Dušan Barok

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Photo: Zuzana Duchová, 2015.
Born Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia)
Lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands
The SKOR Codex by La Société Anonyme, 2012.

Dušan Barok is a researcher, editor and artist based in Amsterdam. He edits Monoskop and works as a research fellow and PhD candidate at the Media Studies Department of the University of Amsterdam. His practice involves digital libraries, experimental publishing and art platforms.

Dušan Barok is best known for Monoskop, a platform for avant-garde media studies he initiated back in 2004 as part of Burundi collective. Since 2009, he also operates its affiliated online library Monoskop Log, created together with Tomáš Kovács. Its website is hosted by Sanchez, an art server run by Multiplace network and providing free web hosting to emerging artists and cultural nonprofits. Recently, he convened a series of seminars on media aesthetics entitled The Extensions of Many (2015), prepared in collaboration with Bergen Center for Electronic Arts and hosted by Hordaland Kunstsenter in Bergen, Norway. The series was followed by the symposium Ideographies of Knowledge (2015) prepared with Barbora Šedivá in Paul Otlet's archives in Mundaneum in Mons, Belgium.

Born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, Dušan Barok graduated in information technologies from the University of Economics, Bratislava (DI, 1997-2002), and Networked Media from the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam (MDes, 2010-2012).

In the period between 1999 and 2010 he had been active in independent art and cultural scenes primarily in Slovakia and Czech Republic, working as a web designer, editor, cultural organiser and artist. He founded and ran the online cultural magazine Koridor (in Slovak, 1999-2002). As part of a diverse group of art and cultural workers, he co-founded Burundi media lab and organised the Translab evening series there (2004-2005). Since 1999, he has built and designed over eighty websites and open access platforms for artistic, cultural and educational organisations. He also developed an open source software for collaboration online, called backstage. Together with Magdaléna Kobzová, he organised the two-week long workshop-based event Letné dielne / Open Summer Academy, bringing together practitioners from the wide range of arts and sciences (Bratislava, 2006 & 2007). From 2004 he was involved in the organisation of Multiplace network culture festival, between 2007 and 2009 as its coordinator.

With Pit Schultz and Berlin Biennale, Barok developed an artist-run platform for contemporary art history, ArtWiki. He co-founded the artist collective La Société Anonyme known for its work The SKOR Codex (2012), a digital archive of public art in the form of printed book. The book was printed in eight copies that are now available for viewing in libraries and collections (Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, Royal Library in The Hague, Open Data Initiative in London, State Library Victoria in Melbourne, Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, SFMOMA Library in San Francisco, and Art Library of The National Art Center in Tokyo). It has been installed in exhibitions several times.

He also worked with OKNO, Atrakt Art (3/4 magazine), 13m3, Col-me, Satori, Artlist, and Prague College. He has lectured and performed internationally. Raised in Bratislava, he had lived in the United States (2002-2003), Prague (2004-2008), Berlin (2008-2010), Rotterdam (2010-2012), Bergen (2013-2016), and currently is based in Amsterdam.

Convened symposia

Talks, essays, interviews

Recent talks

Interviews (given)

Interviews

Essays

Editor (selection)

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

Contact

  • db at monoskop dot org
  • db at societyofalgorithm dot org
  • PGP key