20-29 January 

Verse x EXPANDED.ART

 curated by Verse (Leyla Fakhr) and EXPANDED.ART (Anika Meier) aims to define a point in history where a network of artists are generating abstract works with algorithms and codes. Artists employing formal ideas of abstraction in their codes and algorithms are pioneering compositions that take generative art to new horizons.

The origins of abstract art are debated, with some tracing its roots to ancient Islamic art and others locating its beginnings in the early 20th century Western art movement. During the years leading up to World War I, artists such as Delaunay, Kandinsky, Malevich, and Tatlin embraced abstraction in their practice. While Kandinsky is often credited as the first artist to create purely abstract, non-representational paintings, his work was later challenged by the abstract art of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, whose focus on spirituality differed from Kandinsky's logical theories. The emergence of the de Stijl group in the Netherlands and the Dada group in Switzerland further expanded the spectrum of abstract art, leading to what some consider the two golden eras of the movement: 1912-1925 and 1947-1970.

Since the late 1950s, a group of artists have been utilising algorithmic procedures to create art. Early pioneers in this field include Herbert W. Franke and Vera Molnar, whose works are featured in this exhibition. In recent years, there has been an eruption of abstract works within the digital realm, where artists are increasingly employing code to create generative works. This has led to the emergence of a new, vibrant movement and community that has yet to be fully explored within the broader context of art history.

Artists are using algorithms and codes to create formal ideas of abstraction in their compositions, pushing the boundaries of the movement and inviting viewers to appreciate the works for their aesthetic effects and compositions alone. This experience is similar to the enjoyment of music, where pure patterns of form, color, and line create a powerful impact.

By exploring the intersection of art and technology through the works of these innovative artists, GENERATIVE ABSTRACTION AND BEYOND invites the viewer to consider the ways in which these fields interact and influence one another.

 Herbert W. Franke, Lee Mullican, Heinrich Heidersberger, Anna Lucia, Kim Asendorf, Banz & Bowinkel, Anna Carreras, Anna Beller, Ira Greenberg, Iskra Velitchkova, Jonas Lund, Leander Herzog & Richard Nadler, Aaron Penne, Lisa Orth, Marcel Schwittlick, Manuel Rossner, Ivona Tau, Julien Espagnon, Damjanski, and Olga Fradina. 

 20 January | 6-9 PM CET | EXPANDED.ART | Friedrichstraße 67 | Berlin
The artists Richard Nadler, Anna Beller, Manuel Rossner, Banz & Bowinkel, and Marcel Schwittlick will be present. 



 29 January 6-9 PM CET | EXPANDED.ART | Friedrichstraße 67 | Berlin
Anika Meier in conversation with Kim Asendorf and Leander Herzog on the past and present of generative art on the blockchain. 


The NFTs will be minted on Ethereum and will be available to collect 

. The artists will release 1/1s, limited and open editions, and long-form generative art projects. Prints, paintings and drawings will be available on 

, Leander Herzog & Richard Nadler (fxhash, Tezos)


24-25 JANUARY | 9-9PM CET | 3PM ET | 12PM PT

GENERATIVE ABSTRACTION AND BEYOND | BERLIN

2-26 MARCH

HERBERT W FRANKE: CODED BEAUTY

"People generally dismiss technology as a threat to art. I will attempt to demonstrate that it is not, and even opens up previously unimagined artistic territory." – Herbert W. Franke, 1957

EXPANDED. ART is pleased to present the solo exhibition CODED BEAUTY by Herbert W Franke in collaboration with the estate. The show is comprised of eight works from Franke’s series MATH ART, created between 1980 and 1995; early generative photographs from the 1950s; his Biennale serigraphy, including QUADRATE (1969/70); and further serigraphies. He held the belief that the beauty of structures shown in visual arts is founded on mathematical codes and spent a lifetime in search of them. In May 2022, Frank turned 95, and the world seems to have finally caught up with his art and thinking. His first NFT Drop, MATH ART, was sold out within 30 seconds, and he was the headliner at the Tezos Booth at Art Basel in 2023 with a work from 1979. Herbert W. Franke died on July 16, 2022, at the age of 95, leaving behind an extensive oeuvre.

Herbert W. Franke is a universal genius. For several decades, he separated three lives: the caver and scientist, the artist, curator and art theorist, and the science fiction author. Only on the occasion of his solo exhibition in 2010 at the ZKM Karlsruhe did he bring these three lives and careers together under the title WANDERER BETWEEN THE WORLDS. In the early 1950s, caving led him to experiment with light and technology. He kept his curiosity throughout his life; it was his drive to examine new technologies for their artistic potential. His pioneering spirit made him one of the first computer artists who was more than six decades ahead of his time.

In the 1950s, he started generating art based on mathematical principles, which led to his first pieces, LICHTFORMEN and OSZILLOGRAMME (created with an anlog computer), and finally used digital computer programs from the 1960s on. LICHTFORMEN are early examples of generative photography. In contrast to depicting photography, this is about the realization of Herbert W. Franke's abstract pictorial ideas – if you will, about visual inventions that show forms and structures that have not already existed but were first created or made visible by special technical means. Unlike the light graphics of the 1920s, it is about images that were systematically created under defined conditions. For the light forms, with the help of Andreas Hübner, a then-journeyman in the Siemens photo laboratory, mechano-optical self-constructions were used. The main instruments were white-painted, illuminated wires that were moved when the aperture was open. Motifs were created with a rotating disk set up in the foreground with free gaps through which the illuminated wire was recorded with an open aperture. The rotating disk leads to a stoboscopic effect. A special case were the so-called "spatial studies," in which the wire was not guided by hand but hung up and set in rotation. The background was illuminated by the projection of a light-dark line grid.

