The Influencers festival / Barcelona 6-7-8 july 2006
THE INFLUENCERS
Festival of media action and radical entertainment
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*July 6 7 8 - 2006*
Center of Contemporary Culture Barcelona
http://d-i-n-a.net/influencers
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with VUK COSIC, PAUL D. MILLER / DJ SPOOKY, MOLLEINDUSTRIA, IRWIN /
NEUE SLOWENISCHE KUNST, VINCENZO SPARAGNA, OSCAR BRAHIM, CHICKS ON
SPEED
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program: http://d-i-n-a.net/influencers/06/en
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Welcome to episode three of The Influencers series, the live talk show
you won't see on TV! With us tonight, we have media pranksters, star
remixers of ideas, saboteurs of academic categories and reality
agitators of every stripe.
Over the next three days, our 7 guests will present their work and
discuss it with us. They will take us into stories of collective
hallucinations that turn into reality and vice versa, like the time a
Nazi icon was used to celebrate the patron-hero of a socialist state,
or that fun time we spent bribing scientists and crushing workers so
that our junk food company would come out on top (at least in a
videogame).
And more: porn movies transformed into sequences of letters and
numbers, fake newspapers announcing the end of the Polish communist
regime and a new king Wojtyla, stolen web pages, an apologia for
copying, DIY artists who have cracked the top ten, masked insects
hanging from the billboards of corrupt presidents...
Our 7 guests will talk about the origins of their projects, their
challenges and objectives, giving us all the dirt on the strategies
that work while suggesting clues we can use to explore subterranean
affinities through different periods, disciplines and cultural
contexts. Acquisition of other identities on a mass scale and a trip
through the turbulences of information flows are our recommended
remedies to July sunburn and other nuisances.
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press office: Monica Munoz, premsa AT cccb.org / +34 933064100
Fake European propaganda movie hits Austria and Bologna
Fake European propaganda movie hits Austria and Bologna
Mattes' grand artwork keeps on spreading in both the public and the
media space.
'United We Stand' is the title of the much-hyped spy/action movie
wholly produced by Europe, a large-scale propagandistic stunt that has
in the past few months stirred much controversy. Too bad the movie
doesn't actually exist, but it is instead the latest insane provocation
of the artists' couple Eva and Franco Mattes, better known as
0100101110101101.ORG. After Berlin, Brussels, Barcelona, New York and
Bangalore, the gigantic performance has now landed in Austria and
Bologna.
While the movie itself doesn't exist, the actors and the flashy poster
do. They portray the inspired faces of the main characters surrounded
by the blue of the European flag and by gruesome war scenes. The
movie's Web site also exists - www.UnitedWeStandMovie.com - and it is
accompanied by an extensive advertising campaign covering half the
globe, causing extreme reactions in both the streets and the media.
"United We Stand" Eva Mattes explains "mimics the typical Hollywood
action movie where the US always wins and saves the world. We have used
their cliched visual elements, but we have replaced their flag with the
European one. The outcome is quite disturbing, it seems to me that it
better communicates what we often take for granted, rather than stating
what it truly represents".
In the past months, the movie's posters have appeared on the remains of
the Berlin wall, in front of the European Parliament, underneath the
Empire State Building and on the picturesque walls of Bangalore, India.
The campaign reaches across small urban centers as well as the
advertising-crowded streets of global metropolises. Right now, as
Austria is about to take over the European presidency, the advertising
for 'United We Stand' is appearing on dozens of large advertising
billboards along the Austrian roads, visible from hundreds of yards
away.
Still in Europe, but just further south, in Bologna, Italy, the flocks
of movie fans that notoriously crowd the city have lately been
wondering how a blockbuster movie with such big names as Ewan McGregor
and Penelope Cruz could be released without them knowing it in advance.
Different reactions were found on the McGregor's official fan site: "If
Ewan decided to do it, I would definitely see it!".
"The choice of the subject" writes Flavia De Sanctis Mangelli on the
Italian newspaper l'Unita during the days of the New York campaign "a
supposed war between the United States and China, with Europe trying to
solve the case through diplomacy, is soaked with subtle and ironic
provocation. How will Europe convince the two super powers? How can
European political culture stand up to the great propaganda
simplifications of Hollywood? The work is a poignant take on the
tremendous power that the media has in the formation of consensus, as
well as a biting political satire against a very small Europe, that
only united could succeed in having its voice heard".
