An artistic research project in exhibition format, curated by Naveau (FR / AT)
More information here…
What do Google and Wikipedia have in common? Well, if we have a question or are not sure, then we go online and type in the words or even whole sentences in our computer. Algorithms and related computer services are responsible for ensuring that we get results, in our search for knowledge and truth that are based on contributions and regulation of innumerable people. However, we don´t know the algorithms behind it, or let´s say the intentions of Google and why we just read this and get to see what we get. How can I understand these selection systems that are deciding for me what I can see? Who says what should be where? As we know that it´s actually people like you and me sitting behind their computers that are actively shaping knowledge when writing their own websites and blogs, set posts, rate and vote, and we trust them in the same way as we trust the person around us we have confidence in? Who or what tells me what I can believe? Or in other words: the Internet as a source of knowledge, or rather as a community of faith? And if such a person like an Internet Atheist exists, can one survive?
I Believe in Internet is an ironic attempt using artistic ways to pursue these various issues in an exhibition format on a former farm in Leonding. With SUBURBIA the association Urbanfarm has developed an exhibition format, where global, continents and cultures cross-cutting issues are discussed very locally. It´s not about generating an exhibition for a big audience (a pressure under which usually museums and exhibition venues have to act), but to give deals for information and discusion with the local residents. For example, the group of artists h.o wrote a letter to Google and asked why the star (*) called Asterisk isn´t gaining any results in Google? Heath Bunting tries in his Status Project to give us to understand that we are all recorded, classified and divided and that it (almost) is really no way out. Manu Naveau bought online hundred ideas for works of art and while offering these artwork ideas in a back room in the exhibition, she wonders who now actually can call this artwork his or her own? José Pozo is researching the color that stands for the Internet and the T-shirt-research project I Believe in Internet examines the images on Wikipedia that illustrate and maintains selected terms such as faith and knowledge, confidence and conviction in the various languages, and that the enlightened view of the online encyclopedia brings discrepancies in the way of representing the world.
List of presented projects:
*Asterisk by h.o (JP) Emiko Ogawa, Hideaki Ogawa, Taizo Zushi
The Status Project. by Heath Bunting (UK)
Welche Farbe hat das Internet? by José Pozo (ES)
Turked Ideas. A back room project by Manu Naveau (AT)
And the T-Shirt edition I Believe in Internet by Naveau (FR/AT)
