The Art of Hacking - Works

DOWNLOAD here the exhibition bookled as PDF

Harmen de Hoop
USELESS ACTION #3 - ROTTERDAM – 2010
USELESS ACTION #7 - KÖLN - 2010

Harmen de Hoop invites visitors to make copies of a flyer with the text 'ABOLI$H CAPITALI$M NOW!' by using the provided template and copier. Here the act of production and the physical workstation have merged with the presentation and exhibition of the work. Outside its up to the visitors to take matters into their own hands and to start acting as activists in the public arena themselves by spreading the flyers around town (illegally).
http://www.harmendehoop.com


Heath Bunting
Identity Bureau
transferable synthetic british natural person, 2011

Early 2011 Heath Bunting showed his 'Identity Bureau' for the first time. This new work is a further elaboration of 'The Status Project' (2004-2008) that is focused on observing the system, the mechanisms, and the instruments of power enabling you to modify yourself in that system. 'The Status Project' looks at how the construction of our ‘official identity’, as a collection of data, influences how we can move around in social space, the internet and private or governmental databases.

According to the UK law one can have several identities, eg someone with dual identity may have different names in each passport, thereby having two identities. Having a second identity can have obvious benefits, to name a few: anonymity, flexibility, tax avoidance. However Bunting’s fascination lies in the gap between the administrative, the identity mask and the actual body.

In his 'Identity Bureau' one can purchase official and legal UK identities. By leaving from the question of how to open a bank account, the artist works his way back to what is needed in order to solve this. Those who buy an identity will receive a special box with the necessary (UK) documents, address, name, health insurance, bank account and credit card. http://irational.org/heath/

This project has been made possible in collaboration with SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain.


moddr_
BINL♥ER

moddr_ is a Rotterdam-based media/hacker/co-working space, DIY/FOSS/OSHW fablab for artgeeks, and part of the artvenue WORM, Institute for Avantgardistic Recreation. Since being founded in 2007 by alumni of the department of "networked media" of the Piet Zwart Institute, they host and promote young local and international talent with a focus on the artistic modification ('modding') of contemporary and emerging technology.

moddr_ represents a critical attitude in the current 'new'-medialandscape through projects like the "Web2.0 Suicide Machine", and more recently with the 'BINL♥ER' project by resident-artist Philipp W. Teister.
http://moddr.net


Cornelia Sollfrank
net.art generator
Online computer program, since 1999

The net.art generators are easy to use computer programs on the World Wide Web which collect texts and images with the aid of search engines by entering an (artist’s) name and a title. It then collages them to create a new work or a new website. The results are stored online in an archive and are available for downloading.

Five versions of the net.art generator, have been produced. All art.net generators are written in the PERL computer language and have a GPL (General Public License) since 2003; its code can be downloaded from the website and modified: http://net.art-generator.com/src/sou.html.

 

Cornelia Sollfrank
DéjàVu, 2009
Speculative Software

After submitting a digital image, the software compiles a “quality report.” The preciseness of this report is dependent on the number of originals existing as a comparative value. Déjà Vu’s proprietary comparison data bank, a software specialized in visual products, is still under construction at the present time.

The software is intended to quickly compile a “similarity index” that can provide the precise percentage of utilized source material. By employing such scientific methods as bio-informatical distance calculation algorithms, it will ultimately become possible to achieve preciseness in a field that has long been dominated by arbitrariness and incompetent verification.

 

Cornelia Sollfrank
Have Script, Will Destroy
Video interview of the hacker Clara G. S0pht (15 min)
Berlin, February 2000, by Cornelia Sollfrank

“Of the female hackers I've met, Clara G. S0pht is the most intellectual and reflexive, but also moody, unpredictable, and dangerous-perhaps a little psychopathic. I met Clara in December 1999, at the Berlin hacker convention CCC (Chaos Communication Congress), organized by the Chaos Computer Club (German hacker organization).

Clara is a stubborn personality, who is not in accord with the hacker "community" on many issues and has some undeniable destructive tendencies. Most hackers specialize in a field: you can be a software cracker, a crypto specialist, or whatever.

Clara's hack is Denial of Service, or DoS, where a system is shut down (usually a corporate, military or governmental target) by moving more traffic to it than it can handle. DoS is the most spectacular and contested hack within the community and the world at large. For one thing, DoS generates a lot of publicity.”


Nancy Mauro-Flude / Mez Breeze / Sara Platon
'_Error_in_Time(v.t_3)_', 2011

In '_Error_in_Time(v.t_3)_' sister0, Ko66 and Netwurker_Mez give us insight into geek space from the perspective of a female hacker. The performance isn’t a work about identity – its about identity theft. '_Error_in_Time(v.t_3)_' uses sound, literature, performance and live code manipulations to explore the intimate workings of computer/human interfaces, surveillance and social media.

 

Ine Poppe (director)
HIPPIES FROM HELL, 2001/ 2002
53 minutes,  DV

The documentary 'Hippies from Hell' is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The film is a portrait of a group of people who call themselves Hippies from Hell. The Hippies from Hell are hackers, techies, writers and puzzle maniacs who were involved in the Dutch hacker magazine Hacktic in the eighties and the internet provider xs4all.

The issues they were concerned with are still relevant today. Hacking does not mean breaking into as many computer systems as possible: it's an attitude that scrutinizes the influences of contemporary technology in a critical manner.

 

Producers: Bosse Lindquist, Jesper Huor
Research: Päivi Suhonen, Johannes Wahlström, Armin Turkanovic
Photo: Lars Granstrand, Sven Lindahl
Edit: Michael Hallberg
Log in: Max Orward
Project leader: Johan Brånstad
WikiRebels - The Documentary, 2010
Swedish documentary, 2010, 50 minutes

Over several months a crew from Swedish Television has been following the secretive media network Wikileaks and its work behind the scenes.
The reporters Jesper Huor and Bosse Lindquist have made several in-depth interviews with Wikileaks enigmatic editor-in-chief Julian Assange, who some view as a champion of freedom, others as a spy and rapist.

But they have also met several other key people behind Wikileaks - computer geeks and journalists. As well as Wikileaks opponents. A small group of people, or rather a subculture, is fighting an information war from serverrooms, internet cafes, and apartments, against the powers that be. Ultimately it is a war about the future of internet.


The Yes Men
Dow Does the Right Thing, 2004
2 Channel Video Installation

On the 20th Anniversary of the Bhopal Catastrophe, BBC World News invited a representative from the company responsible to appear live on their program. The representative did agree to speak – but as it happens he was not really from Dow Chemical. The man, who called himself "Jude (patron saint of the impossible) Finisterra (earth's end)" was an activist from the media pranksters known as The Yes Men.

When the live broadcast happened, it became the number one news story of the day globally, first as a real announcement from Dow, and then as a report on the hoax.

This video installation shows the unedited news broadcast alongside a very nervous Yes Man, mic'd up and waiting to "go live" in the BBC's Paris Bureau.
http://theyesmen.org/


ÜBERMORGEN.COM
DOUBLETHINK
Knowledge Bureau, 2011

This office installation reflects and demonstrates both ÜBERMORGEN.COM's artistic actionism as well as the necessary tools and rules for any clandestine media hacking operation today. Using hardware such as disposable netbooks, the amnesia operating system on SD card and encrypted USB sticks for data the duo merge knowledge with form.

The visitor can simply enjoy the office installation, watch an educational video on the current financial market or a video about the current technical and mental dispositive; or s/he can dive deep into the data, browse the systems or read the complete documentation of the technical setup. http://www.ubermorgen.com