The enormous artwork keeps on spreading, exploiting any existing
medium, from the traditional news media, such as TV and the press, to
word-of-mouth and the Internet. "United We Stand" writes Ben Davis on
Artnet Magazine "with its focus on rejiggering pop cultural codes in
social space, is a canny updating of Pop art for the age of viral
marketing, when the mass media has penetrated firmly into the
everyday".
Parallel to the international promotional campaign, the work is
exhibited until January the 21st at Postmasters Gallery, New York, and
at Arte Fiera (January 27-30), in the Fabio Paris Art Gallery (Pad. 21,
Stand B15).
About the authors
Eva and Franco Mattes - internationally known as 0100101110101101.ORG -
are a couple of restless European con-artists who use non-conventional
communication tactics to obtain the largest visibility with the minimal
effort. Past works include inventing and promoting a nonexistent
artist; spreading a computer virus as a work of art; challenging and
defeating Nike Corporation in a legal battle for a fake advertising
campaign.
--
To contact Eva e Franco Mattes:
http://0100101110101101.org/contacts.html
More info:
http://www.0100101110101101.ORG
http://www.UnitedWeStandMovie.com
http://www.postmastersart.com
http://www.fabioparisartgallery.com
United We Stand
United We Stand
0100101110101101.ORG's fake movie hits the streets of your city ...and your mind
"United We Stand. Europe has a mission" is the punchy title of the non-existent, fully EU-produced Hollywood-style blockbuster: "A brilliant mix of espionage and sci-fi political stereotypes in which Europe, not the USA, saves the world from impending doom". The project that consists in the invention and promotion of this nonexistent movie is hitting public and media space all over the world through city-scale urban installations and viral communication tactics.
Isn't there something odd about this poster?
The streets of Berlin, Brussels, Barcelona, Bangalore and New York have been plastered with thousands of posters of this fake movie, in the first stage of a long-term communication strategy that began in late 2005 and will gradually cover the whole media spectrum from blogs to magazines and TV. Full page United We Stand ads have been spotted all over Europe, in magazines devoted to art, youth culture and life styles. More are to come.
"I'd heard about this new project - comments Spanish art critic Nilo Casares - but it was only when I saw the poster at the entrance of the European Parliament that I understood what 0100101110101101.ORG meant"
"United We Stand" the movie
It is the year 2020. With the excuse of halting North Korea's nuclear arms proliferation, the USA has declared war on China - a development long expected by international analysts.
"We have a problem. Make that two: America and China", with these words, the European president calls for the intervention of a special Task Force: an undercover emergency team composed of five highly trained individuals only known as the English, the French, the German, the Italian and the Spanish agents. Their mission: to work behind the scenes to resolve the international crisis before it's too late and disarm the two superpowers without resorting to brute force.
"The power of the United States is a thing of the past - claims the French Task Force agent - How can you go around like John Wayne in a globalized world, where anything you do affects everything and everyone? In the networked world that we live in, the European model is fated to win".
Through international espionage, hi-tech sabotage and after many ups and downs, the Task Force comes close to achieving its aim. But when victory is within their sight, the mission apparently fails. How will Europe resolve the international crisis?
The European Dream. Propaganda for the 21st century?
United We Stand touches on themes of subliminal art, cultural propaganda and European identity, clashing against expectations and exploding cultural stereotypes. "Everyone remembers Peter Fonda in Easy Rider - says 0100101110101101.ORG's Eva Mattes - nobody is surprised by a leather jacket with an American flag, while the same jacket with a European flag would only make you laugh". Why is the patriotic iconography of the USA commonly accepted, while when it is applied to Europe it completely changes its meaning and actually becomes ludicrous?
Like Mattes' previous large-scale work Nike Ground, United We Stand provokes an unexpected wave of collective hallucination where over-identification, falsehood and consequent disclosure are key elements that foster critical thinking and provoke discussion around a topic.
"How do people perceive recent geo-political developments in Europe? - asks Nilo Casares - Is the European Dream the human and social project we will have to comply with? The issue is not whether or not people would like to see United We Stand; whether real or fake, this movie is a brilliant representation of the 'zeitgeist'"
Public disclosure
Since December 10th, Postmasters Gallery in New York has been the first of a series of art venues to host the disclosed side of the United We Stand project. The exhibition will run parallel to the ongoing communication strategy. "We are working simultaneously on this double track, the "fictional" and the "real" - explains Franco Mattes - in this sense, spectators in the gallery who are aware of the multiple layers are passive voyeurs, while the unaware "spectator", or passerby, is actually part of the artwork".
