Open Secret

KW Digital: Open Secret
16. Juli – 31. Dezember 21

A new form of extractivism defines life in the 21st Century. It is one that reaches into the furthest corners of the biosphere and the deepest layers of human cognitive and affective being: The stack that underpins contemporary technological systems goes well beyond data modeling, hardware, servers, and networks. Today’s full stack reaches into capital, labor, and nature, while demanding an enormous amount from each.

Vladan Joler’s newly commissioned video The New Extractivism gathers different concepts and images of this ‘new extractivism’ together. They add up to a blueprint—for a machine-like superstructure; a super allegory that encompasses the whole world.

Additionaly, drawing from her newly commissioned essay for Open Secret, the author and critic Caroline Busta surveys prospects for Web 3.0. At the edge of the ‘clearnet’ (the part of the internet that is publically accessible) the ‘dark forest’ begins. This shadowy realm offers artists shelter, a place to create—away from tracking, trolling, hype, and formatted ‘social’ experiences. What can we learn from it?

With Nora Al-Badri, Maithu Bùi, Erick Beltrán, Tara Isabella Burton, Caroline Busta, Jennifer Chan, Wendy Chun, Joshua Citarella, András Cséfalvay, Inland (Ed Davenport), Constant Dullaart, Orit Halpern, Adam Harvey, Vladan Joler, Bea Kittelmann, Kateřina Krtilová, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Lukáš Likavčan, Jen Liu, Eva und Franco Mattes, Tom McCarthy, Lisa Messeri, Ramak Molavi Vasse’i, New Models, Lisa Rave, Rachel Rossin, Konstanze Schütze, Caroline Sinders, Dirk Sorge, Charles Stankievech, und anderen, sowie der AURORA School for ARtists, dem Jugendgremium Schattenmuseum und MOTIF

Vladan Joler, Prof., is an academic, researcher and artist whose work blends data investigations, counter-cartography, investigative journalism, writing, data visualisation, critical design and numerous other disciplines. He explores and visualises different technical and social aspects of algorithmic transparency, digital labour exploitation, invisible infrastructures and many other contemporary phenomena in the intersection between technology and society.

Caroline Busta is a Berlin-based writer working with questions of culture, technology, and globalism. She is the founder of NEW MODELS, a media platform and community addressing the emergent effects of networked technology on art, tech, politics, and pop-culture. From 2014 to 2017, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Berlin-based critical art journal Texte zur Kunst. Prior to that, she was an Associate Editor at Artforum magazine in New York.

Nadim Samman, Ph.D., is Curator for the Digital Sphere at KW Institute for Contemporary Art. In his newly instated role, Samman will critically explore the expanded political and social landscape of digital systems through subversive and creative interventions.

Open Secret wurde entwickelt im Rahmen von dive in. Programm für digitale Interaktionen der Kulturstiftung des Bundes, gefördert durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM) im Programm NEUSTART KULTUR.

Das Programm der KW Institute for Contemporary Art wird ermöglicht durch die Unterstützung der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.