Dušan Barok

Dušan Barok is an artist, writer and cultural activist involved in critical practice in the fields of software, art, and theory.

Born in Bratislava, he graduated in information technologies from the University of Economics, Bratislava (DI, 2002), and Networked Media from the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam (MA, 2012).

He founded and ran the online culture portal Koridor (in Slovak, 1999-2002). In 2003 he co-founded BURUNDI media lab and organised the Translab evening series there. Developed the open source tool for online group-help backstage, and around 70 websites and open access databases for artistic, cultural and educational organisations. Together with Magdaléna Kobzová he organised the two-week long workshop-based event Letné dielne / Summer Open Academy, bringing together people from the arts, technology, media and humanities (Bratislava, 2006 & 2007). From 2004 he was involved in the organisation of Multiplace network culture festival, in 2007-09 as festival coordinator. Since 2008, together with Peter Gonda he has been running the free art server Sanchez. In 2004, he initiated Monoskop, a wiki for collaborative studies of the arts, media and humanities; and in 2009, together with Tomáš Kovács, its affiliated online repository of publications, Monoskop Log. In the spring of 2015, together with Bergen Center for Electronic Arts, he organised and moderated a series of seminars on media aesthetics, The Extensions of Many; in the autumn, a symposium entitled Ideographies of Knowledge.

In 2012 he has co-founded the artist collective La Société Anonyme. Collaborated with OKNO, Atrakt Art (3/4 magazine), 13m3, Col-me, Satori, Artlist, and others. Taught interactive media at Prague College (2006) and lectured at universities and academies internationally. He had lived in the United States (2002-03), Prague (2004-08), Berlin (2008-10), Rotterdam (2010-12), and currently is based in Bergen and Bratislava.

Convened symposia

• Unlimited Editions: A public discussion on personal collecting and media archiving, TENT, Rotterdam, 2 Jul 2012.
• The Extensions of Many: Seminars on Media Aesthetics, Hordaland Art Centre, Bergen, Mar 2015. In collaboration with the Bergen Electronic Art Center. On the ambiguity of the notion of media from an aesthetic and technological perspective.
• Ideographies of Knowledge, Mundaneum, Mons, 3 Oct 2015. On the poetics, aesthetics and politics of information and knowledge in relation to digital libraries, search engines and the legacy of library/documentation science.

Talks, essays, interviews

Recent talks

• "Dívat se na databázi: Audiovizuální archiv prizmatem softwaru a databází", Artyčok.tv, The Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, Nov 2012. [1]
• "You'll Like This Art Because You're In It", Karaoke Europe: Očarenie realitou symposium, Stanica, Žilina, Dec 2012. [2]
• "Softvérová studia a špatná média", Interactive Media Theory seminar, Masaryk University, Brno, Dec 2012. (Slovak)
• with Andrej Chudý, "Remediácia kultúrnej produkcie v digitálnom sieťovom prostredí", Remediácia: V kontexte transdisciplinarity conference, Polish Institute, Bratislava, Jan 2013. [3]
• "Dedovia, dediči a vydedenci umenia a vedy na Slovensku. Kapitoly z mediálnej archeológie", Alef 0 series, Stanica, Žilina, Feb 2013. [4] / Krakatoa talk club, A4-Zero Space, Bratislava, Mar 2013. [5]
• "Merely Incentive", Renew: Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, Riga, Oct 2013. (English)
  • "Len incentív", trans. Tomáš Kohút, Tim Ezin 4:1-2 (2013-14), Brno, pp 69-71. (Slovak)
• "Dve médiá", Zlá média / Evil media: Eristika nových médií conference, Masaryk University, Brno, Nov 2013. [6]
• "Making Access", FREE?! Winter Night’s Copyright Fairytale event, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, Nov 2013. [7] (English)
• "Information Agency", 4 živly - filmový seminár: Moc médií, Banská Štiavnica, Mar 2014. [8]
• "K technikám publikovania", Informace mezi komoditou a komunitou seminar, Tranzitdisplay, Prague, May 2014. [9] (Slovak)
  • "Techniques of Publishing", trans., May 2014. (English)
• "Communing Texts", Off the Press conference, WORM, Rotterdam, May 2014. Video documentation (17 min). [10] (English)
• "Poetika v spojení. Polia mediality", Literatura, technologie, média colloquium, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Oct 2014. [11] (Slovak)
• "Poetics of Research", Public Library conference, Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Nov 2014. [12] (English)
• "Scribing Sound", Writing Sounds 2 exhibition, Lydgalleriet, Bergen, Nov 2014. [13] [14]
• "The Extensions of Many: Seminars on Media Aesthetics, 1: Introduction", introductory talks to seminar series, Hordaland kunstsenter, Bergen, Mar 2015. (Part 2). [15] (English)
• "Antropocén, algoritmy alebo postčlovečenstvo, to je jedno. Dejiny súčasnosti skrz mediálnu teóriu", Academy of Fine Arts/Bratislava, and Masaryk University, Brno, Mar 2015. [16] [17] (Slovak)
• "More Than Numbers, Less Than Words", Javna knjižnica / Public Library conference, Nova Gallery, Zagreb, Jun 2015. [18] (English)
• "Public Library", Technopolitics seminar, Vienna, Jun 2015. [19] (English)
• "Body of Thought: Artists' Texts and Their Contribution to Theory", Local Contexts / International Networks: Avant-Garde Magazines in Central Europe (1910-1935) conference, Kassák Museum, Budapest, Sep 2015. [20] (English)
• "Katalóg online: o špecifikách publikovania archívov umenia na internete", CEAD Workshop, Museum of Art, Olomouc, Sep 2015; Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Jan 2016. [21]
• "Algoritmy a sloboda", DOX, Prague; FAMU, Prague, and Masaryk University, Brno, Oct 2015. [22] [23] [24] (Slovak)

