[spectre] "Kingdom of Piracy(KOP)" at Ars Electronica

[yukiko shikata]

http:// 211.73.224.150
Kingdom of Piracy <KOP>
Online Project
Premiere: Ars Electronica, September 7-12,2002.
http://www.aec.at/kop

Joint Curation: Shu Lea Cheang, Armin Medosch, Yukiko Shikata


Kingdom of Piracy <KOP> is an online, open work space to explore the
free sharing of digital content - often condemned as piracy - as the
net's ultimate art form. Commissioned  by the Acer Digital Art Center
[ADAC] in Taiwan for ArtFuture 2002, <KOP> was designed to include
links, objects, ideas, software, commissioned artists' projects,
critical writing and online streaming media events. Hailed as the
first international online exhibition sponsored by Taiwan's computer
giant Acer Group, a pilot website <kop.adac.com.tw> was launched in
December 2001 and presented with a press conference at the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Taipai, Taiwan.

In April 2002 the leadership and direction of ADAC changed. At about
the same time a major anti-piracy initiative was launched in Taiwan.
<KOP> became a politically sensitive issue in Taiwan and by May, the
curatorial and artists' FTP access to the <KOP> server was denied.
By mid-June, <kop.adac.com.tw> was taken offline. ADAC demanded
editorial rights to artists' links and requested a change of the
title, Kingdom of Piracy. The joint curatorial team rejected this
demand and sought ways of preserving the project as both a Taiwanese
initiative and an International online art project. Through the efforts
of ADAC's former director Ray Wang, <KOP> server access at ADAC was
resumed. However, an IP address 211.73.224.150 was assigned, the use
of the domain name is denied.

<KOP> will now be premiered  at Ars Electronica, September 7-12,2002.


[Artists' projects]
-Low Level_All_Stars (BEIGE vs. RSG)
-Global Village Health Manual v.1 (Raqs Media Collective
  + Joy Chatterjee),
-Stealth Waltz (Mukul Patel &  Manu Luksch)
-injunction generator(ubermorgen.com)
-The File That Wouldn't Leave(0100101110101101.org)
-ResourceHanger+ (doubleNegatives)
-I love you, world (Vladimir Radisic)
-Explorer 98 game (EASTWOOD - Real Time Strategy Group)
-HIGH BALL (exonemo)
-Warriors of Perception: Search and Manifest (Agnese Trocchi)
-i_Biology Patent Engine: (i-BPE)(Diane Ludin)
-All Universe for heike, dragan and internet explorer (Olia Lialina)
-Top 100 Net Blockers (Dragan Espenschied, Alvar Freude).


[Writers' projects]
-The Right to Copy: Local study on piracy as an art form
  (Whiteg weng)
-Distributed Media -> Digital Abundance: Property Decay in C21?
  (J.J. King)
-Culture Without Commodities:From Dada to Open Source and Beyond
  (Felix Stalder).