CONFESSIONS OF AN ONLINE STALKER ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The following text Confessions of an Online Stalker is my critical reflection on a 3-year research project titled Future Guides: From Information to Home carried out between 2010-2014 within the Norwegian Artistic Fellowship Programme, and around the Ber- gen Academy of Art and Design. A final exhibition of my artistic research,Your Revolu- tion Begins at Home, took place at the USF Gallery and Cinemateket in Bergen, Sep- tember 4-14, 2014. Throughout my artistic research project, I have been blessed with a succession of engaging discussion partners who have provided invaluable assistance in the development of my research. The generosity of their time and readiness to talk things through have helped me to develop and reflect on the artistic research methods used to carry out this work. The following texts take the form of a series of conversa- tions because the creation of the work takes place through a long process of discussion, debate, negotiation and reflection. As I refer to a statement made by Deleuze in my introduction, “Creation is all about mediators which means that you are always working in a group, within a dialogue.” Therefore, I would like to acknowledge the many inter- locutors who contributed throughout this long process. They are and in no particular order of importance: Ellen Røed, Frans Jacobi, Magnus Bärtås, Suzanna Milevska, Lina Selander, Marcos Garcia, Marta Peirano, Fré Sonneveld, Brendan Howell, Sadie Plant, Amanda Steggell, Jeremy Welsh, Pedro Gomez-Egaña, François Vallee, Carol-Ann Belzil Normand, Dull Janiell Hernandez, Lena Seraphin, Behzad Khosravi, Pedro Sal- guero, Peter Grevstad, Mei Szetu, Fábio Malini, Margarita Padilla, Tina Madsen, Diana McCarty, Lars-Henrik Ståhl, Honor Harger, José Luis De Vincente, Rosa Pera, Mika Hannula, Franziska Kleiner, Andrej Slavik, Marc Herbst, Ada Colau, Carlo Ginzburg, Anne Helen Mydland, Alain Ayers, Daniil Vasiliev, Luca Massari, Duc Rumbak, Tao Sambolec, Hildur Bjarnadóttir, Signe Lidén, Amber Frid-Jimenez, Anke Bangma, Anne Marthe Dyvi, Berglijót Jónsdóttir, Cecilia Gelin, Eamon O’Kane, Ole Jørn Jensen, Gil- lian Carson, Heide Nikolaisen, Hilde Hauan Johnson, Heli Rekula, Patrik Entian, Ville, Scott Rettberg, Hito Steyerl, Annette Schaefer, Miles Chalcraft, Siri Hermansen, Synne Tollerud Bull, Trond Lossius, The Devil’s Advocate, Jill Walker Rettberg. Brandon LaBelle, Talan Memmott, Ahmed Abbas, Jussi Parrika, Esther Leslie, Manu Luksch, Renee Turner, Irene Montero, Manuela Cuello Rodriguez, Rosario Alcántara Tor- res, Gladys Cerna Dávila, Maria Dolores Ramos Chavero, Drew Hemment, Elisabeth Nesheim, Juan Martin Prada, Kathy Rae Huffman, Minna Tarka, Elena Veljanovska, Daphne Dragona, Ivana Hanacek, David Rych, MediaLab Prado, the Microhistories Re- search Group, the Psychosocial Impact Team of the Truth Comission and PAH Madrid. Michelle Teran, Québec City, December, 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 9 Conversation #1 (YouTube) 31 Conversation #2 (Software) 47 Conversation #3 (Folgen) 183 Conversation #4 (Microhistory) 253 Conversation #5 (Madrid) 273 Conversation #6 (Translation) 355 Conclusion 371 List of Discussants 375 List of Works 389 (The scene is a small gathering in an apartment in Berlin, more specifically, in a small, but cozy kitchen with a table with three chairs and a sofa that seats two. Through the window one sees a balcony, a folding table, two fold out chairs, containers of frozen plants, leafless trees, a large open area, and a block of apartments in the distance. It is a cold grey early morning in winter. Michelle, the artist-researcher, an intense looking woman in her 40s, sits at the kitchen table, taking the middle chair, facing the wall. To the left is the Devil’s Advocate, stylishly dressed, with arms folded and looking smug and confident. The right chair is currently empty, but could potentially be taken up by differ- ent people throughout the course of the day. There is a variety of people milling around the room, almost too many to fit in such a small kitchen. Some people have not arrived yet but will arrive at certain points during the day. Sadie, a writer, stands by the wall, with a half-smile on her face. Frans, a performance artist, appears very conservative if not for the playful look in his eyes that suggests trouble. Esther, a professor of political aesthet- ics, seems confused to be in the room and ready to bolt. Jussi, a media theorist, looks like he didn’t expect to be in such a small room with so many people when he received the invitation, but is still smiling. Magnus, an artist and writer, is exceedingly tall and ap- pears quite comfortable in his skin. Honor, a curator of digital art, as per her predilection for enthusiasm, eagerly anticipates the exchange. Manu, a filmmaker, has turquoise hair and wide, friendly eyes, and