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Open Letter to ArtByte Magazine: The Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA) was rather surprised last week to find ourselves criticized in the pages of ArtByte for an event that never took place. In a piece entitled "Scritti Politti," an anonymous writer reported that our GraffitiWriter robot was "set loose on Austrian television during an interview with the sci-fi novelist" Neal Stephenson. "Unfortunately," the piece continues, "all it wrote on the studio floor was "Ars Electronica", a missed opportunity for splattery subversion." While we appreciate his appetite for alliteration, we are deeply disappointed in the author's facility with fact. The events described are a complete fabrication, the GraffitiWriter did not "speed from the wings" to disrupt Stephenson's interview. Nor did it print the message the writer alludes to on the floor of the studio. Instead, the IAA used its involvement with the Prix Ars Electronica broadcast for a much-needed political intervention. While accepting an award of distinction, IAA operatives roundly criticized Austrian anti-free speech policies and drew particular attention to public_netbase, a longtime home for Austrian dissident speech that has been the subject of funding cuts, evictions, lawsuits, and government harassment. These operatives also announced our intention to donate our award to public_netbase to help this organization carry out its important work. During this intervention, the GraffitiWriter was employed to spraypaint public_netbase's URL on the stage in fluorescent orange paint. This message remained visible for the remainder of the hour-long television program, providing public_netbase with international publicity. Photo documentation of the Prix Ars Electronica action is available at the IAA's website (www.appliedautonomy.com). Since this intervention, public_netbase has used the IAA prize to sponsor an Austrian Web Resistance Award highlighting three projects of cultural electronic resistance in Austria. Additional information about this award may be found at public_netbase's website, http://free.netbase.org. Of course, ArtByte readers would never know this had taken place. Nor, for that matter, would they know much of anything that happened outside the conveniently scandalous confines of the Next Sex exhibition. Throughout the week attempts were made to inject the proceeding with political content, from our action, to Golden Nica winner Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's references to fascism and media control during his acceptance speech, to the well-attended forum organized by Lozano-Hemmer, Konrad Becker, and others. And while Crawford correctly notes that these efforts generated much less media attention than the "technosexy events and artworks," as a journalist he is certainly in a position to shed "heat and light" on these proceedings. His failure to do so strikes us as a "missed opportunity" indeed. Sincerely, The Institute for Applied Autonomy |