In 1970, Franke was represented at the Venice Biennale and showed a screen print of the series QUADRATE created with the digital computer, in which he let chance and algorithm work together. The square picture is made up of three types of elements that differ in size and color. They were distributed across the screen using a random number generator.

The number of elements in each of the three groups depends on the knowledge of information aesthetics, which shows which group deserves the most attention: the few large squares. And which is perceived as the dominant element of the picture: the medium-sized squares? The smallest elements, on the other hand, form the background, so to speak, and are given the least attention. The series was created with the IBM 1130 system at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry, Munich, developed by the Institute for Communications Engineering at the Technical University of Munich, and developed by the scientific project manager for development and construction, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Georg Färber. At that time, he was an assistant at the TU Institute.

In 1980, Herbert W. Franke began his fifteen-year collaboration with programmer Horst Helbig at the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen. Together, they studied mathematical disciplines in relation to aesthetics. The series MATH ART is the output of their research at the intersection of science and art. It reveals a universe of numbers transformed into images through a variety of shapes and colors reminiscent of Pop Art.

From the very beginning, it was clear to him that it is the artist's mission to examine new technologies and their social significance through the lens of their creative potential. For Herbert W. Franke mathematics are the essence of visual arts. While he saw the artist as an analytical maker using mathematics to create structures, he assigned the computer the task of modulating these principles of order through varying random processes. Franke, therefore, began to think of the computer as an artist's creative partner very early on.

FEATURED ARTWORKS

Herbert W Franke's pioneering spirit made him one of the first computer artists who was more than six decades ahead of his time. Franke discussed his visionary practice with Anika Meier.

INTERVIEW WITH HERBERT W FRANKE

"TECHNOLOGY IS NOT A THREAT TO ART."

"Many of the early pioneers did not dare call their work art and instead categorized it as design. But I just had nothing to lose." – Herbert W Franke 

The color served to code certain structural elements, which was of fundamental importance. The computer system at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, which was powerful at the time, had integrated output equipment with which the digitally developed image worlds were transferred directly to high-resolution photo film. On his own DOS PC, Franke created the preparatory work for the captivatingly vivid aesthetics of this mathematical investigation. In the beginning, there were algebraic formulas for three-dimensional spatial areas: The three dimensions were converted mostly into two-dimensional landscapes, whereby the "contour lines," i.e., the z-axis of the room, were color-coded with specially developed color grids. Starting with algebraic landscapes, the two worked their way through a wide variety of disciplines via wave functions, Fourier transformations, broken dimensions, and logical connections until they finally visualized complex and irrational numbers as well as random processes and logical connections with their method.

CODED BEAUTY gives an overview of Franke’s belief in the artist’s mission to use technology to open up previously unimagined artistic territories.

EXPANDED.ART
Friedrichstrasse 67, 10117 Berlin
Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CET

Herbert W Franke: CODED BEAUTY  2-26 March 2023 EXPANDED.ART | BERLIN
CODED BEAUTY is comprised of eight works of Franke’s series MATH ART created between 1980 and 1995, early generative photographs from the 1950s, his Biennale serigraphy including QUADRATE (1969/70) and further serigraphies. 
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HERBERT W FRANKE | CODED BEAUTY

ARTIST

MAGAZINE

EXHIBITION

Math Art Logic

Herbert W. Franke has always envisioned his MATH ART series to be displayed in this way, light and bright and strong colors, Francisco Carolinum in Linz made it possible for the first time for his solo show VISIONARY in 2022. LOGIC and 3D-LANDSCAPES were not part of Franke‘s MATH ART NFT collection released in 2022. No NFT is connected to the Light Box. Payable in ETH. ABOUT HERBERT W. FRANKE Known as a universal genius, Herbert W. Franke (1927-2022) is the forefather of computer art, co-founder of Ars Electronica, mastermind of the Metaverse, and science-fiction writer. He spent his entire career bridging the worlds of art and science.
EXPANDED.ART represents the estate of Herbert W. Franke.  
ABOUT MATH ART
In 1980, Herbert W. Franke began a fifteen-year collaboration with programmer Horst Helbig at the German Aerospace Center. Together, they studied mathematical disciplines in relation to aesthetics. The series MATH ART is the output of their research at the intersection of science and art. It reveals a universe of numbers transformed into images through a variety of shapes and colors reminiscent of Pop Art. 
Throughout his entire life, Herbert W. Franke used mathematical principles for art experimentation. From the very beginning, it was clear to him that it is the artist's mission to examine new technologies and their social significance through the lens of their creative potential. For Herbert W. Franke mathematics are the essence of visual arts. While he saw the artist as an analytical maker using mathematics to create structures, he assigned the computer the task of modulating these principles of order through varying random processes. Franke, therefore, considered the computer as a creative partner for the artist very early on.
The color served to code certain structural elements and was of fundamental importance. The computer system at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, which was powerful at the time, had integrated output equipment with which the digitally developed image worlds were transferred directly to high-resolution photo film. On his own DOS PC, Franke created the preparatory work for the captivatingly vivid aesthetics of this mathematical investigation.
In the beginning, there were algebraic formulas for three-dimensional spatial areas: The three dimensions were converted into two-dimensional landscapes, whereby the "contour lines," i.e., the z-axis of the room, were color-coded with specially developed color grids. Starting with algebraic landscapes, the two worked their way through a wide variety of disciplines via wave functions, Fourier transformations, broken dimensions, and logical connections, until they finally visualized complex and irrational numbers as well as random processes and logical connections with their method.

Math Art 3D-Landscapes

Relief Math Art

Relief Math Art Rotation 3

AVAILABLE WORKS

As pioneers of digital art, Herbert W Franke and Lee Mullican have left behind a significant legacy. Anika Meier discusses the artists' impact on today's digital art and NFT scene with representatives of their Estates, Susanne Päch and Cole Root. 

