合弁

שלולית

1 POOL — May 2012

Amelia Ulman Bret Schneider Domenico Quaranta Matei Samihaian

2 F/F had to commit to strict, regular posting– — Amelia Ulman once a day, every day. Similar to Facebook “likes”, the finite amount of comments Fotolog reached its peak in 2008 with over made the 20 signatures a currency, a 30 million registered users, primarily goal that had to be achieved regularly from , and Brazil. As for the sake of nurturing one’s online a standard photo-sharing platform, it persona, leading users to overproduction, wouldn’t be worth writing about if it a constant desire for renovation aided by wasn’t for the magnitude of its usage and new photos and special effects. A aesthetic cultural consequences. Fotolog became commonality between the most popular a trend, a symbol, a brand 1, a tribe. In Fotolog users gave birth to the Floggers Argentina and , Fotolog users as a tribe or style, dictating the hair, were known as “floggers”, representing the outfits and the musical tastes of the a generation of open-minded, sexually winning combination for popularity. It tolerant, and educated teenagers. In Chile, was a blend of mid 2000´s European teen they called themselves “Pokemones”. fashion, electro dance music, plus some While Pokemones were influenced by elements from Emo and anime culture. Japanese culture, they shared many interests with floggers, such as apparel This competition for attention was derived and hairstyle. From head to toe, the from the anxious ambition to provide Flogger and the Pokemon were easy to entertainment and garner popularity differentiate from other subcultures, such through updates. Cultural capital as Punks, Goths and Emos, even though manifests itself in virtual environments their aesthetics were an amalgamation just as it does physically. Social inequality of many of these groups. This sartorial and class become apparent online as overlap was something that led to the much as offline, frustrating the optimistic many infamous fights between old and expectations of the net as a utopian new tribes outside the malls of Buenos playground in favour of a digital mirror of Aires2, Santiago and Montevideo; similar to people’s offline realities– a conglomerate those viral Emo vs. Punks confrontations of social networks. The colours and in . The disputes, far from merely the fonts, the writing and the grain, all being kids fighting over clothing, were functioned as indicators of social class and evocative of South America’s evolutionary background, transforming the semiotics and transitional stage. It wasn’t all of the interface into a decisive factor in the about the hair; Floggers, Pokemones nature of one’s social interactions. and Emos were androgynous youth who threatened the established patriarchal 2. and homophobic South American culture. In the crowd, a feeling of insecurity These groups represented that half of the discomforts. Although users cannot live southern cone’s youth that came from an in cyberspace alone, the necessity of a Europeanised middle class. This resulted dwelling and the need for belonging, make in attacks, harassments, abuses and even the building of a community a solution murder in Argentina– in 2008, a 16 year for uprooting, for uncertainty. While we old was kicked to death outside of a club dwell plurally, we do it separate from the by a group of teenagers from an opposing others, the strangers, protecting ourselves tribe, the Cumbieros. from the hostile. Gradually, certain groups flourished in Fotolog, cliques formed and 1. communities emerged in parallel with Fotolog was particularly addictive due those forming offline. A hierarchy took to its restrictions. Limited daily to one shape, mirroring the two halves of the picture, 20 comments, one layout, a colour population– the higher and the lower. chart and a 520 x 410 px Oeil-de-boeuf, the In a dynamic in which the peripheries platform succeeded because of it’s game- constantly tried to become the hegemony, like set of rules. Its structure encouraged the formation of a new photo sharing consistent daily use, which became the platform took place under the name of epicenter of its allure. Fotolog forced Fotocumbia. anyone with the aim of maintaining a current to adhere to a fastidious In 2008, the creation of this bootleg version uploading routine. If the opportunity to of Fotolog functioned as a statement update was missed, the rewards would not against the rules of the original, including be reaped. To keep a popular profile, one total freedom of content (pornographic 3 images welcome), unlimited photo not surprising that the initially despised uploads, music and an embedded chat Villera music and style were later room. It was an online embassy for the popularized into an acceptable depiction Cumbieros, an uprising against a system of the unprivileged. Carlos Tevez, who that didn’t accept them. signed with Manchester United in 2007, had cameos in a few Cumbia Villera shows While floggers were a representation and was always vocal about his upbringing of the 2000’s South American flippant in the Fuerte Apache. Pablo Lescano, youth, which rebelled against the old frontman of Damas Gratis, precursor establishment with a queer attitude, of the Cumbia Villera, was awarded the they were still middle class– they played Clarín Prize4, invited to perform on Susana by European rules and were intolerant Jimenez’s TV Show5 and played at the MTV of their poorer and darker skinned awards in collaboration with mainstream contemporaries. On the other hand, performers. Their music portrayed the Villeros, the Cumbieros, emerged Argentina’s reality as tango did before it. It from a much lower social class. Many was accepted, saluted and respected. of them were immigrants (or from immigrant backgrounds) from rural 3. sides of the Patagonia and from other Every trend has a trajectory and lifespan– Latin American countries. They rejected a rise and fall, an appropriation and the Europeanised and Americanised repackaging. The only way for the aesthetics which were considered the Cumbia Villera and the Cumbieros top of the cultural hierarchy. Claiming a to be accepted by the establishment new style to represent their people, with was to lose their original meaning and tropical and Latin American beats, they become a commodified aesthetic. In also embraced the stereotypes that made 2011 Fotolog had plans of changing the them repulsive to their wealthier peers by layout that made it famous (and which using violent lyrics, politically incorrect Fotocumbia copied), Fotocumbia was attitudes towards women, homophobia, rotting and malfunctioning with bugs, antagonistic attitudes towards authority, Cumbia Villera was praised and played and explicit references to drugs– overseas in cultural events6 while being portraying the reality of their situation as diluted through religion in the mainland7, outsiders. Floggers barely existed anymore, and a band called the Wachiturros came to Floggers were the ambassadors of a life. The Wachiturros are a boy-band of Eurocentric identity, while Cumbieros dubious quality, who proclaim themselves were the enraged other, agitated by to be Cumbieros, Rochos and turros8. They cynicism. The restricted access to the Villa were immediately featured on TV, played Misera is a lock, a bolt that protects one at theatres like the Gran Rex9, garnered class from the other. By not allowing the hordes of fans and manufactured access to any outsider and by inverting merchandise– all of which rapidly led to the criteria generally applied outside the creation of a new subculture. They of it (in the high-street, downtown), the were soon hated by many. Viral videos community protects itself and generates and posts made reference to their past as its own economy of cultural capital. The floggers, and a new label was created for fortress shelters daydreaming, the fortress this new style, the one of the Flogger or protects the dreamer, the fortress allows the Cheto Arrepentido (Repentant Posh one to dream in peace; the community Kid). The Wachiturros and the Chetos protects the dreamer, and the dreamer Arrepentidos dress like Villeros, dance creates it’s own content3. The dreamer Cumbia but invert the symbols. By not succeeds in removing herself from the singing about the topics characteristic of periphery and takes a place at the top the and distorting the aesthetic by of a hierarchy of her own creation. The adding a queer element, the Wachiturros nihilistic aura of the Cumbia Villera was act as a subversive agent10. said to be a descendent of Tango, which also started in arrabales (poor quarters of To dance in front of the real Rocho or the City of ) and was sung in Turro, copying his clothes but wearing the immigrants’ slang, the (mix of lipstick, is an attack to the only valuable Spanish and African/ Italian expressions). thing the Villero possess: genuineness. Being a style that ultimately became a The Chetos Arrepentidos play with this legitimate national symbol of identity, it’s disrespect towards the holiness of the 4 fortress, making themselves a target for Aires Tandem, concluded with a session of Cumbia abuse and violent attacks, from online Villera, at the Centre 104, Paris. bullying to physical aggression. Sexuality aside, the fight is about realness, about 7. At the end of the decade, Cumbia Villera’s violent the legitimacy of class, a struggle against and explicit lyrics turned into more pop- like, artifice and a desire for a singular style. romantic and friendly topics, after an intense process The thing that was now accepted was of evangelisation. the visual, and not the original context. While Cumbia has been repackaged and 8. Guachos and Turros are Argentinian words from made ready to sell, it’s origins remain the Lunfardo, meaning bastard, shameless. untouchable and restricted, its reality rarified. The never-ending list of videos in 9. The Gran Rex, which opened in 1937 as the largest which a critique is being made against the cinema in South America, is today one of Argentina´s Wachiturros or the Chetos Arrepentidos biggest venue for the staging of international shows. evokes the voice of the defeated. They are made by those claiming to be genuine 10. Similar to current Chav aesthetic, first in an attempt to raise awareness of their appropriated from the underclass by the gay legitimacy and that which threatens it. community via fetichization, and currently made trendy through tumblr aesthetics. Class imitation becoming class aversion and vice versa has existed throughout Those parts of the text which are in italic, are modified history. The cycling of trends continues, excerpts from Bollnow’s Human Space and Bachelard’s macro-scaled by the sampling without The Poetics of Space. crediting of third world beats and in the way in which underground styles are Bibliography appropriated and commodified by the Bachelard, G. (1992) The Poetics of Space. Beacon middle and upper classes. In a sea of Press. dromology velocity wins and superficiality is easiest to digest. Class warfare pushes Bollnow, O. F. (2008) Human Space. Hyphen Press. content to be easily absorbable, removing any trace of criticality. With content Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction, A social Critique of the appropriated and the originator pushed Judgement of Taste aside, the need to be protected against alienation arises. Once again, the outsider Frikipedia http://www.frikipedia.es builds a shelter where she can feel safe, protected. The dreamer creates new Heim, M.R. (2001) The Feng Shui of Virtual symbols and new content in a never- WorldsPDF ending attempt to reach the centre from the periphery. Llobril, G. (2002) Del Tango a la Cumbia Villera (From Tango to Cumbia Villera) PDF Notes 1. In Spanish the word Fotolog is used to define any Loquendo, J http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHm sort of photo blog. z4hZaJG4&feature=related

