WEBVTT
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preroll music
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Herald: And welcome to this beautiful evening
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The next talk is very interesting talk.
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It's actually.. will go to.. tackle some more..
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quality.. quantity, the army.
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Actually using an army to have some balance
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in a way.
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Not...
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Yeah, I can actually just say:
What can an army do if the army
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was effectively (?) put into action,
let's say.
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So.
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Mr. Constant Dullaart will introduce
the talk for us today.
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And please welcome him
with a warm applause.
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applause
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constantdull: First of all, thank you very much
for joining.
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It's a great privilege
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and an honour to speak in this context
of the great CCC.
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I'm generally more nervous than
I would normally be.
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So, anyway, forgive me if I stutter
or something, but hopefully I'm not,
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because I drank some beer.
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So, also.. so, I built an army.
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This much is true.
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And it's nice because we're talking
about Crypto Wars and about losing the war,
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and we're talking about all those other
kinds of stuff.
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We have all these war analogies,
so I thought it's also kind of fitting
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to present an army to you.
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But I will actually explain to you
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how I got there.
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So some people might know me
from works like these,
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which is.. which doesn't have sound.
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Ahm.. laughing
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I think it did originally.
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But anyway, this is the Revolving Internet.
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I made it in 2010.
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So, making jokes of pre-existing web content,
which is a company called Google,
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that a lot of people seem to
keep talking about.
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I twisted it around.
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So I made the internet revolve,
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just like the world rotates,
I guess.
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And then I made this other thing,
which is called the death of the URL,
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because the URLs died,
and this is one of the first things
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where it's actually a XXX domain name,
which was the first attempt to organize
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all the URLs so it would be easier to block
on porn content.
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But then I just.. yeah, you see what happens,
you know, that's happening.
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So I basically changed the title.
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Normally the referrer is..
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The referrer is actually in the title bar
as a URL, but now
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the title is actually in the page,
and ah.. yeah, you get it.
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Yeah, so that's.. or I would like an
encrypted treasure map
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and this treasure map is actually
weirdly enough sold
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for like a lot of money in New York
in an auction house just because
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it points to another treasure island,
where the fictive or maybe real treasure
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of Lima is buried and now there is an
actual exhibition buried.
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But.. and also I started a company
recently, DullTech,
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because I want technology to be more dull.
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laughing
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Because I think technology is perceived
to be exciting while it's not,
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so it should just be dull as fuck
as it is.
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Yeah.
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So..
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This is actually a..
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I also retrieved the very first image
that was ever photoshopped,
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which I was quite happy about finding.
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And then I decided to write an..
oh, actually I didn't put a timer.
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So anyway, I'll see notes.. ahm.
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So this is..
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I wrote a letter to her,
to the protagonist in this picture, Jennifer,
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and I'll read you the letter right now.
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Dear Jennifer, sometime in 1988,
through a sitting-in on the beach
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in Bora-Bora looking at to Opua island,
enjoying your holiday
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with a very serious boyfriend.
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The serious boyfriend, John,
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took a photograph of you sitting
on the beach not wearing your bikini top.
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John later became your husband
and father to your children
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Sara, Lisa, Alex and Jane.
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John, if you're watching this, hi.
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This photograph of a beautiful moment
in your personal history
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has also become a part of my history
and that of many other people.
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It has even shaped our outlooks
on the world at large.
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John's image of you became the very first
photograph to be publicly altered
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by the most influential image
manipulation program ever.
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Of course, this is why I know the names
of your children and this is also
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why I know you're trying to do cool things
trying to get a .green toplevel domain name.
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Anyway, personally I believe that the importance
of the domain name has been reduced
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to a nostalgic poetic value,
but that doesn't matter now.
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I still wonder if you felt the world
changed there on that beach,
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the fact that reality would be more moldable,
that normal people could change their history,
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brighten up their past and put
twirl effects on their faces.
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That holiday image became the very first
photograph publicly manipulated
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in Photoshop,
and your intimate beach moment
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became the reality for several
potential clients to play with.
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2 Jennifers, no Jennifer, less clouds etc.
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And in essence it was the
very first Photoshop meme.
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But now the image is nowhere
to be found online.
