Dave Ball (b.1978, UK) is an artist based in Berlin and Wales.
He studied at Goldsmiths College, London (MA) and the University of Derby, UK (BA). His work explores absurdity, irrationality and the interaction between sense and non-sense. It asks: how are our rational understandings of the world constructed? What are the consequences of these rational structures? In what ways can it be productive to deliberately avoid rationality? And what alternative understandings of the world can be generated through absurd practices? He often uses humour as a way of exploring these ideas, and his work is generally characterised by a philosophical playfulness. Ball works in video, performance, drawing, and photography, and has worked on participatory projects in collaboration with artists and experts from other fields.
Ball has shown widely at venues including Oriel Mostyn, Wales; Laznia Center for Contemporary Art, Gdansk; NGBK, Berlin; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Iniva, London; Atelier 35, Bucharest; and Ha Gamle Prestegard, Norway. Residencies include Est-Nord-Est, Quebec, Canada; Künstlerhäuser Worpswede, Germany; and Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales.
www.daveballartist.co.uk
Interview Berlin Artparasites
A total work of art? The idea of Gesamtkunstwerk is indeed ambitious and ground-breaking, but it's still current. Dave Ball is working to conform a whole piece of art by visually representing words in alphabetic order as they appear in the dictionary. The young English artist has dedicated himself intensively throughout the past two years to complete the first part of a lifelong project: to draw – with some restrictions – the entries of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Every word starting with the letter “A” is currently on display at Art Claims Impulse. Featuring over four hundred works, "A to Z: From Aardvark to Axle" is a collection of drawings and prints that hang frameless in three separate rooms. We sought the artist so he could give us some As to our Qs.
Ball wrote a manifesto with certain rules to narrow the infinite spectrum of words as he began his quest. “How many words are there? When you look at a dictionary, that’s the first thing you want to know. The answer is: there’s no answer. Dictionaries are all arbitrary selections. The most complete English dictionary, the Oxford Dictionary, has at the moment two million words and every year it grows and grows. So probably it is a pragmatic thing: I can’t make two million drawings. I chose the Concise Oxford Dictionary completely randomly – it was on my desk.”
Excerpt
Article by Sofía Martinelli
Artworks
A to Z: From Aardvark to Axle
'A to Z' is an ongoing series of projects based on the premise of making a visualisation for every noun listed in the Concise Oxford English dictionary, starting at "A", and proceeding in alphabetical order. The opening project, 'From Aardvark to Axle' is to make a drawing for each of the approximately 460 "A" words
View sequence of 100 drawings from “animation” to “aridity”.
“A to Z: From Aardvark to Axle” | 466 Drawings various size | 2013 | Installation
The ‘A to Z’ project is clearly absurd, but it also represents a serious attempt to systematically account for what makes up our world. It challenges the notion that some things are more important than others, and instead treats everything within a language equally.
While the conceptual parameters of the project are strictly defined, within this framework there is considerable room for exploration, association, play, and inventiveness. For example, the choice of image which best represents a word must be chosen from an almost infinite number of possibilities; some are straightforward illustrations of objects: for example, “apple” is represented by a drawing of an apple from life. Others require more imaginative leaps: for example “appearance” is represented by a sequence of drawings of a magician conjuring up a white dove. Other, more abstract, words often rely on particular concrete manifestations: for example “annihilation” is represented by a drawing based on a well-known photograph of the mushroom cloud caused by the Nagasaki atomic bomb.
In part the project stems from the basic question: what should an artist take as their subject-matter? Right from the very first week of art school, this question bothered me intensely. Fellow students made work about their personal hang-ups or life story; others used existing artists or styles as their starting point; still others explored the formal concerns of their chosen medium. But I wanted to make art about the world. The trouble was, the world was frustratingly large and complex – where could I possibly begin?
The scale of the project seems ridiculous – but dictionaries and encyclopedias have been written by individuals in the past. In the age of Enlightenment it was seen as a necessary and achievable project to catalogue and understand everything in the world: the scope of knowledge was more or less graspable by single scholars.
But that has all changed: nobody could now claim such authority. There is simply too much to know. And yet, in the age of Google and Wikipedia, knowledge has become so much more accessible. The information is all there; the only problem is what to do with it. With this project, I have decided to respond to everything in the world visually, starting at the beginning of the alphabet, and continuing from there.