2. Abasto, a Mall in Buenos Aires, was the IRL meeting Miceli, J.E. (2005) La Cumbia Villera Argentina PDF point for the floggers. Rheingold, H. (2000) The Virtual Community: 3. The use of the word ‘fortress’ is not unintentional. Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. MIT Press. El fuerte Apache (The Apache Fort) is one of the most famous re-housing projects in Buenos Aires. Written from the perspective of an expat. 2011-2012 4. Clarín, the largest newspaper in Argentina. The Clarín Prize, is an award program that have taken place since 1998 and honours Argentine achievements in entertainment, sports, literature, and advertising.

5. Susana Jimenez’s TV show is to Argentina what Oprah is to the US (?)

6. In 2011, a cultural event from the Paris-Buenos 5 Notes on Hell, aspect, without a clear relation of either — Bret Schneider category, because they are not understood as categories. Blogs canʼt be understood Blogs are most interesting when they today. resemble without being the same as language, when the blogger creates an Blog ‘writingʼ shares with art, or at least idiosyncratic syntax of imagery out of the an old idea of art now forgotten, an collective inchoate imagerie, the zoetrope attempt to write history apperceptively. of culture, like a baby organizing mobiles Compare the artist today to the artist who from its cradle. went on world discovery expeditions in the 17th century, who was indispensable Do we blink more than we use to? As the for recording new people, things, and world in its vast image of inchoateness geologies. It is almost miraculous that scrolls by, we blink at it the same way, or there was this drive, but what they thought not the same way that Neanderthals once they were recording also got in the way blinked at the exterior world they were of being objective. All thought must be starting to extricate from. emptied, digressions, parataxes are permitted to include those things that our That the blog is so prominent and petty little conceptualizations leave out, successful in its photographic stream of unbeknownst to us. We see something thought, that it has become ‘memeticʼ, that different that the past saw in itself, and it can communicate and even implant ideas so too will we look as if we got in the way from one mind to another as if by magic, as of our moment, even as we obsessively language once did thousands of years ago represented it. There is something more and still just as enigmatically today, tacitly dynamic and apperceptive in the blog implies that language and words may not format, which is by default digressive, have a future. Every blog title is secretly, Do filled with paths leading away from words have a future? ourselves.