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Did John ask you if he could use
this particular image?
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Did you enjoy seeing yourself
on a screen as much as he did?
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Did you ever think you would be the muse
that would inspire so much contemporary
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image making?
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Did you ever print out the image yourself?
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Would you be willing to share
the image with me, and, if so,
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with the other people to whom it took
on such an unexpected significance?
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Shouldn't the Smithsonian or any other
large institution have the negative
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of that image, not to mention digital
backups of its endless variations?
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All these questions have made me decide
to redistribute the image, 'Jennifer in Paradise',
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as well as I can, somewhat as an artist,
somewhat as a digital archaeologist,
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restoring what few traces
of it I could find,
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restoring the image from what was available
to everyone in the somewhat public space
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of the internet.
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It was sad to realize this blurry screengrab
was the closest I could get to the image,
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but beautiful at the same time.
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How often do you find an important
image that is not online
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in several different sizes already?
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This beautiful artifact
of software development
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has become an artwork in this way,
in which you, or at least your depiction
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play a central part in a body of work
that has become very dear to me,
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a faint blurry pixelated focal point,
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a work that celebrates a time when
you were young and the world was young
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as it still naively believed in the
authenticity of the photograph.
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Sometimes, when I'm anxious about
the future of our surveilled
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computer-mediated world,
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when I worry about cultural imperialism
and the politics behind software design,
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I imagine myself travelling back in
time, just like the Terminator,
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to that important moment in technological
world history,
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there on that beach in Bora-Bora,
and just sit there with you,
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watching the tide roll away.
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Sincerly, Constant Dullaart.
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So, Jennifer never responded.
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Thank you.
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laughingapplause
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So, Jennifer never responded,
but the cool thing was..
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So this was basically an anecdote
in Adobe's history, right,
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so there was some talk about this
picture, but I couldn't find it online,
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and it was in a video which
I'll briefly show later.
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So, I restored it and I redistributed it
with this letter as an open letter.
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But of course I'm..
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I put a payload
in the jpg.
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I stuck in and graphically encrypted
some messages in different versions
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of this jpg because I also wanted
to discuss that a jpg, of course,
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isn't only a way to distribute images,
but it's also the container
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of the jpg, and especially if you
stuck in a graphically.. inject content,
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it actually becomes a unique container
discussing the thereoality (?) of
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digital photography besides, like..
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I mean, a lot of me.. as an artist,
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like I still have to do with a lot of people
discussing paper and discussing prints,
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and like discussing the value of a file,
if you can copy it and this kind of bullshit,
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and in the end, I needed to emphasize
the fact that like, this image also wasn't
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mine,
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I just redistributed it.
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So actually, the only thing that's for sale
as an artwork, as this, is the password
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to actually access the content
I injected into it.
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And then of course you get these questions
of institutions, like, how do we show this
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in a space?
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So this is, like, working predominantly online,
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this is the question I get most of the time.
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Constant, how do we show this
in your exhibition?
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So.. mostly I just take really stupid
analogies, and they work.
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So, here of course I used UV paint,
and I just, ah, the text,
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which is.. well.. maybe it's an image,
but the text that was encrypted
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in that Jennifer in Paradise image
is now painted with UV paint on there,
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and I would read it as a performance.
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And then, of course, because I
wanted to sell the passwords,
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I wanted the access to be the commodity,
right, so if you're.. like,
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within art you're always thinking about
a commodity, people wanna own something,
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they wanna have a cultural gesture,
which they can..
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yeah, which they can own, basically.
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And then, as an artist you're
entitled to do dramatic gestures.
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Or at least, I feel like I was entitled
to do dramatic gestures.
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laughing
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And to close down the access
to the encrypted contents
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I had to destroy..
laughing
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.. anyway, I don't advise
you doing that at home
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because apparently it's
poisonous or whatever..
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laughingapplause
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So this basically meant that the people..
shouting from the audience, laughs
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so this basically meant that the people
that wanted access to that content
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needed to, or buy new UV lights, or they
needed to buy the password to the file.
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The cool thing is that John,
after a while, did respond,
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because it was.. the Wall Street Journal
started to write about it,
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and the Wall Street Journal he did find
worthy to reply, not my, of course,
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my skanky little emails writing
the big developer.
