The Hartware Guide to Irational.org (2006) [English/German]

Published on the occasion of the exhibition “The Wonderful World of Irational.org. Tools, Techniques and Events 1996-2006” in the PHOENIX Halle Dortmund from 30. 08. till 29. 10. 2006, curated by Inke Arns and Jacob Lillemose.

“Irational is a loose grouping of six international net and media artists who came together around the server irational.org, founded by the British net artist Heath Bunting in 1996, going on to make decisive contribution to early net art from the mid-1990s onward. With dry humor and minimal aesthetics, irational commented the Internet hype of the mid-to-late 1990s, competing with the commercialization-euphoria of the new market by developing its own pseudo-ventures. Net art was immediate during this period, neither needing nor enjoying the safety of a mediating space or instance. This is why irational often hit upon humorless trademark attorneys, who wanted to keep irational from using brand names such as 7-11, American Express, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. These encounters, which the exhibition documents extensively, were little more than a prelude to more recent developments in the field of copyright, intellectual property, and brand protection. Heath Bunting was the first net artist to retire in 1997, putting an end to his exclusive work on the net and turning back to more intensive work in public space, which the Internet has become such an important part of today. If the activities of irational during its “net phase” were dedicated to calling virtual boundaries into question, its members now experiment with interrogating and overcoming economic, political, and social boundaries in real space, producing a great deal of comic relief, among other things.” (from the press release for the exhibition)

With texts by Susanne Ackers, Inke Arns, Matthew Fuller, Francis Hunger, Jacob Lillemose, Darija Šimunović

Editors Susanne Ackers, Inke Arns, Francis Hunger, Jacob Lillemose
Publisher Revolver – Archiv fuer aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, October 2006
ISBN 3865882994, 978-3865882998
136 pages

Publisher

PDF (6 MB, updated on 2023-3-10)

Jonas Staal: Art, Property of Politics I-II (2010) [English/Dutch]

“In 2010, Dutch artist Jonas Staal realized the exhibitions Art, Property of Politics and Art, Property of Politics II: Freethinkers’ Space in which he researched the art collections of Dutch political parties. The first part took place in exhibition space TENT in Rotterdam, during the municipal elections of 2010, in which he showed the artworks of all parties involved in the elections. In a documentary produced by filmmaker Rob Schröder he challenged politicians to introduce their political vision based on their own art collections. The second part took place in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and existed of artworks that were selected by the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in their so-called ‘Freethinkers’ Space’: and exhibition space that the parties opened in Dutch parliament to give a platform for artists that had dealt with religious (Islamic) censorship. The project focused on the way in which artworks were used as instruments for representing a political idea of democratic freedom.” (from Wikipedia)

Author (Art, Property of Politics)
Author (Art, Property of Politics II: Freethinkers’ Space)
Wikipedia

PDF (I, updated on 2018-7-26)
PDF (II, updated on 2018-7-26)

Domenico Quaranta (ed.): Collect the WWWorld: The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age, catalogue (2011) [English/Italian]

“The last decade has seen an incredible growth in the production and distribution of images and other cultural artefacts. The internet is the place where all these cultural products are stored, classified, voted, collected and trashed. What is the impact of this process on art making and on the artist? Which kind of dialogue is going on between amateur practices and codified languages? How does art respond to the society of information? This is a book about endless archives, image collections, bees plundering from flower to flower and hunters crawling through the online wilderness.”

With works by Alterazioni Video, Kari Altmann, Cory Arcangel, Gazira Babeli, Kevin Bewersdorf, Luca Bolognesi, Natalie Bookchin, Petra Cortright, Aleksandra Domanovic, Harm van den Dorpel, Constant Dullaart, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Elisa Giardina Papa, Travis Hallenbeck, Jodi, Oliver Laric, Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied, Guthrie Lonergan, Eva and Franco Mattes, Seth Price, Jon Rafman, Claudia Rossini, Evan Roth, Travess Smalley, Ryan Trecartin.

Includes texts by Josephine Bosma, Gene McHugh, Joanne McNeil, Domenico Quaranta.

Publisher LINK Editions, Brescia, September 2011
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
ISBN 9781447839491
160 pages

Publisher
Lulu

PDF, PDF (15 MB, updated on 2016-8-19)