EARLY DIGITAL ART'S INFLUENCE ON NFTS

HERBERT W. FRANKE & LEE MULLICAN: PIONEERS AND THEIR LEGACY

Herbert W. Franke first encountered Harry Yeff’s work in Linz in the summer of 2021. Both were part of the exhibition PROOF OF ART at the Francisco Carolinum in Linz, the first museum to tell the brief history of NFTs. Franke, who was also a caver and rock collector, became interested in Harry Yeff and Trung Bao's work, VOICE GEMS, and soon a collaboration emerged: Yeff asked about the potential of using Franke's voice in an audio-visual production, and Franke responded by sending one of his voice gems, which is a vocal work of art in itself. 

In conversation with Anika Meier, Susanne Päch, the wife of Herbert W. Franke, Harry Yeff, and Trung Bao talk about the collaboration that began in 2021. Päch, who today heads the art meets science – Foundation Herbert W. Franke and lived with the artist and scientist for 40 years, also tells more about Franke's fascination with stones and what this has to do with the beginning of his artistic career.

The Beauty of Nature and An Archive of Voices

"YOUR VOICE IS YOUR IDENTITY"

Herbert W Franke's solo exhibition CODED BEAUTY explores the extensive oeuvre of the digital pioneer and is on view from 2 to 26 March 2023 at EXPANDED.ART in Berlin. CODED BEAUTY gives an overview of Franke’s belief in the artist’s mission to use technology to open up previously unimagined artistic territories.

HERBERT W. FRANKE

CODED BEAUTY | BERLIN

29 JUNE - 19 JULY

CLAUDIA HART: A CHILD'S MACHIAVELLI (1994)

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present A CHILD’S MACHIAVELLI, the first solo exhibition by Claudia Hart at the gallery in Berlin. On view will be drawings and digital artworks from Hart’s iconic book of the same title.

A CHILD’S MACHIAVELLI was initially written and illustrated by Hart in 1995, inspired by Niccolo Machiavelli’s Renaissance treatise, THE PRINCE, the first book of political philosophy. Hart’s version began as a series of oil paintings and a small catalog, produced by the Realismus Studio, at the Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin in 1995.

The catalog was eventually released as an expanded hardcover by Penguin USA in 1998, along with German and French editions. While keeping to the meaning of the original, Hart rewrote THE PRINCE, reflecting street values and the voice of youth culture, as if Machiavelli’s book, meant to advise kings on seizing power, was a primer to teach good manners to small children. The book has proven prescient, uncannily prefiguring the brutal tenor of contemporary US public discourse.

“My intention with the project was to keep to the meaning of the original, but to reflect the street values and voice of the youth culture of my own time. I imagined the first Machiavelli book, intended to advise a young king on the ways of power, as a primer teaching bad manners to small children. My version has proven prescient, prefiguring the infantile brutality of current US politics. I was therefore thrilled when Beatrice Books, a small experimental publisher, reissued the book in a more contemporary edition in 2019. At that time, I discovered among my files a series of Flash animations created for an ebook, an early 21st-century digital format that has long since disappeared along with Flicker Labs, the visionary company that half-produced them from my original gouache paintings in 2010. Then again, at the height of the crypto-bubble, it finally struck me that technological castaways would make perfect NFT. So I finished them last year, using a new Adobe product called Animate that allowed me to reopen old Flash files. With that final transformation, what has ultimately emerged are cruel but true insights, standing as reminders that while technologies may come and go, human frailties still manage to remain the same.”

Hart’s strategy reflected those embraced by the 1990s art world. Mimicking the visuals of a picture book, Hart appropriated 1920s children’s illustrations known for their sugary sweetness. The irony and twisted humor of A CHILD’S MACHIAVELLI is derived from its combination of opposites: the saccharine speech of kiddie books and the unvarnished reality of American politics. The book went out of print in 2000 but continues to be traded on the second-hand book market.


29 JUNE - 19 JULY
OPENING: 29 JUNE | 6-9 PM CET


Friedrichstraße 67, 10117 Berlin
Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CET

CLAUDIA HART

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present A CHILD’S MACHIAVELLI, the first solo exhibition by Claudia Hart at the gallery in Berlin. On view will be drawings and digital artworks from Hart’s iconic book of the same title in an immersive environment. 

A CHILD'S MACHIAVELLI | BERLIN

25 APRIL - 14 MAY 

THE CUTE SHOW

On the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin, EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present 

. More than 20 artists explore the duality of kitsch and its critique of modernity, technology, and online culture.

Bright, pastel-coloured fantasy worlds filled with unicorns, animals, and other fanciful creatures evoke feelings of tenderness and innocence. But is cuteness always this innocent? The rise of the aesthetic movement "cute" correlates directly with challenges of growing up and living in the digital age.

CHRIS DRANGE transforms digital found objects into classical oil paintings, questioning authorship and originality. With his post-digital paintings of puppies, Drange aims to convey his feelings when seeing a puppy to the viewer. Oftentimes exaggerated and adorned with kitschy emojis, Drange creates images of cuteness, irony, and oddity.

LEONIE SPECHT's work mirrors self-optimization, cuteness, and pop culture, inviting the viewer to be a part of a narrow microcosm between reality and fantasy. A subtle perversion that no longer seems suspicious is manifested in her paintings. Specht is looking for common ground where the ordinary and the uncanny merge.

Irony meets romantic longing in ALBRECHT/WILKE’s paintings. The artist duo interweaves formal elements, art historical quotations, and a lot of humour with the use of their key subject: the examination of the German middle class milieu and the associated clichés and insignia of Germanculture.