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But anyway, he did reply,
and he was actually super-generous,
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and he was actually.. he was saying like,
you should have asked me,
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but he gave a lot of info, like
on which scanner he scanned
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that first image on, and
like he went to.. app,
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but he also said, like,
that he distributed it
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to other people under a strict
non-disclosure agreement,
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which I'll prove to you later that it's..
that that's.. not true.
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Anyway, but..
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I pointed out what is funny,
which is.. it says it's one of the first images
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to be photoshopped.
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I guess that is a word now.
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So, I'm really happy that I actually have
an email to prove the moment
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when the guy that made up 'photoshop'
figures out that 'photoshopping'
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had become a verb.
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laughing
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Anyway.. and also, like, he used
a 24-bits colour image.
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So, I don't know, any of you ever
using 24-bits colour images?
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I don't, but.. maybe you do.
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But the cool thing also that he
needed to transport the image
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on separate floppy disks to save
the red, green and blue channels,
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which I also thought was
quite remarkable.
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Anyway, of course.. like, this image
is really important because it was
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one of the first digital images
at that time for people to use
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manipulating in Photoshop,
because it's 1988,
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so there's no web, there's no
digital images distribution
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or wide availability of it,
no digital cameras,
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so they needed to find that
as a source.
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So this is the demo,actually,
where I got it from.
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John: So I start with it and open up..
constantdull: This is John
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John: an image of .. This is a tourist picture
I took of my wife when we were on a vacation
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in Tahiti.
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This is from Bora-Bora.
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I used this image for doing
a lot of the demonstrations
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including the first demonstrations
that I did at Adobe Systems.
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So I have opened a 24-bit image.
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We're looking at it on an 8-bit display,
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but you can still manipulate
the 24-bit image.
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So I'm gonna start by cloning Jennifer,
so I'm gonna start by just...
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constantdull: Okay, I'm just gonna mute
John out for a bit,
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because it's super interesting,
but you can watch the video later.
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The thing is that of course he's
cloning his wife,
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he asked her to marry her
the very next day after this picture.
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I'm just saying he's confirming
a very age-old cultural stigma
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of a man objectifying
the female body,
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and I thought that this was really..
laughing
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.. I mean the fact that he is
cloning his wife, and showing that
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as a tool to his potential customers..
laughing
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..seriously, what the fuck,
why didn't he use a bike,
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or a turtle or something.
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laughing
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John: Copy.. paste.
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applause
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John: And now I have a clone.
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constantdull: Anyway, so..
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I've been using
that image now because I felt
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like I'd made, you know,
a new perception of that copy,
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and I've been using that into
different works
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where I'm just rotating it through
all the different photoshop filters
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that are available.
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So you get these kind of images,
and you get like these.. little presentations
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where I like liquefy Jennifer
all over the place,
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like LitraAlt ?
You know, and there's all these
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like, images, because of course
I'm turning this image into
00:14:16.710 --> 00:14:18.890
a ubiquitous kind of image
that's everywhere.
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So I want to take it out of the idea
that it's not visible everywhere.
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But the cool thing is that finally then
John actually responded again,
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and that was in the Guardian,
and the cool thing is
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that, where before it was under
a so-called non-disclosure agreement,
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which actually my lawyer told me
that it's an implicit license he gave
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because he gave it to other people.
00:14:40.310 --> 00:14:44.520
Anyway, but the cool thing is that he
gave actually the real image
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to the Guardian.
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So now everybody has access
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to that first actual image.
00:14:49.910 --> 00:14:51.760
So I found like I still pride myself
00:14:51.760 --> 00:14:54.980
in kind of tricking him into
releasing that first image,
00:14:54.980 --> 00:14:57.160
where it was first like
a personal image,
00:14:57.160 --> 00:15:00.470
and now actually justified
to him that the world had
00:15:00.470 --> 00:15:04.140
a right to see that very first image
and to read that very first image
00:15:04.140 --> 00:15:07.850
as an important image in
photographic world history.
00:15:07.850 --> 00:15:10.870
So I'm kinda happy that this is
now available for everyone
00:15:10.870 --> 00:15:14.730
to fuck with.
