Loophole4All.com Wins Big Art Award and Turns into ArtCommodities.com - Press Release

Press Release. June 2nd 2014, NYC.
Loophole4All.com Wins Big Art Award and Turns into ArtCommodities.com

It's a pleasure to announce that Loophole for All won the Golden Nica, first prize of Prix Ars Electronica,
one of the most prominent awards from socially engaged media art - in Linz, Austria.
http://prix2014.aec.at/prixwinner/12143/

Shortly: The project exposed 215,000 anonymous companies in the Cayman Islands and attempted to sell their identities in order to democratize tax shields.

In one year Loophole4All.com received:
2 Cease and Desist letters from Chinese financial firms.
10 legal threats from business owners in the Cayman Islands.
12 articles in international newspapers.
1,000 orders made through the selling of companies.
700 USD made and lost through selling the identities of Cayman Island firms.
2 PayPal Account suspensions and a ban on trading.
25,000 investigative queries into the database of 215,000 entities.
900 subscriptions to the project’s newsletter with anonymous email addresses or from domains like: ey.com, hsbc.com, citi.com, kcs.com, etc.

Unfortunately, PayPal didn't concede and I lost all the money that I earned from the selling of subversive artworks in a limited edition. In the meantime, my mailbox on the Cayman Islands appears to have been shut down and I haven’t received mail there in a few months. By the way, I am not making up a single detail of the project. Read the full story here:
http://paolocirio.net/press/texts/text_loophole4all.php

There has finally been increased political pressure on the loopholes of anonymous companies, so I decided to move onto the next booming financial instrument that hasn’t yet been regulated, in fact my next project taps into the art market with a promising Smart model that allows everyone to collect art and increase the value of the collections.

Today, I introduce ArtCommodities.com. The platform offers a simple economic analysis of how value is created in contemporary art and proposes an innovative model that allows everyone to invest in art that matters with a new type of collectable object. Read more about the new model: http://ArtCommodities.com/?/c/model

By turning offshore firms in art commodities, you can now buy artworks from Loophole4All.com once again. Become the only owner of unique historical artworks for 99 cents and up!

Have a look at the photos of the art installation of Loophole for All in the following exhibitions
Show at Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art in Ljubljana:
http://paolocirio.net/work/loophole-for-all/loophole-for-all-aksioma.php
Show Unstable Territories at CCC Strozzina in Florence:
http://paolocirio.net/work/loophole-for-all/loophole-for-all-strozzina.php
Show Global aCtIVISm at ZKM, Center for Art and Media, in Karlsruhe;
and Out of the Box at MAK, Museum for Applied Arts, in Vienna, some pictures:
http://paolocirio.net/work/loophole-for-all/loophole-for-all-others.php

A recent video interview in Slovenia on national TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLHi4K92_5c
A recent interview published on The Wild Magazine:
http://thewildmagazine.com/blog/paolo-cirio-loophole-for-all
You can learn more about the project, its others exhibitions and publications here:
http://paolocirio.net/work/loophole-for-all


Follow new and upcoming artworks and shows

* Global Direct
http://paolocirio.net/work/global-direct
This project introduces the idea of real-time participation in world wide governance. It's an ambitious project, which will be ongoing for a few months. It is a 2014 commission by Turbulence through the Jerome Foundation and It'll be shown at Kasa Gallery in Istanbul in June and at DOX Prague in November.

* Fingerprints Catalogue
http://DataAsCulture.org
This project is commissioned by Open Data Institute for shows at FutureEverything and Lighthouse in UK. It makes use of sophisticated browser tracking technology for an Anti-Social Sculpture. The fingerprints left on the catalogue and its artworks are collected for composing the display of the featured artworks.

* (W)orld Currency
http://paolocirio.net/work/world-currency
A manipulation-proof currency through the creative formulation of an equation and a trading algorithm. It started through a commission at the Museumsquartier in Vienna and was shown in March at Borroworrob at HDLU in Zagreb, in September it'll be exhibited during the Digital Design Weekend at the V&A Museum in London.

* Street Ghosts
New photos of Street Ghosts published on the map in Barcelona http://goo.gl/maps/YDJT7 - Zagreb http://goo.gl/maps/0nK19 - Lincoln http://goo.gl/maps/0PCFj - Sydney UTS http://goo.gl/maps/dYs3L and here a great video from The Influencers action http://vimeo.com/85017360. In september it will be installed for Making the City Playable in Bristol, at the V&A Museum in London and Eternal September for Aksioma Institute and Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana.

* Face to Facebook
It's currently being shown in Big Bang Data at CCCB Museum in Barcelona and Out of Control at Ars Electronica Center in Linz. In these installations the audience can browse the epic dating website Lovely-Faces.com! The piece will be shown also at The Photographers’ Gallery in London during this summer.

* HD Stencils
http://paolocirio.net/work/hd-stencils
It is an experiment with laser cutters and coding. This new technique for High Resolution stencils will be used with spray paint. A few painting will be shown in Berlin in 2015. While this summer you will see those graffiti on downtown's walls.

* Direct Democracy within the Internet at Left Forum
http://www.leftforum.org/content/direct-democracy-within-internet
I curated this panel at the major Left-wing gathering in U.S. that investigated the potential and limits of enhancing democracy through the Internet at John Jay College, CUNY in New York City.

* Performing Change panels series
http://paolocirio.net/press/texts/perfoming-change.php
Don't forget to check out the video recordings of the panel series with 14 awesome speakers that I curated at Eyebeam in NYC last October.

* I've also written a new artist statement about working with contemporary social complexity this year. You can read it here:
http://www.paolocirio.net/press/texts/paolo_cirio_statement.php

There are also some video recording of lectures I gave recently:
Berlin: http://youtube.com/watch?v=7lf9lRE99ng
Amsterdam: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oTWD_T4eAYA
Barcelona: http://vimeo.com/83314656
Ljubljana: http://vimeo.com/84716181


Many thanks for reading.
With the promise of other new explosive top-secret projects this summer!
Paolo Cirio's press office.
http://PaoloCirio.net