HACKTIVISM(S) What is hacktivism? The artist as hacker in the digital age / Digital Avant-garde, Artistic Agency, and the Reconnection to Meaningful Networks Interview with Alessandro Ludovico / Want to know more about it? Our anthology on Hacktivism / Danae’s cultural agenda Selected exhibitions to experience
Danae · Issue n°1 January 2021 As a network for artists, curators and collectors of digital art, Danae’s mission is to discover and commit in today’s digital avant-garde. Danae’s new Magazine presents thematic overviews on contemporary digital art practices.
About the current issue:
We share our insights on contemporary hacktivism, we review some classic writings about art and hacking, we interview Alessandro Ludovico (former hacktivist and media critic), and we explore some on and offline artistic events.
In adverse but interesting times, the digital evolution and revolution increasingly embodies social and political struggles. For this reason, the marriage between art and computer piracy is both an aesthetic practice and socio-political statement. We are talking about Hacktivism(s), plural and mutant practices which share the same will to face counterfactual realities. How do today’s practices of artistic hacking assume legitimacy in an on and offline art world? Hacking, as a practice with a modern form and ancient values, as the spearhead of network (sub)culture, demands this very legitimacy.
DANAE
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06What is hacktivism ? 18Interview with Alessandro Ludovico 28 38Danae’s cultural agenda Want to know more about it ?
Artist as hacker in the digital age Digital Avant-garde, Artistic Agency, and the Our anthology on hacktivism Selected exhibitions to experience this month Reconnection to Meaningful Networks Today, the Internet is an extremely fertile ground for the proliferation of new agents and new forms of artistic production. cktivism HacktivismOn the other hand, the Net is quiet of a Hack- Ha challenging environment, full of politi- cal, economic, and social controversies. For this reason, the Web from its most embryonic stages has been cross and tivism Hacktivismdelight for artists and researchersHacktivism who investigate its forms and functions, in strokes of codes and pixels. The Internet as a device for cultural creation and diffu- Hacktivism Hacktivismsion is evolving, in an exponential, acce- Hack- lerated and inconstant way, artists on the Net have to build their legitimacy around a cloud made of bigger and bigger data. tivism Hacktivism As an art critic and curator Hacktivism Domeni- co Quaranta would say, « Art is the first to envision the change and the last to change »1. If, on the one hand, the artist Hacktivism Hacktivismholds, now more than ever, the responsi- What is bility to face the mutations proper to the digital world, his role does not change: the artist questions contemporary codes, Hacktivism Hacktivismhe appropriates and reinvents them. He Hack- becomes a collagist of the virtual, a re- hacktivism mixer of cultures, an honest plagiarist by profession. In this perspective, the figure tivism Hacktivismof the artist is associated with that ofHacktivism the hacker.
This article wants to evoke some key no- Hacktivism desHacktivism of the link between art and computer Hack- piracy as aesthetic practice and socio-po- litical statement, proposing a contempo- rary rereading of some examples of net tivism Hacktivismhacktivism from the 90s to now. Hacktivism How do today’s practices of artis- tic hacking assume legitimacy in an on and offline art world? Hacking, as Hacktivisma practice Hacktivism with a modern form and Hack- ancient values, as the spearhead of network (sub)culture, demands this The artist as hacker in the digital age, by Angelica Ceccato tivism Hacktivismvery legitimacy. Hacktivism Hacktivism Hacktivism Hackti- vism Hacktivism Hacktivism Hack- tivism Hacktivism Hacktivism Hacktivism A hacker is in its current conception In this sense, as the Dutch theorist Flo- a computer scientist capable of fin- rian Cramer, says, it is possible to speak ding unconventional - and often ille- of poetry, elegance in programming gal - solutions to infiltrate software but, above all, in hacking. According to or the Web. Artists who deal with sof- Cramer, «a ‘hack’ describes this very ac- tware and Net.art often behave like tivity itself, be it as a trick or deception, as social hackers, in the sense that they an efficacious, but conceptually unclean overturn the semiological structure of intervention (...), or as a solution that is commonly used technological devices, at once ingeniously simple and elegant, with consequences on their social use. absorbing an abundance of issues in the densest possible form»2. For Cramer, a hack is like a Trojan horse: an inge- nious, simple, and elegant solution that condenses problems and solves them.
Hackers, philosophers, Thomas Webb, Depressed Twitter, website, 2019, courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE Ber- lin, London, Tokyo and navigators
On the other hand, the hacker is the so- Piracy, plagiarism, and theft of content the Spirit of the Information Age»4. Mo- phist, a philosopher of persuasion who as an artistic statement is as subversive reover, the artist as a hacker inherits his deceives and/or convinces by combining as it is classical and derives from a tra- mainspring from the figure of the pirate, the elegance of logical construction with dition of appropriation, détournement, who, even before being a copyright thief, the rhetorical force of the Latin stupor. and ready-made that goes back at least is by his etymological nature an explo- Cramer argues that «In the Renaissance, a hundred years from now. In this sense, rer, the one who attempts, assaults, and, ‘stupor’ became a crucial term for the the artist as a Net-hacktivist plays with above all, navigates. The architecture of rhetoric and poetics of ‘acumen’, that is, a the web, with his interface design, with the web and its interface stubbornly use wit driven by ingenium. While seventeen- the construction of alternative scenarios the metaphor of maritime navigation: the th-century theory was still conceived of where (almost) everything is allowed. In web route is cybernetic (κυβερνητικός, ingenium as engineering, something that, this context, the verb ‘play’ is more re- kubernētikós, means ‘good pilot’, ‘good like all rhetoric, could be taught by ins- levant than ever, since playing means navigator’), and the icon of the Safari truction, 100 years later the term mutated inventiveness, lightness, and passion browser is a blue compass. In the me- into the romanticist ‘genius’, which could in artists’ serious game. Playing is a ne- taphor of the maritime navigation, the no longer be learned but was a gift of na- cessary condition for hacker ethics, as hacker artist claims possession of the ture. What happens then if hackers be- the Finnish philosopher Pekka Hima- rudder. 3 came the new role model of the artist?» . nen explains in «The Hacker Ethic and
2Cramer Florian, Anti-Media, Rotterdam, Nai Uitge- 1Quaranta, Domenico. In Your Computer: Or How I vers Pub, 2013, p. 221 Learned to Love the Art That Comes to You through 3Ibid. 3 Your Computer Screen, and Why You Should Learn to 4Himanen, Pekka. The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of Love It as Well. Brescia: LINK, 2011, p.5.
