[Image: Tomás Saraceno, "Flying Garden," 2006.*] DLD Conference - Public Panels :: January 24, 2011, 5:00 – 9:00 pm :: Hypo Kulturforum, Kardinal- Faulhaber Strasse 1, 80333 München.

5:00 – 6:00 pm — Iconic Turn: The Digital Wunderkammer: Browsing his latest publication “The Digital Wunderkammer - 10 Chapters on the Iconic Turn” publisher Hubert Burda, in conversation with Yale computer scientist David Gelernter, addresses our changing perception and the altering weight of images and visual information in the Digital Age. How did the traditional concept of meaning of an image change through the ages and what has changed today in view of such an increase of digital images? What function do images have in their respective contexts?

6:30 pm – 9:00 pm — Solair Solar and Ever Clouds moderated by Hans Ulrich Obrist: DLD and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Gallery Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects present two interdisciplinary conversation panels. Moderated by Obrist, both panels solidify more than ten speakers to explore cross-sections, bringing together visual arts, architecture, literature, cloud computing, climate engineering and solar technology.

6:30 - 7:30 pm — Hans-Ulrich Obrist- Solair Solar: Stewart Brand (Long Now Foundation), Olafur Eliasson (Artist, Berlin), Bill Gross (Idealab), Frederik Ottesen (SolarFlight), Bertrand Piccard (SolarImpluse), Tino Sehgal (Artist, Berlin).

Independently of each other, the artists Olafur Eliasson and Tino Sehgal started to work on exploring the possibilities of building a solar airplane for the 21st century. Accompanied by Stuart Brand (Whole Earth Catalogue / Long Now Foundation), Bill Gross (Idealab), Bertrand Piccard (SolarImpulse) and Frederik Ottesen (SolarFlight), experts in the latest developments in solar airplane technology, this panel is a call to reality production as new challenge of the 21st century, asking us to go beyond fears of pooling knowledge. SOLAIR SOLAR addresses long-term thinking, setting an intense group of experts within visual arts, sustainable air travel, climate engineering and solar technology solutions in dialogue.

7:30 - 9:00 pm — Hans-Ulrich Obrist- Ever Clouds: Andreas Angelidakis (Architect, Athens), Hubert Damisch (Art historian and Author, Paris), Elisabeth Diller (Diller Scofidio Architects, New York), Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Philosopher), Tetsuo Kondo (Architect, Tokyo), Matthias Schuler (Transsolar Climate Engineering), Tomas Saraceno (Artist, Frankfurt), Werner Vogels (Vice President, Amazon.com) .

EVER CLOUDS bridges the gap, where visual art encounters climate engineering, architecture, philosophy and cloud computing. The ever increasing opportunities of cloud- and mobile computing currently conflate one of the hottest innovation topics dicussed. At the same time, climate engineering becomes a grand issue in architecture. And, what can art history tell us about the cloud of volcanic ash that obscured the sky bringing European air space to a weeklong standstill? The cloud introduced something that has no place in air travel but at the same time is air travel.

DLD Art commission by Cerith Wyn Evans
co-curated by Johannes Fricke Waldthausen and Hans Ulrich Obrist

Putting experiences on stage:

“CWELED4DLD (2011)”, a series of multicoloured, inconsistently programmed LED badges with short message instructions, comments on Twitter’s logic to continually force us to update our reality with 140 characters: by having the badges distributed to the participants during the conference, this work generates a social dimension. Playing with our identity, it invites us to enter into a dialogue. The art of Cerith Wyn Evans puts experiences on stage and radically questions our perception. It could be characterized by its focus on language and perception, as well as a precise, conceptual clarity that is often developed out of the context of the exhibition site or its history.

Cerith Wyn Evans (*1958 in Wales) lives and works in London. His conceptual practice incorporates a wide range of media, including installation works, sculptures, photography, film and text. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions internationally, including the Venice Biennale (1995, 2003 and 2009) and will be in the forthcoming 12th Architectural Biennale 2010), 9th International Istanbul Biennial (2005) and Documenta 11 (2002).

Produced In association with the Institute for the 21st Century

* Installation view Sudeley Castle. Photo by Tomás Saraceno.Courtesy of Tomás Saraceno.