00:15:14.730 --> 00:15:17.850
So, this is Jennifer now,
or about 3 years ago.
00:15:17.850 --> 00:15:19.890
She's.. yeah.
00:15:19.890 --> 00:15:20.890
This is her.
00:15:20.890 --> 00:15:22.780
I don't have anything to
say about this.
00:15:22.780 --> 00:15:25.440
laughing
00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:29.020
And also the nice thing is.. nonono,
also, I did want to like ask them..
00:15:29.020 --> 00:15:31.000
augh, 15 minutes, thank you.
00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:35.380
I also wanted to.. this means
I have to hurry up.
00:15:35.380 --> 00:15:38.680
I actually wanted to take them back
to Bora-Bora on like a holiday
00:15:38.680 --> 00:15:42.480
and retake that picture, right,
so.. and then they perceived it
00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:44.540
weirdly enough as an indecent proposal.
00:15:44.540 --> 00:15:46.720
They said, like, oh, nonono, that's not ok.
00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:49.220
And then I thought, like, maybe
they are prudes because she's like
00:15:49.220 --> 00:15:53.120
half naked in the picture and she thought
I would wanna see her naked again,
00:15:53.120 --> 00:15:54.970
which I never.. like, I thought of later.
00:15:54.970 --> 00:15:59.030
Anyway, but now, if you google her,
you get like the first response are..
00:15:59.030 --> 00:16:02.610
like, the first result is my letter to her,
which is still very nice,
00:16:02.610 --> 00:16:04.350
so I hope she read it by now.
00:16:04.350 --> 00:16:05.350
laughing
00:16:05.350 --> 00:16:09.180
But to be honest I only
conversed with her husband
00:16:09.180 --> 00:16:14.100
and she never replied which I
also think is a bit weird.
00:16:14.100 --> 00:16:17.330
Yeah, so.. laughing that.
00:16:17.330 --> 00:16:22.130
As an artist, I think I'm in the business
of turning this into like a more
00:16:22.130 --> 00:16:26.950
intricate version of this
and then calling it art.
00:16:26.950 --> 00:16:30.660
So, I was invited to do an
exhibition about clowns
00:16:30.660 --> 00:16:35.370
and I gave this press image,
and this is actually a..
00:16:35.370 --> 00:16:38.620
an artist, Marina Abramovic, that maybe
somebody would know,
00:16:38.620 --> 00:16:42.140
and it's Klaus Biesenbach, who is
like some kind of curator.
00:16:42.140 --> 00:16:44.910
And here is them with more curators.
00:16:44.910 --> 00:16:51.660
And here is Ai Weiwei
with naked children, which is awkward.
00:16:51.660 --> 00:16:55.730
Now, it's not.. it's not.. it's
a joke, it's a joke, sorry.
00:16:55.730 --> 00:17:00.880
So.. ok, I just have to
catch my breath.
00:17:00.880 --> 00:17:04.210
So, this is weird, right,
like now on Instagram,
00:17:04.210 --> 00:17:08.530
like, Instagram is actually
starting to influence
00:17:08.530 --> 00:17:10.690
how the artworld works.
00:17:10.690 --> 00:17:12.730
So you would see an artist,
you'd see the amount of followers.
00:17:12.730 --> 00:17:15.020
This is a collector, for example,
and you would see or be
00:17:15.020 --> 00:17:17.109
the circle of relevance (?).
Like, if they have a certain amounts
00:17:17.109 --> 00:17:22.200
of followers, you would think, like,
ok, that kind of quantitative validation,
00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:26.310
or like, this quantified social validation
might suggest the kind of access
00:17:26.310 --> 00:17:28.550
to like a social capital, s
that they're more
00:17:28.550 --> 00:17:31.170
relevant as a collector or as an artist.
00:17:31.170 --> 00:17:34.480
And like you'd get these collectors
that are posing in front of their artworks
00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:37.520
to generate more relevance
for their artworks.
00:17:37.520 --> 00:17:41.740
And in the end I was thinking,
if that relevance actually starts ..
00:17:41.740 --> 00:17:45.040
if that social capital, that quantification
of social capital actually starts
00:17:45.040 --> 00:17:47.730
to represent actual capital,
like in the art world,
00:17:47.730 --> 00:17:52.760
but in a lot of other places,
then why not buy that capital.
