Dušan Barok

Dušan Barok is founding editor of Monoskop, a wiki for arts and studies. He studied Networked Media, Media Studies and Heritage and Memory Studies in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and wrote his doctoral thesis on publishing as a conservation strategy for contemporary art. Recent collaborations involving exhibitions and publications include Katalog for kunstnerisk publisering (Torpedo, 2024), Read Write Run (Kunstraum Lakeside, 2024), Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc (Walker Art Center, 2023), Art Doc Web (TU Berlin, 2023), We Have Never Been Closer (tranzit.sk, 2022), New Media Museums (Olomouc Museum of Art, 2022), Vasulka Live Archive (Masaryk University, 2022) and Collecting and Preserving Research-based and Archive-based Art Projects (M+, 2022). (2025)

Dušan Barok er en kunstner, forsker og organisator som arbeider med digital kultur, minne og aktivisme. Han er grunnlegger og redaktør for den kunstnerstyrten plattformen for avantgarde medievitenskap Monoskop. (2021)

Dušan Barok is een onderzoeker en kunstenaar. Hij is afgestudeerd in Networked Media aan het Piet Zwart Institute, redigeert Monoskop en is medebeheerder van de Multiplace / Sanchez-server. (2021)

Dušan Barok ist ein in Bratislava (Tschechoslowakei) geborener Künstler, Forscher und Organisator. Seine Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit digitaler Kultur, Gedächtnisforschung und Aktivismus. Er ist Gründungsherausgeber von Monoskop, einer Forschungsplattform für avantgardistische Medienstudien, die er 2004 als Teil des Burundi-Kollektivs initiierte. (2023)

Dušan Barok se ve své práci zabývá digitální kulturou, paměťovými studii a aktivismem. Je redaktorem Monoskopu, výzkumné platformy pro umění a humanitní vědy. (2023)

Dušan Barok je nezávislý kultúrny pracovník. Stará sa o platformu pre umenie, kultúru a výskum monoskop.org a server Multiplace. (2022)

Work, writing, collaboration

Community servers, shadow libraries, artist publishing, websites

• Katalog for kunstnerisk publisering, catalogue for artist publishing, with Lotte Grønneberg, Karin Nygård, Elin Olaussen, Ellef Prestsæter and Karen Christine Tandberg, Torpedo, 2024. About. (Norwegian)

• Read Write Run, exhibition, with Gudrun Ratzinger, Franz Thalmair, the Institute for Computational Vandalism, The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest (TITiPI), Memory of the World, permacomputing.net and Varia, Kunstraum Lakeside, 2024. (English) (German)

• "Variations on Preserving a Digital Archive of the Avant-Garde", reflection, Ubu@50 – 50 Ubus: Everything Is Temporary, MaMa - Multimedia Institute / CAS U Rijeka, 2024.

• "Permacomputing Aesthetics", article, with Aymeric Mansoux, Brendan Howell and Ville-Matias Heikkilä (Viznut), Computing within Limits, 2023, PDF, wiki, Toot.

• "For Artist and Community Web Archives", article, 2023, [1].

• Art Doc Web, artist websites archive, with Anna Schäffler, Peter Gonda, Lukas Fuchsgruber, a.o., Art Doc Archive, TU Berlin, 2023. (English) (German)

• Vasulka Live Archive, machine vision and learning catalogue of works by Steina and Woody Vasulka, with Jana Horáková, Pavel Sikora, Štěpán Miklánek, a.o., Masaryk University and Brno University of Technology, 2022, Exhibition, Paper. (English) (Czech)

• "Komunitné siete a vlákna infraštruktúrneho feminizmu. Rozhovor s členmi kooperatívy Varia", conversation with Varia, Kapitál, 2022. (Slovak)

• "Collection as a Network Volume" / "Die Sammlung als ein Netzwerkband", article, Networks of Care, nGbK, 2022. (English) (German)

• "Artist-Run Servers and Community Work", talk, De-platform-ization symposium, Display and Artyčok, 2020.

• Inverse Reader, anthology on shadow and artist libraries, Creating Commons, panke.gallery, 2019.

• Exhibition Library, with Monoskop and Kyung Yong Lim, Seoul Museum of Art, 2018. (English) (Korean)

• "Knižnice zväzkov siete", article, 2017. (Slovak)

• "Book of the Web", article, Mondothèque, Constant, 2016.