About the authors
Eva and Franco Mattes - internationally known as 0100101110101101.ORG - are a couple of restless European con-artists who use non-conventional communication tactics to obtain the largest visibility with the minimum effort. Past works include inventing and promoting a nonexistent artist; spreading a computer virus as a work of art; challenging and defeating Nike Corporation in a legal battle for a fake advertising campaign.
--
To contact Eva and Franco Mattes: Contact @ 0100101110101101.ORG
http://www.0100101110101101.ORG
http://www.UnitedWeStandMovie.com
Nike throws in the towel
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nike throws in the towel
...and withdraws case against European art project
In December there was still uncertainty about the final outcome of the
lawsuit filed by Nike International against Public Netbase for producing
0100101110101101.ORG's art project "Nike Ground -- Rethinking space".
For several weeks, the fate of the renowned Vienna-based net culture
platform hung in the balance, its continuing existence threatened by the
court action. But we can now confirm that the sportswear company has
yielded under the pressure of international public and media attention
generated by the action.
"We won! -- declares satisfied 0100101110101101.ORG spokesman Franco
Birkut, -- and our victory is proof of at least one thing: the famous
"Swoosh" logo belongs to the people who actually wear it every day.
These commercial giants think they can beat anyone who annoys them, and
they're unable to distinguish an artistic or critical project from
unfair competition or commercial fraud. Nike was not the target of our
performance, they are just one amongst the many tools we use to make our
point. We were not against them, but they reacted in such a hasty and
unseemly way, with no style at all. In the end it was a pleasure to play
with Nike: the bigger they are, the harder they fall!"
"It was worth the risk in order to insist on the right to free artistic
expression in urban spaces -- Public Netbase director Konrad Becker
declares -- The intimidation attempts of this company known for its
sneaky marketing strategies have turned back against them". The
worldwide interest generated by the project can also be explained by the
fact that it emphasized the importance of a cutting-edge artistic
practice that employs the real means of production of a society
increasingly determined by the media and technology. Becker: "The
project drew attention to important issues such as the globalized
dominance of economic interests over cultural symbols and gave rise to
controversial perspectives and contentious interpretations".
In mid September 2003, 0100101110101101.ORG started a surreal art
project called Nike Ground ( http://www.nikeground.com ), a "hyper-real
theatrical performance" built around a fake guerrilla marketing
campaign: Nike was supposedly buying streets and squares in major world
capitals, in order to rename them and insert giant monuments of their
famous logo. A 13 tons hi-tech container was installed in Vienna, the
first city to host a "Nike Square", as part of the action.
Nike wasted no time: "These actions have gone beyond a joke. This is not
just a prank, it's a breach of our copyright and therefore Nike will
take legal action against the instigators of this phoney campaign". On
October 14th, Nike released a 20 page injunction requesting the
immediate removal of any reference to copyrighted material, and that any
activity related to Nike cease immediately. Failure to comply with this
request would mean that Nike would claim 78,000 Euros for damages.
"When they started legal action against us -- says Franco Birkut -- they
knew perfectly well that we were not a competitor and that they were
dealing with an art project, but they continued legal proceedings in
order to crush us and erase any trace of the work. We didn't allow them
to intimidate us, we ignored their ultimatum and went on with the
performance till the end of October, because this was our initial idea".
The international press reacted badly to Nike's legal action:
"Regardless of the outcome of the trial -- wrote Cathy Macherel in Le
Courrier -- their action will have been success: hasn't operation Nike
Ground shown the public the other side of the "Swoosh" corporation
advertisement? Far from being a free symbol integrated in the public
sphere, here Nike reveals itself as a humorless multinational that has
lost all sense of play as soon as someone touches its interests".
The Commercial Court has rejected Nike's plea for a provisional
injunction on formal grounds. After this refusal Nike didn't take
further legal action. The match is over: Nike threw in the towel.
Nike Ground is the latest surreal action by the European art group known
as 0100101110101101.ORG, a band of media artists who use non
conventional communication tactics to obtain the largest visibility with
the minimal effort. Past works include staging a hoax involving a
completely made-up artist, ripping off the Holy See and spreading a
computer virus as a work of art.
