<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<font face="Times New Roman">Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary
Art, Ljubljana, is proud to announce:<br>
</font>
<div class="moz-forward-container">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="">
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><b>!Mediengruppe Bitnik </b></font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><b><font size="4"><i>Random Darknet Shopper</i> (<i>Live
Version</i>) </font></b></font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><i>Solo exhibition</i></font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://aksioma.org/random.darknet.shopper/index.html">aksioma.org/random.darknet.shopper</a></font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><b>Aksioma | Project Space</b></font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Komenskega 18, Ljubljana</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">24 February – 25 March 2016</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Opening hours: TUE-FRI 12 pm – 6 pm</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Exhibition opening and artist talk: Wednesday, 25
February 2016 at 7 pm</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><b>Follow the bot on:</b> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org/r/">https://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org/r/</a></font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">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. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">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.</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">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
<i>Random Darknet</i> Shopper, by Swiss artists<b>
!Mediengruppe Bitnik</b>, 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 <i>Random Darknet Shopper</i> 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 <i>The
Darknet: From Memes to Onionland</i>, 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<i> Random
Darknet Shopper</i> accepts the risk of unpredictable
developments that may or may not happen during the time of
the exhibition. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">When they arrived, the Ecstasy pills – together
with the <i>Random Darknet Shopper</i> 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 <i>Random
Darknet Shopper</i> 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.” </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">!Mediengruppe Bitnik explained to <i>The Guardian</i>:
“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.” <i>Random Darknet
Shopper</i> was so good in doing this that its activity
was reported by magazines and newspapers worldwide,
including T<i>he Guardian, The Washington Times, Time
Magazine, Ars Technica, Daily Mail, Vice, Boing Boing,
Wired, Gawker, Der Spiegel, Dazed and Confused, Artnews.<br>
<br>
</i></font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">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 (<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://jonlackman.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://jonlackman.com">http://jonlackman.com</a></a>).</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><b>!Mediengruppe Bitnik</b> (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.</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><b>Production</b>: Aksioma – Institute for
Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2016</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Artistic Director: Janez Janša</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Producer: Marcela Okretič</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Executive Producer: Sonja Grdina</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Assistant: Katra Petriček</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Public Relations: Urša Purkart</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Technician: Valter Udovičić</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
<br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Event realized in the framework of <b>Masters
& Servers</b>, a joint project by Aksioma (SI),
Drugo more (HR), AND (UK), Link Art Center (IT) and
d-i-n-a / The Influencers (ES).</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><small><font face="Times
New Roman">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.</font></small></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><small> </small><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><b>Supported by</b>: the Ministry of Culture of the
Republic of Slovenia, the Municipality of Ljubljana and
Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. <br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"> </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><b>Contact</b>: </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Marcela Okretič, 00386-(0)41 250830,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:marcela@aksioma.org">marcela@aksioma.org</a><br>
</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman">Jakopičeva 11, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="Times New
Roman"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.aksioma.org">www.aksioma.org</a></font></div>
<font face="Times New Roman"><br>
</font></div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>