What is hacktivism the Information Age. London: Vintage, 2001. Jonas Lund, Curated By Jonas Lund’s work involves a reversal of traditional curatorial practices. The artist submits the documen- tation of museums and art institutions to Google’s automatic search. As an anti-curator, Lund appro- priates the contradictions and clashes of networking artistic documentation.
Jonas Lund, Curated By, Video, 2013, 2:10 min (still), courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE Berlin, London, Tokyo. The 90s are a key moment for the history of information technology as well as for art history. New forms of archiving emerge that are increasingly compact, performing, and accessible to the general public, and with them new forms of production and consumption. New sounds and new images circulate on CDs, cassettes, on the first laptops, and it is these same ad- vances in communication (in its efficiency and speed) that feed a post-modern artistic pano- rama: the primordial broth of internet-based art.
Among the pioneer artists of Net.art we How did we get find for example Russian artist Olia Lia- lina, her husband Dragan Espenschied, Net.art pioneer Alexei Shulgin, and the here? Aram Bartholl, Sad By Design, 2019, Gif, Performative Sculpture, Wood, Paper, Fire, HD artistic duo JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Video, 4 x2,7 x 1,2, courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE Berlin, London, Tokyo Dirk Paesmans). These artists share the Hacking heritage trend towards an aesthetic that digs into the newborn potential of website creation from the 90s and questions the aesthetic and narrative The first generation of hacktivists address, a website, and a phone 6 potential of interface design. A trend that, has a cyberpunk imprint, both tech- number (Female extension, 1997 ). moreover, often leads to strident audiovi- no-enthusiastic and techno-critical, She entered each of these fake ar- sual scenarios, full of bugs clicks so dear but also, and above all, feminist. tists in the competition by submit- to glitch aesthetics. In particular, JODI’s The web immediately becomes ting for each one a work of art au- works remix the visual codes proper to the insidious but fertile ground to tomatically generated by a software web interfaces by staging improbable, claim socio-political struggles and program that the artist will then 7 destabilizing hypertext paths, where the ideal playground for Donna Ha- develop for her Net art generator . commands cause errors and frightening raway’s artistic daughters. The cy- Sollfrank is delightfully surprised (though harmless) dysfunctions. One of berfeminist imprint of hacktivism by the results: no female winner their ongoing project (from 2008) takes is affirmed thanks to artists and among the three finalists, but a its name from the concept of «Folkso- researchers like Cornelia Sollfrank, huge media chaos around the fe- nomy», a cataloging system based on and Tatiana Bazzicchelli (founder male majority in the show. Those of social tagging and proposes a sort of of AHA, Activism, Hacktivism, Arti- Cornelia Sollfrank is a classic exa- 5 live juke-box in which artists manipulate vism, 2001 ). How do artists hack a mple, but still the world of art and found footage found on youtube, crea- both technical and institutional gen- technology does not seem to often ting an audiovisual montage sometimes der gap? wear skirts. Since gender equality strident and cacophonic, symptom of in digital society is not guaranteed, visual distortion, forced and psychede- In 1997, the Hamburger Kunsthalle activists, hacktivists and artivists lic. In reality, aesthetic unpleasantness announced the first Net Art Exten- invent counter-histories dripped in plays a fundamental role in the process sion design competition. Sollfrank feminism, embodiments of the (dis- of visual construction. The disproportio- simulates the registration of 289 regarded) utopia of cyberspace at nate, disproportionate, de-hierarchized female net-artists, assigning each least a little more egalitarian. (and therefore, ‘folksonomic’) amount of one a name, a nationality, an email visual material on the web, can certainly not be summarized in a placid narrative 5http://www.ecn.org/aha/English/index_en.htm 6http://www.artwarez.org/femext/index.html with pastel tones. At least, not for JODI. 7 What is hacktivism http://net.art-generator.com What now ?