Blogs that are not directly art-related, The intense difficulty of comprehending that do not feature art work exclusively, the moment at its best, ripest, most acute, that are not trying to reinvent art for symptomatic and problematic, is due to an the internet age, that erroneously (but overripeness-turned-decay that thwarts perhaps truthfully in an unintentional representation, whose decay repulses a way) perceive the artless bureaucracy as rationalized subjectivity that will only the herald of aesthetic experience now touch the decay with white gloves, and unknown, are far more interesting than yet some total and whole constellation those that are, because they examine demands to be represented, driving all the true artlessness of our moment, the reflection wild and pell-mell, reflection incapability of whole experience. The mimicking a throng. If one wants to grasp artless blog is freer; it has the ability to the true essence of the moment in all its incorporate a great diversity of content barbaric diversity, one has to mimic ”the without being limited to the tightened mess” (Beckett) in form, comprehension narrow of stock conceptual restrictions, is a formal problem of how to represent a they lack the obsolete criteria that had reality that has run away from us, that has determined a course of contemporary overproduced and reproduced obsolete art that is obsolete without realizing so, forms ad nauseum. their lack is their bane of drift and their redeeming quality. The art-obsessed blogger, who pathologically and romantically must In blogs one finally sees the co-existence of turn everything into art, (as opposed to pornography and art, a situation (at least) the blogging blogger), when working as old as Baudelaire. Art as prostitution, under the umbrella of contemporary art that art is pornography, no longer a categories, is blocked from successfully metaphor, put to the test in the blog lab; achieving a representation of reality centuries too late? Maybe. Very literal by an adherence to obsolete categories; coexistence of what once was opposite, a both contemporary and postmodern art cauldron of uncritical coexistences and tropes now canonized and recognized oppositions. even by those who cling to them as The diaristic quality of the blog is its most insufficient to resonate experience. The ubiquitously understood and compelling contemporary art blog aims to ‘treatʼ new 6 forms of consciousness like the blog with a babyʼs cradle, they are captivating by contemporary art categories that are not dint of their mesmerization … critical understood in their particularity, though function. It may also be true that what something is understood that has not been is curious about the blog form is that it related. Whereas blogs that lack such attempts, unsuccessfully, but important in aesthetic rationalization render apparent its ineptitude, to collapse the distinction the true arbitrariness of contemporary life, between cultural enchantment and and something seems related which is not cultural criticism. understood, and seems incapable of being understood, and is perhaps interesting for Imagery is the enemy of the blogger in that explicit reason. the same way that words were the enemy of the 19th century poet. They have not Turning the internet into an aesthetic been revealed to be the true problem they playground or cultural ‘answerʼ to are intuited to be. Visual imagery, like abandoned aesthetic problems would be language in modernity, is an alien fabric, akin to Kafkaʼs hunger artist crawling back historically specific but in ways no one into his cage decades after he finally found can really articulate. Its constraints on the food he liked. consciousness are more sensed than made apparent, and ʻthe imageʼ is not about the Communication in blogs is reminiscent image at all, but about something alien to of the type of communication that once the very idea of seeing. occurred between curiosity collector and its visitor, showing off ones collection, In the sense that art has always been more is said through the objects than a manner of organizing the exterior through their discourse, through the world that is alien from the subject, that raw material that just … compiles. Blog it is a nexus of friction between two communication differs insofar as it irreconcilable strangers, blogs share measures not the proprietary prowess something in common with art. But it is of the collector, but the striving for a also true that this has been accomplished final image, for the essential image that best not via art per se, but a freer form of outshines all the others, that becomes organizing that art as such is too young The idol, whose diversity is a means of to know. E.g.: the journal or biography metabolism, and so the great public sphere are often more revealing reflections of the blog also has its final goal in the of a historical moment than are fine end of communication, in the retreat of arts, which have not really articulated heterogeneity into a single homogenous their position as autonomous from idol, and yet the goal is incapable of being representation, they do not fit, cannot fit. reached. Blogs fit, and yet something is lost. The emergence of the blog as a ubiquitous Some curiosity collections in the early social phenomena is prehistoryʼs anxious colonial era had ‘curiousʼ exotic peoples as way of trying to make sense of itself, part of the collection—e.g. a dwarf—and of offering the material for historical this dwarf would also be trained to give understanding in such a way that it cannot discursive tours on the (other) objects of be overlooked or avoided. Blogs are the collection, maybe realizing it itself asymptotic remedies for severe collective was a part of the collection too. The guide amnesia. emerges out the material not itself, like a demon that doesnʼt belong but is its Jon Rafmanʼs 16 Google Street Views natural logic. It canʼt be trusted and yet it shows a world in which human beings knows better than anyone the contours are perfunctory, anomalies, accidents, are which it conveys. Something similar irreconcilable blights in the landscape. occurs with artistic discourse. Humans dot the landscape like impish footnotes to a demonic second nature, Blogs are most interesting in their diaristic and imply some tramp-like image of panorama, mapping the shadows which redemption. filter through the bedroom window. They are hyper-individual and retreat into this It is certainly true that we have created singular and very real hermetic illusion as a world for ourselves that necessarily a way of dilating its outside. excludes ourselves. We are not supposed to exist in the paradise we are creating, a Blogs perhaps function like mobiles above paradise now thoroughly mapped for this 7 reason of unliving, life not lived. We send organizing contentious impressions from zillions of images into space, into a void, a current that impresses weirdly. The as documents of an existence we want but blog has to do with the image as poetry cannot have, as documents of a hypothesis. did with the word and its simultaneous The mapping of the world excludes those concealing and probing of what lay behind for whom the map is made. it: something non-communicative. There is something about the experience of the There is something akin to fire worship blog that has nothing to do with imagery in the glorification of the Internet, but we or communication, if only because the wouldnʼt know what. imagery is obviously cast as illusion, as the curtain which … a stage for experience. The flickering of images that volatilize vertically out of sight mimic the entrancing …a manner of actively organizing the flames of fire. And now we can freeze & world in the image of …Is there any return to certain moments in a stream that criteria by which to organize? is otherwise ephemeral and passes us by. Can we really? The measure of the blog is the quality of its lucidity, it is individual particularity The figure ambiguously facing the sea that is socially demanded to open up onto in Rafmanʼs 16 Google Street Views something more universal, not consciously obviously looks like David Friedrich of course, it exists in the way a glass sphere Casparʼs Wanderer above the sea of exists in a landscape, it distorts it but fog, and it looks circumscribed. But it simultaneously refracts it, all blogs are is also compelling because the subject refractions of the entire universal stream, undoubtedly recognizes that it is being but they are not mere illusions, though followed, that the narrative is a script, that they are illusions. We do not need more the fog is an effect, sublimity is mapped light to see, we need less, to see. out, but doesnʼt care. There is something else on its mind. And ʻsomething elseʼ The metabolization of the dreamworld, is always a threat to the irrationally and, also, the bizarre sort of refraction of circumscribed order. What is on its mind? reality blended with dream that occurs Besides, the image also looks freer, and when the eyes are awakened and blurred. captures the moment of unknowing better than Casparʼs, which is symmetrical and All image blogs are lontano effects. pat in comparison to Rafmanʼs subject, which curiously looks all wrong and Undoubtedly, the best representations aberrant, freedom as calculable. German of our particular moment are photo Romanticism was crucially philosophical, blogs, which are comprehensive without conceptualizing an aesthetic program for bragging about their openness. I donʼt the next few centuries as much as it made speak of a particular one—why? its own totemic and self-prescribed art… something similar today? Thereʼs an unspeakable connection of blog imagery to ancient Greek sculpture, in Caspar also painted numerous canvases that most of the images show the crucial of people looking out windows, a nexus of action, the singular moment of common trope in the 18th century grace. Movie-stills, for example, common (e.g. Hammershoi). There is maybe on blogs, capture the moment in the something reminiscent of looking out impression of the blogger, and this has into an alien world from onesʼ abode in greater flexibility than ever. But so does an the blog experience, which also brings unhappy ballerina. that alien world into the area of singular contemplation, as a flickering dance of And all these images pile up as if they were the collective imagerie. To go out into already discarded statues with penises that natural, hellish world seems almost lopped off by barbarians, already stored in besides the point of what it means to some ambiguous annal. examine a life incapable of being lived. All images crawl out from the bowels of Blogs place the arbitrary current of prehistory like cockroaches pilgrimaging external events back in the variegated from woodwork to the center of a room impressions of discreet individuals who to die. They seem to live only for this interpret them differently through actively moment, to have been practicing their 8 death pose that in being concretized expressing their oppressive atmosphere, correctly will preserve and illuminate the the fabric of the air that is social life awry. enigmatic essence of their specific life. Absorption, what photo blogs offer is It is proving difficult to materialize the absorption, the blogger seems captivated ideal simplicity of the journal form, which by its photographic material, while the is given an extended significance via viewer can spend hours idling away time, the phenomena of blogging. Countless absorbed and captive to an idea of matter. ideas, theories and so forth tend to detract instead of bolster the attempt Something must have to be said for the to write history from the apperceptive experience of browsing, of scanning the periphery that is so interesting. Already, photo blog, as the images flip upwards rationalized knowledge seems to burden rapidly, as if the viewer wants to render the form so much that simple, free play them into motion, into a real action of thought seems an impossible ideal, beyond contemplation, but can only do so direct simplicity becomes a confounding most unsuccessfully. impossibility. There is something Hieronymous Bosch- The figurines in 16 Google Street Views ian in the photo blog as well, everything look as if suspended in a snowglobe, unimaginable under the radiating and or insects eternally caught struggling hellish sun meshes a comprehensive in amber, sub specie aeternitatis. They screen, a “vulgar cauldron” of pseudo- seem trapped in a sort of atmospheric activity. medium, crystallized in an eternal pose like a figurine, “solidified into images “the sacred Past hath no fixed statues of bronze”, in Hegelʼs words describing erected to it, but all things irreverently Danteʼs Inferno, frozen as they lived, seethe and boil in the vulgar cauldron but cast in a new light, appearing as real of an everlasting and uncrystallizing people in the world to an enigmatic and Present”—Melville circumscribed order, brought before the tribunal of the universal concept that has If we can supposedly see more clearly recently taken a permanent vacation. One through technological lensʼ, it is only canʼt speak of order today, it is a profanity. because it is far more abstract than the But the truancy of judgment doesnʼt mean immediate experience of looking. It that subjects are freed from their agony: rather seems that we see less clearly, that it only means that they are not permitted technological means are inhibitive in a redemption, that they are not able to be very revealing way. It is curious that the seen in the image of their potential, of best ‘net artistsʼ donʼt take advantage of what could, and should have been, and sophisticated technological tools as they only in the image of their agony resultant are commonly understood, but disabuse from temporary social conditions. them of their common use. By comparison a good experimental musician finds a “In hell the movement is energetic but the secret life beyond presets, somehow, and figures are plastic and stiff in their agony, not merely by resistance. Everybody lit terrifyingly”. knows this. It is more important to discover what could have and maybe Only, hell is not a divine order, but a should have been, than it is to futuristically human constructed order, in which a create the next big thing that will counteractive and illuminating sympathy revolutionize bla bla bla. that lights hellʼs figurines on fire, such as Danteʼs, is nullified. The ʻmediumʼ One canʼt experience the comprehensive in which they are suspended is the perspective the internet has to offer if anaerobic stuff of a rationalized society, they are interested in the internet as such, a gritty “creatural” quality, in the words which is the antithesis of perspectivism. of Erich Auerbach, that is rendered It would be akin to writers and readers unprecedentedly unavoidable. These who canʼt see the world through the pen in figurines are incapable of overcoming the which it was written. atmosphere which they breathe, recycle, which fills their lungs and every crevice of Cezanne saw much more clearly than their infinite subjective porosity, they are Seurat, who utilized scientific and incapable of doing anything other than technological means of seeing. Cezanne 9 was more lucid because he had his forme which Cellini relates to everyone he comes tout sienne, sealed off from the supposed in contact with is not an artifact of the age, means of the tools in his era. but is the crux of historical detail. Celliniʼs braggart, almost poor writing style, which On blogs everything looks better than it has a naive lack of tact and self-editing, really is, and it shows how things ought to captures the spirit of the age better look all the time, and how they seem like than any scientific or historical address, they are just about to look, but cannot, and specifically because his subjectivity is will not ever, it seems. They are rhetorical, ripened to the point where it becomes even as they approach the practical wish an object of the era—Celliniʼs free and list. unedited passion penetrates the opacity of the moment, despite the fact that he says Photo blogs show the individual cloaked in himself that he is not writing history. If the stuff of the world, which looks like the Cellini—or Rousseau—was a ‘good’ writer, entire universe printed pell-mell on a cloth by the common mannerisms of omitting in which the individual is swaddled. The inessential details, weʼd have no image of individual has not yet extricated itself from the intimate relations that appear random, the breast of the natural world, which but contribute to the consciousness of it suckles like a child that does not yet the moment—e.g. the insults and casual realize it is distinct from a nature which is violence crudely flung around in every antagonistic to it by being indifferent to it direction which indicates a raw and still (second nature). But the impression that quibbling set of tribal relations which the entire universe is presented before were are beginning to transform—or the babeʼs eyes is impression, though not Celliniʼs attention to how much he got paid merely impression. for each artwork, who owned it when, the work conditions of his shops, and so It is perhaps true that the homogenization forth, that are all essential anchors to of social work and socialized non-work understand the complex social relations work renders individuals indistinct from of the moment. Form needs to be free and one another, which breeds both empathy experimental in order to articulate the with anyone and also impotence and newness of each moment—in a negative genericness. I think of Megan Boyleʼs social situation, the inessential to us is statement that she could on …from a perhaps the truly essential. Mexican Panda Express employee to the end of her own blog post book because her There is also something more or different indistinctness renders any perspective than the confession form happening possible and immediately available, as in new writing, because it is obligated if one could swap skins as if they are to confess everything, to confess every masks. There is also a horrific side to stray thought that is not in the least perspectivism, which ought not be valued incriminating. This is an acceleration in itself but as a means. of absolute transparency—the minds of humans become more and more like Literature today ubiquitously approaches the modernist glass building, in which the confessional, a form once tied to everything is shown, everything is Christianity, e.g. St. Augustine and refracted, everything is rendered vulgarly later Rousseau, who sought to clear his naked. reputation, and accidentally created a freer literary form than had hitherto Now that a mollified fine art is shown existed. Rousseauʼs Confessions is the to irreversibly coexist with soft porn, father of all blog writing and recent Greenbergʼs ‘avant-garde and kitschʼ is literature influenced thereby, bringing made undoubtedly relevant, aesthetic the mundane particularity of oneʼs own antagonisms cannot be ignored any arbitrary individuality before a troop longer, even as they are. of absent judges, a truant jury. Why do people want to confess today? To whom? That blogs are experienced in a rapid scroll For what? indicates that the world is best appreciated when it is not seen, when it is incapable of The ‘confessionalʼ is not merely ‘informalʼ being seen. writing, but an integral mode of writing history, in the manner of a Cellini or So many blogs gravitate around imagery Rousseau. The indignant attitude through of architecture not because they are 10 superficial or nostalgic, or because they are shallow formal modernists etc., but because they show how the world should be architected but cannot be…yet. Current social conditions restrict the realization of an aesthetic world—that Trotsky once said that the average person in a free society would be an Aristotle, can also be that the average building in a free world would be a challenging pleasure to stroll through to live in, an atmosphere that is not oppressive. Such blogs are the preservation of a dream in a time of vulgar reality principles.

