Call for entries - Net Art exhibition: “illegal machines”
INTRODUCTION
ARTOPOS is a non profit organization, launched in 1996 in Athens, and aims to represent contemporary art in Greece. We have organized many important events in our history and we are very proud to announce our new Internet Art section, which will be available in public the same day with the opening of our “illegal machines” online show.
We seek works specifically on the subject of artists' copyright and spiritual property in relation to the authorities and the law. Our event as an online art space will be a juried show of works in many media (sound/writing/video/flash/java script/photography/etc.). The selected works will be presented by ARTOPOS in ART ATHINA, the biggest Annual Art event in Athens, Greece.
CONTEXT
Since some people have the power to decide arrests and proceed sues, many questions are rising about who has the right to arrest or sue artists for their art projects, or even why when an art project has a political, religious or social concept may cause negative responses or even become illegal. Perhaps more information and education on Internet Art would help laws to be constructed, so artists and artworks would be protected.
In response to the recent action in Greece against the work “DWG | Dirty Works Greece” of Dimitris Fotiou, artists, programmers have been upset from the insult of the artwork, the violation of spiritual property, the abuse of privacy and especially the unfair suffering and defame of the artist.
As a minimum act for the above facts we call all net.artists to submit works.
BACKGROUND
According to the little history of Internet Art, many net.artists have been sued or held under custody for their online art projects was characterized as illegal or caused negative responses. While at the same time similar artworks of other artists were represented by institutions and major art organizations and exhibitions.
In 2004 Ars Electronica winner www.bushin30seconds.org is a website that critically confronts the policies of George W. Bush. The initiators' primary aim is to juxtapose a counterpoint to the US media system that is, in their opinion, not sufficiently critical of the president. The site is an outstanding blend of political commitment and entertaining content. While at the same time John Kinberg was arrested for his “Bikes Against Bush”, www.bikesagainstbush.com, project and he was accused for vandalism, when he was presenting one of the most remarkable interactive projects.
In 1999, etoy, a European art group, staged a two-month global art game called Toywar, toywar.com, which is described by the artists as "the single most expensive performance in art history: $4.5 billion in damage!" In 1999 etoy was sued by Internet toy retailer eToys, which claimed that Internet toy buyers might be confused and potentially offended by the artists' web site (a work of art itself) if they typed "etoy" rather than "etoys" into their Internet browsers. Etoy finally won the court against Etoys.
“DWG | Dirty Works Greece” was an online project satirizing the political corruption in Greece, when the site was virtually offering all illegal services in low prices online, while those services were offered as favors to citizens by politicians who were seeking votes. With the excuse that the artist was keeping visitors' personal data for later use, through the order form of the site (while the form was completely inactive, neither the hosting server offered such a service for a 0 $ hosting website) Dimitrios Fotiou held under custody, now waiting for the final court, while the form of the Skint 1996, www.irational.org/heath/skint/ of Heath Bunting is working properly and the Internet Beggar says to the one who offers an amount: ‘god bless you sir!'
CALL FOR WORKS
PLEASE READ before you e-mail!
• NO redirection or a jump pages.
• NO Work Attachments. All works and papers must be ONLINE.
• Only one project from each artist.
• No Portfolio or commercial sites.
• Brief CV and 1 photo attachment (100x100 pixels, 300 dpi resolution)
• Mail proposals and links to completed work to: d@artopos.org
• We are accepting collaboration/ exhibition proposals from institutions as well.
• Deadline 10 May 2005
Agreement: Since no printed documentation will be available, ARTOPOS will create a permanent reference to all works and artists on its website, including a description of the work, brief CV and a photograph. Please send a 100 words (maximum) text as your description for our website. All artists will be able to include this participation as an exhibition on their CVs.
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Organisers
Anna Hatziyiannaki,
Dimitris Fotiou,
Dimitris Skoufis
ARTOPOS
www.artopos.org