CONTACTS:
0100101110101101.ORG:
HTTP://0100101110101101.ORG
Nikeground@0100101110101101.ORG
Public Netbase
http://www.t0.or.at
office@t0.or.at
Insightful review
in this is tomorrow: “‘Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship’ could never have been a unique exhibition; it was calling out to be stolen.”
Brand Innovations has a tumblr
Brand innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship, the (stolen) group show we just curated at Carroll/Fletcher, now has a tumblr, enjoy!
London: Nuclear Culture on Film
Photo by Tod Seelie
One day of talks and screenings investigating nuclear culture, they’re also projecting the short Let Them Believe, directed by Todd Chandler & Jeff Stark, which tells the story of our project Plan C:
Sunday 28 April 2013, 11am – 5.30pm, at The Arts Catalyst, London
BTW, they tell me the event is sold out, but you can still join the waiting list for cancellations.
Emily’s Video in London
We’re exhibiting our latest work Emily’s Video for the first time in London!
Opening: April 22, 6:30-8:30 pm (through May 11)
Carroll/Fletcher gallery
From Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others: “It seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire for ones that shows bodies naked. For many centuries, in Christian art, depictions of hell offered both of these elemental satisfactions. [...] There was also the repertoire of hard-to-look-at cruelties from classical antiquity – the pagan myths, even more than the Christian stories, offer something for every taste. No moral charge attaches to the representation of these cruelties. Just the provocation: can you look at this? There is the satisfaction of being able to look at the image without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching”.
btw, the same night opens the group show we’re curating there, Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship.
At the movies! With Orson Welles!
What would be greater than watching Emily’s Video projected in a real cinema? Seeing it together with Orson Welles’ F for Fake! It’s happening at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, NY, April 20 & 21. Ours may well be the lowest resolution video ever projected in a proper cinema, the image is going to look super poor…
You can get tickets here, we’ll be there on Sunday, hope to see you!
Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship
We’re curating an exhibition! Or, better said, we stole the concept of a show that artist Artie Vierkant curated in New York, and we’re re-doing it at Carroll/Fletcher gallery in London. Same title, same concept, slightly different artists.
Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship
Opening: April 22, 6:30 – 9pm, through May 11, 2013
Carroll/Fletcher, London
For this exhibition each artist was asked to produce an object using an online custom printing or fabrication service. The works were sent directly to the gallery, so neither the artists nor the curators have seen them yet. We expect this backwards approach to be filled with highs, lows, and hopefully more than a few transcendent successes. The result will be a gallery of art, artifact and artifice.
Featuring: Annabelle Arlie, Andreas Banderas, Aram Bartholl, Body by Body, Chris Coy, Christofer Degrér, Nick DeMarco, Constant Dullaart, Andreas Ervik, Matt Goerzen, Aaron Graham, Toby Huddlestone, Parker Ito, Justin Kemp, Brian Khek, Martin Kohout, Bryan Krueger, Lindsay Lawson, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Jon Rafman, Sean Raspet, Rafaël Rozendaal, Borna Sammak, Oliver Sutherland, Daniel Temkin, Brad Troemel, Artie Vierkant, Andrew Norman Wilson.
All info here
The Others
A while ago we discovered by chance a way to enter random people’s computers without their knowledge. Out of curiosity we started collecting their photos. We ended up with 10.000, which we arranged in a slideshow we called The Others.
The final 137 min. long version of the work is now on view in three group exhibitions:
The Public Private, Kellen Gallery at The New School, New York
Version Control, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
Analogital, UMOCA, Salt Lake City, Utah
Looking for NYC based intern
Hey there, we’re looking for a New York based intern to work on our next project. Someone who’s very familiar with social networks, has basic video editing skills and is ready for some weirdness (highly sensitive persons may not apply).
You’ll work on something like this, and, hopefully, learn something in the process. It should also be fun, but that’s subjective.
We’d meet a few times but most of the work can be done remotely. If you’re interested pls drop us a short email by mid April, about yourself, what you’re good at, your future plans etc. Thanks!
More Real? Catalogue!