Photo blogs turn real things into real imagined things.

As sanctions, blogs take on the character of the library in the baroque period, whose contemplative character Benjamin emarcated as distinct from renaissance external activity. Like the baroque library, the blog is concealed from all the detritus of history, immune to decay. While the photo blog mandates that the entire world is cloaked in itself, and implies something public, that publicness is always a projection/ideal.

11 When an Image Becomes a Work: of an allegory. Furthermore, the horse may Prolegomena to Cattelan’s Iconology belong to a found image, but it has also — Domenico Quaranta been for a long time an important part of Cattelan’s iconography, as an alter ego of “The idea is to reorganize something the artist himself. In the original image, already there, re-present something that Cattelan sees the potential of a foolish already exists.”2 sacrifice, and turns it into a universal icon with a simple but effective reference to Open Google.com. Write “dead horse” in the death of the Christ. A minimal shift, the search bar. Select “images”. The first but one that turned the found image into search result is the image of a dead horse, something that, indisputably, belongs to lying on tar, a sign knocked in its flank. The Cattelan. sign says: “If you ban hunting, there will be lots of these.” The website featuring the Cleptomania image3 explains that the macabre scene “I’m always borrowing pieces – crumbs was arranged by some farmers protesting really – of everyday reality.”6 against a fox hunting ban. The blog post dates back to June 10, 2007. The image Maurizio Cattelan is a self-declared exists in two versions, almost identical, kleptomaniac. In his personal mythology, probably shot by the same camera a few the trope of the thief comes second only seconds away: the point of view is the to the one of Oblomov, the idle artist same, only the cars on the street and the running away from his shows, exhibiting passers-by change. In the second shot, in fake medical certificates, inviting people the background, a boy takes a picture. to keep their vote, collecting money to pay a young artist (himself) to avoid working Also, this image has a clone. It was created for a whole year, renting his space at two years later, by an artist answering the Venice Biennale and organizing to the name of Maurizio Cattelan, in the another Biennale (actually a holiday) in shape of a sculpture titled, as most of his the Caribbean. Cattelan the thief asked a artworks, Untitled (2009). In the official sketch artist to make portraits of himself picture, shot by Zeno Zotti and featured according to his friends descriptions; he in the catalogue of the exhibition “All”, stole the name plates of some professionals Maurizio Cattelan’s retrospective at the in Forlì; he stole Zorro’s Z, Fontana’s cut, Guggenheim Museum in New York4, the the Red Brigades’ star, the neon sign of a only differences are in the setting – the cafe and a pharmacy, an entire exhibition laminated flooring of a white cube – and by another artist, and made a portrait of in the sign, where the original warning himself entering a museum from a tunnel has been replaced by a simple and dug under the floor; but above all, he stole evocative “INRI”. The framing is exactly ideas: from other artists, the mass media, the same: the white sign is at the center and everyday life. of the picture, and the position of the photographer brings the beast’s muzzle For obvious reasons, his appropriations to the forefront. The horse is reproduced from other artists are quite well known. almost literally: the forelegs cross, and the The analogies between his Love Saves Life hind legs line up in the very same way. (1997) and Katarzyna Kozyra’s Pyramid of Animals (1993), both inspired by the Once noticed the indisputable four musicians of Bremen tale, have been effectiveness of the original image, widely discussed. But the list could go Cattelan made his best to stick to it, and he on for long: All (2007) makes us think to just took off the incidental details, like the Luciano Fabro’s Spirato (1968); Untitled passers-by and the blue rope used to drag (2007), the woman hanging from a door the horse in the place where it was found jamb, materializes out from a picture of and photographed; and to be sure not Francesca Woodman’s Angel Series (1977 to lose this effectiveness as an image, he – 1978); and both La rivoluzione siamo noi commissioned an official “media version” (2000) and Untitled (2000) play with Joseph of the sculptural work5. Beuys, his language, his mythology.

