«Networked Disruption»

«Networked Disruption» is an exhibition and series of events produced by Aksioma and Drugo more in collaboration with various partners and curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli. Hosted by the Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, the exhibition is based around the concept of «Networked Disruption» as an opportunity to show possible new routes of social and political action in the line of disruption. It focuses on the reciprocal interferences between business and breakage, shining a light simultaneously on the hereogeneous activities of hackers, artists, networkers, informers, activists and entrepreneurs who are deeply involved in networking activities.

The growing commercialisation of sharing and networking forums since the mid-2000s is transforming the meanings of art and business. What were once the marginal practices of a network of underground hackers and artists have in recent years become a core business for many information technology firms and social media companies. In Bazzichelli’s analysis, art is intertwined with interruptions that go beyond dialectic juxtaposition, leading to a discovery of subliminal and shared strategies which emerge from within capitalist systems or act within them. In the exhibition and seminar, she involves figures who engage directly with hacktivism, art, civil liberties and social networking, exposing contradictions in capitalist logics and power systems. Such interventions derail the logics of business itself, appropriating and détourning by interrupting its functioning. The challenge is to collectively rethink oppositional hacktivist and artistic strategies within the framework of (social) networking, the information economy and increasingly invasive corporations and government agencies. The exhibition presents a diverse constellation of networking projects that aims to actualise – and to question – the very notion of «network»: Anna Adamolo, Anonymous, Billboard Liberation Front, Burning Man Festival, Cacophony Society, Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša , Julian Oliver, Laura Poitras, Les Liens Invisibles, Luther Blissett, Mail Art, Neoismo, Peng! Collective, Suicide Club, Telekommunisten, and Trevor Paglen.

Networked Disruption is based on Bazzichelli’s book “Networked Disruption: Rethinking Oppositions in Art, Hacktivism and the Business of Social Networking (DARC Press, The Digital Aesthetics Research Centre of Aarhus University, 2013). Bazzichelli’s hypothesis is that reciprocal interference between art, hacktivism and social networking activities has changed the meaning and the contexts of political and technological criticism. Hackers and artists are active agents in business innovation, while simultaneously undermining business. Artists and hackers use techniques which disrupt the network in the social media sphere, opening a critical view of enterprise and generating unpredictable feedback and unexpected reactions; companies use interruption as a form of innovation, to create new markets and values, which are often equally unpredictable. Bazzichelli puts forward the concept of the art of Disrupting business as a form of artistic practice in the sphere of IT.

The collective works and projects are conceptually and visually linked in the exhibition space, which constitutes a network of networks. Applying the strategy of «working from within», some sections of the show are conceptualised in collaboration with people deeply involved in the networks under scrutiny: Vittore Baroni (Mail Art), Florian Cramer (Neoism), Gabriella Coleman (Anonymous), John Law (Suicide Club and Cacophony Society), Andrea Natella (The Luther Blissett Project) and members of the Anna Adamolo network.

This choice reflects the viewpoint that a new methodology of curating a research should open a metaphorical (and physical) space to encourage and provoke feedback loops between theory and practice, and between individuals and objects of analysis. The result is a constellation of networking practices, which aims to actualise – and question – the concept of «direct participation» itself. (from the press release)