• Mundaneum symposium, with Barbora Šedivá, Paul Otlet Archive, 2015.

• "Poetics of Research", talk, Public Library, Württembergsicher Kunstverein (WKV) and Akademie Schloss Solitude, 2014.

• The SKOR Codex, La Société Anonyme, 2012.

• Networked media, studies, Piet Zwart Institute, 2010-2012.

• Monoskop Log, digital library, with Tomáš Kovács, *2009.

• Multiplace/Sanchez, community server, with Peter Gonda, Multiplace, *2008.

Art, history, memory

• "Umelecké spoločenstvá deväťdesiatych rokov" [Artistic Communities of the 1990s], essay in Spojené nádoby: Umění a kulturní politika 90.let v České a Slovenské republice, Národní galerie Praha, 2025. (Slovak)

• "Looking to the Future: Science, Technology, and Utopia", essay in Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s-1980s, Walker Art Center, 2023.

• "Not for Sale: Art Communities of the 1990s as a Possibility" / "Umělecká společenství devadesátých let jako možnost (alternativa)", essay in Flashback: Hermit 1992–1999, Olomouc Museum of Art, 2023. (English) (Czech)

• We Have Never Been Closer / Nikdy sme neboli bližšie, exhibition project dedicated to the transformation period of the 1990s in central Europe, with Ivana Rumanová, tranzit.sk, 2021-2022. (Slovak) (English)

• "Demokratický priestor a demokratická avantgarda: umelecké spoločenstvá 90. rokov v stredoeurópskom priestore", essay, 2021. (Slovak)

• "The Extensions of Many: 20+ Years of Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts" / "20+ år med Bergen senter for elektronisk kunst", essay, BEK, 2021. (English) (Norwegian)

• "Between Eastern Europe and Latin America", timeline of events, with Abigail Winograd, The Other Transatlantic: Kinetic and Op Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, MoMA Warsaw, 2017.

• The Extensions of Many, seminars on media aesthetics, with BEK, Hordaland kunstsenter, 2015.

• Interviews and conversations with Guy van Belle (2005), jodi.org (2006), Claire Bishop (on participatory art, A2, 2009), Michal Murin (2012; 3/4, 2012), Diana McCarty (3/4, 2012), Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits (on RIXC, 3/4, 2012), Călin Man (on Kinema Ikon, 3/4, 2012), Milan Adamčiak (2012/2019/2021), BEK (2021), Varia (2022).

Museums, collection care, media conservation

• Publishing as a Conservation Strategy: Platforms, Care and Contemporary Art, PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2024, PDF.

• "Sharing Knowledge in Art Conservation: From Repository Building to Research Publishing", book chapter in Conservation of Contemporary Art: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice, Springer, 2024.

• New Media Museums, research project and publication, with Jakub Frank, Olomouc Museum of Art, 2022.

• Collecting and Preserving Research-based and Archive-based Art Projects, seminar series, with Aga Wielocha, David Smith, and Fabiola Rocco, M+ Museum Hong Kong, 2022.

• "Taktická kanonizácia a procesné uchovávanie", article, Flash Art CS, 2020. (Slovak)

• "Video, inštalácie, digitálne umenie a otázky mediálnej konzervácie", essay in Vasulka Kitchen Cooking Reader, 2020, (wiki). (Slovak)

• "Publishing as a Strategy for Preserving Artistic Research", article, with Sofia Boschat-Thorez and Aymeric Mansoux, 2020.

• Naked on Pluto, preservation case study, with Sofia Boschat-Thorez and Aymeric Mansoux, LIMA, 2020.

• "Archiving Complex Digital Artworks", journal paper, with Sofia Boschat-Thorez, Annet Dekker, David Gauthier and Claudia Roeck, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 2019.

• "From Collection Management to Content Management in Art Documentation: The Conservator as an Editor", journal paper, with Julia Noordegraaf and Arjen P. de Vries, Studies in Conservation, 2019.

• New Approaches in the Conservation of Contemporary Art (NACCA), researcher, 2016-2019; INCCA member.

Links

• db at monoskop dot org

• Mastodon

• Older bio

• Wikipedia-SK