DANIEL GEBHART DE KOEKKOEK toys with the absurdity of everyday life, using his highly acclaimed talent for the good, the bad, and the ugly to create equally unpolished and cute images, as seen in his yearly animal calendars featuring dogs, guinea pigs, alpacas, and more.

CLARE KENNY’s balloon-shaped sculptures PARTY'S OVER and ALL HOT AIR replicate the slightly sad, semi-deflated balloons left behind long after a party has finished.

JOSEFINE SCHULZ explores the different realities of life and celebrates the unexcited, everyday moments of friendly togetherness in familiar situations. Schulz uses the symbol of the dog as a faithful and cute companion for her oftentimes lonely protagonists, thereby exploring the role of the dog invarious realities of life.

Queer sensitivities and the beauty of gestures and tiny details are explored in MARCIN LASZCZEWSKI’s series.Laszczewski depicts self-portraits of headless busts, a reflection of the sweet personal journey to self-discovery.

Inspired by the CUTEST DREAM, CEVIN PARKERuses soft pastels to reveal traces of memory and represent a sensitive reflection of the world without ego.

ISIS MARIA NIEDECKEN brings small moments of joy from the everyday onto the canvas, whileaiming to find the beauty in small moments and make them tangible for others.

Conceptual artist JINY LAN deals with urban life in the world's metropolises and questions the moral and traditional images of women in China in extensive series, while finding beauty in these topics.

In his hyper realistic sculptures, JOACHIM BOSSE deals with consumerism, the influences of mass media, and the impact of echo chambers and social eco-systems in the digital age. Bosse remixes pop culture and recontextualizes famous iconography in order to question contemporary identities and cultural values.

MATEUSZ VON MOTZ’s FUCK NORMAL I WANT MAGIC series has gone viral for providing an ironic and empathetic commentary on an increasingly narcissistic society. Von Motz combines text and images on mirrors, referring to the digital meme culture.

With his mirror JUST THE TWO OF US, ANDY KASSIER writes an over-dimensional love letter to his viewers. Kassier observes phenomena in social media and the development of digital image cultures. He searches for answers to currently socially relevant questions: What is happiness?

Digital native ARVIDA BYSTRÖM has an intrinsic relationship to pink. Exploring femininities and its complexities, often tied to online culture, she travels in an aesthetic universe of disobedient bodies, selfie sticks and cute fruits in lingerie.

THE CUTE PORTAL by NADINE KOLODZIEY is an innovative and immersive augmented reality artwork that takes viewers on a journey into a magical world of cuteness, kawaii, and wonder.

ARNO BECK’s pen plotter drawing plays on our nostalgia of early computer games of the 1990s, using neon colours and pixelated images. With a special process of bouncing between the digital and physical worlds, Beck finds himself in the middle of those.

Visual artist MARGARET MURPHY focuses on topics like femininity, sexuality, and identity in a post-social media culture. Murphy’s art uses bright colours, lighting, props, and cute aesthetic accents to create visceral responses within the viewer.

Artists: Albrecht/ Wilke, Arno Beck, Joachim Bosse, Arvida Byström, Chris Drange, Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, Claudia Hart, Andy Kassier, Clare Kenny, Nadine Kolodziey, Jiny Lan, Marcin Laszczewski, Margaret Murphy, Isis Maria Niedecken, Skye Nicolas, Cevin Parker, Leonie Specht, Josefine Schulz, Mateusz von Motz, Ruohan Wang


25 APRIL - 14 MAY 
OPENING: 25 APRIL | 6-9 PM CET 
On the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present the group exhibition THE CUTE SHOW on the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin. In the exhibition, more than 15 artists explore the duality of kitsch and its critique of modernity, technology, and online culture.

Bright, pastel-coloured fantasy worlds filled with unicorns, animals, and other fluffy creatures evoke feelings of tenderness and innocence. But is cuteness always this innocent? The rise of the aesthetic movement “cute” correlates directly with challenges of growing up and living in the digital age. ​

GROUP EXHIBITION

THE CUTE SHOW | BERLIN

18-23 APRIL

ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI

 
by Anika Meier & Margaret Murphy

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present the group exhibition ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI in collaboration with VerticalCrypto Art in Berlin. 16 artists explore the vast potential of future relationships between AI and creative expression to hypothesize on the not-so-distant future.

In a world where technological advancements happen in the blink of an eye, AI is being pointed to in the cultural zeitgeist as an example of a potentially bleak and ominous future. It is worth considering, however, the ways computers and machine learning can push forward creativity, human connection and philosophical dialogues.



For a while now, the world has been feeling increasingly off-kilter. It’s familiar and deeply foreign simultaneously: wars, pandemics, conspiracies. Ideas we hold as true changing overnight. ANOTHER AMERICA by 

 is a reflection of this uncertain world. It shows us the familiar, but not. Set in the late 1940s, a time close to the beginning of photography, when a photograph was the truth. Finally, how else to address the idea of uncertainty than with the technology, Artificial Intelligence, that is making the world uncertain.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT by 

 reflects the dawn of a new era shaped by AI. Everything as we know it will change. We can no longer trust photography; the boundaries between fiction and reality have become fluid.


 explores the impact of technological progress, in concrete AI, and its influence on visual culture, featuring the horse as a central symbol. The artwork references its historical significance in the work of Eadweard Muybridge, where the horse served as an object for capturing the passage of time with photography and ultimately led to the development of motion pictures. Far explores the introduction of new technological players in the visual production process, specifically focusing on AI-generated images of horse races. PHOTO FINISH is created in two steps: first, an AI model trained on actual race photos generates a speed photo of a horse race; second, the pixels of the AI-generated image are dismantled and reorganized, reinstilling a sense of velocity.