Yet, these two images are also very Art criticism often reacted to these different. The first refers to a news item, robberies in an interesting way. Cattelan’s the latter is a work of art. The first has the detractors used them to prove his lack of richness of reality, the latter the pithiness originality; his supporters often minimized 12 them, turning them into “quotations” (that Just a few artists are able to create would turn him into a late postmodernist, “images” of this kind. With rare which he isn’t). Clearly, the XIX Century exceptions, the visual imagery produced myth of originality is still so strong to by contemporary art remains within prevent us to follow an artist where he its jurisdiction. For the most part, the himself wants to bring us, confessing over collective imagery of the twentieth century and over his inclination to stealing. has been developed, rather than by artists, by other professional image-makers: film What if we choose to follow him along this directors, photographers, cartoonists, way, all the way? Let’s make a working designers, illustrators. hypothesis: that theft is Maurizio Cattelan’s favorite formal strategy, the one he used In this context, Maurizio Cattelan stands the most. That beyond most of his works out as an exception. The Italian artist, there is another image, an hidden sub-text, who made such a few “artworks” along awaiting to come back to light. his short career, circulated much more “images” than any other artist of his time. This is not an attempt to undermine the How did it happen? reputation that Cattelan’s work got along the last twenty years, but to understand My answer is: feeding on images. An act the indisputable success of the images he of feeding that isn’t just stealing, but that created; this is not an attempt to reduce rather improves an image which, once his works to the images that inspired it’s out there, should be considered a him, but to measure the difference commons, no more a property. Filtering, between the two; this is not an attempt like a sieve, the tons of images that the to demonstrate his lack of originality, but media – newspapers, magazines, TV, the to understand what actually Cattelan’s internet – pump on him (and on anybody originality is; how he situates himself else), and choosing the ones that he like in the contemporary media arena, and and that better fit in his agenda, Cattelan in a cultural environment where, as rephrases them and sets them free in the novelist Cory Doctorow said, “we copy communication flow again, allowing other like we breath”7; and what he has in people to find a new meaning for them. common with a new generation of artists for which appropriation is no more a This is, you may say, what any artist subversive cultural strategy coming with does, but what makes Cattelan unique an ideological baggage, but a natural, daily is his hunger, his instinct, his ability gesture, an habit, a way to contribute to an to synthesize, his methodology and ongoing discourse8. determination in producing artworks able to become an image, to enter the Permanent Food collective imagery and be reproduced and “Spector. What constitutes a successful distributed in any kind of communication work for you? Cattelan. I like when the system. As Francesco Bonami said: work becomes an image.”9 “Cattelan’s works have three lives. They live in reality, in the media and in memory. Maurizio Cattelan has an absolute respect Their first life is human, the second is for images. The confirmation comes from spiritual, the third is eternal.”10 the quote above, where the word “image” is used with a strong, unusual meaning, This reference to the semantic field of in some ways closer to the medieval food is not accidental, since Cattelan concept of “icon”, or the modern concept himself (and his spokespersons) used it of “meme”. In this sense, an “image” is many times. Massimiliano Gioni recently a visual sign that circulates outside of referred to him as a “great consumer of the context in which it was produced; images”, and talked about his “bulimia something which imprints itself into one’s of images” 11. Back in 1996, together memory, and which is reused, duplicated, with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and altered by anybody, losing all ties with its the designer Paola Manfrin, Cattelan “author” and developing new meanings conceived a magazine called Permanent any time it is used. It is something that Food, published in 15 issues up to 2007. doesn’t exist as a “work”, but as a “subject” Permanent Food describes itself as a with its own life, able to self-replicate and “second generation magazine”, declares a to spread itself. “free copyright” and samples images from any kind of source: fashion magazines, 13 illustrations, posters, art magazines, differences between the copy and the newspapers, fanzines, catalogues, and, original are minimal: Sorrenti’s black and of course, the internet. Everything is white photo became a color photography, presented out of its context, without text the layout changed from vertical to labels and references, cleaned out from its landscape. When the original image works functional status of advertisement, work well, variations are, for Cattelan, useless of art, amateurish creation, and from its mannerisms: much better to keep it as it is. own history. Permanent Food is literally what the title declares: a permanent act It’s not easy to say how many other thefts, of feeding imagination, thanks to what’s or loans, can be found in the various issues selected and to the way it was put together of Toilet Paper. Here, like in Permanent – an ephemeral assemblage open to the Food, Cattelan explores the underworld, contribution of the user, since the binding choosing images cultivated in small has a tendency to break up. In other niches, with a low level of visibility and words, the magazine is an ode to re-use, not, like a pop artist, images that already a collage meant to be destroyed and put entered mainstream culture. However, together again, a work of appropriation it’s quite easy to find, in the issue we are and sharing. considering, the tribute paid to the cute cat meme. Well rooted in the popular The semantic area of food is recalled also imagery, this interest for cute cat pictures in the scatological title of Toilet Paper, literally exploded online, where they Cattelan’s brand new magazine, launched have been shared and modified, adding with the fashion photographer Pierpaolo short notes in a grammatically incorrect Ferrari in 2010, after his farewell to art. English that turned them into “LOLcats”13. It is, again, a magazine made only with Without any text, Toilet Paper‘s cute cat images, but these images are not stolen, photo seems to be there waiting for its own but original, professionally produced in a transformation into an “image”. studio. As Pierpaolo Ferrari explained: Internet Memes Every image is the result of an idea, often “If you have an apple and I have an apple simple, and later becomes a complex and we exchange these apples then you orchestration of people participating in and I will still each have one apple. But if a tableaux vivant. This project is also a you have an idea and I have an idea and relief valve for our minds. We both work we exchange these ideas, then each of in fields where thousands of images us will have two ideas.” George Bernard circulate. Producing images is part of our Shaw14 job…12 The last example brings us back to the And yet theft, sometimes announced, more internet: a context that, according to what often not, takes place in Toilet Paper as I wrote so far, is interesting for at least well. Let’s take, for example, the November three reasons. First the internet, however 2011 issue. The back cover declares its ephemeral and always changing, offers inspirations: Mike the Headless Chicken, good opportunities to keep track of the Mario Sorrenti, Richard Avedon. Mike the life of an image. Even when the original Headless Chicken was a chicken that lived gets lost, images are often copied and for 18 months after his head had been uploaded to other websites. Often they are mostly cut off. The story dates back to the tagged in ways that makes it possible to get Forties, and was largely discussed in the them back from the nowhere where they media. The image published in Toilet Paper disappeared thanks to a simple “Google is a faithful reproduction of one of Mike’s Search”. In other words, while it might be best known photographic portraits: the difficult or even impossible to trace the chicken stands firmly, its head on the table, origin of an image seen on a magazine, an right in front of its legs. underground fanzine or a wall, online it’s relatively easier to find what Cattelan saw, Mario Sorrenti, an Italian fashion years ago, and inspired him a new work. photographer, inspired the image of an There, the reach of his plumb can still be anonymous model in pants, her body measured. covered by an horde of yellow clothes pegs. Second, the internet is an extraordinary place for the circulation of images. As in the case of the dead horse, the An horizontal, democratic, bottom-up 14 medium, the internet allows an image steel of a black rubber boot stretched over to become successful without making the bust of a human head. The original its appearance on the mass media in the picture dates back to 2006, and was largely first place. Internet images don’t belong circulated around the Web, probably to anybody, they are public domain. They thanks to its fetishist and masochist spread and are used and abused according implication, as a fast Google search for to their own potential, and not thanks “rubber boot head” immediately shows. to the firepower of those who make and Cattelan reconstructs the vernacular distribute them. There, you don’t need image, playing with its high culture money, powerful means of production associations (Fantomas, Surrealist objects) and authority to be seen by millions of and finding for it a position in his long people: you just have to satisfy a specific gallery of self-portraits. Again, the official need at a specific time, according to rules picture (shot by Zeno Zotti) displays the that’s not easy to convert into a recipe. same framing of the original meme. Did you never make eye contact with the dramatic chipmunk? Did you never dance In this case, “meme” is the right word, listening to Charlie Schmidt’s piano cat? because the image has been appropriated Did you never share a lolcat on Facebook? and used as well by many other If you are able to use it, the internet is an anonymous web users. A comparison extraordinary source of “images”, and an between Cattelan’s work and these addiction for those who are, like Cattelan, vernacular appropriation of the same hungry of them. image is interesting. Whatever the purpose that originated the image was, the picture Last but not least, the internet is the place of the rubber boot head was used in many where the idea of copyright that Cattelan “demotivationals”, images created using adopted in his work as an artist and as an a standard layout (a black frame with a editor was actually developed in the first sarcastic text label) that makes the picture place. George Bernard Shaw’s sentence, “say” different things any time: jokes quoted at the beginning of this paragraph, about originality, the right use of rubber was displayed full page in the 11th issue of boots, the safety of using it that way, or… Permanent Food. That sentence is probably diarrhea. Using a different language and one of the most sampled quotes of the approaching different audiences, Cattelan digital age, first appropriated by the free and the other users who appropriated the software community, and later by those same image are actually doing the same who would like to apply the same model to thing: using an image produced by others any kind of cultural artifact. to say something that belongs to them.