In the last 20 years, the Internet became Since 2018, the artistic collective DISNOVA- Screenshot of JODI’s errant website. Available at http://map.jodi.org more and more important for social and eco- TION.ORG has been working on a project en- nomical exchanges, and the web became a titled Profiling The Profilers8, which proposes (hyper)object of global data exchange more a reversal of the policy of micro-profilation As visibility in the internet age detains at least cial, cross-gendered, and, more importantly, than actual material goods. by the big tech-companies (GAFAM: Google, as much power as secrecy, many artists focus resistant to surveillance. Shu Lea Cheang’s pri- Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft; NATU: their interest on cyber-surveillance or, as Eric sons embody a new, unsettling the vocabulary Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla, Uber; BATX: Baidu, Ali- Sadin would describe it “data-panopticism”9, of ancient and modern criminology, to create baba, Tencent, Xiaomi). The user profiling sys- overturning the paradigms of who’s watched a queer and anti-colonial counter-history, in tem, which normally occurs through the deca- and who’s watching (and why). At the 58th Ve- which the very concept of truth is subject to pitation of patterns and correlations between nice Biennale, Net.artist Shu Lea Cheang pre- the laws of digital. Cheang’s hacking practice elements of large databases (behaviors, affilia- sents 3x3x6, an interactive and site-specific deals with surveillance, image property, and tions, connections based on clicks and likes), installation curated by Paul B. Preciado and the redefinition of roles, genders, and mecha- is overturned and used on the same profiler staging the rooms of the Palazzo delle Prigioni nisms in the information society. Where online agents thanks to the extraction and analysis as a hyper-surveilled space. The Taiwanese ar- identity is multiple and fragmented, the artist of hidden correlations from publicly available tist and director is, among other things, a Net. affirms the need to subvert today’s network big datasets (ie. Wikipedia). In this way, their art pioneer, a veteran hacktivist, and queen paradigms. In this sense, Cheang investigates custom-made algorithm allows graphical vi- of the Kingdom of Piracy
9 Sadin Éric, La vie algorithmique (Algorithmic Life. Critique of Digital Reasoning). Paris: L’échapée, 2015 8 10http://www.mauvaiscontact.info/kop/html/index.html What is hacktivism http://profilingtheprofilers.com The web has been from his birth the playground of artists who experiment by appropriating the visual and conceptual codes proper to the world of the Internet, deconstructing and reassembling DISNOVATION.ORG & Baruch Gottlieb, Solar Share (The Farm), 2020, installation, 1m2 of automated cultivation, LED grow lights, camera, video streaming. Courtesy of DIS- them according to new and NOVATION.ORG and iMAL provocative configurations.
The artists as hacktivists are, yesterday and today, the cursed poets of Html language, the creators of distorted narratives in binary code, the thieves who are not always gentlemen, the navigators, and the cultural remixers. In this sense their aesthetic action becomes political, ques- tioning the pre-existing hierarchies of power, which in the web correspond to dates but also their exposure (or se- crecy). Hacking as an artistic practice turns out to be a tool at the same time docile and subversive, and probably the aim of these Davids is not to defeat a Goliath but to tease its weak points and highlight its dysfunctions, its dis-no- vations, appropriating a virtual space, space where the artist has the legitimate responsibility to use, create, dis- cuss, invent.
DISNOVATION.ORG & Baruch Gottlieb, Energy Slave Token (Human Labor To Fossil Fuel Conversion Units), 2020, installation; series of 5 standard weights; poster; 3D video. Courtesy of DISNOVATION.ORG and iMAL What is hacktivism Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Digital Avant-garde, Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico Artistic Agency, and the Reconnection to Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Meaningful Networks Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico
Interview with Alessandro Ludovico, by Angelica Ceccato Alessandro Ludovico [AC] This year is the 27th anniversary of Neural, how do you feel about the evolution of digital culture from the 90s until today? What changed the most?
[AL] Well, it’s a long trajectory, quite difficult to sum- marize in a single answer... Let’s say that the world has radically changed since then, and we have beco- me increasingly dependent on digital technologies and networks up to the point that they are an unavoidable Alessandro Ludovico is a media theorist part of our essential living infrastructure. Digital culture has evolved accordingly, from the 90s internet avant- and editor-in-chief of Neural, a printed garde to the current faster-than-ever changing tech- nical and economic environments. To shorten a long magazine established in 1993 dealing a way more articulated process I think that we have with new media art, electronic music and shifted the focus from the early technical to the digi- tal as a medium, till now when, luckily, the ethical has hacktivism. started to play a crucial role. With Neural we have tried to reflect what the critical part of digital art and culture has produced over the years in a printed magazine, apparently with some results. We have accomplished to print it with zero public funding in 27 years, still ex- perimenting with the paper medium.
Besides being a renowned professor (at the Willem De Kooning Academy of Art in [AC] Now that social media are often used as a pu- Rotterdam, at the University of Bari, at the blishing platform, are we still living in a “post-digi- NABA Academy in Milan, at the Fine Arts tal” era? Academy of Ferrara, at the Parson Paris New School, at the Ontario College of Art [AL] Actually, in my humble opinion, social media have & Design University, and now at the Uni- determined the transition to a post-digital environment, versity of Southampton), Ludovico has where notifications seem more ‘real’ than the chat also published some fundamental writings we’re having in person with another human being. about post-digital publishing (Post-Digital Social media have literally revolutionized public com- Print: the mutation of publishing since 1894, munication (and so publishing) at least as much as the Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2012), and he is internet infrastructure. Although I highly respect those one of the authors of the award-winning « who exclude themselves from these platforms, it is im- Hacking Monopolism » trilogy of artworks possible to understand and elaborate about contem- (Google Will Eat Itself, 2005; Amazon Noir, poraneity without actively participating and studying 2006; Face to Facebook, 2011). social media and their imposed mechanisms. They As a pioneer in research around digi- have assumed such a crucial role for personal commu- tal culture and a veteran hacktivist, he has nication at so many levels (including intimate, social, answered some questions about, among and work-related) that is hard to imagine to comple- other things, new and old ways of artistic tely exclude ourselves from them. And the pandemic production and publication, and artistic has just strengthened this position even more. The responsibility facing today’s pervasive pre- constant amateur and professional nano-publishing in sence of new media. Here are his precious, the form of posts has just multiplied the previous me-
Interview with Alessandro Ludovico Interview with Alessandro generous and thorough perspectives. diascape several times. [AC] Lots of things evolved in digital culture from “I think that the current main threat to your collaboration with Paolo Cirio and UBER- authorship is actually coming from the fakes, MORGEN, do you still feel like a hacktivist? both the machine-based, increasingly realistic, [AL] Hacktivism, as the merge of hacker and acti- vism in a single word, has been in the subtitle of and the human-based, increasingly heinous Neural magazine for quite a long time, because it well-rendered our closeness to the most informed in creating plausible, but completely fake and political hacker culture. The ‘Hacking Monopo- lism’ trilogy of artworks with Paolo Cirio was evin- ‘publications’. Artists have already started cing our attitude to manipulate online giants (Goo- to play with fakes, the manipulability of gle, Amazon, Facebook) with conceptual ideas and technical skills. digital information, and its impact on a global But definitions, like hacktivism, are related to spe- cific contexts and specific times. At the moment audience” I’m as critical as ever, and although I can still re- late myself to the ‘hacktivist’ concept, I think that I would need different words to define this condition in contemporaneity.