is cradling a small dark-haired, two-year-old girl, also with wide, friendly eyes. The Steering Committee stands by the entrance to the kitchen, peek- ing in, holding a clipboard. A group of electronic literature practitioners consult with one another by the door leading to the balcony. Brendan, a reluctant engineer, is wearing very nice socks and smoking outside on the balcony. There is a rather large congregation of media theorists, scholars, programmers, a pirate, a film historian, a moving image archi- vist, a metadata librarian, a sociologist, a data cruncher and a new materialist scholar shoved against the washing machine and the kitchen sink. The data cruncher and meta- data librarian are, in fact, currently sitting in the sink. Paul John has dark hair, glasses, and is seated on the sofa, looking around the room. Apart from Magnus, he doesn’t know anybody here. Steve is far too tall for the room and stoops down to avoid hitting the lamp hanging from the kitchen ceiling. Carlo, a microhistorian with a heavy Italian accent, has not arrived yet. Were he to be in the room, he would also have preferred the sofa. Andrej, also a historian, is quiet yet attentive, and has also not arrived. If he were in the room, he would prefer to be sitting next to Carlo. Vilem, a theorist, is used to being in many differ- ent situations and is happy to offer insight whenever required.) 8 MICHELLE TERAN CONFESSIONS OF AN ONLINE STALKER 9 INTRODUCTION MICHELLE AND THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: –How do you want to begin? MICHELLE: –I will begin with the end. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: –And where does it end? MICHELLE: –It ends up with me traveling on a metro with three women, somewhere Madrid. It is the journey I end up taking. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: –Traveling on a metro? MICHELLE: –Yes! Three women are standing in the metro, singing loudly, shouting out slogans to anybody who will listen. I am following these women, on the metro. It is chaos: you have this feeling that something crazy is about to happen. We are heading to- wards another part of the city, towards a home in a time of crisis. It is a journey towards rupture. A young couple with two children are going to be evicted from their home. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: –Do you know these women? MICHELLE: –At this point, yes. It doesn’t seem odd to be traveling with them on this metro. When we arrive at the couple’s apartment, we are going to spend the night there. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: –Why? MICHELLE: –So when the police come the next morning, at around six, we will be wait- ing for them. We are going to try to prevent the eviction from taking place. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: –But how? MICHELLE: –By forming a wall of bodies on the steps leading to the apartment. I will be the one filming the next morning when police roughly pull away the activists sitting on the stairs, one by one, until nobody remains. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: –Are you going to start by telling us why you decided to fly to Spain and join the fight for the rights of evicted people? Why you became so interested in this topic that you became an activist yourself? MICHELLE: –No, not yet. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: –So how do you want to begin? MICHELLE: –I want to begin with another end. It ends with my exhibition at the USF gallery in Bergen, September 2014. I will describe the exhibition through seven differ- ent vantage points located throughout the gallery, which I will refer to as storytelling stations: 10 MICHELLE TERAN CONFESSIONS OF AN ONLINE STALKER 11 a microphone. The title of the book is Mortgaged Lives. To the left of the monitor, in the distance, is a grey canvas chair, a birch colored square coffee table, a bright red wall, and a large wallpaper print of an IKEA catalogue cover. White adhesive vinyl, covering the floor, marks out the floor plan of a house. A white line close to the LCD monitor marks out the border between the interior and exterior of the house. To the right of the floor plan is another wall completely covered in a wallpaper of a flowchart. Directly in front of the LCD monitor playing the video are two tables painted grey—one rectangular, one square—propped up using wooden A-frame stands. There are five black chairs placed around the table. Storytelling Station 2 (The Private Room a.k.a The Gentleman’s Room): A rectan- gular cardboard archival box is placed on a light birch LACK coffee table from Ikea. Attached to the top of the box is a photograph of a yellow house. On the inside cover is Storytelling Station 1 (Mariló): A LCD computer monitor, placed on the floor, leans a list of everything contained within the box: a book, photographs from Ole’s blog, stills against a cardboard box.