Contemporneo Monterrey, Mexico
September 18, 2014 January 11, 2015

The (approx.) 400-page publication will be published by Pictoplasma Publishing in September and
distributed at international art bookshops.

From fall 2014 diaporama performance at ZKM Karlsruhe; Babylon am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin;
HartwareMedienKunstVerein, Dortmund; La Gat lyrique, Paris; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Parsons
The New School for Design, New York; Arnolfini, Bristol

Artistic Direction: Lars Denicke, Peter Thaler

funded by the German Cultural Foundation