[AC] Who are today’s net-pirates? Do you think they gained more responsibility now that (almost) everybody’s online? [AC] Do you think online publishing puts in dan- ger the traditional ideas of authorship and artistic [AL] It depends on what you exactly mean by ‘net-pi- agency? rates’, but in any case, practices which are at the edge of internet rules, or exploiting the legal level to [AL] Online publishing has quite different meanings, allow actions or interventions are still enacted, al- indeed. For example, the paywalled major news- though compared to the past, they have to be enor- papers’ publishing, coupled with free articles, is not mously more subtle than in the past. And I agree, really putting in danger the concept of authorship. they have a higher responsibility because the user But the digital information is infinitely replicable and mass has become huge. modifiable. So the diffusion of digital publications is not per se a guarantee of their authorship unless we can very much trust the hosting platform. I think that the current main threat to authorship is actually coming from the fakes, both the ma- chine-based, increasingly realistic, and the hu- “At the moment I’m as critical as ever, and man-based, increasingly heinous in creating plau- sible, but completely fake ‘publications’. Artists although I can still relate myself to the have already started to play with fakes, the manipu- lability of digital information, and its impact on a glo- ‘hacktivist’ concept, I think that I would need bal audience. Having proper political artworks (like ‘Spectre’ by Bill Posters and Daniel Howe) challen- different words to define this condition in ging the trust in online publishing will surely help to contemporaneity” maintain what you define as ‘artistic agency’. Interview with Alessandro Ludovico Interview with Alessandro [AC] Most net.art and hacktivism practices [AC] From an aesthetic point of view, have proudly been part of counterculture low-quality elements, DIY practices, glitchy and expressions of anti-institutionality. How images, and Html language, have always does this claim of independence and expe- characterized anti-institutional and inde- rimentation manifest itself today? pendent art forms. Is the paradigm “low- tech = avanguardia” still valid? [AL] Today there’s a fraction of the counter- culture it used to be for one simple reason: [AL] ‘Low-tech’ was initially a term used to it is increasingly difficult to define and be define a specific aesthetics in pop music, but acknowledged about what it is being ‘counter’ it has been adopted by other cultural fields. Alessandro Ludovico, Post-Digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing since 1894, Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2012 to something else. Institutions of all kinds have Recently low-tech has been appropriated started to have policies and communication by communication science, including glitchy which sounds more ‘counter’ than ‘establish- images used in major advertising campaigns. ment’. And the ‘counter’ condition has been So I guess that this equation is not valid any- appropriated at all levels, including right-wing more, but the value of low-tech per se (the use groups, and more in general by a lot of people of cheap technical means, with inspired sym- [AC] Do you think online information is us about how digital information can be who have realized that they can have a micro bolic use) is directly manifesting the machines more “free” from censorship than tra- trivially but infinitely modified and so ma- audience on social media. Furthermore, we behind the production, providing a level of in- ditional types of publication ways? Is nipulated. There is a lot of misinforma- probably need institutions now more than ever, terpretation which is not possible in the same the digitization of information feeding tion, let’s just think about Trump tweets, to defend cultural and social rights in our so- way in other works. or neutralizing online censorship? and we lack even the time to react, that ciety. there’s already more. The problem is still Nonetheless, there are plenty of artists who [AL] There’s a historical and a technical in the lack of time to understand: there’s are still using subverting, or critical strategies. perspective. The historical is that ‘digi- no time to manually filter, no time to It manifests in playing with the harsh contradic- tizing’ guarantees an immediate global deepen the information, or even to read tions of our relationship with technologies, like availability, as the WikiLeaks platform beyond the titles, and there’s no time to pretending to forget about the environmental proves. And as it was with the latter, the do the main action: check the sources. impact of our dependence on digital devices trust of sources would make the diffe- On one hand, digitization grants access, and infrastructure, or namely caring a lot about rence in contrasting censorship even at which is a positive quality in general, privacy, but giving up any sensitive data for ba- the highest level (although in that speci- on the other hand, it enables an uncon- nal games on social media. fic case, the system and its impact be- trollable spreading and often polarizing, Artists like Disnovation.org, !Mediengruppe came way more complicated). The pro- which triggers conflicts. The main com- Bitnik, Ben Grosser, Joana Moll, Shulea blem with living in a single instantaneous pass should be to reclaim the time to Cheang, Dasha Ilina and Vladan Joler (just to time is that digitalization and its imme- think and to discern, selecting reliable mention a few among many many others) are diate access are felt as truth even when sources, and avoiding those constantly addressing these contradictions with mea- they are not because they have the form and globally competing for our attention. ningful works