For immediate release: Kurator and LX 2.0 are pleased to announce the two selected projects for INFECTED, part of the Anti-Bodies contemporary art programme coordinated by Relational.
During the Anti-Bodies launch and discussion event, held at Arnolfini, Bristol, on February 19, carlos katastrofsky and Heath Bunting were presented as the winners of the viral call for viral work. The INFECTED selection panel included Zoe Shearman, Curator, Relational, Luis Silva, Curator, LX 2.0, and Franz Thalmair, Curator, cont3xt.net, Joasia Krysa and Geoff Cox, Curators, KURATOR. carlos katastrofsky submitted vir.us.exe, a windows program which, once executed, will delete itself. On a website, communicated and spread by e-mail announcements, mailinglists and other networked (viral) press activities, the program/site is promoted while the freedom of decision to download vir.us.exe or not is up to the users. According to the artist's proposal, a virus lives upon the reproduction of itself with the aim to survive as long as possible. However, the most dangerous parts of such an infection are not always the harmful cells a virus is based upon; it is the psychological concept of fear acting invisibly in the background. The project will thus strip down the mechanisms of a viral infection and transfer its core priniciples into the digital realm. By avoiding everything a virus should do, only the virus itself (without the harmful cells or malicious commands) will be left. This way it will become a meta-virus spreading not because it is an actual virus but because it is perceived as such. Heath Bunting proposed a new reiteration of his Status Project, through which the artist intends to make visible our collective regulatory systems for the purpose of broader and more precise understanding of their shape and function plus our place and scale within them. According to Bunting's proposal, the key intention for the project is to provide greater individual mobility and freedom within often confusing and often intentionally obstructing organisational substructures and systems. The work is triangulated from the Buddhist idea of feeling that we are only the summation of our environmental factors, from the cyber punk hacker fantasy of self power and freedom by finding the password or key phrase and from the techno mysticism of finding the spirit within the machine. "Navigating the system requires skill and patience. People often risk frustration, humiliation and criminalisation just to survive within such a disorientating terrain. I intend to develop tools to not only alleviate these risks, but to also enable people to fly. Identity manipulation, mutation and creation are enshrined in UK law, but is obviously under constant enclosure from corrupt elites. Within this project I intend to locate these fences and create gates in them" These projects will be developed during a short residency with the Art & Social Technologies Research group at the University of Plymouth, in the UK, later this year. +++ Biographies: carlos katastrofsky is a Vienna-based artist working primarily in the field of new media art. His work examines the politics of Internet-based art production, distribution and consumption, and considers how dominant practices of the artistic modus vivendi - curating, dealing, showing, and reviewing - function in the virtual realm, where the immaterial has replaced the object. His works explore characteristic features of the Internet such as software, interfaces, language, and discussion forums - to question the current development of the Web. Heath Bunting was born a Buddhist in Wood Green, London, UK and is able to make himself laugh. He is a co-founder of both net.art and sport-art movements and is banned for life from entering the USA for his anti GM work. His self taught and authentically independent work is direct and uncomplicated and has never been awarded a prize or been bought or sold. He is both Britain's most important practising artist and The World's most famous computer artist. He aspires to be a skillful member of the public and is producing an expert system for identity mutation. +++ KURATOR is collaborating with LX 2.0 to develop a programme of new work to infect the Olympics. http://www.kurator.org/ http://www.lisboa20.pt/lx20/ The overall Anti-Bodies programme is curated and co-ordinated by Relational, Bristol, with support from Arts Council England. http://relational.org.uk/ http://www.anti-bodies.net http://open.kurator.org http://www.art-social.net
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