John Bock (AURAAROMA-O-BEULE)

Meaningfully meaningless. The augmented reality book for John Bock John Bock (b. 1965 in Gribbohm, lives in Berlin) is one of the most important contemporary performance and video artists. In his works characterized by humor and absurdity, the artist places language, human bodies, everyday objects, and spaces in peculiar relationships to each other. He attained international recognition with the installation LiquidityAuraAromaPortfolio at the first Berlin Biennale in 1998. Together with his work Voll die Beule from 2013, it is now included in the collection of the Kunsthalle Mannheim. The present volume not only contextualizes and documents John Bock’s work, but also immerses the viewer/reader directly in his performances. When a selected page is brought into focus with the new edition-cantz app, the image begins to move. The first edition cantz book with augmented reality, in which the artist’s head emerges and a filled rubber glove leaks out over the page. A completely new approach to the works of John Bock. The publication is packaged in a sock designed by the artist and includes a foreword by Johan Holten, a preface by Ulrike Widmaier Picasso and contributions by Sebastian Baden, Jens Hoffmann, Antonella Bianca Meloni, and Marianne Wagner & Till Wyler von Ballmoos. John Bock studied at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and since 2004 has taught at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe as Professor of Sculpture. He has participated in the Biennale di Venezia, and his works have been featured worldwide in solo exhibitions at, among others, the Berlinische Galerie, the Contemporary Austin, Texas, the Barbican Centre, London, and the Städel Museum, Frankfurt.