'When We Were Kings' is a reference to an era that began with the wide-spread adoption of the Internet. It is the celebration of a time that is seemingly coming to a close, when the architecture of the web treated everyday citizens the same as the kings.

Curated and hosted by Aram Bartholl.

• BBC coverage, 2011 (video)

• Speed Show project page (html)
• Opening photos by Aram Bartholl (flickr)
• when-we-were-kings.com screen capture (video)

• When We Were Kings, 2011 (website). A commemorative reconstruction of the original best friend of the bored at work network.

• Inverted HTML , 2011 (browser button). Alters a web page by changing the orientation of all of the comment tags, in effect swapping all that was hidden with all that was visible.

• Domain Seizures, 2011 (website). A looping display of domain names that have been seized through the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations directorate. *** Partially functional

• Bad Ass Mother Fucker, 2011 (website). A looping demonstration of the artist’s current ranking as the number one search result for the term ‘bad ass mother fucker’ on Google.

• Personal Internet Cache Archive Triptych, 2011 (websites). An ongoing study of archived images collected passively through the artist’s everyday Internet usage.

• White Glove, 2011 (website). The motion data of Michael Jackson’s white glove from his landmark 1983 performance of Billy Jean. *** Partially functional

• All HTML, 2011 (website). One sentence contained within every HTML tag in alphabetical order.

• Graffiti Taxonomy, 2011 (website). Analysis of Paris city wide graffiti tags.

• Boxes, Banners & Skyscrapers, 2011 (website). Composition using found Internet advertisements of industry standardized pixel dimensions.

• Banners & Skyscrapers, 2011 (website). Composition using found Internet advertisements of industry standardized pixel dimensions.

• Untitled NSFW No.1, 2011 (website). Formal study using animated gifs and absolute positioning.

• Untitled NSFW No.2, 2011 (website). Formal study using animated gifs and javascript.

• GPL As Subject, 2011 (website). A self reflective open source General Public License

• Alphabetical Order, 2011 (website). Individual graffiti letters are isolated in sequence from a single location.

• Hypnotized By Puffy, 2011 (audio). Puff Daddy’s vocal contribution to The Notorious BIG’s classic rap anthem, Hypnotize.

• URL Performance, 2010

• Inbox Victory, 2010 (collaborative web performance). 1) Answer all of your emails. 2) Open your web cam. 3) Take a screen capture photo in front of your defeated foe.

• Cache Rules Everything Around Me, 2010 (video). Animated gif mashup video collage.

• See You See Me, 2009 (video and .gif). A series of video shots in Airport security results in a collection of x-ray distorted frames as animated gif.

  • channel 1
  • channel 2

• How To Keep Mother Fuckers From Putting Their Seats Back, 2008 (video). Micro intervention on an airplane