Besides the dead horse, there are at True, a swallow doesn’t make a summer. least two more works by Maurizio But three, demonstrable references do not Cattelan whose origin can be found for only support the main idea developed in sure in an internet image. The first is a this essay – that theft is one of Cattelan’s 2002 sculpture, as well called Untitled favorite artistic strategies – but also its (2002), displaying a taxidermied donkey main corollary – that the internet is one suspended to an overloaded cart. Cattelan of his favorite sources, and one of the found inspiration in an image widely archives we have to browse if we want to circulated online in the late Nineties, shot trace the origins of his images. They invite somewhere in the Middle East and still us to focus on works whose dependance quite easy to find googling “funny donkey”. on existing images has still to be proved. This appropriation – mentioned also on They provide a fertile ground for research the Guggenheim catalogue – strikes, again, and hypotheses. In many cases, of course, for its transparency: in the official, “media it will be almost impossible to prove these version” of the work, now part of the Dakis hypotheses without a complete access Joannou collection – the framing is the to Cattelan’s “browser”, his physical, or same of the original image, and the visitor mental, archive of images. An archive walking on the left is in the same position, that promise to be huge, because of and plays the same role in the economy of his hunger of images and because his the image, of the Arab man watching the familiarity with the internet started very bizarre incident. early. Back in 1996, the American website Ada’web launched, in collaboration The third work, Untitled (2009), is a with Permanent Food, Permanent Foam, sculpture in polyurethane rubber and “a second generation webzine with a 15 selection of pages taken from sites all over a give-and-take relationship with the the .” The website – an vernacular imagery circulating on the ancestor of Delicious, allowing user to internet; and this relationship is extremely visit a collection of links and to contribute suggestive, even when it isn’t fully with his own links – is now a collection of demonstrable. A tentative phenomenology “404 not found” pages, but it allows us to of this relationship could be articulated date Cattelan’s interest in the World Wide like this: Web15. 1. Direct appropriation: Cattelan’s sees an A work whose “internet pedigree” is likely, image, and turns it into something else. but difficult to prove isUntitled (2007), the sculpture of a suspended horse with its 2. Preliminary research: Cattelan wants to head stuck in the wall. Look for “stupid do something, and before doing it he starts horse” on Google Images and you will a web search for related keywords, in immediately see the similarity with the order to study similar visual solutions and image of an horse with the head stuck in a finally come up with a successful image. tree. In this case, some changes have been made: Cattelan’s horse is not sitting on 3. Interference: Cattelan’s image is part of the floor, but suspended at a considerable an ongoing flow, or, as we said before, of height, as if it got caught in the wall while the ongoing history of a meme. jumping an obstacle, or as if it is the back side of an invisible hunting trophy Most of the examples we did so far mounted on the other side of the wall; and probably belong to either the first or the still, the similarities with the found image second category: Cattelan finds the image are quite strong. of the dead horse and decides to turn it into a work of art; or he wants to write a The same ambiguity can be found in new story for his favorite alter ego, starts Untitled (2008), a sculpture featuring two a web search for “stupid horse”, finds an abandoned shoes with plants growing image and use it as a starting point for a in them. Apparently, this work was new work. But what about, for example, A inspired by an image posted in 2007 on Perfect Day (1999), where he taped to the an Iraqi blog called “Soldier at home”. wall his gallerist Massimo de Carlo? Is it The two images display the same kind just another occurrence of the “taped to of shoes, and the same kind of plants; the wall meme”, that produced a plethora the framing is different, but they are of pics and YouTube videos easily available both set on a threshold. Cattelan’s online, or the starting point for it? Did sculpture was made for an exhibition in Cattelan appropriate an image, contribute a Nineteenth-century former synagogue to a meme or start it? in Germany, that survived the Nazis because a farmer employed it as a barn. And again: what is the relationship But if its relationship with the Iraqi blog’s between Untitled (2000), a picture of a image could be proved, we’d probably man with a big cork in his mouth, and the understand more about the peaceful pictures of freaks filling their mouth with sadness, and the sense of impermanence almost everything? that it generates in the viewer. Again, Cattelan appropriates a found image, Or between Betsy (2002), the old lady giving it a new meaning and reintroducing sitting in the fridge, and the dozens of it in the media landscape, allowing others pretty girls who tried to do the same? May to use it as well. the two bunnies with big eyes (Untitled, 1996) have been influenced by the popular Yet, the relationship between these two culture obsession with large pupils as images is mined by the emergence of displayed in manga, porno and sci-fi many other, similar images. Using shoes iconography related to biotechnologies? as flowerpots seems to be quite a popular And what do the two big dogs nursing activity, as proven by searching for “shoes a chick have to share with the popular planters” on Google. So, the question interest for images documenting bizarre is: is Untitled (2008) a classical example relationships between beasts? Are we of appropriation, or rather part of the really sure that now famous images such ongoing history of a meme? as the suicide squirrel (Bidibidobidiboo, 1996), the ostrich with his head stuck in The fact is that Cattelan’s work establishes the gallery floor (Untitled, 1997), the cow 16 with two Vespa handles inserted into its I’m also in debt with Alterazioni Video, who after the head as horns (Untitled, 1997), the donkey publication of this text in Italian sent me some new with a TV set on its back (If a Tree Falls…, links. 1998), the buried fakir (Mother, 1999), the Ku Klux Klan elephant (Not Afraid of Love, 2. “Nancy Spector in conversation with Maurizio 2000), and even the kneeling Hitler (Him, Cattelan”, in VVAA, Maurizio Cattelan, Phaidon Press, 2001) and the Papa crushed by a meteorite London – New York 2000. P. 8. (La Nona Ora, 1999) are only the outburst of Cattelan’s imagination and genius? 3. http://www.targetrichenvironment.net/?p=897. Maybe they come from somewhere else. Maybe he just discovered them, navigating 4. Nancy Spector (ed.), Maurizio Cattelan. All, that rich forest of signs that was once the Guggenheim Museum Publications, New York 2011, city, and that is now the net. p. 241.

Conclusions 5. According to Massimiliano Gioni, “when he To become an image means to abandon makes his sculptures, Cattelan thinks since the very the condition in which a work of art is beginning to their translation into an image. Usually referred to by name, in a usually narrow only one image of his sculptures circulates, and it discursive space, and embrace the becomes the media version of the work.” “In media condition of those images who everybody res”. Massimiliano Gioni interviewed by Lucia knows, usually without knowing what’s Longhi, in Flash Art Italia, Issue 299, February 2012, their name and where they come from. p. 34. My translation. Cattelan was able to reach this goal better than any other artist. Probably 6. “Nancy Spector in conversation with Maurizio this is why most of his works are untitled. Cattelan”, cit., p. 17. His sculptural works are made to be photographed, shared, distributed, 7. Cf. Jason Huff, “We Copy Like We Breathe: Cory commented and manipulated by others. Doctorow’s SIGGRAPH 2011 Keynote”, in Rhizome, We may go even further, and say that they August 12, 2011. http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/ are born to be used in a demotivational aug/12/cory-doctorows-siggraph-2011-keynote/. poster. Often they come out from the information flow through casual 8. Cf. Randy Kennedy, “Apropos Appropriation”, browsing, looking for such keywords in The New York Times, December 28, 2011. http:// as “squirrel suicide”, “sitting donkey”, www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/arts/design/richard- “dead horse”. A few artists share the same prince-lawsuit-focuses-on-limits-of-appropriation. awareness about the ways images are html?_r=1. circulated in the media. Cattelan proved it with his publishing projects, Permanent 9. “Nancy Spector in conversation with Maurizio Food and Toilet Paper. With his recent Cattelan”, cit., p. 22. retrospective, which is literally invading the internet with its kaleidoscopic photo 10. Francesco Bonami interviewed by Lucia Longhi, documentation16. With L.O.V.E (2010), the in Flash Art Italia, Issue 299, February 2012, p. 31. My first true “memement” in the history of translation. art: a monument born to be photographed, shared, used as an emoticon in a chat, or as 11. “In media res”, cit., p. 34. My translation. a response in an email. 12. Pierpaolo Ferrari, in Elena Bordignon, “Toilet But to consider Maurizio Cattelan’s work Paper Magazine”, in Vogue.it, September 14, this way may also provide a better ground 2010, www.vogue.it/people-are-talking-about/art- for understanding the work of a younger photo-design/2010/09/toilet-paper-magazine. My generation of artists who grew up in the translation. same information environment, and who relate to it in very similar, or completely 13. Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat. different, ways. 14. Quoted in Permanent Food, Issue 11, 2003. Notes 1. This essay has been inspired by a conversation with 15. Cf. http://www.adaweb.com/context/pf/foam/toc. Eva and Franco Mattes. They first discovered, and html. pointed to my attention, some of the appropriation discussed in this text. I stole them many ideas, but of 16. Francesco Bonami goes even further, saying: “His course I’m fully responsible of the way I used them. work is related to the media image. The pictures of 17 the Guggenheim exhibition tell us about a show that doesn’t really exist. The museum looks much bigger, the works seem to explode in space […] But what will remain in memory and in the history of art are the pictures, and thus another show […] The pictures of the show are the true show, the one the artist imagined, without the technical problems. The ideal show.” In Francesco Bonami interviewed by Lucia Longhi, cit., p. 31. My translation.

