[rohrpost] Open_Source_Art_Hack, May 3 - June 30, 2002
Inke Arns
inke@snafu.de
Sun, 12 May 2002 18:17:31 +0200
http://netartcommons.walkerart.org/
Open_Source_Art_Hack
Zenith Media Lounge/The New Museum
May 3 - June 30, 2002
Organized by Steve Dietz, Curator of New Media, Walker Art Center, Minneap=
olis, and
Jenny Marketou, artist, New York City, in collaboration with Anne Barlow, =
Curator of
Education and Media Programs, New Museum
Artists: Critical Art Ensemble, Cue P. Doll, Harun Farocki, Knowbotic Rese=
arch, LAN,
Josh On/Futurefarmers, radioqualia, RSG, Superflex/Tenantspin, Surveillanc=
e Camera
Players, Rena Tangens
"Hackers create the possibility of new things entering the world. Not alwa=
ys great things,
or even good things, but new things. In art, in science, in philosophy and=
culture, in any
process of knowledge where data can be gathered, where information can be =
extracted
from it, and where in that information new possibilities for the world pro=
duced, there are
hackers hacking the new out of the old."
McKenzie Wark, Hacker Manifesto 2.0
In mainstream culture, hacking has many--mostly negative--connotations. Ac=
ts of hacking
can range from relatively harmless pranks, to those that have economic con=
sequences, to
criminal actions. The activity itself elicits both fear and fascination, a=
nd its aura of
anonymity and inscrutability makes it ripe for media exaggeration. Especia=
lly after
September 11, 2001, the usual official response to any kind of hacking has=
been to
indiscriminately codify it as "cyber-terrorism," diverting attention from =
its significant social
implications.
In an age of increased surveillance, rampant commercialization, and privat=
ization of
everything from language, to biological entities, to supposedly personal i=
nformation,
hacking--as an extreme art practice--can be a vital countermeasure. Partic=
ularly when
combined with the ethics of the "open source" movement, hacking represents=
an important
form of institutional critique. Originally devised as a process for the co=
mmunity creation
and ownership of software code, open source offers abundant applications f=
or artists--
and the public--because of its transparency and communality. Open source a=
llows artists
to become providers of functional tools with which users can create new fo=
rms of
information aesthetics, modes of activism, and content. Within this hybrid=
domain, they
can intervene on- and off-line, operating in public and hacking the privat=
e, alternating or
combining digital and analogue. And by using open source, artists extend t=
he life of
projects in a way that revises the relationship between artist, audience, =
and the social
sphere (both virtual and real).
Open_Source_Art_Hack includes the work of artists from the United States, =
Switzerland,
Denmark, Australia, and the United Kingdom who approach hacking as a creat=
ive
electronic strategy for resistance, rather than as a merely destructive ac=
t. By using media
and technology tactically, transparently, and collaboratively, the artists=
reveal and subvert
the way in which society, institutions, governments, or corporations under=
mine individual
identity, local control, and citizen agency. The work in Open_Source_Art_H=
ack is new,
but not without history, since it shares an important legacy with artists =
who have always
been interested in the politics of art as a mechanism of protest.
Swiss artists' collaborative Knowbotic Research installation Minds of Conc=
ern::Breaking
News consists of a gallery installation, web interface, and free downloada=
ble newstickers.
Visitors trigger a set of network processes that investigate the security =
conditions of a
particular group's server and evaluate whether it is secure or open to hac=
king attacks. The
software processes used in Minds of Concern are dramatically transformed a=
nd
externalized through light and sound signals in a kind of =93Alert Zone=94=
in the main gallery
space, as well as through textual data flows in the installation.
LAN clones one's "data body" to counter invasions of data privacy. Traceno=
izer works
on the principle of disinformation, using automated tools to create a fake=
homepage based
on searching the Internet according to a person's first and last names. Th=
is fake homepage
is then propagated through various search engines, so that it becomes impo=
ssible for
anyone to verify personal data, providing a measure of anonymity.
International computer collective RSG presents the packet-sniffing Carnivo=
re, which
eavesdrops on network traffic through a wire-tap device that plugs into a =
local area
network. By making the resulting data stream available on the net, an unli=
mited number of
"clients" can tap into, and visually interpret this data. For the title of=
the work, RSG
appropriated the name carnivore, which, until recently, was the nickname f=
or DCS1000, a
piece of software used by the FBI to perform electronic wiretaps.
Australian-born, London-based on-line art group r a d i o q u a l i a tra=
nsmit a low-
power radio broadcast, Free Radio Linux--literally lines of Linux source c=
ode--in the
museum lobby and through headphones suspended in the bookstore.
In Anti-wargame, Futurefarmers' Josh On challenges the ideology behind mos=
t computer
games (that tend not to reward players with a social conscience) with his =
own, anti-
imperialist version.
Cue P. Doll/rtmark jams the mediascape by turning an advertising tool--a m=
ouse barcode
reader--into a means of determining "alternative" values of particular ite=
ms by matching
them with a database of consumer products and corporate practices.
Berlin-based artist Harun Farocki's Eye/Machine investigates "intelligent"=
machines and
weapons.
In her lecture "Pretty Good Privacy," Rena Tangens addresses issues of pri=
vacy,
encryption and surveillance.
Artist collective Critical Art Ensemble and Beatriz da Costa present the p=
articipatory
performance, GenTerra. This performance explores the environmental impact =
of the new
organisms being produced by transgenics (the process of replacing the nucl=
eus of one
animal's cell with that of another) and the economic forces that drive sci=
entific research, as
well as the way that knowledge about such organisms is controlled.
By their very nature, Open_Source_Art_Hack projects extend beyond the muse=
um itself,
technologically and, in some cases physically. The Surveillance Camera Pla=
yers perform in
front of public and hidden surveillance cameras in Soho and mid-town, a ne=
w
performance, Amnesia.
Danish collective Superflex with Tenantspin work with local communities to=
create a
Superchannel streaming media broadcast that can also be viewed on the muse=
um
mezzanine.
PERFORMANCES, DISCUSSIONS, AND BROADCASTS
[see website]
http://netartcommons.walkerart.org/
Inke Arns
http://www.v2.nl/~arns
Out now:
Inke Arns. Netzkulturen. Europaeische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg, 2002
http://home.snafu.de/inke/Netzkulturen
Inke Arns. Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) - eine Analyse ihrer kuenstlerisch=
en Strategien im Kontext der 1980er Jahre in Jugoslawien. Regensburg 2002.=
ISBN 961-90851-1-6
http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Texts/NSK/abstract-NSK2002.html