not necessarily being anti-insti- and aesthetics of what we used to trust. tutional, but often opening the wounds of our But the technical perspective instructs Interview with Alessandro Ludovico Interview with Alessandro incoherent behaviours. Interview with Alessandro Ludovico practices” and facilitatealternative surely havethepowertodebunkdictates smaller networks.Artisticmethodologies of ourfriends/followerstobuildmeaningful popularity, andembracingthescalingdown networks, abandoningtheobsessionofmicro- “I wouldfostertheideaof(re)building ourown cilitate alternative practices. cilitate alternative surely have the power to debunk the dictates and fa- methodologies Artistic networks. smaller meaningful cing thescalingdown ofourfriends/followerstobuild doning theobsession of micro-popularity, andembra- foster the idea of (re)building our own networks, aban- would proximityI physical dangerous.sense is this In is to re-connect with people we can’t meet, as the And especiallywhatisvastlyneededatthe moment not succumb tothebigdigitalcorporations’dictates. would which methodologies, working different gle integratedplatforms,itwouldbegood to devise Microsoftup give to institutions the convince Goo- or to hard is it accordingly.if act Even and mechanisms the understand to is need would we ever.What than especially duringthispandemicitismore present [AL] I think that new media is just everywhere, and think arthassomepowerinthissense? awareness around thenewmediatoday?Doyou [AC] Whatdoyouthinkisfundamentalinbuilding people” the creation oftheirown networkoftrusted invest inthemedium-longterm,through becoming temporary‘stars’andinsteadto “I wouldequallyadvisetoforget aboutquickly issues publishedin2021. be new artists’ interventions in at least some of the There’ll issues. Neural new on working I’m always as And 2022. in possibly, out, be should and Print gital writing anewbook,whichiscontinuationof Post-Di- I’m Furthermore, moment. the at suspended porarily discouraging social meetings, so thelatter are tem- to makeTemporary Libraries, butthepandemicis [AL] I’mcontinuingtoworkontheNeuralArchive and king onyouwouldliketoshare withus? [AC] Isthere someparticularproject youare wor to beandremain sustainable. ly improve theproduced artwouldprobably helpthem fromlearn experiencedpeopleandtoaimconstant- to able Being gallerists. and journalists, consultants, people: fellowartists,curators,researchers, technical through the creation of their own network of trusted ‘stars’ andinsteadtoinvestinthemedium-longterm, advise to forget about quickly becoming temporary equally would I Furthermore, difference. big a make lity andresearch behindtheproduced art,whichcan [AL] I would advise especially to care about the qua- media artistorresearcher? [AC] Whatadvicewouldyougivetoanemerging Thank you verymuch! - In the post-digital and internet- aware era, the cultural palimpsest in its networked dimension of images, words, ideas quantified and put online, becomes the rich repertoire for many artists, engineers, and activists of post-modernity. In this context, a hacker is an anti-net-surfer who seeks unconventional solutions Want to and exits from the pre-established routes of the web. We have selected know a series of texts that deal with the more figure of the hacker as an artist, and vice versa, drawing what is still about it ? current in hack-tivistic practices. The hacktivists’ philosophy does not accept historicisms or reductions to linear storytellings, nevertheless here is our Net-anthological selection: a playlist of classical insights on hacker
Our anthology on Hacktivism culture. “The first guiding value in hacker life is passion, that is, some intrinsically interesting pursuit that energizes the hacker and contains joy in its realization”
The philosophical geek
The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the In- The Finnish philosopher Pekka Himanen formation Age, by Pekka Himanen, London: elaborates a manual of nethics, mapping the Vintage, 2001 relationships between ethics and technological development, and taking as reference the figure of the hacker. The manual, introduced by the inventor of Linux, Linus Torvalds, and commented by the author of “The Information Age”, Manuel Castells, presents three fundamental axes for the construction of hacker ethics: work ethics, money ethics, and net-hics. Himanen repeatedly analyzes the similarities between Protestant ethics and capitalist economics, as well as the consequences of hacker inscription in a world where ‘time is money’. In this sense, hacking would correspond to a creative alternative that questions the dominant Protestant ethics and which is impregnated with the architecture of information on the net. From this point of view, Himanen places the hacker in a grey and hybrid zone between work and leisure, between Friday and Sunday, suggesting that free creativity is both a The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age responsibility and a pleasure and that hacking is a serious game, even today, in vibrant by Pekka Himanen evolution. Our anthology on hacktivism “There is no way around it: whatever is digital is copyable and can be manipulated by whomever gets possession of it”
The net-art curator