 seeks to capture the visual essence of longing and the search for solace in the face of loss. Đurđević, inspired by the passing of her late father, uses AI to process her grief. The landscapes often feature small, distant figures and lost animals enveloped in a haze, symbolizing the arduous process of letting go and the emotional turmoil that arises from losing a loved one. Đurđević also showcases AI’s ability in reimagining the 19th-century photographic printing process known as gum bichromate. Each piece in this collection was crafted using solely AI algorithms, paying homage to the delicate balance of beauty and nostalgia that characterized the original process.




 is her subtle way of saying "I care about you and your future". When she stumbled by accident onto one of the ANGELS' outputs, she almost walked off, thinking they looked too real, too Teen Vogue. But the angels wouldn’t leave her mind. She remembered being a teenager and wanting to be taken seriously and not seen as an object of desire. "The treatment of women in the world remains horrendous. Abortion still being an issue today is primitive, disappointing, and infuriating. My heart goes out to all the young women and men, too, whose lives are manipulated as if they were mere puppets by self-serving hypocrites", Condo says.

AMARANTHINE REVERIES by 

 is a collection of AI-animated self-portrait videos exploring the boundaries between our physical bodies and the essence of who we are at our core. In Pritts’ practice using themselves as source material with AI, the artist finds that the AI feels much more empathetic to who they are than they do to themselves. The outputs are devoid of inner criticism and body dysmorphia, an unexpected but ultimately very liberating result.

ALGORITHMIC ZONES OF IMMATERIAL PICTORIAL SENSIBILITY by 

 presents noise nearing the possibility of empathy, deflected by the bias for form and the limitations of gender. They explore seven empty semantic zones in order to locate the possibility of sensitivity and sensibility in the latent space of a text-to-image diffusion model. This series uses object pronouns, which represent the recipients of actions, as a means to probe empathy. The resulting pictorial outputs expose a potential zone of sensibility in the model's latent space, as well as the barriers to that potential.

 deals with the binaries between man and woman, East and West, human and animal, and human and non-human intelligence that have been created to solidify colonial power infrastructures in the West. However, we often see in nature and beyond how these boundaries are always blurry. This collaborative work with AI connects ancestral and feminized aquatic mythologies through digital skins to reimagine future visions.

Combing artificial intelligence with the practices of magic and alchemy, DWELLERS BETWEEN THE WATERS by 

 seeks possible solutions in response to the traumas of contemporary anthropos and examines how artificial intelligence, in terms of artistic practice, remains integral to our contemporary condition, that is, the ever-evolving climate crisis and the sixth extinction of species, coupled with wars, inflation, and capitalist exploitations.




 is a glimpse into a large science complex that represents the big brain of AI. At least, that's how Nagler imagines it. Many small groups are working in multidisciplinary ways to try to answer the question of the exhibition: What are the promises of AI? The AI draws from a great wealth of knowledge and imagines itself. There are young groups that playfully work on synthetic-organic interfaces. There are holodeck levels on which final haptic tests are carried out. There are sleep labs where mind expansion and awareness reign supreme. For Nagler, working with AI is an alchemical process. Diverse and nuanced ingredients result in the expected or even more surprising results and artworks. It is supremely satisfying to take up a narration of your own.

 examines ChatGPT’s declarative arguments on why AI-created art is intellectually superior, using the prompt: “Provide a digital minimalist conceptual art piece making the argument why AI-created art is intellectually superior and why it should be minted as an NFT.” In the series THE INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF AI-CREATED ART, Nicolas extends his exploration of text-rich triptychs with META PROSE, a conceptual exercise in authorship using AI technology to produce artworks from a flowing stream of online collective consciousness.

YELLOW FILM, from the series ABSTRACT SPACE by 

, is a contemplative artwork built by queries asked of GPT3, answers obtained by manipulating images through GAN, and music generated by an AI. The artwork shows a minimalist space that narrates the void through the vision of a place in continuous transformation. The minimalist space is designed by the shadows of geometric volumes created by extruding the silhouette of the primitives along the direction of the light source. A new, vibrant place arises under the eyes of the viewers, oscillating between virtual and real perception.

ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI: 

 Anna Condo, Crosslucid, Marco DeAngelis, Olivera Đurđević, FAR, Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, Veronica Kuri, Lars Nagler, Skye Nicolas, Chiara Passa, Ellie Pritts, Phillip Toledano, Mikey Woodbridge & Ezra Shibboleth, Ziyang Wu, Kira Xonorika



 18 APRIL | 6-9 PM CET | EXPANDED.ART | Friedrichstraße 67 | Berlin



The artists will join EXPANDED.ART and VerticalCrypto Art on Twitter to celebrate the launch of their NFTs, and to discuss their artworks and the promises of AI. 



The NFTs will be minted on Ethereum and Tezos and will be available to collect on VerticalCrypto Art. The artists will release 1/1s and limited editions created in collaboration with AI.

19 APRIL | 6 PM CEST | 12 PM ET | 9 AM PT


Anna Condo, Crosslucid, Lars Nagler, Kira Xonorika, Ellie Pritts, Marco DeAngelis, Mikey Woodbridge & Ezra Shibboleth, Olivera Đurđević

21 APRIL | 6 PM CEST | 12 PM ET | 9 AM PT


Skye Nicolas, Chiara Passa, Ziyang Wu, Veronica Kuri, Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, FAR

In collaboration with VerticalCrypto Art. VCA is the curatorial house for art and culture on the blockchain, working across art, music and fashion. VCA empowers and elevates culture, through curation, redefining what contemporary culture is.

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present the group exhibition ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY in collaboration with VerticalCrypto Art in Berlin. 

