[spectre] Random Darknet Shopper (Live Version) at Aksioma Project Space

Wed Feb 10 15:44:36 CET 2016

Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, is proud to announce:

*!Mediengruppe Bitnik *
*/Random Darknet Shopper/ (/Live Version/) *
/Solo exhibition/
aksioma.org/random.darknet.shopper
<http://aksioma.org/random.darknet.shopper/index.html>

*Aksioma | Project Space*
Komenskega 18, Ljubljana
24 February – 25 March 2016
Opening hours: TUE-FRI  12 pm – 6 pm

Exhibition opening and artist talk: Wednesday, 25 February 2016 at 7 pm

*Follow the bot on:* https://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org/r/

The online environment of the Internet has emerged as a wild and open
space where communication is fluent, content is freely exchanged and
identity is difficult to track behind the opacity of IP addresses and
monikers. In recent years, however, there has been a titanic effort on
the part of national governments, international organizations and
companies to exert control over this anarchist utopia. Of course, this
hasn’t been without conflict: activists, private citizens and other
organizations and companies are actively working to protect the “freedom
of the Internet” on an infrastructural level, well aware that when this
infrastructure changes – for whatever good reason (protection of
copyright and patents, the fight against terrorism, etc.) -– what we
will lose is far more than what we will gain. This conflict is no longer
something that can be reductively limited to the field of technology. As
an important part of current global politics and economics, it is
something everybody should be aware of. 

The rise of the so-called “darknet” is part of this process. Technically
speaking, a darknet (or dark net) is an overlay network that can only be
accessed with specific software, configurations or authorization, often
using non-standard communications protocols and ports. Two typical
darknet types are friend-to-friend networks (usually used for file
sharing with a peer-to-peer connection) and anonymity networks such as
Tor via an anonymized series of connections.” (from Wikipedia) Like
peer-to-peer networks or forums allowing anonymity, darknets are not
illegal – or used for illegal purposes – by default, but as free,
uncontrolled spaces, they are easily demonized as dangerous,
uncomfortable places where bad things such as terrorism, espionage,
pedopornography and black markets flourish.

How can we get an impartial portrait of a place whose look changes a lot
depending on the experience, the culture, the ideas and the tastes of
who is visiting it? One possible way is to set up a robot that visits it
for us, according to a set of simple, predetermined rules. The /Random
Darknet/ Shopper, by Swiss artists*!Mediengruppe Bitnik*, Carmen
Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo, is such a kind of robot. With a wallet of
$100 in Bitcoins per week, and the task to randomly buy whatever fits in
its wallet and send it to the place where the work is exhibited, the
/Random Darknet Shopper/ goes shopping on AlphaBay, an online
marketplace accessible via a Tor browser listing about 96,132 products,
not all of them illegal. First installed and activated at the Kunst
Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland for the show /The Darknet: From Memes to
Onionland/, curated by !Mediengruppe Bitnik, the software bought and
shipped to the museum various items including a pair of fake Diesel
jeans, a baseball cap with a hidden camera, a stash can, a pair of Nike
trainers, a decoy letter (used to see if your address is being
monitored), 200 Chesterfield cigarettes, a set of fire-brigade issued
master keys, a fake Louis Vuitton handbag and 10 Ecstasy pills. Like
every performative work based on open rules, the/Random Darknet Shopper/
accepts the risk of unpredictable developments that may or may not
happen during the time of the exhibition. 

When they arrived, the Ecstasy pills – together with the /Random Darknet
Shopper/ and all the purchased items – were seized by the Swiss public
prosecutor and submitted for forensic examination, which proved the
drugs were real. Three months later, the artwork and all the items were
released, and the Ecstasy was destroyed. As the artists explained on
their blog: “In the order for the withdrawal of prosecution, the public
prosecutor states that the possession of Ecstasy was indeed a reasonable
means for the purpose of sparking public debate about questions related
to the exhibition. The public prosecution also asserts that the
overriding interest in the questions raised by the artwork /Random
Darknet Shopper/ justifies the exhibition of the drugs as artifacts,
even if the exhibition does pose a small risk of endangering third
parties through the drugs exhibited.” 
!Mediengruppe Bitnik explained to /The Guardian/: “The arts should be
able to mirror something that is happening in contemporary society in a
contemporary way. We really want to provide new spaces to think about
the goods traded on these markets. Why are they traded? How do we as a
society deal with these spaces? At the moment there is just a lot of
pressure, but not a lot of thinking about stuff, just immediate
reaction.” /Random Darknet Shopper/ was so good in doing this that its
activity was reported by magazines and newspapers worldwide, including
T/he Guardian, The Washington Times, Time Magazine, Ars Technica, Daily
Mail, Vice, Boing Boing, Wired, Gawker, Der Spiegel, Dazed and Confused,
Artnews.

/
The project will be presented at Aksioma Project Space as part of the
Masters & Servers programme and will be accompanied by a brochure
featuring a new text by journalist and art historian Jon Lackman
(http://jonlackman.com).

*!Mediengruppe Bitnik* (Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo) live and
work in Zurich/London. They are contemporary artists working on and with
the Internet. Their practice expands from the digital to affect physical
spaces, often intentionally applying loss of control to challenge
established structures and mechanisms. !Mediengruppe Bitniks works
formulate fundamental questions concerning contemporary issues. Their
works have been shown internationally, including the  Shanghai Minsheng
21st Century Museum, Kunsthaus Zürich, NiMk Amsterdam, Space Gallery
London, Cabaret Voltaire Zurich, Beton7 Athens, Museum Folkwang Essen,
Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, Beijing “Get It Louder” Contemporary
Art Biennial, La Gaîté Lyrique Paris, Gallery EDEN 343 São Paulo and the
Roaming Biennale Teheran. They have received the Swiss Art Award, Migros
New Media Jubilee Award and an Honorary Mention Prix Ars Electronica.

*Production*: Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2016
Artistic Director: Janez Janša
Producer: Marcela Okretič
Executive Producer: Sonja Grdina
Assistant: Katra Petriček
Public Relations: Urša Purkart
Technician: Valter Udovičić

Event realized in the framework of *Masters & Servers*, a joint project
by Aksioma (SI), Drugo more (HR), AND (UK), Link Art Center (IT) and
d-i-n-a / The Influencers (ES).

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of
the information contained therein.

*Supported by*: the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the
Municipality of Ljubljana and Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.             

*Contact*:     
Marcela Okretič, 00386-(0)41 250830, marcela at aksioma.org
Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana
Jakopičeva 11, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
www.aksioma.org <http://www.aksioma.org>

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