A lifetime undertaking, ‘A to Z’ represents a continuation of my explorations into themes of absurdity, subjective interaction with everyday environment, and the construction of rational knowledge.
Dave Ball
brandy
479 drawings for each of the 479 “B”-words, produced without the use of any visual source material (i.e. made entirely from memory); various media on paper, each 297 x 210mm.
Second project in the A to Z series of projects (2011-ongoing) based on the premise of making a visualisation for every word listed in the Concise Oxford English dictionary, starting at “A”, and proceeding in alphabetical order.
View sequence of 100 drawings from “blizzard” to “bravado”.
"C"
831 photographs for each of the 831 “C”-words in the dictionary; dimensions variable.
View sequence of 100 photographs from “cab” to “carcinogen”.
Click on any "C" image to view the sequence.
Third project in the A to Z series of projects (2011-ongoing) based on the premise of making a visualisation for every word listed in the
Concise Oxford English dictionary, starting at “A”, and proceeding in alphabetical order.
The Ds (Blind Drawings) 2018‑ongoing
Watch here the Interview with many D's in the studio.
The supremacy of Thought (The Ineffectiveness of Action)
2012; slide projection work (series of eighty 35mm slides projected in sequence).
The work chronicles a journey made by a mackerel from a residential building in Berlin to a nearby stretch of canal. Texts describing the mackerel's innermost thoughts accompany images of its passage through the city. The texts are based on the interior monologues of Mrs Ramsay in Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse'.
Dave Ball, Bio
Dave Ball (b. 1978, UK) is an artist based in Berlin and Wales. He works in a range of media including video, performance, drawing, photography, installation and participatory projects. His practice is characterised by its use of absurd conceptual structures and what has been described as a “peculiar humour”. He has recently completed a practice-based PhD at Winchester School of Art exploring the use of “tactical absurdity” in (post-)conceptual art, and also holds an MA from Goldsmiths College, London, and a BA from the University of Derby. Solo exhibitions of Ball’s work have been held at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales; Gallery Oldham, Manchester; Winchester Gallery, England; and Galerie Art Claims Impulse, Berlin. Group exhibitions include NGBK, Berlin; Villa Arson, Nice; Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk; Optica, Montreal; Wysing Arts Centre, England; Today Art Museum, Beijing; and Oriel Mostyn, Wales. Residencies include Künstlerhäuser Worpswede, Germany; Est-Nord-Est, Canada; and Nottingham Trent University, UK. Ball was shortlisted for the Berlin Art Prize in 2016.
CV
Dave Ball
www.daveballartist.co.uk
Born 1978, UK; lives and works in Berlin
Education
PhD Winchester School of Art, UK (2020)
MA Goldsmiths, London (2007)
BA University of Derby, UK (2001)
Solo Exhibitions
Tactically Absurd, Winchester Gallery, UK (2020)
A to Z: The First Seven Years, Gallery Oldham, Manchester, UK (2018-19)
Searching for the Welsh Landscape, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, UK (2016)
A to Z: From Aardvark to Axle, Art Claims Impulse, Berlin (2013)
How to Live, Art Claims Impulse, Berlin (2008)
Group Exhibitions (Selection)
Through the Eyes of a Child, HilbertRaum, Berlin (2024)
When Words Fail, HilbertRaum, Berlin (2023)
Emotionally Confronted by Distance, Art Claims Impulse, Berlin (2021)
He Told Us to Remain Silent, Feldfünf, Berlin (2020)
Point Quartz: Flower of Kent, Villa Arson, Nice (2017)
Punctuation Marks in an Eternal Sentence, Alfred Gallery, Tel Aviv (2017)
Travelogue, Palazzo Ducali, Mantua, IT (2016)
Polyphonies, Optica, Montreal (2015)
Picaresque, Ha Gamle Prestegard, Naerbo, NO (2014)
To Make the Improbable, Est-Nord-Est, Quebec, CA (2013)
Stranded Travelers, Atelier 35, Bucharest (2013)
The Picture Show, Galerie Jaap Sleper, Utrecht (2013)
We Were Trying to Make Sense, 1Shantiroad, Bangalore (2013)
Ha Ha Road, Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno, UK (2012)
Making Mirrors: Of Body and Gaze, NGBK, Berlin (2011)
The Dump: Recycling of Thoughts, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, PL (2010)
Stadt am Rande, Today Art Museum, Beijing (2010)
Field Broadcast, Wysing Arts Centre, Camb., UK (2010)
The Mausoleum of Lost Objects, InIVA, London (2008)
Prizes and Funding