00:17:52.760 --> 00:17:55.230
And of course like, if you just do
a simple search online
00:17:55.230 --> 00:18:00.050
you can buy Facebook followers,
Instagram followers, everywhere.
00:18:00.050 --> 00:18:04.250
So... and then, I started to research
these followers,
00:18:04.250 --> 00:18:07.040
and these followers were all automated,
right, like, this was their content,
00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:08.740
this were the pictures they're posting.
00:18:08.740 --> 00:18:12.120
So you would get these like kinda
automated pictures where it says..
00:18:12.120 --> 00:18:17.580
this has the hashtag 'instadroid',
but weirdly cropped-off heads
00:18:17.580 --> 00:18:19.430
in the image.
00:18:19.430 --> 00:18:23.830
This also..
reminiscence with weirdly cropped-off heads
00:18:23.830 --> 00:18:24.830
in the image.
00:18:24.830 --> 00:18:28.120
And of course, this means
it's just an automatically cropped image
00:18:28.120 --> 00:18:36.240
because of the at that time dominant-square
format of instagram pictures.
00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:39.340
So, the tag is 'relax' with another few
heads missing.
00:18:39.340 --> 00:18:40.790
'Marathon'..
00:18:40.790 --> 00:18:43.050
I never knew you could do
a marathon with a snowboard,
00:18:43.050 --> 00:18:44.050
but, whatever.
00:18:44.050 --> 00:18:46.900
So.. laughing
this is all, like, generated, right,
00:18:46.900 --> 00:18:49.720
and then you even have the bios,
the bios are ripped from other people
00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:50.980
and then manipulated.
00:18:50.980 --> 00:18:52.970
So maybe a lot of you people
would know this already,
00:18:52.970 --> 00:18:57.700
but I thought it was really, like,
genuinely awesome poetry,
00:18:57.700 --> 00:19:01.940
or found poetry, where..
this is Jonalan, and Jonalan says
00:19:01.940 --> 00:19:10.550
":) I'll prove to the world that I would ecome
somehin imporant to they ned someday."
00:19:10.550 --> 00:19:13.880
So I think thats..
and Darsed says "I love so much asteniber."
00:19:13.880 --> 00:19:16.800
laughing
00:19:16.800 --> 00:19:23.090
And.. anyway, I'll skip this, or..
"simple n pretty n paid"
00:19:23.090 --> 00:19:24.090
This is also weird.
00:19:24.090 --> 00:19:29.210
Gondar is
"mchanical engineer 29 years old, raduated
00:19:29.210 --> 00:19:32.060
from ITM in 2007"
00:19:32.060 --> 00:19:36.920
I think the original bio reads MIT,
but I'm not sure.
00:19:36.920 --> 00:19:39.480
And this is one of my favourites,
where it says:
00:19:39.480 --> 00:19:42.200
"Myna isRoxi, I like it be fancy."
00:19:42.200 --> 00:19:45.480
laughing
00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:49.380
"phot, vieo hort poems blogger,
web edditing"
00:19:49.380 --> 00:19:53.100
Anyway, so this is another artist,
maybe you know him, Jeff Koons,
00:19:53.100 --> 00:19:56.940
he was also fresh on Instagram,
and you know what I did,
00:19:56.940 --> 00:20:04.560
I thought like if I can buy these followers,
you know, if I can find Jeff Koons,
00:20:04.560 --> 00:20:08.170
why not actually inject some capital
into these people and inject
00:20:08.170 --> 00:20:13.410
some social capital, and I decided to buy
2.5 million instagram followers.
00:20:13.410 --> 00:20:14.920
laughing
00:20:14.920 --> 00:20:18.750
Because I had a budget from some
institution and I donated these.. laughing
00:20:18.750 --> 00:20:21.660
I donated these followers to
all these artists, right,
00:20:21.660 --> 00:20:25.850
because if these artists wanna
kind of compare length of their dicks,
00:20:25.850 --> 00:20:30.460
to like follower numbers, then why not
make them all as equal?
