[spectre] Evan Roth / INTERNET LANDSCAPES: SWEDEN - Online Launch

[Marcela Okretič]

*\\ Press Release*

*INTERNET LANDSCAPES: SWEDEN
Evan Roth*

*Online Launch Wed 2 March 2016
*_*http://n57.680235e11.668160.se/*_


/Internet Landscapes/ is a new series of web-based artworks by Evan Roth
that allows audiences to experience the Internet’s physical, digital and
cultural landscape. Through a series of video works that bring together
audio and video recordings charting the artist's obsession with and
journey to find the physical Internet.

As part of the Masters & Servers open call programme he evolves this
further with a new commission, /Internet Landscapes: Sweden/ based on
the artist’s recent research and documentation of Sweden’s main Internet
submarine fibre optic cable landing locations. These landing locations
are transitional moments in which fibre optic cables join the undersea
communication network, allowing continents to communicate digitally –
send emails, skype, phone.

In early 2016 Roth embarked on a pilgrimage to a number of landing
locations in Sweden between Kungsbacka, on the south eastern coast, and
Väddö, just north of Stockholm, documenting the surroundings using
infra-red video and binaural audio recordings. The use of infra-red is
in part a reference to the architecture of the Internet, which uses
infra-red laser light transmitted through fibre optic cables. While the
audio monitors and records his heart rate, surrounding environment and
fm radio waves. The result is a online experience that brings together
these recordings, to allow you to meditate on the landscape and the
internet as the video file transfers through the network from its’ host
in Sweden to your screen.

For Roth, visiting the Internet physically is an attempt to repair a
relationship that has changed dramatically as the Internet becomes more
centralized, monetized and a mechanism for global government spying.
Clearly seeing the infrastructure disappear underground and underwater
also alludes to the slowly eroding optimistic and egalitarian values
many of us attributed to earlier incarnations of the internet. Through
understanding and experiencing the Internet’s physicality, one comes to
understand the network not as a mythical cloud, but as a human made and
controlled system of wires and computers.

*The project will be revealed online on Wednesday 2nd March 2016,* and
for those wishing to delve deeper, clues are held in the url and source
code signaling to the works origins and different readings.

The launch date coincides with the works premier as part of the /Black
Chamber/ exhibition taking place at the Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana from
March 10 – April 1, 2016. Curated by Eva and Franco Mattes and Bani
Brusadin, featuring artists Jacob Appelbaum & Ai Weiwei, Zach Blas,
James Bridle, Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion, Simon Denny, Jill Magid,
!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Metahaven, Laura Poitras, Evan Roth.

Evan Roth, artist said
/“//For me this project is as much a search for the Internet as it is a
search for new ways of making art within a fundamentally changed network
landscape.//”/

Ruth McCullough, Senior Producer for Abandon Normal Devices said
/“The Masters and Servers partners are delighted to commission this new
artwork by Evan Roth, it is the first in a significant new series by the
artist, who makes visible the environment of the internet and its
misuses.” /


The project is commissioned through a Masters & Servers open call
programme which launched in summer 2015.
Masters & Servers is a joint project by Aksioma (SI), Drugo more (HR),
Abandon Normal Devices (UK), Link Art Center (IT) and d-i-n-a / The
Influencers (ES).



Production coordination: Marcela Okretič, Aksioma and Ruth McCullough,
Abandon Normal Devices

Supported by: Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, the
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of
Ljubljana

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.



*For press enquiries please contact: *
Marcela Okretič, Aksioma
_marcela at aksioma.org <mailto:marcela at aksioma.org>_



*\\ Notes to Editors*


*Masters & Servers
*Masters & Servers is a 24-month project investigating NETWORKED CULTURE
IN THE POST-DIGITAL AGE, both its current effect on society and
possibilities for the future, by exploring these 3 strands:

  * Imagination: Technologies are shaping new forms of representation,
    storytelling and social dialogue. How do we make sense of our
    connectedness, both public and anonymous, individual and collective,
    political and personal?
  * Reproduction: New forms of creation and distribution are shifting
    lines between amateur and professional. How do they affect cultural
    (re)production?
  * Action: Activist artists and businesses are both creating viral and
    collaborative distribution tools, resulting in the disruption of the
    known and expected. What forms of engagement and adventure do they
    reveal?

Five key organisations in the European contemporary and media arts
–_<http://aksioma.org/>__Aksioma <http://aksioma.org/>_
(SI),_<http://www.drugo-more.hr/wordpress/>__Drugo more
<http://www.drugo-more.hr/wordpress/>_
(HR),_<http://www.linkartcenter.eu/>__Link Art Center
<http://www.linkartcenter.eu/>_
(IT),_<http://www.andfestival.org.uk/>__Abandon Normal Devices
<http://www.andfestival.org.uk/>_ (UK)
and_<http://theinfluencers.org/en>__d-i-n-a
<http://theinfluencers.org/en>_ (ES) – have joined forces in an
exploration of a multifaceted scene where media-savvy artists,
hacktivists and creators traverse the frontiers of contemporary art,
social intervention and amateur invention. Together they have
co-produced exhibitions and new artworks, launch open calls and online
platforms, and send artists and artworks on the road. Discourses arising
as a result will be documented in publications and shared in seminars
and public events. As a whole, the project aims to strengthen the
partners’ operational know-how and engage new and existing audiences in
a dynamic conversation that paves the way for unexpected connections on
the entire spectrum of contemporary creativity.
_www.mastersandservers.org <http://www.mastersandservers.org/>_
_www.facebook.com/mastersandservers
<http://www.facebook.com/mastersandservers>_


*Evan Roth*
Evan Roth (b. 1978) is an American artist based in Paris whose practice
visualizes and archives culture through unintended uses of technologies.
Creating prints, sculptures, videos and websites, his work explores the
relationship between unintended uses and empowerment and the effect that
philosophies from hacker communities can have when applied to digital
and non-digital systems.
His work is in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New
York, and the Israel Museum. Recent exhibitions include the 2016
Biennale of Sydney; Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966) at Whitechapel
Gallery, London; and This Is for Everyone at the Museum of Modern Art,
New York. Roth co-founded the arts organizations Graffiti Research Lab
and the Free Art and Technology Lab and in 2016 was a recipient of
Creative Capital funding.
_www.evan-roth.com/work/ <http://www.evan-roth.com/work/>_ _ at EvanRoth
<http://twitter.com/evanroth_>_ <http://twitter.com/evanroth_>_


*The Black Chamber*
The Black Chamber exhibition will take place at the Škuc Gallery,
Ljubljana from March 10 – April 1, 2016, then tour to the Mali
Salon/Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia from April
7 – 30, 2016. The programme questions: How did the internet go from the
utopian free-for-all, open source heaven, libertarian last frontier to
the current state of permanent surveillance, exhibitionism and paranoia?
and developed through ongoing research on these subjects by
internationally renown artist duo Eva & Franco Mattes and
researcher-curator Bani Brusadin, and is a selection of some of the most
significant works by a generation of artists and activists who devise
both technological and social tactics to peek into contemporary
phenomena of surveillance and paranoia, including the ambiguity of
massive voyeurism and actual systems of corporate or state control over
citizens.
_http://aksioma.org/black.chamber/_







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