18 Troll Culture: and still is very inspiring to me. Trolling A Conversation with Stefan Krappitz was always something that fascinated — Matei Samihaian me, because it can be so much fun to use an infrastructure in a different way than Finding out about Stefan Krappitz’s book it was thought of (Tobias Leingruber i.e. Troll Culture, felt like an odd coincidence, FFFFF.AT calls this “skating the web”. as I was in the process of investigating Also an influence). I’m not claiming to be the possible connections between the a supreme expert in trolling, but I loved art of trolling and trolling as an artistic to troll Internet forums or chat rooms practice. I stumbled upon Olia Lialina’s with my friends in the late 90s and early link one day while looking up social 00s. When I got aware of 4chan and hacking strategies and pre-2.0 trolls that Encyclopedia Dramatica, I was fascinated had to adapt their tactics to a new social by the creative methods some of the trolls networking reality. I knew that trolls developed there. were really marginalized by the media (a recent action by the BBC underscores this At first, my topic was 4chan, Anonymous tendency) and was curious to discover and its troll culture, but since the approval alternatives approaches to this premise, of the topic, Cole Stryker announced a approaches that were opposed to the view book entitled Epic win for Anonymous of trolls being these sinister basement and the Anonymous movement grew dwellers planting traps on different online somewhat bigger than troll culture. I platforms while lurking in shadowy neither wanted to rewrite Strykers book spaces waiting for innocent victims. Such (since he had already written it very well), a surprisingly narrow understandings nor did I want to write on the political of troll culture paints, what is actually aspects of Anonymous protests. I was more a very fluid and adaptive practice–into interested in the troll culture part of the a modern day portrait of a gargoyle in topic, so I narrowed it all down a bit. front of the computer screen. As I was reading Krappitz’s book, the alternative At the same time, I really saw a strikingly understanding of troll culture I was negative consensus in media coverage looking for began to present itself. What about trolls. Even interesting books I read wasn’t a one sided affair either: it like Stryker’s describe trolls as “bored both exemplified the awesome and fun teenagers”. This is not fair, in my opinion! parts of trolling while criticizing actions that picked on defenseless victims or that Another thing that bothered me was the used insults as vicious weapons. lack of literature on trolling.

I thought about this for a while and started For example, most of the few cited texts drawing lines between the Anonymous on Wikipedia are from the 90’s and belong movement, artistic practices and the to books that don’t even concentrate trolling strategies that Troll Culture on trolling (Judith Donath writes about touched upon. Some of these lines were identity and deception on the , and dotted, some broke off somewhere Julian Dibbell writes about a griefer in an in-between, while others connected early text based online community called seemingly unrelated actions and critical Lambda MOO). positions. I felt the need to find out more about these possible connections My motivation was to prove that and interactions so I sent Stefan some trolling can be fun. I wanted to show the questions I had regarding his book. Below phenomenon of trolling as something is our conversation. worth researching. It was also very important to me to show the whole thing Matei Sâmihăian The first obvious question from a rather neutral point of view by is why did you choose to concentrate on describing both “how to be a troll” and this subject for your book? What did you “how to defend from trolls”. find so interesting about trolling? MS Given the multiple forms of action you Stefan Krappitz At first, I was really interpret as trolling (the Socrates example influenced by Olia Lialina’s and Dragan in the book), what do you think the Espenschied’s work on Internet amateur difference is between trolling and culture culture. Their way of seeing the good hacking? Is it the lulz? things in Geocities or Comic Sans MS was 19 SK Yes, the lulz is a very important part of live on every television station. Getting a it. leading politician of your state to read a fake message was definitely lulzy for the Lulz is by the way an often misinterpreted few that recognized its real source by the word. It can’t be used as a synonym German chanspeak. to lols. Lulz includes some form of Schadenfreude. As it was revealed to be fake, the whole German media was put in an MS Isn’t that too much of an insider joke embarrassing situation for not even that rings a bell only to a chosen few? checking the source of the message.

