System.hack() (2006) [Croatian/English]

System.hack() was an exhibition project and a book by Multimedia Institute realized through the collaborative platform Zagreb – Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000.

A moment of excellence in programming is called a hack. A perfect hack is surprising, mediagenic, innovative in employing technology, funny and non-violent. System.hack() is every hack that opens up a closed system or makes an open system dynamic.

System.hack() exhibition seeks to find connections between moments of excellence in different fields of human production. This exploration always has to provide answers to the following two questions: What system is being hacked?, and How this system is being hacked, or what is a specific hack in an individual work?

The exhibition environment is not a gallery, but the interior of a hotel room. The hotel room is supposed to function as the lowest common denominator of living environments users/viewers/visitors/readers inhabit. The hotel room also functions as a Table of Contents for the System.hack() book. Museum labels found on exhibited objects link individual hacks to the essays dealing with issues they raise and social context they intervene in.

Hacks exhibited: Orson Welles – War of the Worlds; Captain Crunch – whistle; Richard Stallman – GNU GPL; Heath Bunting – Superweed Kit 1.0; Michael Steil – Xbox Linux project; CD Protection Kit

Essay contributions by Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Benjamin Mako Hill, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, Ognjen Strpic and Mckenzie Wark.

Original concept and production: Multimedia Institute (mama), Zagreb
Creative assistance: Vuk Ćosić and What, How and For Whom
Creative Commons BY-SA 2.5
96 pages

Exhibition website (at Archive.org)

PDF (updated on 2014-9-14)
Scribd