Natalie Bookchin

As a pioneer of Net Art, Natalie Bookchin was already exploring the structures and aesthetics of the Internet in the 1990s. At the time, she used found footage in her video works, as well as material that was specially generated by the Internet community at her request, compiling both to create elaborate audiovisual compositions. She thus reveals not only aesthetic patterns, for instance through self-presentation in YouTube videos, but also the specific forms of Internet communication and the role of digital technology with regard to political and macrosocial processes.

How does the COVID-19 pandemic look from the perspective of home? And how does it sound? This question is posed by Natalie Bookchin in the video piece Geisterspiele (Ghost Games), created specially for Ruhr Ding: Klima. The empty streets and cities have altered the soundscapes of life and have also affected the way we pay attention to everyday sounds—due to the pandemic, people are spending more time than ever at home. In communicating with each other, both in professional life and during our free time, the Internet is currently of central importance. For Geisterspiele, the artist put out an international call for short videos filmed on mobile phones in private living spaces, focusing on domestic sounds and their sources. She compiled this collected material into a comprehensive multichannel video installation with sound, presented on the upper storey of a high-rise in Herne.

Natale Bookchin (b. 1962) lives in New York.