Stiftung Kunstfonds Neustart Kultur (2022)
Jon Schueler Scholarship (2017)
Berlin Art Prize 2016
Arts Council of Wales, Production Grant (2015)
British Council Canada, Exhibition Grant (2015)
Vice-Chancellor Scholarship, Winchester School of Art (2015)
Wales Arts International, Travel Bursary (2013)
New Contemporaries 2008
Residencies
Retreat, Northumberland, UK (2019)
Nida Art Colony, LT (2019)
Summer Lodge, Nottingham Trent University, UK (2016)
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, UK (2014)
Est-Nord-Est, Quebec, CA (2013)
Künstlerhäuser Worpswede, DE (2009)
Art Claims Impulse, Berlin (2008)CV
Courtesy Clemens Schöll. Copyright: Ortrun Bargholz
At the center of the exhibition "The revolution will not be automated" is the 'small automation theater'. The 17-minute fully automated puppet theater installation uses classic hand puppets to tell the story of the Wohnungsbot. The Wohnungsbot is a free, open source software that Clemens Schöll developed and released in 2019. The software acts as an "ibuprofen for apartment hunting" and seemingly frees people from the symptoms of rent madness in Berlin. After an initial euphoria, however, the situation in the play turns against the apartment seekers and the question arises: Can there be technical solutions to social problems?
The puppet theater is the third and last part of the work cycle "Of someone who went forth to find a flat in Berlin" - An automation-drama in three acts". Based on the search for an apartment in Berlin and the problems associated with it, the works address the current and future social challenges posed by automation. This promises liberation from work, but often works to the disadvantage of already precariously living population groups in ways that are not very visible. The characters and the puppet theater play with the technological contexts and their stereotypical roles in the format and in meta-narratives.
Clemens Schöll's work with automated puppet and object theater seeks narrative forms to make automation, technical systems and their social consequences tangible and visible. The absence of a playing person shifts the focus from the psychological subject to the machinery as a symbol of the acting structures. The familiarity of the characters and their wit invite people to engage with the complex and abstract contexts.
How is Today
Mixed media (series), 2021
This three-part mixed media series departs from a YouTube screenshot from 2019 to reflect on our survey driven 'customer satisfaction' society.
The starting point and first part of the work, subtitled "Extremely good customer satisfaction", is presented as a simple printout from YouTube. Against the background of the video made legendary by the Rickrolling meme floats a pop-up: How is YouTube today? The over-affirmative over-positive answer options make the inconspicuous box emblematic of the evaluation culture. Everything is constantly evaluated (as positive) and in the background, mostly invisible, the evaluations are automatically used for disciplinary (negative) purposes in the same course.
The subsequent parts in the series shifts this priming towards the viewers: the supposedly empathic question "How are you [today]?" becomes both a pressure to feel good and an outsourcing of actual empathic and emotional labor.
The final part is a (real) feedback terminal, positioned seperate from the other parts at the exit of the exhibition without any labeling as an artwork. It closes the circle by subjecting the viewers and the exhibition to the same quantified evaluation principles.
Are you satisfied with today's visit? And what are the implications of your (dis)satisfaction?
Feedback terminal (ready-made) with custom print
0% virtual reality / 100% virtual reality
with Ortrun Bargholz
Smartphones insert banknotes with motifs of baroque architecture into two plastic cardboard viewers. Is this the real virtual reality?
From Promised Reality:
Through this unexpected use of VR glasses, recipients are confronted with the question of what is meant by 'virtual reality' in the first place. The meaning as something that "does not physically exist but is made to appear by software "1 in the sense of a digitally generated 3D environment only became established with the increasing spread of computers. Since the 15th century, virtual has been understood to mean "to be something in essence or effect, even if not real or factual".2 Thus, the idea of a nominal value of money is also entirely virtual.