SK It lies in the nature of trolling, that MS To me it seems more like a micro- not everybody, especially not the victim, culture – a trolling-specific one (game knows what is happening. However, if grifeing, 4chan raids etc.) – that’s only more people do know about the joke, the relevant to specific cases or actions. Isn’t overall lulz created by it is increased. there a danger to pinning down these very Often, it is enough to reveal the joke fluid strategies into a genre or a culture afterwards. Think of David Thorne, or to analyze them in an anthropological who created a fake profile of a young manner? girl on Facebook. This girl “forgot” to set her birthday party to private and ten SK You are absolutely right. This is why I thousands of users joined the Facebook used a relatively wide definition. page for the party all the while Mr. Thorne was selling t-shirts to the “best party As I wrote in the introduction to the ever”. Politicians and journalists all of a chapter, “Be a Troll” those methods change sudden started to discuss this Facebook all the time. Trolling is about always party. After all the buzz settled down, finding new ways to act differently from David Thorne revealed the true story. If what people would expect. This is also he hadn’t, this would have remained just the creative aspect that I like the most some poor girl’s crashed birthday party, about trolling. Infiltrating a system, like but by revealing the whole story, many Tracky Birthday called it. When writing lulz have been had afterwards with all the about trolling techniques, all you can and buzz that was created. All of this made me should be doing is making exemplary think,“Well played, Mr. Thorne.” “screenshots”. Fitting these liquid forms into fixed traditional academic categories Sometimes however, being one of the is not the right thing here. It’s not about the few in on the joke is just the best thing of current techniques, but about the creative trolling. There is a good example from methods in generating new ones. For this, Germany. After a school gun rampage, I give various examples in my book and politicians blamed violent video games explain how they work, in order for you to like Counter-Strike or aggressive music develop them further. like Slipknot for it. Apart from the tragedy that is connected with a school Think of a feminist community. If you rampage, reactions from politicians would create an account just to write and the media enraged the younger something like “Why are you on the generation. When there was a school Internet? Get back to the kitchen and make shooting in Winnenden, a random troll me a sammich!”, the only thing likely to from krautchan (German 4chan) faked happen is that your account and the post a suicide note from the shooter as a getting deleted. So many people have tried krautchan forum post. The German media this before, that by now, the message has somehow got ahold of this and criticized become pure noise to a target group. To be the whole Internet, because this guy had a successful troll you have to come up with foretold his doings before online only something new. nobody took him seriously before. The message itself was really digging up all MS After recently seeing a video about a these stereotypes and it got so far that the Welsh troll that was defaced by the BBC, I interior minister of Baden-Württemberg found myself lurking on different channels read the message, which was full of hidden to see reactions to the video. While in your German chanspeak (grillen gehen = go to book you criticize these simple minded a barbecue = commit suicide or Bernd = trolling strategies, what is your reaction The name for the German Anonymous), to the replays and comments in relation to 20 the way the BBC handled the whole issue? unfiltered view of the users. While some Is there something at stake here? are just negative about trolling, others go in the direction of “trolling can be fun, but SK This is a really difficult question, this guy is not even a real troll for he is just because you can’t generalize. In this randomly insulting people.” case, I really don’t like the way the BBC is approaching the troll. He had no real This is also somewhat similar to my chance. The sole purpose of the interview opinion. on the street was to make him look like a stupid sociopath. It could have been Trolls should judge their own actions really interesting to find out about his and try to be as creative as possible and motivations, but obviously the BBC was to create maximum lulz! By just hurting not interested in this. If you want to people that are legitimately grieving for find out about a trolls motivation, you their lost ones, you are neither creative, shouldn’t be so extremely judgemental, nor are you creating lulz for anybody else but rather respect them, even if the troll IS than yourself. a sociopath. After all, this video shows the bad On the other hand, this guy is not a good reputation of trolling in traditional media troll at all. While I found it extremely versus the more sophisticated reputation difficult and overbearing to point out the of trolling among the users (comments). I border between morally bad and good really like this confrontation. trolling, I tried to give it some direction. Just writing insults on a memorial page MS In your view trolling as a cultural on Facebook is as creative as randomly phenomenon is closely linked to punching a twelve year old schoolgirl anonymity. Do you feel like trolling in the face. Creativity is somehow an shouldn’t happen on social networks like indicator of quality here. Facebook or Google+ or that it should be done in a different way? I’m thinking that There is however some kind of guideline to you’ll probably feel more “entitled” to troll trolling in my book. a friend rather than a stranger, but then where’s the lulz… Julian Dibbell wrote: SK While I link trolling to anonymity, I also the Internet is serious business’ means do link it to identity or pseudonymity. At exactly the opposite of what it says. It first this sounds conflicting, but at a closer encodes two truths held as self-evident by look, it is not. Both anonymity and identity Goons and /b/tards alike — that nothing on are listed as techniques against trolling the Internet is so serious it can’t be laughed in different sources I reviewed and it at, and that nothing is so laughable as perfectly makes sense. people who think otherwise. The idea of trolling linked to anonymity is While there is nothing more ridiculous somehow obvious: than people taking certain things on the Internet too serious, it is quite normal If everybody is anonymous, you cannot be to care about your real-life. When I’m made accountable for your actions. Your using the term real-life, please note that true self remains hidden and this makes it it does not necessarily exclude online really hard for you to be confronted with activities. Life on the Internet is real too your own actions. and sometimes it matters and other times it doesn’t. Deciding where to draw the On the Internet, this is known as John border is one of the most important things Gabriels Greater Internet Fuckwad when it comes to identity on the Internet. Theory or, in psychology, as the online Ruining this real-life and laughing about disinhibition effect. people taking it seriously is, contradictory to mocking people who are taking weird On the other hand, people are more aspects of online life too serious, the lamest likely to expect trolling in anonymous variation of trolling. environments. That’s why 4chan has the rule “Pics or it didn’t happen!”. The comments on the video are interesting, Timestamping is also a necessary in that they somewhat resemble the technique to get credibility in anonymous 21 environments. and covered himself in Vaseline and said toenails and pubes. He then ran into a In addition, it is really difficult to pick a Scientology building and smeared the target and see the effects of your actions as pubes and toenails all over the place. Since a troll when everybody is anonymous. he was also covered in Vaseline, he was so slippery that the security couldn’t grab Identity is often cited as a good technique him. Other members of Anonymous filmed to prevent trolling, which is not completely it and uploaded the footage to YouTube to true. While trolling on Facebook or spread the lulz. Google+ is harder than in anonymous environments, results can be a lot more In the actions of Anonymous, both rewarding. collective trolling and activism are really close and most of the times include each There are several reasons for this: First of other. all, people on Facebook are normally not expecting trolls as their conversational YouTube PornDay, for example, was an partner. Second, it is really easy to pick out action in which Anonymous protested a target. Third, the troll sees the impact against YouTube’s policies by flooding it of its actions. The only difficulty in those with porn. The aspect of lulz is bigger than identity-based environments is to fake a the activist component, which classifies reasonable identity. I’ve seen threads on the action as trolling. 4chan, where troll accounts on Facebook build networks by befriending each MS Art as trolling or the art of trolling? other. A fake account with 78 friends is much more believable than one with zero Some artists employ trolling strategies friends. within their work, I’m thinking of jodi’s thumbing youtube project, the Ten Tenten An example on how to troll your friend on facebook one, but also of Tracky Birthday Facebook would be (your friend needs to or Costant Dullaart promoting his IRL be in the same room with his computer) exhibition by trolling almost everyone in to sneak to his computer when he is away his Facebook list. There’s certainly a sort to the bathroom or gone for a smoke, of difference here by means of targets and and set the default privacy options on his lulz audiences. How do you see this artistic Facebook to “visible just for yourself”. trend in relation to troll culture? Since he likely doesn’t expect this, he will continue posting stuff and wonder why SK Trolling is an art! nobody likes or comments on his posts. There are lots of good ways to troll on I see great potential in trolling as an art. Facebook and Google+. David Thorne used One example, which is also covered in Facebook too when he set up that fake my book, is Dennis Knopf, aka. Tracky public Facebook party. Nobody expected Birthday’s Bootyclipse, where he the young girl to be a fake profile of a troll. downloaded bootyshaking videos from That way the whole action could work. YouTube, removed the bootyshaking and re-uploaded them to YouTube under the MS Internet serious business? Gabriela exact same name with the same tags as the Coleman sees the lulz as a departure point original. towards a more socially engaging way of political activism. What’s your take on the He also trolled everybody by setting up a subject? fake NY-Times page (that is down now), containing an interview with himself, SK I think that the border between activism when he launched his new album called and trolling is really blurry. “New Album”.

While some forms of protest, like hacking Another great troll/artist is Dragan the website of Paypal are easier to classify Espenschied who made a collaboration as activism (they didn’t do it for the lulz with Aram Bartholl when he spread primarily), others are classy examples for the fake news, that Google Streetview trolling. Remember operation slickpubes? now costs money in Germany because otherwise Google couldn’t afford the costs A guy from NYC collected the pubes and of everybody requesting to get their house toenails of other members of Anonymous blurred out (that is an actual problem with 22 the people here in Germany). He attached Tracky Birthday came up with a nice idea a link to a fake Streetview page that to troll party people when I talked to him required payment to browse the content. about my book. Just take an existing party Although the input fields for the payment and design new flyers for it. The fake information were dummies, the site got flyers, however, state that it is a pyjamas marked as a phishing site very quickly party or some bad-taste party. Print them and disappeared, but the idea behind this at some online discount printer and lay action is really nice. them out everywhere. Then turn up at the party to see the people going to a regular Since trolling is about creative play with party in pyjamas. people’s expectations or about infiltrating systems, I see a big connection to art! Another great idea, I found somewhere on the Internet involves those deer-cameras MS Do you have some good examples of RL that automatically take pictures when trolling? something in front of them moves. All you have to do is open the box and borrow SK Of course! RL trolling can be a lot of fun! the SD-card. Then, at home, open one of the pictures on the card and photoshop I remember trolling Aram Bartholl once, some kind of monster into it. Then put the when he held a lecture at Merz Academy card back into the camera and wait for the and went outside to get a cup of coffee. I television to broadcast a story about the ran forward to his notebook and plugged monster in the woods. in the receiver for my wireless mouse to the back of his notebook (one of those Again, all this works because you would that stand out just 3 millimeters when not expect someone to do this. plugged in). As he came back and showed us something, I could safely open any YouTube video while he was talking to us MS Are you a troll? with the projection in the back. Even as he realized, that something is wrong, he still SK Aren’t we all trolls sometimes? didn’t know how it worked! Here is a record of my most epic actions as Another more artistic action, two fellow a troll: students and me came up with (also during the workshop with Aram Bartholl) was http://nm.merz-akademie.de/~stefan. infiltrating Media Markt (German version krappitz/ of BestBuy). We printed out pictures and put them on USB-Sticks and went into the — Media Markt. Then we photographed the Edited by Cristina Vremeş pictures with the digital cameras they had on display and used their displays as our canvas. Then we went on to the computers and set the pictures from our USB-Stick as wallpapers on the PC’s and Notebooks.

We started some kind of exhibition like this. Sadly, while the employees had no idea what we were doing with the USB- Sticks, they did see our camera very quickly and threatened to throw us out of the shop immediately if we go on filming. Therefore, the documentation sucks.

Not that artistic but still really nice is sticking small trollface stickers over the sensors of optical mice, or making candy- apples with onions instead of apples, or somehow getting people to visit shock sites like lemonparty.org (don’t go there unless you want to see three elderly men doing “things.”) 23 Colophon Pool is a platform dedicated to expanding and improving the discourse between Set in Droid Serif, Droid Sans and Droid online and offline realities and their Japanese (2008). Designed by Steve cultural, societal and political impact on Matteson of Ascender Corporation for the one another. Android platform. Licensed under the Apache License. http://pooool.info/

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