17 artists explore the vast potential of future relationships between AI and creative expression to hypothesize on the not-so-distant future through digital art, video art and AR.

THE PROMISES OF AI

ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY | BERLIN

17 MAY - 4 JUNE

A BEATING HEART

EXPANDED.ART presents the group exhibition A BEATING HEART. FEMALE PIONEERS OF DIGITAL ART curated by Anika Meier on view at the gallery in Berlin.

The exhibition explores how female artists at the forefront of digital art approach the male-dominated field in a variety of mediums such as AI, AR, video, poetry, and sculpture. 16 artists delve into our relationship with technology, dissolve the boundaries of the female body, deal with young femininity and the burden of its expectations, draw a portrait of the collision of committed love, exhaustion, and desire, and ask us to consider what we truly value.

 portrays a room in which a slowly evolving sculptural figure gradually transforms. A seated woman in a pose of erotic abandon cycles clockwise on a rotating pedestal. As she cycles, she decomposes, a vine of roses surrounding her, blooming and then fading away. All is in flux, but time seems to stand still, as in life.

 first learned to use After Effects and began to reject linear thinking in her editing, that something clicked. She started considering short videos as drawings or paintings and also incorporating loops into VJ sets. BED, a video of a campy bedspread, is one of those rare videos from that time period that Hinkis managed to digitize and preserve. When she views BED in the present day, Hinkis sees a dark and moody flower contorting itself: a play on young femininity and the burden of its expectations.

 is a self-portrait created by algorithmically stacking 3D scanned avatars that are able to invade space and become tangible through the intractable experience of Augmented Reality. It is a tongue-in-cheek play on the current state of her personal and artistic life. Further extending the self-portrait, Menegon's current body weight is the price for every edition, and there are as many available editions as her age.

#LORDESS is featured in numerous viral #arthacks by 

 as part of her GLITCH GODDESS collection and is the third 1 of 1 NFT employing this figure. #Lordess not only glitches conventional humanoid female forms but also the art historic convention of bodies retaining a singular shape, while glitching the side-to-side posing conventions of fashion and contemporary video portraiture.

’s book MAMMAL about the evolution of intimacy in long-term relationships. Written in Caballero's signature, multi-valent style, it paints an honest portrait of the collision of committed love, exhaustion, and desire.

Original marriage certificate of Ania Catherine and Dejha Ti, the artist duo 

: The institution of marriage historically has been an oppressive institution for women. The artists, who are married to each other and also have a collaborative art practice, consider their inhabitation of marriage to be both practical (1,138 rights are reserved for married couples in the U.S.), and also a durational subversive performance reimagining a traditional institution in a queer and revolutionary way. Ti and Catherine convert something that has been a container for women’s subservience to a foundation for a collaborative life of freedom, creativity, and a platform for their voices and ideas. The title, LET ME CHECK WITH THE WIFE speaks to the mentioning of one’s wife as a performative aspect of a certain genre of cis-heteromasculinity, which reveals itself as such when a woman does it. The collector of LET ME CHECK WITH THE WIFE receives the original physical copy of the artists’ marriage certificate, a digital image file version, as well as MARITAL OBLIGATIONS (a dynamic NFT). The certificate has sensitive information censored for artist and family privacy. Reverse Utility as a hyperbolic flip on the expectation of utility with NFT artworks, and drawing on the concept of marital obligations, the collector will receive direction or might be expected to provide the artists with specific actions or gifts on their anniversary (July 19); this aspect of the artist-collector relationship is managed via a dynamic NFT entitled MARITAL OBLIGATIONS.

Through the fusion of milk and body, shape and container, pixel and shader, LIQUID HARMONY by 

 establishes a bond between the artist and their creative output. This series encompasses two distinct perspectives that add depth to its narrative: a direct gaze at the milk presents a visual register of equality, while a top-down view of OONA situates the audience in a position of power and authority. LIQIUD HARMONY invites viewers on a journey into namelessness, where milk overflows, dissolving boundaries of the female body and illuminating the dynamics of power.

's ZOOM PAINTINGS (2019 - ongoing) emerged from her 2015-2017 series DICK PIC, in which she created abstract works of art from images she received via Instagram DMs. Wagenknecht takes small areas from photographs and videos she pulls from online and puts them into the paintings. In this project, instead of Instagram messaging, she works with Zoom calls, Google Hangouts, and other video conferencing tools to build a personalized palette for the paintings that evolve over the course of the pandemic. The artist creates a palette of brushes from each video, which she then uses to make abstract contemporary paintings that mirror the day-to-day plague she sees on her screen.

 delves into our relationship with technology, particularly the screens that dominate much of our modern lives. We spend countless hours interacting with digital devices, creating and consuming content, and forging identities within the virtual realm. This relationship is mirrored in this series of metaversal avatars, which reflect our digital personas back to us. The idea of inflatables symbolizes how we inflate or deflate our personalities, traits, or identities in the digital world. It's a commentary on the fluidity and malleability of our online selves.

’ first performance art avatar, dates from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. First conceived in 1998, this video is from a 2001 Sister Gemini "performance." Sister Gemini is a cyborg, half human, half AI, from "no place" who fictionally breaks into websites, performing with an electronic dulcimer and singing cyber folk ballads.

The precisely engineered 3D laser scanner

used to create her 3D printed sculpture was never designed to capture the body. Confronted with motion, the software receives conflicting spatial coordinates, and generates a fragmented model. She digitally sculpted the files, before outputting them on industrial 3D printers and hand-painting and finishing them. The process feels almost like sitting for a Victorian-era portrait. The subject has to hold still so as not to blur the scan, and close their eyes to protect them from the laser. An incomplete 3D scan, rotated and viewed from the back, seems like a map of the incompleteness of the camera, or indeed of human vision – a rendering of all the things we can't see in a given moment.

