Open sourcing - Grapevine - OPEN SOURCE ART HACK, New Museum, New York

Afterimage, July-August, 2002 by Ricardo Miranda

OPEN_SOURCE_ART_HACK

New Museum, New York

May 3-June 30

The New Museum's Anne Barlow and curators Steve Dietz, and Jenny Marketou have outdone themselves in tackling the expansive reach of new media art by developing an exhibition that embraces the open source and hacker ethos of free information exchange. The title of the exhibition, OPEN_SOURCE_ART_HACK, points to the theoretical position that free software and hacking is a form of contestation against governing and corporate powers that make use of accelerating technologies for surveillance and control. The open source and hacker spirit is furthermore rooted in the concept that innovation is spurred by the open exchange of information.

In seeking to help bring forth issues of encroachment in our public domain, the New Museum has extended itself to street theater, robotic performance, online code, e-commerce and the traditional airwaves to create a highly diverse exhibition that views hacking as a creative social movement. The exhibition was to be kicked off by "GenTerra" (2001), a collaborative performance by the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) and Beatriz da Costa. However, the performance was cancelled due to potential legal problems, because transgenic bacteria are released into the air. The transgenic bacteria are benign; a crippled lab strain. However, in our post 9/11 world, freeing bacteria into our environment, even as a symbolic gesture, could present legal problems.

During the panel discussion CAE asserted that biotech at the molecular level Is an uncontested technology In the sole hands of authoritarian manipulation. The Intent of "GenTerra" is to conquer the biological barrier of knowledge. The performance asks; "How do we democratize this specialized knowledge? How can we demonstrate what amateur science can do?" CAE's "GenTerra" is unique in that It seeks to hack the biological form of code; hacking Is thereby extended beyond the information technologies of bioinformatics and into biotechnologies.

Other projects function on a less confrontational or participatory plane, such as "Free Radio Linux" by artist duo radioqualia. "Free Radio Linux" translates Linus Torvalds's Linux kernel, the open source operating system, into an audio stream that is broadcast online and over the radio. The audio transmission commemorates early 8os hackers who used pirate radio broadcasts to distribute bootleg software.

Upon entering the Zenith Media Lounge, one may use 'TraceNoizer" (2001) to create one's own data clone. The artist group LAN created "TraceNoizer" "to misinform those who are spying on you!" Users need only to submit their first and last name to have TraceNoizer" do an online search for your name, analyze garnered data and generate a homepage. Then it is up to you whether or not to publish the new site. As Annina Rust of LAN states, "the fake Web site serves as a strategy against electronic surveillance by creating false data traces, a sort of databody masquerade."

A couple of years ago, at the height of the dot-coin fervor, the company Digital Convergence introduced the CueCat, a cute barcode reader that would garner Web links of interest while tracing your consumer identity. Artist/hacker Cue P. Doll hacked into the CueCat to create "CueJack." Visitors to the museum may use "Cuejack" to scan products sitting on a shelf. What "Cuejack" would reportedly do is undermine manufacturers by revealing information best kept secret, such as corporate abuse or boycotts, along with the Digital Convergence links. This juxtaposition of information would have been interesting had "CueJack" functioned in such a way. However, the CueCat is obsolete and Digital Convergence folded, so with any scanned product "CueJack" brings up the same dated privacy articles and protests against CueCat. Although the data at hand is disappointing, It leads one to consider how quickly the Internet has evolved and that perhaps popular protest against the loss of privacy has led to the failure of surveill ance tactics such as CueCat.

Josh On of Future Farmers debuted "Anti-Wargame" (2002), a Flash-based online game in which you play President. Once you choose a gender for the President, a message window appears informing you of an attack on the U.S. You are given a budget and armed forces to retaliate with; however, you must also satisfy the citizenry and the media. "Anti-Wargame" makes use of the old Utopia game model to critique the current anti-terrorism campaign. Perhaps most telling are the schizophrenic comments by the citizens: "In times like this I am proud to be un-American...Are we winning yet?...I just lost my job...Spend more on business and welfare...Give em' hell...Kill all the terrorists...I am scared of where you might be leading us...."

Hanging upon the walls of the Zenith Media Lounge are three examples of artists' representations of the New Museum network The Radical Software Group (RSG) created "Carnivore" (2001), a wiretap application that allows artists to create dynamic visualizations of a chosen network. Although "Carnivore" takes its name from the highly controversial FBI Internet surveillance software, DCS1000, once nicknamed Carnivore, RSG's "Carnivore" is largely uncritical. "Carnivore" allows artists to transform data into obscure creative visual representations presented on the wall to a passive viewer. Harun Farocki's "Eye/Machine" (2001) illustrates Paul Virilio's chronology of the escalation of global real-time visualization by the war machine, from World War I targeting mechanisms to current satellite networks. Farocki creates a video montage by assembling various footage, interviews and documentation surrounding mechanized and robotic vision extending beyond warfare into medical and commercial use. The final installation in the Zenith Media Lounge is "Minds of Concern::Breaking News" (2002) by Knowbotic Research with Peter Sandbichler. The installa tion presents online security in the context of a casino slot machine. Take a spin on the virtual slot machine and Knowbotic Research's Public Domain Scanner will online vulnerability of various not-for-profit organizations. Through the Surveillance Camera Players (SCP), the exhibition extends into the streets of New York. The SCP are political activists who began by performing Situationist inspired plays in front of public surveillance cameras, but have since gotten serious about disseminating information surrounding the loss of the public domain to the authoritarian electronic eye. A few years ago, the SCP's New York chapter mapped all closed circuit television cameras in Manhattan, and began providing walking tours that point out the surveillance cameras. As part of the exhibition, the SCP has organized a series of walking tours and the premiere of a new play titled Amnesia, performed in front of a Webcam installed in Time Square.