Some viewers of the work may be disappointed, as they already see the VR glasses as an object as a technological promise that is not fulfilled. However, the work offers plenty of virtual reality: banknotes, fictitious architecture on banknotes, historicizing façade elements on a new concrete building, as well as historicizing façade elements on banknotes. According to Guy Debord's understanding in La société du spectacle (The Society of the Spectacle), many elements that would have been experienced directly in earlier societies have "escaped" into an imagination or representation under modern production conditions.3 The architectures depicted on the banknotes are true simulacra in Jean Baudrillard's sense, because they precede reality.4
¹ „Virtual“. „not physically existing but made to appear by software“
2 „Virtual“. „being something in essence or effect, though not actually or in fact“
3 Debord, La société du spectacle, These 1. „Tout ce qui était directement vécu s’est éloigné dans une représentation.“
4 Baudrillard, Simulacres et simulation.
Marc Aschenbrenner, born in Linz (Austria) in 1971, studied painting and multimedia at the local art college with a focus on painting
Video art. His work has included works in Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Innsbruck, Cologne, Copenhagen, London, Lucerne, Münster, Poznan and
To see Vienna. The artist lives and works in Berlin.
His process-based works often start with sketches and use heterogeneous material that does not shy away from unusual cases. Mostly as his own protagonist, Aschenbrenner acts in timeless, meaningless spaces in which he creates an unmistakable aesthetic and uses performance to create his individual cosmos, which allows questions of origin and task in the sense of existentialism in terms of content.
Kopffüssler
Figur Variationen
Consisting of six video art films, one installation and 6 aquarelles.
Figur mit zwei Oberkörper
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
Title of the Videoartworks
Torres de Satélite 2019/22
Zaunfigur 2017/22
Figur mit zwei Oberkörpern 2021/22
Figur1
Tagebau
Liegende
The exhibited six aquarelles were created during Marc Aschenbrenner's stay in the intensive care unit. They are illustrations of his visions during his illness.
---
Heilung
#1, #2, #3, #4
The large formats shown here were created for the exhibition "World, Good Night.". They are another artistic exploration of Marc Aschenbrenner embedded
in the series "Healing", 2020. (Art print - Photo, 195cm X130cm). Edition: 5+2AP Material of the costume: mouth nose face masks, disposable, red rod.
Figur im Wald, 2012 HD 5+2a.p
In the depiction, man becomes a figure.
It is the interpretation of man and his perception of the environment. The figures resist reality and create their environment according to the situation.
They live in a state of absolute presence. They live in a state of stagnation. They become the picture.
The figures become clothes and get a subjective individuality.
The environment that is often themed as dwelling is the deepest individualistic expression of the figure.
The home as the strongest personal expression of man as an individual.
A place of the perfect ego.
Man perishes without people.
It is an absurd thing. Man as egoist in the collective.
The central theme is the human figure in the room.
Man and his being, his surroundings and his habitation.
The figure and the elements - the knowledge to be part of the structure.
The rejection of one's own society. States of consciousness and
and their change morphologically. Birth, existence, death.
The films / actions have a kind of action that can also be metamorphosis, absurdity or nothing.
The works are processual and in the true sense, have no beginning or end.
Rot Weiß, 2011
HD, 10:30, ed. of 5+2a.p.
im Abri, 2008
DV 8:30 min, ed. of 5 (+2a.p.)
CV
1971 born in Linz, grew up in Tyrol (Born in Linz Austria)
1991-94 study of painting, Kunstuni Linz (Fine Art Study Universtiy Linz)
1994-99 studies Audiovisual Design with focus on video,
Art University Linz. (Media Art Study, Art University Linz.
2009 working scholarship Stiftung Kulturfonds, Bonn
lives and works since 2000 in Berlin
Exhibitions (S: solo, G: group, P: performance)
2020
Welt, gute Nacht at Art Claims Impulse, Group exhibition with Shir Handelsman.