I’m reading the More Real? exhibition catalogue right now and love the essay Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility, by Carrie Lambert-Beatty. You can read an older version of the essay on October magazine, though I’d totally recommend the whole More Real? catalogue:
“Fiction or fictiveness has emerged as an important category in recent art. But like a paramedic as opposed to a medical doctor, a parafiction is related to but not quite a member of the category of fiction as established in literary and dramatic art. It remains a bit outside. It does not perform its procedures in the hygienic clinics of literature but has one foot in the field of the real. Unlike historical fiction’s fact-based but imagined worlds, in parafictional real and/or imaginary personages and stories intersect with the world as it is being lived. Post-simulacral, paraficitonal strategies are oriented less toward the disappearance of the real than toward the pragmatics of trust. Simply put, with various degrees of success, for various durations, and for various purposes, these fictions are experienced as fact. They achieve truth status – for some of the people some of the time.”
More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness
After being at SITE Santa Fe the exhibition More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness opens tomorrow at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. We’re showing Catt and No Fun, and it’s one of the best shows we’ve ever been part of, all info here
“Over the past century, a period of unprecedented technological change and global social upheaval, once agreed-upon beliefs, or “truths,” have been cast into doubt, changing and shaping our understanding and experience of reality. More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness features work by 28 of today’s most accomplished and promising international artists, including Ai Weiwei, Vik Muniz and Thomas Demand, who explore our shifting experience of reality.”
BTW, about truthiness…
Talk at the New School
We’re giving a short talk about our new work The Others at the New School tomorrow March 13, 6:00 – 7:30 pm with Luke DuBois, as part of the show Public Private curated by Christiane Paul.
More info here. Hope you can make it!
Emily’s Video
Emily’s Video compiles the reactions of random volunteers who replied to the call we posted here to watch “the worst video ever”. The original video has been destroyed, only these second hand experiences are proof of its existence.
You can see some excerpts of Emily’s Video here
Camping in the Art World
Camping in the Art World is a compelling essay on our work recently written by Melissa Gronlund, for a publication called Anonymous, untitled, dimensions variable, you can now read the essay here
The Influencers 2012 videos now online
Should have sent this one way back, here are the videos of the last edition of The Influencers, the festival we co-curate in Barcelona: Evan Roth, JR, Jill Magid, Voina, Constant Dullaart, Biotic Baking Brigade, Reverend Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping
…bonus track: here‘s the action Reverend Billy and Savitri D carried out for the festival, if you were there, THANKS! If you were not, then don’t miss the next Influencers!
Blog friend: time for action!
We’re working on a secret project and we need you.
1: You must live in New York (sorry non-NYkers)
2: Emily will come to your apartment bringing a mysterious video
3: She will film you watching the video. You can be alone or with friends
4: Emily may contact you again
NOTE: Emily’s Video is extremely graphic and extremely violent. EXTREMELY. We don’t recommend it to anybody.
This said, if you want to do this email Emily <XXXXX@XXXXX.XXX> or txt her XXX XXX XXXX
Thanks.
Extremely.
Let Them Believe
A while ago we made a rather adventurous trip to one of the most polluted places on planet earth: Chernobyl, in Ukraine. The whole project – a collaboration with artists Ryan C Doyle, Todd Chandler, Tod Seelie, Jeff Stark and Steve Valdez – was probably inspired by Tarkovsky’s movie Stalker, and resulted in a big public installation in Manchester, UK, assembled with scrap metal scavenged from the Zone.
At last, here is a short film by Todd Chandler and Jeff Stark about what happened in those intense days: Let Them Believe.
ANONYMO UNTITLE DIMENSIO
Along with the exhibition we just opened in London they published a small book: “ANONYMO UNTITLE DIMENSIO” (?!). It looks like a wrongly designed programming manual, featuring a great essay by Melissa Gronlund, “Eva and Franco Mattes: Camping in the Art World”, and all our recent works. It’s for sale for the unmatchable price of 5 GBP (yes, FIVE QUIDS) and you can get it here
Exhibition Title Change
Our current show at Carroll/Fletcher gallery in London was first titled Anonymous, untitled, dimensions variable, than became Building stories, than Blink and you miss it and so on. The title changes every day, and if you’re interested in the process of naming (or want to suggest titles) you can follow the daily change here: exhibitiontitlechange.tumblr.com
The photo above shows how the title change appears in the gallery space. Eventually it will take over the whole wall…
Anonymous, untitled, dimensions variable – opening
Anonymous, untitled, dimensions variable. Exhibition opening at Carroll / Fletcher gallery, London. Video by Kerri Meehan
Anonymous, untitled, dimensions variable
Carroll / Fletcher Gallery, London
April 13 – May 18
Opening: April 12, 6:30-8:30, see you there!