What appears to us as a glitch, Google interprets as the complete truth. Similar to 

’s physical VISION BOARDS, for which she is known, this NFT GIF causes Gretchen’s work to appear as a top search result for "contemporary art auction record." Knowing that Google registers only the first frame of a GIF, the first of the 255 frames shows Gretchen’s VISION BOARD for sale at Sotheby's auction house, while the remainder presents the viewer with a pretty and pleasant animation in which the growing of plants is a metaphor for financial growth. These GIFs are vectors for her hack. It carries the necessary metadata to infiltrate Google’s artificial intelligence.

MEMENTO MEMORIAE is a media-rich poem by award-winning poet, artist and AI researcher 

, whose explorations of the post/human condition frequently probe the relationship between memory and technology, presenting poetry as an ancient and enduring data storage system. Thematically, the poem ponders the unreliability of humanity as its own narrator while foregrounding the visceral power of words to make us believe.

 is a series of artworks developed from a wide range of technologies based on a real marble sculpture created by Passa in 2017. The four animations explore the theme of emptiness and the potential for creation within it. Designed to shake up the static concept of architecture and place, the animations show geometric projections in continuous transformation, deconstructing and reshaping an extreme and minimalist sculptural surface. As a result, viewers are forced to confront themselves within a fourth digital dimension, a virtual place that nowadays has become intrinsic to our daily lives and is impossible to ignore.

 carries on ideas explored in the artist’s previous works where lost species have taken the form of crystals. It is as though complex life has been transformed into pure carbon, the most concentrated form in the natural world being diamonds. Set adrift amongst the stars, the crystalline debris field reveals the majesty and infinite wealth of our home within the context of the known universe–where as far as humanity has confirmed, Earth is the only known planet to foster life. With monumental efforts to discover life elsewhere, how differently would we value any of the species which we allowed to go extinct today, if they were discovered on another planet? Ultimately, ORIGIN STORIES asks us to consider what it is that we truly value.

Cover image: Tali Hinkis

: Gretchen Andrew, Ana María Caballero, Carla Gannis, Claudia Hart, Tali Hinkis (LoVid), Sophie Kahn, Martina Menegon, Marjan Moghaddam, Oona, Operator, Chiara Passa, Kelly Richardson, Anne Spalter, Sasha Stiles, Addie Wagenknecht, and Kathrin Wessling.



A BEATING HEART. FEMALE PIONEERS OF DIGITAL ART


17 MAY - 4 JUNE
OPENING: 17 MAY | 6-9 PM CEST


Friedrichstraße 67 | 10117 Berlin
Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CEST

EXPANDED.ART presents the group exhibition A BEATING HEART. FEMALE PIONEERS OF DIGITAL ART on view in Berlin 17 May to 4 June 2023.
The exhibition explores how female artists at the forefront of digital art approach the male-dominated field in a variety of mediums such as AI, AR, video, poetry, and sculpture. 16 artists delve into our relationship with technology, dissolve the boundaries of the female body, deal with young femininity and the burden of its expectations, draw a portrait of the collision of committed love, exhaustion, and desire, and ask us to consider what we truly value.
<meta charset="utf-8"> ARTISTS: Gretchen Andrew, Ana María Caballero, Carla Gannis, Claudia Hart, Tali Hinkis (LoVid), Sophie Kahn, Martina Menegon, Marjan Moghaddam, Oona, Operator, Chiara Passa, Kelly Richardson, Anne Spalter, Sasha Stiles, Addie Wagenknecht, and Kathrin Wessling.

A BEATING HEART. FEMALE PIONEERS IN DIGITAL ART

EXPANDED.ART presents the group exhibition A BEATING HEART. FEMALE PIONEERS OF DIGITAL ART curated by Anika Meier on view at the gallery in Berlin. The exhibition explores how female artists at the forefront of digital art approach the male-dominated field in a variety of mediums such as AI, AR, video, poetry, and sculpture.

FEMALE PIONEERS OF DIGITAL ART

A BEATING HEART | BERLIN

29 JUNE - 19 JULY 

LOVID: TANGIBLE TIMELINES

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present the solo exhibition TANGIBLE TIMELINES by LOVID on view at the gallery in Berlin from 29 JUNE to 19 JULY 2023.


29 JUNE - 19 JULY
OPENING: 29 JUNE | 6 - 9 PM CESt

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present the solo exhibition TANGIBLE TIMELINES by LOVID on view at the gallery in Berlin in summer 2023. 

LOVID

TANGIBLE TIMELINES | BERLIN

1-22 FEBRUARY 

KIM ASENDORF & LEANDER HERZOG: STACK TRACE

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present STACK TRACE, the first duo show by Kim Asendorf & Leander Herzog. The exhibition is comprised of eight works on aluminum and a real-time multi-channel NFT collection, which the German and Swiss artists created as a site-specific installation. Asendorf & Herzog create abstract paintings with code and animated pixels that sort endlessly and thus rethink the medium of painting in the age of Post-NFTism.

STACK TRACE is a dialogue between Asendorf and Herzog about painting and sculpture in generative art. The two series of works, CHROME and BYPASS, themselves are stacks that address seriality and scalability and depict traces of processes. In the exhibition space, algorithms and code running in real time on a sculptural installation consisting of screens are juxtaposed with marks on aluminium that were manually generated based on algorithmically placed point constellations.

