From "Haaretz", 19 Sept 2000
Life imitates art and art imitates itself
by Uri Pasovsky
"Life imitates art and art imitates itself. Creation is always a certain plagiarism", claim the members of 0100101110101101.ORG, a subversive group of artists working on the web, who mostly copy other people's work and duplicate sites. Thanks to one of their biggest and most cynical frauds, they were even part of the Venice Biennale, which only strengthens their criticism of the art world, both traditional and on-line.
Darko Maver was undoubtedly one of the most enigmatic figures of the art world in recent years. The rumors about Maver and his work began in 1998 within the circles of underground artists in Europe: an artist wandering in decaying Yugoslavia, living in motels and deserted buildings, creating crushed plastic dolls that remind us of abused tortured people.
Maver has first become famous on the Internet, especially thanks to an Italian web-magazine, that reviewed his art and difficult life. In Yugoslavia, Maver was accused of anti-patriotism, his work was censured and he was persecuted. Later on, copies of his works were shown in exhibitions in Slovenia and Italy; The originals have been destroyed by the censors in Yugoslavia.
His persecution has become worse. In January 1999 it became known that he was imprisoned in Yugoslavia and charged with propaganda against the regime. The "campaign for the freedom of art" broke out on the web, calling for Maver's release from prison. In May 1999, came the almost inevitable tragic end: Darko Maver died in prison. The photograph of his body was passed around on the web and raised the questions: Was he murdered? Did he kill himself? Was that another one of his performances, this time final?
Maver's death only added to his popularity. Galleries in Rome were showing his retrospectives, articles were written about his work, and in September 1999, he was presented in one of the most important events in the art world, the Biennale in Venice, with a documentary film about his work.
But immediately after the Biennale a group of artists, called 0100101110101101.ORG, as the name of its web site, announced having performed one of the biggest artistic deceptions in recent years: it invented Darko Maver, by using the propaganda of the web in a sophisticated manner and the cooperation of some of the art magazines. The group members tried to show the world an artist didn't require supposedly divine inspiration and a tortured soul. It was equally important to get the attention of magazines, critics and galleries.
Darko Maver and his "work" (which was taken entirely from those gruesome sites that published photos of dead bodies) were a Trojan horse that had successfully been introduced to the art scene. A year from their creation, the members of 0100101110101101.ORG, were mentioned at the Biennale, an achievement that would make any artist jealous. Even after disclosing the fraud, the identity of the group members is not revealed. Apparently, it is a group of two or three Italian artists from bologna, and at least one of them is a woman.The group 0100101110101101.ORG continued its work in its natural habitat of the Internet, in which truth is an elusive matter and fraud is easy. Since the Maver affair, the members of the group work mainly on the web, using their site. They focus on one of the crowning glories of the underground activities of the web, namely duplicating sites.
The first on-line victim of the group was no less than the Vatican. For over a year, the group operated http://www.vaticano.org, an almost identical site to that of the Vatican. The site contained blasphemy, invented words and texts of the Italian pop group 883.
Thousands of people visited the site, no one noticed the alterations in content. Nevertheless, a year later, Network Solutions Company, which had sold the domain vaticano.org to the group, announced that it was not renewing their contract. In spite of the group's protests, the company sold the domain to the Vatican, which also bought all the other similar domain names to the original site.
Since then, the group focuses on duplicating sites that belong to the art scene on the web. The group members attack especially all those who try to create on the web a world resembling the "real" art world. In the site of 0100101110101101.ORG one can find links to the site of http://www.hell.com, the successful art museum of the web (which doesn't allow surfers a free entrance), as well as the dismantled works of the web-artist Jodi and duplicates of the first on-line gallery, Art.Teleportacia.
On the web site of the group, which is built in a complicated and serpentine way, you can also find next to the duplicated sites content lists of hard drives, maps of communication systems and window screens that had been processed digitally. "The first step of making digital art," they say, "is to look at your cache library."
The group members claim that they do not work only against the commercialism of art on-line, but also against the general direction in which the web-art is developing, that of imitating a great deal the traditional art scene. They also say that on the web, the focus is not on the work of art itself but on creating brand names. "You have artists with names and family names, with biographies and works," the group members say. According to them, they try to show that on the web, like in the real world, there is no genius to which the muse give inspiration. There is only a gigantic continuous change of information and influences. "Knowledge," they say, is nothing but an artistic theft.
1) What drives you?
The conviction that a computer connected to the Net can really modify the course of events. On the contrary the traditional cultural system can be modified only in a long period and investing a big amount of time, persons and money, because of the long tradition which makes radical changes impossible. In the Net, investing our resources cleverly, it is possible to achieve, in a short time, cultural power, that can be used both politically and economically.
2) Which is the difference between the clones of the sites you made and the "original" ones?
Copies are more important than their original, although they do not differ from them. Copies contain not only all the parameters of the work that is being copied, but a lot more: the idea itself and the act of copying.
3) Is there also a "pure" artistic justification for your work, aside from the subversive/political statement?
You cannot keep art, politics and economy separated.
4) Your work has been getting public attention for 2 years now. Do you think the world has learned anything?
0100101110101101.ORG cannot answers this question objectively, the only certainty is that these years of activity have influenced 0100101110101101.ORG's life, all the rest is mere supposition.
5) Why the hostile attitude to the visitors in your site?
0100101110101101.ORG is not hostile. The "user friendly" politics is much more hostile, because is insidious, ambiguous, and dissimulates its true aims hiding the mechanisms that move it.
6) I apologise, but... How do you finance your activities?
0100101110101101.ORG collaborates with institutions or privates only spontaneously or if remunerated. We don't foresee any other form of collaboration. 0100101110101101.ORG receives two forms of financing: the first one are the commissions of museums, to which 0100101110101101.ORG allows only to use single projects for a fixed period of time; the second one is the financial support of privates. 0100101110101101.ORG has just signed a contract with a big society of e-commerce for including an advertising banner inside one of his works of art. This allows 0100101110101101.ORG to gain through the flow of hits to the site. The corporations pays 0100101110101101.ORG and 0100101110101101.ORG invest this money entertaining his public, providing a free service to the users. Nowadays the concept of access is replacing progressively that of property. The "intellectual capital" - ideas, concepts, images - is the fundamental constituent of value. Being in an important contractual phase we cannot reveal here more details without compromising our commercial strategies.