Hey! We’re about to open our fist solo show in London with some recent works: videogame performances, a simulated webcam suicide, a couple of fake sculptures attributed to revered artists and a potentially toxic hacked arcade game. Most of them are shown in Europe for the first time, including Stolen Pieces, dozens of stolen fragments of precious artworks. We’ll also preview the second part of The Others, a slideshow video of 10.000 images appropriated from random personal computers.
Some pics and press release here
The Influencers are coming
Yeah! Time has come for The Influencers 2012, a tiny, very intense festival we curate every year with our friend Bani in Barcelona, Spain. “Abandon all certainties and join us for a weekend with the authors of visionary projects that cross over the arts, experimental forms of activism and personal explorations into collective imagination.”
This year’s guests will be Evan Roth, JR, Jill Magid, Voina, Constant Dullaart, Biotic Baking Brigade and Reverend Billy. See you there!
The Influencers, February 9-10-11 2012
CCCB, Barcelona, and various locations around the city
Real time updates here
Attribution Art?
What happened is ARTPULSE magazine asked art critic Domenico Quaranta to interview us. He thought it would have been interesting to interview some of the victims of our thefts instead, coming to an interesting conclusion: this is not Appropriation Art, this is Attribution Art!
He spoke with, among others, Jodi, Maurizio Cattelan, Nike’s CEO, Dieter Roth, Edward Kienholz and the Holy See. Or did he? Well, if you read it till the end you’ll find out.
Going Sundance!
We’ll be at Sundance Film Festival the whole week for the New Frontier exhibition. The show opens in two venues, The Yard in Park City and UMOCA in Salt Lake City on Friday 20th, and we have works in both places.
ah we’re also part of the Is This Thing On? panel on Sunday 22nd, if you happen to be at Sundance please drop by!
Justice Is Not Available
If you were living in Dusseldorf, Germany, you may have noticed some rather hermetic posters around the city with the Pentagon website saying:
The requested resource, (/justice), is not available.
like the ones you can see here. They were put up for a project called TransPrivacy, where Net Art and Street Art meet.
You can also see our piece directly on the Pentagon website:
Peer Pressure intro
Just wrote a short intro for Brad Troemel’s book Peer Pressure. It’s the first time we do it so we are very excited. Brad is one of our favorite art writers and the book is totally worth reading!
Get it here
A web of flies
This summer White Flag Projects in Saint Louis held an interesting exhibition called Another Kind of Vapor. Taking inspiration from Dieter Roth’s work the show presented artists who use non-traditional and decaying materials, such as Paul McCarthy, Ed Ruscha and Dieter Roth himself.
Roth’s piece in the show was a glass jar containing flies collected by the artist from his legendary work Staple Cheese (A Race), 1970. This work has disappeared long ago, thrown away in the desert by the gallery owner, nothing else remains beside this 40-year-old jar full of dead flies.
Unfortunately Dieter Roth never made this work, it’s a fake. We invented it one evening in a bar with our friend Corazon Del Sol, and put it together the next day. We bought all the stuff on the internet: an old glass jar, a vintage cork and lots of flies (yes, you can buy flies online), and sent the work to the unaware curators.
The piece has been shown for over a month, and nobody questioned its authenticity or worthiness. The image of the jar with flies started circulating on the Internet and it’s also mentioned in Roth’s biography in Wikipedia.
Maybe one day the jar would have been included in other Dieter Roth shows, and, who knows, even sold for a lot of money.
Sometimes we tend to prefer facts we wish to be true, rather than facts we know to be true. Maybe the little jar fulfilled our desire that the Dieter Roth legendary work wasn’t completely lost. Believing is seeing.
More info here
and the exhibition is here
Collect the WWWorld
Our piece My Generation (a collage of amateur clips of kids freaking out when their computers break down) is in a great exhibition called Collect the WWWorld, curated by Domenico Quaranta at Link Center in Italy. The exhibition features some of our favorite artists and comes with an impressive research work, that you can check here.
Catalogue is worth reading, and it’s free!
Please speak softly!
Hit an Internet-cafe, rent all computers they have and run a show on them for one night: It’s the SPEED SHOW exhibition format. The show is public and takes place during normal opening hours of the Internet cafe. All visitors are welcome to join the opening, enjoy the art (and to check their email.)