Asendorf & Herzog add the parameter of time to generative art. Coordinated world time, or UTC for short, serves as the main anchor for the synchronization of the real-time multi-channel installation CHROME. The 128 channels run synchronously at all times, without beginning or end, adapted to any screen format. CHROME emerges from a continuous linear movement punctuated by a rhythmic and random choreography. Soft gradients and hard edges collide, colors run into each other, and pixels move from left to right. Organic forms flow as pixels rearrange endlessly in a ticker, the archetype of linear motion.

STACK TRACE is both an experiment and a statement: Asendorf & Herzog test how generative art and NFTs can be expanded with the technological possibilities of their time.

.

EXPANDED.ART
Friedrichstrasse 67, 10117 Berlin
Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CET

PRE-SALE: 28 FEBRUARY | 6 PM CET
PUBLIC MINT: 1 MARCH | 6 PM CET

Corresponding with their duo show STACK TRACE, Kim Asendorf & Leander Herzog will release CHROME, a collection of 128 NFTs. 

On-Chain multi-channel real-time animation
JavaScript, GLSL, variable dimensions
Ethereum smart contract

Kim Asendorf is a visual artist working with conceptual strategies and generative systems to create abstract animations, images, and sculptures. He lives and works in Bremen, Germany. He is widely known for the creation of a Pixel Sorting algorithm he made Open Source and that has been used by thousands of artists and designers since 2012. The pixel is the main building block in his work, seemingly alive in his abstractions, or rearranged in his iconic Pixel Sorting aesthetics.

Asendorf's works has been shown at festivals and institutions like Transmediale, ZKM Karlsruhe, Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, NCCA Yekaterinburg, Eyebeam, NIMK, LEAP or the Overlapping Biennial Bucharest and at galleries and fairs like Unpainted (Munich), Moving Image Contemporary Art Fair (London), Creation Gallery G8 (Tokyo), Carroll / Fletcher (London), and The Photographers' Gallery (London).

Leander Herzog is a visual artist based in Switzerland, creating images with code since 2006. His focus is generative and interactive abstraction on the web. Currently he combines his experience from building websites and digital products with generative art and the new potential NFTs present. Herzog’s practice explores visual maximalism enabled by contemporary computer graphics and the widespread availability of networked screens as well as minimalist abstraction based on web technology standards. He plays with the contrast between the simplicity of algorithmic systems and the complexity of their emergent properties.

In the last decade, his work evolved from static images to moving visuals and realtime experiences on the web, including generative audio, interactive installations, data driven sculpture and digital fabrication. Titles and aesthetics of his works often reference the history of painting as well as the artist's own past experience with graffiti writing.

KIM ASENDORF & LEANDER HERZOG | STACK TRACE

Bypass A1

Bypass A2

Bypass A3

Bypass A4

Bypass A5

Bypass A6

Bypass A7

Bypass A8

The duo show STACK TRACE by Kim Asendorf and Leander Herzog explores abstract paintings with code and animated pixels that sort endlessly and thus rethink the medium of painting in the age of Post-NFTism. 

KIM ASENDORF & LEANDER HERZOG 

STACK TRACE | BERLIN

23 JUNE - 22 JULY

CLAUDIA HART: MY TRAVELS TO HYPERREALITY

MY TRAVELS IN HYPERREALITY is Claudia Hart’s solo show curated by Annka Kultys and Anika Meier and presented by Annka Kultys Gallery and EXPANDED.ART in London and online. 

Seven videos will be on view that give an overview of Hart’s extensive digital artistic practice, as one of the most prolific artists working with simulation technologies from augmented reality and animation to printed sculptures. Her work is philosophical, tracking topics that consider time, history, and human desire. The artworks in the exhibition were created between 1998 and 2019 and are an intimate document of her very personal voice.

“Between 2018 and 2022, I taught a seminar for graduate students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, to which I invited artists, curators, and writers that I randomly met in my daily travels. It was called TRAVELS IN HYPERREALITY, after the essay by Umberto Eco. Students examined their practices, did readings in relation to them, and made reports of their work. The ultimate goal of this seminar was both shared research and, at the same time, the creation of an art history in the making. I retired from full-time teaching this spring and dedicate this exhibition to my students.”
– Claudia Hart

Claudia Hart emerged as part of a generation of 1990s intermedia artists examining issues of identity and representation. Since the late 1990s, when she began working with 3D animation, Hart has embraced these same concepts but is now focusing on the impact of computing and simulation technologies. She was an early adopter of virtual imaging, using 3D animation to make media installations and projections, and later, as they were invented, other forms of VR, AR, and objects produced by computer-driven production machines. At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she is a professor, she developed a pedagogic program based on her practice, Experimental 3D, the first dedicated solely to teaching simulation technologies in an art school context.

Hart’s works are widely exhibited and collected by galleries and museums including the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Albertina Museum, Vienna, The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Vera List Center Collection,The Borusan Contemporary Collection, The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation Collection, Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection, The Goetz Collection,The New York Public Library, the Addison Gallery of American Arts, Andover, MA, Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Collection, and many other private collections. Her work has been exhibited at the New Museum, produced at the Eyebeam Center for Art + Technology, and at the Center for New Music and Audio Technology, UC California, Berkeley where she is currently a fellow. She lives in NY, works with bitforms gallery, NY, Transfer Gallery, Miami, and EXPANDED.ART, Berlin and is married to the Austrian media artist Kurt Hentschlager.



23 June - 22 July 2023
Opening Reception: 22 June, 6-8 PM




Unit 9, 472 Hackney Road, London E2 9EQ
Opening Hours: Wednesday – Saturday | 12–6 PM


EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present MY TRAVELS TO HYPERREALITY, a solo exhibition by Claudia Hart in collaboration with ANNKA KULTYS GALLERY in London.


06.06.2023 – 27.06.2023

THE THINKING MACHINE. PRESENTING PIONEERS, 1953 - 2023 | BERLIN

GROUP SHOW