[spectre] Art 36 Basel - RFID - No Borders for Art / We are not the CIA

[Inke Arns]

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Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:40:04 +0200
From: Messe Schweiz <play at ubermorgen.com>
Organization: Messe Schweiz
To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net
Subject: Art 36 Basel - RFID - No Borders for Art / We are not the CIA

Art 36 Basel is making broad use of RFID tags to 
convey information about the individual pieces to 
visitors and to collect and distribute personal 
information about visitors and potential 
customers. At Art 36 Basel, all Dealers can 
monitor their data immediately in real-time via 
the Internet (amount of visitors to their 
gallery, sales of their gallery and other 
galleries, etc.).

"Art 36 Basel wants to be a "test bed" for RFID 
trials involving "consumers". RFID is fine for 
fine art objects, but not for people. We are not 
the CIA" Samuel Keller, Director Art Basel

For Art 36 Basel DELL, SAPAGO, BMW, UBS, BVLGARI, 
UBERMORGEN.COM, SWISS are providing the necessary 
funding, infrastructure and the credibility for 
this revolutionary art, cultural affirmation & 
technlogy project.

Using the Art-FID system from Sapago, the RFIDs 
(Radio Frequency Identification) are attached to 
the art works, and visitors use a pen-shaped tag 
reader in combination with a Dell Axim handheld 
to read a piece's unique ID number and call up 
its information.

While this would be a convenient system on its 
own in that ars gratia ars sort of way, let's 
remember the business end of art and realize 
there's an ulterior motive here - gallery owners 
hope to convert more visitors into customers by 
removing the often uncomfortable act of having to 
ask curators or staff about pricing.

Additionally a dynamic pricing system can be 
established, customized prices for the buyers 
depending on the financial situation and the 
buying power of the client. So visually spoken, 
the client walks through the exhibition and the 
prices will change only for his eyes, customized 
to his financial capabilities.

Globally spoken, RFID technology is gaining 
momentum, enabling galleries and museums to track 
assets and view supply-chain information from 
data transmitted via radio waves from antennas on 
chips affixed to artworks.

With this project, Art 36 Basel also aims to 
bring an experience of new digital art (media 
art, net.art) to the art fair and to the 
galleries, collectors and it's visitors. Again 
the avantgarde of digital art [UBERMORGEN.COM] is 
used as a testing facility and the net.art scene 
is used as ground-breaker for this technology. 
The idea is to use the art community to soft 
launch consumer critical RFID activities and 
sedate public awarness.

It's time to ask Art Basel if there's a tag in your bag.



Art Basel Media Information is available under:

Art Basel, Communication, Peter Vetsch, Marlen Melone oder
Nathalie Riggenbach, CH-4005 Basel, Tel. +41 58 200 20 20,
Fax +41 58 206 31 30, 
<mailto:info at ArtBasel.com>info at ArtBasel.com, 
<http://www.ArtBasel.com>www.ArtBasel.com


For digital avantgarde, negative affirmation & media hacking contact:

UBERMORGEN.COM, Hans Bernhard, lizvlx
+43 650 930 00 61, 
<mailto:officeR at ubermorgen.com>officeR at ubermorgen.com, 
<http://www.ubermorgen.com>www.ubermorgen.com




Related Events

special guest Liste 05
UBERMORGEN.COM [Plug.in]
Warteck, Burgweg 15, Basel
June 14th through June 19th
"[F]originals - Authenticity as consensual hallucination
ART FID - RFID"

Exhibition
"[F]originals - Authenticity as consensual hallucination"
BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR
<http://www.ipnic.org/BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR>http://www.ipnic.org/BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR
[Plug.in] Media Gallery
St. Alban-Rheinweg 64, 4052 Basel
June 10th through July 3rd

Panel
"A radical net.art project and it's desire for the art market"
[Plug.in], St. Alban-Rheinweg 64, 4052 Basel
June 17th 2005, 12am
with Hans Bernhard and lizvlx [UBERMORGEN.COM]
Inke Arns (artistic director Hartware Dortmund)
Jacob Lillemose (critic/curator Artnode, Copenhagen)
and Susanne Ackers ([plug.in]/Hartware)


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