2014
Ginterdorfer / Klaßen Projects (G)
2013
Super 8 - MAM - Modern Art Museum Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (G)
Figure in the forest - at Art Claims Impulse (S)
2012
`Imago` Theater Bremen (P)
`hard Physik` Sophiensaale, Berlin, FFT, Dusseldorf (P)
`Short + Short` Month of Performance, Berlin (P)
`6 ants` Gallery STORE, Dresden (S)
2011
`Alive she cried`Galerie Zink, Berlin (G)
`Berlin del Mare`, Berlin (P)
`Kopffüssler`, art spring Bemen (P)
`Rohrmensch` New Black, Danube Festival Krems (P)
2010
`City on the Edge`Today Art Museum Beijing, Beijing (G)
`500 meters` Performance IC, Innsbruck (P)
`Abroller`Rue Princesse, House of World Cultures, Berlin +
Kampnagel, Hamburg (P)
`Fatigue`Abidjan, Ivory Coast (P)
2009
`Pictures of the artist` Frankfurter Kunstverein (G)
Solo presentation Vienna Fair, Gallery Olaf Stüber (S)
`Form of Isolation` Gallery Olaf Stüber, Berlin (with Michael Höpfner)
Solo presentation Art Brussels, Galerie Olaf Stüber (S)
`Comunidad Ficiticia`Matucana 100, Santiago Chile (G)
`Silbermann`Kunstverein Hamburg (P)
2008
'VIDEO PERFORMANCE - Methods of self-reflection'
Exhibition Hall Contemporary Art Münster (G)
Mediations Biennal, Poznan, PL (G)
'Video of month # 40: My favorite pastime' Kunsthalle Wien, AT (G)
'checkpoint berlin' Villa du Parc-Center d'art contemporain, Annemasse, CH (G)
'It Happens To Be This' Artists' Houses Worpswede (G)
'Every moment is a state' Galerie Olaf Stüber Berlin (S, P)
2007
'me, he and the others' with Knut Klaßen, Videonale at Kunstmuseum Bonn (S)
'We learn hard' Forum Free Theater, Düsseldorf (P)
'Fresh Trips' Kunstraum Innsbruck, AT (G, P)
'Man seeks, God gives' Theater Aachen (P)
'Reality Bytes: Digitized Narrative' The Dallas Center For Contemporary Art, Dallas US (G)
'100 DAYS = 100 VIDEOS' GL Strand, Copenhagen, DK (G)
'OPEN SPACE 2007' Art Cologne, Colgne (S)
2006
'100Days = 100Videos' Kunstverein Heidelberg (G)
, Drawing cycle 'Emergency Room by Geoffroy Colonel, Galerie Olaf Stüber (G)
'Gold Room Performance' Ballhaus Ost, Berlin (P)
'Beetle hindquarters' Black Forest Institute, Ballhaus Ost, Berlin (P) Galerie Olaf Stüber, Berlin (S)
'Second sun' Loop Video Art Fair, Barcelona (G)
'Cyan's death' too much TV, Berlin (S)
, In the Green 'EAMF European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück (G)
, Draisine 'Aschenbrenner, Classes, Too much TV, Berlin (S)
2005, in the Green 'too muchTV, Berlin (S), Gulli' Gallery Volker Diehl, Berlin (S), second Sun 'too manyTV, Berlin (S)
2004 'Nori Gold' in 'Kluterkammer' by John Bock, ICA London (G), Nori Gold 'zuvielTV, Berlin (S)
2003, beginning, assembly line + death - 4xAschenbrenner 'Dengel Galerie Reutte (S)
2002 international video festival, Bochum
2001 2yk Gallery Berlin
1999, KIB 'old town hall, Linz
1995 'Der Schwimmer' Tronic-Artcore-Event / Ars Electronica, Linz (AT)
1994, Mokom 'Videoperformance, Aschenbrenner with Silvia Keller, Dengel Gallery, Reutte (AT)
projects
2009 to today:
Playing in the band `Road Damage'Experimental Guitar,
Tour2012: Berlin, Hamburg, Leibzig, Jenar, Bremen, Bresslau, Prague, Vienna
2006, Chinese Synthesis Leberkäse'with Gelitin, Kunshaus Bregenz
2005, Studio second Sun 'Schwarzwaldinstitut, Buhlbach
2004, request 'Aschenbrenner / Jochen Dehn / Knut Klaßen / Gelitin, Atelier Bucher, Ehrwald (AT)
2002 collaboration work 'Gribhom2' with John Bock, Documenta 11
2001, Power + Fruits' Aschenbrenner with Anselm Reyle
2000, Observatory 'Project Workshop OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz
1996, Datacut ',' Rivers and Bridges' Kunstradio / ORF, Silvia Keller, Mark + Thomas. Aschenbrenner, Reutte (AT)
1995, 3 Video Signations' Art Pieces / ORF (AT)
1995, Ark 10061 'Danube ship project, Vasicek, Keller, Kahler, M + T.Aschenbrenner, Linz, Vienna, Bratislava