Aram Bartholl (born December 27, 1972, in Bremen, West Germany) is a Berlin-based conceptual artist known for his examination of the relationship between the digital and physical world.

[11] He meticulously examines the implications of digital media and the changes in environment and circumstance that have resulted; he attained global recognition for his seminal work, Map (2006), an installation in public space that bridges the real and virtual worlds.

[17] Keepalive is a permanent outdoor sculpture in Niedersachsen, Germany, commissioned by the Center for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University Lüneburg.

Domenico Quaranta described the work as generating, "...a fiction that ironically locates it in a post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk scenario where humanity has been “kept alive”, the internet is over and power is provided by fire, but also where technologies and pieces of information have survived as digital junk.

Presented as an artwork and preserved as such, it may once turn useful and even essential for a wandering Mad Max to survive, as the only remaining access point to basic information.

The project has expanded exponentially around the world—over 1,400 of them have been placed in dozens of countries, including South Africa, Ghana, Germany, Iran and Russia.

Visitors who found the Dead Drop and inserted a blank DVD-R received a digital art exhibition, a collection of media, or other featured content curated by Bartholl or selected artists.

[23] The series was designed to raise viewers' awareness of the increasing overlap between the virtual and the physical, and to highlight mapping services' influence on perceptions of location.