Collect the WWWorld. In “Collect the WWWorld. The writer and curator Gene McHugh, The Artist as Archivist Artist as Archivist in the Internet and senior editor of Rhizome in the Internet Age by Age”, theorist and curator Joanne McNeil. A second part Domenico Quaranta Domenico Quaranta curates a of the book is dedicated to the (Brescia: LINK Editions, review of reflections on the artist presentation of 25 collectors: 2011) as an accumulator, cataloguer, artists and art collectives who remixer of online cultural material. are masters in the appropriation, The artist online in the Internet Age collection, and détournement faces a new dimension of memory of online codes and cultures. - quantified, dematerialized, if Among them, we find artists such not eternal subject to the law of as Cory Arcangel, Petra Cortright, obsolescence of its own support Eva & Franco Mattes, and other devices. The fact that the artist/ cultural net-appropriators. archivist’s tendency towards documentation explodes Now that post-internet culture simultaneously with the massive is fermenting and accelerating, adoption of computers and are forms of storage, human and the Internet by consumers is digital memory compatible? Are no coincidence for Quaranta. they, today, complementary or On the contrary, the internet contradictory? world of professional-amateurs, collectors, and image recyclers is a symptom of accessibility to the net and, with it, all its contents. Collect the WWWorld. The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age The author collects in his book the writings of art critic and by Domenico Quaranta theorist Josephine Bosma, art “In both anti-art and anti-media, a love/hate relationship is undeniably at work. And both perhaps signify twentieth-century nostalgia, since the notion of creative industries may be about to make both terms obsolete”
The anti-sociologist
Anti-media: ephemera on speculative arts by Florian Cramer is a practice-oriented theorist Florian Cramer (Rotterdam: New York, NY: whose research deals with new communication nai010 publishers, 2013) technologies and their cultural impact. Cramer states that if there is anti-art and counter- culture, there are also anti-media, in which everything is changeable, speculative, and often provocative. The author defines his speech in four parts that follow the structure of the book title: Anti, Ephemera, Speculative, Arts. Cramer’s text, with its personal but always skilled style, proposes a sociological investigation of his contemporary artistic production, always imbued with a magma of data and pixels, where computer engineering is also socio-cultural engineering. Cramer’s online cultural actor is put into perspective concerning pop culture, as well as folk culture, contesting the fact that the universality of language, even if computerized, is not possible (and perhaps not even desirable). In this sense, anti-media (appropriation, speculation, theft, remix, etc.) call into question the alleged neutrality of technology as a means of creation Anti-media: ephemera on speculative arts and socio-cultural sharing. by Florian Cramer Our anthology on hacktivism “This book could not have been made without the help of: street vendors, photocopiers, bootleg recordings, double cassette decks, cracktros, .nfo files, VHS recorders, CD burners, scanners, BBS, copy parties, game copiers, Warez, keygens, Napster, eDonkey, Soulseek, The Pirate Bay, UbuWeb, Library Genesis, Karagarga, Megaupload, FilesTube, and many more…”
The worldwide net-surfer
THE PIRATE BOOK by Nicolas Maigret & Ma- The pirate book by Nicolas Maigret and Maria ria Roszkowska (Ljubljana: Aksioma; Clichy: Roszkowska is not an online pirating manual, Pavillon Vendôme Art Center, 2015) nor a hymn to computer anarchy, but a logbook for explorers, researchers, net-surfers, and, therefore, pirates. The book, introduced by art theorist and curator Marie Lechner, collects multiple stories that include research from multiple environments and then shows us a kaleidoscope of perspectives on the world of hacking. The publishers propose historical, internal, industrial, and geographical perspectives, as well as an opening to new research projects and artistic speculation. The collection highlights THE PIRATE BOOK a dimension of hacking that has a strong link with the serendipity of knowing how to arrange, by Nicolas Maigret & Maria Roszkowska DIY, and informal sharing of resources. Which pirates do we need today? This year has so far been a moment of extreme cultural proliferation online and we witness, now more than ever, the birth of new forms of aesthetic experience, increasingly Danae’s linked to the presence of nodes, meetings, and clashes on the Web. The figure of the artist vanishes cultural only apparently, and cultural agenda institutions, museums, art workers become of crucial importance in the construction of a new, conscious, network culture. Take a peek at our selection!
Selected exhibitions to experience this month From Monet to Kandinsky, Revolutionary Art
The immersive masterpiece
Exhibition view: From Monet to Kandinsky, Revolutionary Art. Courtesy of Theatre of Digital Art (ToDA, Dubai) Where? At the ToDA, in Souk The Dubai art scene opens the doors to a new Madinat Jumeirah (Dubai). immersive exhibition in the heart of the Souk When? From October 13th, 2020. Madinat Jumeirah. This is the new project of the Theatre of Digital Art (ToDA) Dubai, inau- gurated last October 13th, in which European digital production house Vision Multimedia Projects stages nine masterpieces by the great masters of modern art history From Monet to Kandinsky, as the title of the exhibition states. The exhibition includes 1800 m2 of visual and sound effects, interactive and VR experiences, which accompany the visitor to a place of exhi- larating creativity and unimaginable proximity to the most famous paintings in the history of art. Who has never dreamed of diving into Mo- net’s “Water Lilies” or the colorful geometries of Delaunay’s paintings? The ToDA transports us to another time where we can relive with new eyes the richness of our great modern heritage. The visitor also becomes an observer and ac- complice of the creative act and can access the studio of artists Goncharova and Malevich and right inside of Edvard Munch’s mysterious painting «The Scream» and «Morning in a Pine Forest» by Ivan Shishkin, recreated with meti- Exhibition view: From Monet to Kandinsky, Revolutionary Art. Courtesy of culous care for full virtual immersion.
