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: “Innocent States: Artistic Strategies in States of Emergency”, Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Data Projection, Generative Software

Originally Installed in the main stairwell of the Kunstsammlung (Art Collection), 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 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.

Commissioned by the Akademie der Künste Berlin, 2016

Software: Jens Ewald

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 Women's Concentration Camp Ravensbrück Memorial ( Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück) for the renovation of the main building and permanent exhibition. 

The permanent work is installed in the main stairwell and entrance to the exhibition. Texts are based on documentation of the Camp SS and reports by former inmates. The work is chronological and continuous. As each month is selected, the dates on which information is known about events in the camp appear and scroll in German and English.

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" >>>

Hand Stamp on Paper, 4 colors, 22.9 x 31.7 cm., 2010

Created for the project "Paperfile" of the Gallery Oqbo, Berlin. Limited Edition of 12 copies of 4 color hand stamp prints.

The project has been exhibited at the Preview Art Fair, Berlin and is in the collection of the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Residenzschloss, Dresden

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, Data Projections, Mirror
Installed Permanently at and commissioned by The Jewish Museum, Berlin, 2008

One arrives at the site at the end of a journey through German Jewish History representing the last section of the permanent historical exhibition at the museum. This site depicting the "Shoah" is situated at the intersection of pre- and post- war exhibition areas.

Historical documents have been selected from the Museum archives from two sources:  Letters from burocratic offices to individuals about preparations for deportation and eventual transports to the east and the last correspondance from Ghettos and extermination camps. 

One approaches a glass barrier made up of vertical sections which are either transparent or opaque when data messages begin writing on them. One has the feeling that one cannot proceed further, yet one can see through the panels, revealing a hint of what follows. The visitor is intrigued by the dynamic rhythm of the panels appearing and disapearing, and by the pace of the digital writing on the glass. Along a line in the floor which transverses the space at an angle (and which represents lines which intersect the original architecture), a glass barrier is built in eight sections, each 1 meter wide and 3 meters high. Four data projectors are mounted from the cieling behind the glass barrier and are connected to a computer. A section of mirrored glass is mounted on the right diagonal wall, opening up the space and reflecting the wall of glass and the dynamic movement of the displays and changing panels. 
The barrier is composed of eight "Privalite" glass panels, each 2.5 x 1 meters mounted in steel frames. When electricity is applied to the glass, it is transparent; when the current is turned off, the glass is opaque, thereby functioning as a projection surface. The glass panels and the projectors are synchronized. There is one projector each for two panels, representing one document fragment. When a document pair are 'active', the glass becomes opaque, and the document information (left side) and content information (right side) begin 'writing', letter by letter, simultaneously, at eye level.  The four projection pairs are either in an 'active' (projection, opaque) or 'inactive' (transparent) state. From one to four active states may be happening at any one time. The patterns of active and inactive panels is changing all the time, creating a sense of dynamic rhythm in the space. At the same time, sections of the wall seem to disapear and reappear at other locations. The selection and display of the texts is random.

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

Permanent Installation - "Unsaid": >>>

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

C-Print mounted on Alubond, 80 x 53 cm

A digital LED display in a Sicilian village square, loses access to it's memory chip. Photographed by the artist in 2002. Edition of three available at Gallery e/static, Torino

Exhibited:
Gallery e/static, Torino, 2007
Galerie Oqbo, 2013

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

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

C-Prints, Wall Text, 2003

25 Color Prints positioned in a grid and layered over a wall of text. The photographs were taken in an east european botanical garden. Plants are marked by a labyrinth of small signs, from which the text has been removed or is unreadable. The wall text is an excerpt from the "Preface" to Stages on Life's Way" (1845), Søren Kierkegaard, an essay on memory.
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.

Exhibited:
Galerie Anselm Dreher, Berlin, 2003

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

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

Collection of italian Visiting Cards, Framed, Individual Mounts

Collection of 81 individual visiting cards, acquired in Venice, August, 1992; white frame, 140 x 105 x 4 cm., individual mounts.

Originally exhibited as "La Scalinate di Piazza d'Italia", 1994:
A staircase in an decaying back house in East Berlin. A collection of one hundred Italian visiting cards from the turn of the centruy, which the artist discovered in a junk store in Venice, each with only one name and no address or phone number, are encased in individual transparent plastic envelopes and nailed to the underside of 100 steps, arriving to the highest landing in the attic. As the public ascends, each card gradually appears at eye level, a collection of 100 faceless vanities of Italian royalty.

Exhibited:
"Index", 1998:
Foreign Ministry, National Parliament, Oslo, Norway (Permanent Collection)
Galerie Bleibtreu, Berlin, 2004
Galerie Kai Hilgemann, Berlin, 2003

"La Scalinate di Piazza d'Italia", 1994
Galerie Ozwei, Berlin, 1994

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

The following text is displayed next to the work:
"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

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

84 chronological archival documents, plastic envelopes, format DIN A4, nails with spacers

'The T Documents' is one of a number of related works derived from over 4,000 intelligence documents from State Archives in Europe and North America from the inter-war period which have been collected by the artist.

These documents reveal 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 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 installation 'The T Documents', the artist's personal selection of 84 original archive documents have been digitized and faked by specially developed printing techniques applied to the reverse side of postwar East German archival pages, posing question about the identity of both the subject's personality and the authenticity of the documents themselves. The documents are displayed in chronological order in transparent envelopes hanging on metal hooks. Selected excerpts are translated and typed in German on small strips of paper which has been inserted into the envelopes.

In a related work, "T-Mail" (1999), thousands of documents have been entered into a database and are displayed by computer projection. A realization for the World Wide Web was prepared in collaboration with the University of Lüneburg, Department of Cultural Studies in 2005.

Sources: 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:
Galerie Ozwei, Berlin, 1992
Kulturfabrik Kampnagel, Hamburg, 1995
Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel; Marstall, Munich, 1995
Arken Museum for Modern Art, Cultural Capital of Europe, Copenhagen, 1996
Hudobné simulakrá. Jozef Cseres, Bratislava 2001
Jewish Museum, Frankfurt am Main, 2005
Gallery e/static, Torino, 2007
Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 2010

>>> Related Web Project

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