We’re showing the video of our performance Freedom at tomorrow night speed show in Berlin:
Please speak softly!
curated by Aram Bartholl
Opening September 16, 7-9pm, Berlin, all info here
Let Them Believe premiere
Photo by Tod Seelie
If you’re in New York this Saturday July 16th Let The Believe premieres at Rooftop Films festival. It’s a short movie on Plan C, directed by Todd Chandler and Jeff Stark. Shot on location in Chernobyl and Manchester, it follows Ryan C. Doyle, Steve Valdez, Eva and I plotting to steal a carnival ride from the radioactive zone.
Screening details here
Lies Inc. in the UK
Please join us for a fear and loathing week in Sheffield, UK. On June 9th our first solo show in the UK opens at Site Gallery. The exhibition is called “Lies Inc.” and includes recent online performances such as No Fun (an intervention into an online video chatroom), Freedom (where we enter a multi-user online war game and beg not to be shot), Catt (an online meme turned into an art prank) and many surprises…
After the opening we’ll all go experiment the mysteries of nuclear energy in an abandoned factory with Plan C’s amusement ride, developed out of an undercover research trip to Chernobyl and the beta-preview of “Let Them Believe”, the short film Todd Chandler and Jeff Stark shot during the trip.
On June 8th we’ll be in conversation with some of our favorite artists & companions: legendary performer Bill Drummond, pranksters IOCOSE and Paolo Cirio, net artist Rafael Rozendaal and Plan C co-conspirator Ryan Doyle.
Details here
God Save the Queen!
Italian Pavilion?
YES, we refused the invitation to participate in the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, due to its ludicrous organization.
Colorless, odorless and tasteless – San Francisco
Last week we locked ourselves up in a huge warehouse in Oakland, CA, together with machine artists Steve Valdez and Ryan C. Doyle. We’re working on a new thing: a videogame that kills people (?!?!?). We’re fit an old Pole Position arcade game with a car engine. It spews carbon monoxide into the room when in operation, letting the players control how much of the potentially toxic gas fills the air. If you want to know the outcome of this experiment please come by tonight, we’ve an exhibition opening at Cain Schulte Gallery in San Francisco, with several recent works and this new one. Don’t forget to bring your quarters.
Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG
Colorless, odorless and tasteless
February 25 – April 2 2011
Opening Friday 25, 5:30-7:30pm
Cain Schulte Gallery251 Post Street, Suite 210, San Francisco
More info on the show here
The Influencers
There’s a small kind-of-cult festival that we organize together with our friend Bani every year in Barcelona, it’s called The Influencers. It’s a gathering of artists, impostors, conceptual hackers, deviant geographers and crazy characters, those people you can get inspiration from.
The next festival is taking place April 14-15-16, 2011
And the videos of last year are here
James Acord, alchemist for the nuclear age
Sadly, visionary nuclear sculptor James Acord just left this planet. One of the few, if not the only one, of his filmed appearances was last year at The Influencers festival, you can see the video here.
His mind-blowing theories kept us awake for nights. Our recent project Plan C was in fact cooked up in Barcelona with Ryan Doyle after meeting James.
“The base man who desired only for wealth would always fail. The higher adepts, the true alchemists, knew that what they were really transforming was themselves” James Acord
Post about the fake Cattelan on Rhizome
Just posted a brief text on Rhizome about the fake Cattelan sculpture, telling how the whole thing started (from an online meme) and where it’s at.
You can read it here
New sculpture by Cattelan turns out to be an Art prank
We wanted to make a work about Internet’s overflowing creativity vs. high art fixation with originality. We found a cat meme collage circulating online, and we ended up making this fake sculpture by art-star Maurizio Cattelan with it. It’s a small yellow taxidermy bird perched atop a birdcage that imprisons an angry-looking taxidermy cat.
The piece has been exhibited at Inman Gallery Annex, in Houston, TX, for a month now as a work by Cattelan, and will be there through January 15, 2011. We thought, let’s wear the mask of a famous artist and see what happens: Will people realize it immediately? Will they say ‘this is his worst work ever?’ Or will they love it?
The reception by the art world has been enthusiastic so far. Who knows what’s going to happen when they find out it’s a prank.
You can see some photos here
and read the press release here
My Generation video now online
My Generation is a video collage of kids freaking out while playing videogames. It runs on an old broken computer (that still works).
You can see the video here