Selected exhibitions to experience Theatre of Digital Art (ToDA, Dubai) Moon Poetics 4 Courageous Earth Critters and Dangerous Day Dreamers
The day-dreaming experience
Where? At Remai Modern and from The Remai Modern Museum in Saskatoon (Canada) March 2021 at Leeds Art Gallery. opened on October 28th the exhibition dedicated to When? Until February 21st, 2021, the kaleidoscopic multimedia artist Zadie Xa, entitled and from March 2021. “Moon Poetics 4 Courageous Earth Critters and Dange- What can I see from home? You rous Day Dreamers”. Zadie Xa, heir to the Korean dias- can experience the sound interactive pora, experiments through her performances, videos, installation at www.assembly2020.co. paintings, and couture, creating delicately smoky nar- ratives at the meeting between folklore and pop, past and future traditions. At the Remai Modern Museul, the artist produces an immersive installation in which lights, sounds, and sculptures narrate a journey through multi- ple dimensions. Zadie Xa borrows the Korean legend of Princess Bari, who sets off in search of miraculous wa- ter able to save her parents’ lives together with five gui- Zadie Xa and Benito Mayor Vallejo, Moon Poetics 4 Courageous Earth Critters and Dangerous Day Dreamers, ding characters (Conch, Orca, Seagull, Cabbage, and 2020, digital collage. Courtesy of the artists Fox). How is it possible to rethink cohabitation on Earth, where anthropocentrism and traditional narratives are not enough to avoid extinction? The answer of Zaxie Xa is made of shamanic wisdom and soft synthesizer sounds, the metonymy of a remote but unforgettable past and a future to a new human, animal, terrestrial kinship. To have a taste of Zadie Xa’s dreamy universe you can discover the sound component of the work, available on an interactive web-platform at www.as- sembly2020.co. Selected exhibitions to experience Post Growth
The ecological insight
Where? At iMal Art Center for Digital «Post Growth is an invitation to a collective and practical Cultures. examination of the future of life on the planet, the notion When? From September 3rd, 2020 of growth in all its facets and implications, the limits of DISNOVATION.ORG & Clémence Seurat, Post Growth Toolkits (The Interviews), 2020, Digital video with sound. to January 17th, 2021. technology, of politics and of our imaginations.» Courtesy of DISNOVATION.ORG and iMAL What can I see from home? The Post Growth Toolkit and the Post-Growth is an exhibition by DISNOVATION.ORG Post Growth interviews at http:// with Baruch Gottlieb, Clémence Seurat, Julien Maudet postgrowth.art. & Pauline Briand, organized by iMal Art Center for Di- gital Cultures. The exhibition proposes multiple alter- native scenarios and transformative practices that can overcome the upcoming energetic collapse. What is the role of speculative fiction in the construction of future ecology? For the artists of Post Growth, artistic specu- lation has the responsibility to invent the future, where this seems already written according to a dominant nar- rative of progress at-all-costs. The exhibition includes a series of installations, films, interviews, and workshops aimed at creating a post-fossil society. Among them, a board-game created by DISNOVATION.ORG, downloa- dable online, which proposes the construction of new fictitious strategies to manipulate today’s factors un- derlying the environmental crisis. What would happen if we took avocado or cow’s milk off the market? Artists teach us that the future is still at stake, even if the game is quite serious. The Post-growth project also includes a series of interviews with researchers, theorists, artists, and philosophers on the theme of the ecological crisis DISNOVATION.ORG & Baruch Gottlieb, Solar Share and its link with new technologies: a great resource for (The Story), installation, digital video with sound. Courtesy of DISNOVATION.ORG and iMAL Selected exhibitions to experience radical philosophies, geopolitics, and IT lovers. Time Out of Joint
The dark-web exhibition
Where? In the On the occasion of this year’s phery of the web, where time is Darkweb (http:// Yerevan Biennial, the pioneers inevitably slower and images are fjroxjgxhmd2ymp2. of Net.art Eva & Franco Mattes more blurred. The experience of onion only through Tor are curating the online exhibition the Darkweb conveyed by Time Browser). Time Out of Joint. The title was Out Of Joint teaches us that our When? From the borrowed from a novel by Philip attention is ironically proportional October 1st, 2020 to K. Dick and winks at Shakes- to buffering time. The site that January 31st, 2021. peare’s Hamlet, where time is no supports the exhibition, with its What can I see from longer linear but stratified, acce- minimal style and the typical re- home? All of the lerated, and today, cybernetic. tro style of web 2.0, presents six artworks. Eva & Franco Mattes are certain- artists including Joshua Citarel- ly not new to experiments related la, Clusterduck, David Horvitz, to privacy and the construction Vladan Joler, Amalia Ulman and of online identity, and they en- 2050+, whose works are added Time Out of Joint, Special project for the Yerevan Biennial. Curated by Eva & Franco Mattes. Participating ar- joy proposing practices that every two weeks from October tists: Joshua Citarella, Clusterduck, David Horvitz, Vladan Joler, Amalia Ulman, 2050+ (Dates: 10/2020 - 1/202). challenge the traditional narra- 2020 to January 2021 and ac- Courtesy of Eva & Franco Mattes tives of both self and art exhibi- companied by a video interview. tion at the digital age. For Time Time Out Of Joint is an exhibition Out of Joint, they propose a vir- to visit from home and unhurrie- tual exhibition only accessible on dly, whose works question the the Darknet (available on http:// dynamics of quantification of the fjroxjgxhmd2ymp2.onion only self online, the meeting points of through Tor Browser). As expert folk culture and social networks, net-surfers and hacktivists, Eva the question of privacy of images & Franco Mattes make their on- and quantification of the self. Are line exhibition float on the peri- you willing to disjoin your time? Selected exhibitions to experience UNINVITED - Emergence
The horror film-machine
Where? In Furtherfield Gallery, The “Love Machines” program by Furtherfield ElectroPutere Gallery, and online. Gallery proposes the hybrid and deliberately When? From October 31st, 2020 to disturbing work UNINVITED - Emergence, by January 31st, 2021. UBERMORGEN and Nye Thompson. The ar- What can I see from home? The tists have created an alien organism, a “networ- web version of the experience at ked super-organism” according to their defini- https://uninvited.icu. tion, made of artificial intelligence, machinic cannibalism, surveillance footage, voyeurism, and deviant deep-learning. Out in the open, in the gallery and online, on October 31st, the emerging and changing alien conceived by UBERMORGEN and Nye Thomp- son is far from inviting, despite the captivating UNINVITED film still: Exploration > Tarmac’ (2020) by Nye Thompson & UBERMORGEN image graphics of the website dedicated to the ope- courtesy of the artists ra and the strident but hypnotic melody com- posed by Berlin-based composer Thom Kubli. In a historical moment of bio-technophobic contagion, the artists play on creating a work of horror cinema, this time post-human, meta- discursive and psychotic. UBERMORGEN and Nye Thompson’s artwork is both a challenge and a provocative statement, are you ready for a digital splatter film? At the cinema of the ma- chines, the artists warn us, human beings are certainly uninvited. Selected exhibitions to experience Virus attack! First computer pandemics
The vintage viral
Where? Online. Espacio Byte online museum presents an ex- When? From October 2020. hibition entitled Virus attack! First computer What can I see from home? 20 pandemics, which collects 20 ruthless viruses Virus simulations available at http:// dating back to the 90s, when the insertion of www.espaciobyte.org/virus-attack. a floppy disk into your computer could result in the annihilation of your operating system. This exhibition brings together a variety of DOS-based viruses, captured on video, which allows appreciating their original presentation, although without their destructive routines. The exhibition, created thanks to the archives of the online Malaware Museum (by Mikko Hyp- ponen), presents a selection of viruses chosen for their aesthetic qualities and for their sophis- Virus Attack ! First computer pandemics, October 2020, Courtesy of www.espaciobyte.org tication and creativity, which can be enjoyed without endangering their devices. Hypno- tic graphic effects, disturbing messages, and unpredictable loss of control, Virus attack! is vintage, geek psychedelia. Selected exhibitions to experience Did you miss something ?