Interviews (given)

• "Monoskop v sieti. Rozhovor Michala Murina s Dušanom Barokom", Profil 4, Bratislava, 2012, pp 92-105. Conducted Jul-Aug 2012. (Slovak)
• Robert Bobnič, Jurij Smrke, Jasmina Šepetavc, "Monoskop, Interview", Tribuna, Ljubljana, Dec 2012, pp 16-17. Conducted Nov 2012 during HAIP festival in Ljubljana. Full issue. (Slovenian)
• Alessandro Ludovico, "Dušan Barok, Interview", Neural 44: "Post-Digital Print", Bari, 2013, pp 10-11. Conducted Jan 2013. (English)
• Michal Murin, "Share & Go: Dušan Barok", Enter 16, Košice: Dive Buki, Autumn 2014, pp 84-87. Conducted May-Jun 2013. (Slovak) [25]
• Barbora Linková, "Monoskop, e-mailové interview s Dušanem Barokem", Mar 2014. Conducted for the author's dissertation. (Czech)+(Slovak)
• Michal Rehúš, "Softvér je tiež literatúrou", Kloaka 5:3, Bratislava: Literis, 2014, pp 29-36. Conducted Sep-Dec 2014. (Slovak)
• Valerio Nicoletti, Davide Giorgetta, "They are not yet books. Conversation with Dušan Barok / Non sono ancora libri. Conversazione con Dušan Barok", Progetto Grafico 28: "Publishing", Milan: AIAP, Nov 2015. Conducted Mar 2015. [26] [27] (English)/(Italian)

Interviews

• "Zdeno Hlinka. IRC rozhovor", Koridor.sk arts culture media server, Bratislava, 6 Feb 2001. [28] (Slovak)
• "The machine is an idea that art makes. Conversation with a network artist Guy van Belle", Aug 2005. (English)
  • "Stroj je myšlienka, ktorú robí umenie", 3/4 magazine 19, Bratislava: Atrakt Art, 2006. (Slovak)
• with Magda Kobzová, "Talk with Dirk Paesmans, Jodi.org", okno.be, 24 May 2006. [29] (English)
  • "Neslúžime obsahu. Rozhovor s Dirkom Paesmansom (Jodi.org)", trans. Magdaléna Kobzová, 3/4 magazine 20, Bratislava: Atrakt Art, 2006. (Slovak)
• "On Participatory Art. Interview with Claire Bishop", 2009. (English)
  • "Umělci jako sociální pracovníci. S teoretičkou umění Claire Bishopovou", trans. Lenka Dolanová, A2 21, Prague, 2009. Abridged version. (Czech)
• Monoskop talks: Michal Murin, Monoskop 1, 2012. (Slovak)
• Interviews with Diana McCarty, Michal Murin, Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, Călin Man, 3/4 magazine 27-28, Bratislava: Atrakt Art, 2012. (English)/(Slovak)

Essays

• "Net.art. Internet ako umelecké médium", 3/4 magazine 1, Bratislava: Atrakt Art, 2001. (Slovak)
• "Node.London. Analysis of season of media arts in London", 2007. (English)
• "O kultúre sietí", Multiplace brochure, Bratislava: Multiplace, 2007. (Slovak)
  • "On the Culture of Networks", Multiplace brochure, Bratislava: Multiplace, 2007. (English)
• "Web Time", May 2010. (English)
• "Sourced in, unsourced out: Leaking as common knowledge production", May 2011. [30] (English)
• "Privatising Privacy: Trojan Horse in Free Open Source Distributed Social Platforms", May 2011. [31] (English)
• "Bitcoin: censorship-resistant currency and domain name system to the people", Jul 2011. [32] (English)
• "A Book of the Web", in The Radiated Book, Brussels, 2016. (English)

Editor (selection)

• with Magdaléna Kobzová, Save Before It's Gone, Brussels, 2006. Includes interviews with Dirk Paesmans, Maja Kuzmanovic, Darko Fritz, and Andrei Smirnov. [33] (English)
• Monoskop Log: Writings on Art, Culture, and Media Technology, 2009ff.
• "Avant-Garde and Modernist Magazines", Monoskop, 2014ff. A guide to online collections.
• "Architecture", Monoskop, 2015ff. Source documents in the history, theory and criticism of 20th-century architecture.
• "Constructivism", Monoskop, 2015ff. The movement in Russia and east-central Europe from the late 1910s through the 1930s.
• "Art Styles and Movements", Monoskop, 2016ff. An annotated index of styles and movements in modern and contemporary art worldwide, from the 1860s until today.

Works

22.2.2001 (2001), Matrica slovenská (2006), Computer with a Printer (2006), FaceLeaks (2010), The SKOR Codex (with La Société Anonyme, 2012), XVIII (with La Société Anonyme and Marja Wilgenkamp, 2013).

See also

• About Monoskop
• Digital libraries
• Burundi

Contact

• db at societyofalgorithm dot org
• PGP key