Review of past events BETTER OFF ONLINE
The genuine net.nostalgia
Where? Online. KÖNIG Digital Galerie present the international When? Until 30th November 2020. group show BETTER OFF ONLINE, featuring digital artworks by Koo Jeong A, Aram Bartholl, Alice Bucknell, Arvida Byström, Stine Deja, Keiken, Kesh, Jonas Lund, Rachel Maclean, Tabor Robak, Manuel Rossner, Nicole Ruggie- ro, Sebastian Schmieg, and Thomas Webb. The exhibition (available online at http://ars. webb.game/) is presented as a first wave com- puter game interface, bringing the visitor back (or forth?) in a parallel and pixelated dimension where the web is artists’ and visitors’ play- ground. BETTER OFF ONLINE is something more than a white-cube like exhibition plat- form, as it builds a virtual village, the WOR- LDWIDE WEBB, made up of avatars, friendly characters (including Thomas Webb and Anika Meier, curators, and guides in the virtual vi-
sit, and artists), and houses for the artworks. Alice Bucknell, E-Z Kryptobuild, single channel HD video, The structure of the exhibition, a serious game 2020, 22:07 min (still), courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG that maps the technocritical perspectives pro- GALERIE Berlin, London, Tokyo posed by the artists, is configured as a place of playful utopia, where interaction is the key to new narratives and speculations around the web as a network, but also as space where ideas and relationships coexist. Selected exhibitions to experience #biennaleNO
The online anti- biennial
Where? Online. biennale.NO is a contempora- tus on the bitcoin blockchain of When? From November ry art biennale that doesn’t take the art collection. In other words, 1st, 2020 to January place, with works that don’t exist. blockchain is used as an archive, 1st, 2021. It is structured as a decentralized museum, or a similar function for What can I see network of collaborative nodes, the conservation of works, but from home? Any projects and works. The event without containing or revealing artwork featuring the is (not) curated by Noemata col- them - its only function is to cer- #biennaleNO hashtag lective (Bjørn Magnhildøen and tify their existence when asked. on social media. The Zsolt Mesterhazy), which invited The work vanishes, therefore it artworks are also the participants to freely interpret exists. The challenge of the Noe- collected in Noemata’s the current theme of the exhibi- mata collective is to implement catalogue. tion: The unbearable lightness of an anti-curatorship and let the internet. In the era of hyper-do- logic of hashtags (#biennale.NO) cumentation of everyday life and do its work and assemble all par- cultural digitization, what about ticipants with their net-concep- an event that completely denies tual works. The biennale.NO is artworks’ documentation as any a claim to an ephemeral and bi- other form of traditional curating? zarre anti-internet, independent Despite its conceptual form, and stimulating, and becomes biennale.NO exists, and it is made the ideal playground for artists up of people behind screens and like, among many, Igor Štroma- their ideas, whose evanescence jer, pioneer of the first wave of is fixed, notarized, certified, net-artists. Noemata, Undocumented events and object permanence, since we can visualize the sta- 2020, online exhibition series thematizing documentation, conservation, (false) memory, (art) object, phenomenology, and blockchain certification. Available at https://noemata. net/ueop/. Selected exhibitions to experience AI: Love And Artificial Intelligence
The romantic AI
Where? At Hyundai Motorstudio Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing presents an exhibition en- Beijing. titled AI: Love And Artificial Intelligence that investigates When? Until January 3rd, 2021. the emotional dimension of today’s computer commu- nication interfaces and devices. At a time when intimacy and physical proximity are not always assured or pos- sible, the exhibition investigates new forms of social and, above all, loving contact. Exhibition curator Jenny Chen Jiaying states that “AI is a pun. It is the pronuncia- tion of «love» in Chinese pinyin, and at the same time, stands for «Artificial Intelligence» in English.” AI is the cross and delight of technological but also social en- gineering of our time. The exhibition proposes the delimitation of two dis- tinct areas (one right and one left) that embody the Exhibition view: AI: Love and Artificial Intelligence, Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing (30 September–3 January 2021). dichotomy ‘love’ and ‘ai’ but also the interface of the Courtesy of Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing right/left swipe present in today’s dating apps. AI: Love And Artificial Intelligence includes the works of Medien- gruppe Bitnik, aaajiao, Adam Harvey, Benjamin Berman & Miguel Perez, Chen Zhou, Frank Wang Yefeng, Jo- hanna Bruckner, Jonas Lund, Liu Shiyuan, Stine Deja, Wang NewOne, He Rongkai (Project). Dealing with AI, these artworks evoke a new way of reading untransla- table feelings and unapproachable bodies. Besides, ‘AI’ is not just a pun. Selected exhibitions to experience [email protected] | danae.io | Instagram