00:20:30.460 --> 00:20:40.040
laughing So..
applause
00:20:40.040 --> 00:20:41.040
Thank you.
00:20:41.040 --> 00:20:43.130
So Jeff Koons had 100,000 followers.
00:20:43.130 --> 00:20:46.870
Jerry Saltz who is a critic
also got 100,000 followers.
00:20:46.870 --> 00:20:49.870
Klaus Biesenbach got 100,000 followers.
00:20:49.870 --> 00:20:53.170
Richard Prince got 100,000 followers.
00:20:53.170 --> 00:20:55.000
This Murakami got 100,000 followers.
00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:57.900
Jonas Lund, a friend of mine,
got 100,000 followers.
00:20:57.900 --> 00:21:02.980
All these people got 100,000 followers
exactly, so they were equal to each other.
00:21:02.980 --> 00:21:11.940
laughingwhoopingclapping
00:21:11.940 --> 00:21:16.820
So basically I became the Lenin
of social media, right?
00:21:16.820 --> 00:21:18.980
laughing
00:21:18.980 --> 00:21:23.060
Injecting capital making people
equal is what I do.
00:21:23.060 --> 00:21:27.740
So.. this is.. but the weird thing was
that the New York Times called me
00:21:27.740 --> 00:21:32.200
and I'm like, holy fuck, NYT is calling me,
it's on the phone, on this shitty little
00:21:32.200 --> 00:21:34.990
freephone, or fairphone, like on..
audience: Yeah!
00:21:34.990 --> 00:21:37.920
Heh, exactly, fairphone.. laughing
there's the New York Times, right.
00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:40.690
So I'm thinking, this is relevant.
00:21:40.690 --> 00:21:41.700
And she keeps asking me
00:21:41.700 --> 00:21:45.180
- I'm hurrying up -, like,
she's asking me, like, yeah, but like,
00:21:45.180 --> 00:21:48.050
do you know other people that are
selling artworks for Instagram,
00:21:48.050 --> 00:21:51.170
and like, did you make money
for Instagram, and I'm like,
00:21:51.170 --> 00:21:54.820
that's.. like, what I'm criticizing, like,
this is not what the work is about, like,
00:21:54.820 --> 00:21:57.530
I'm not actually telling you like
maybe somebody won't spot
00:21:57.530 --> 00:22:01.520
a work of mine through Instagram,
but that's, like, I'm saying, like this..
00:22:01.520 --> 00:22:05.850
validation system of you thinking
an artwork is important is corrupt.
00:22:05.850 --> 00:22:06.950
It's vulnerable.
00:22:06.950 --> 00:22:09.430
It's a system that's
fucked, and it's a commercial system
00:22:09.430 --> 00:22:12.130
that we're buying into and you
shouldn't believe it.
00:22:12.130 --> 00:22:15.690
So the funny thing was that
in this article she quoted Simon de Pury
00:22:15.690 --> 00:22:19.810
as an auctioneer and she quoted
his follower number to mention
00:22:19.810 --> 00:22:21.670
how important he was.
00:22:21.670 --> 00:22:22.670
laughing
00:22:22.670 --> 00:22:25.300
But I bought that guy..
00:22:25.300 --> 00:22:28.080
I bought that motherfucker,
like, how many followers?
00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:31.200
laughing
25,000 followers, so why the fuck
00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:35.120
did the New York Times quote, you know,
that actual number to inject..
00:22:35.120 --> 00:22:38.110
like, to mention some kind of
relevance for that auctioneer.
00:22:38.110 --> 00:22:42.490
The same with Ai Weiwei, they also quoted
like how many followers they had,
00:22:42.490 --> 00:22:44.900
like, I own these followers.
00:22:44.900 --> 00:22:47.220
laughing
00:22:47.220 --> 00:22:51.470
Anyway, so we're in a world..
we're in a world that these kind of images,
00:22:51.470 --> 00:22:54.770
this is the most-liked image,
that this is gonna be our culture.
00:22:54.770 --> 00:22:59.180
That this is gonna be the most relevant
image, because this is the most liked.
00:22:59.180 --> 00:23:00.850
And that's a shitty place to be.
00:23:00.850 --> 00:23:01.850
You know.
00:23:01.850 --> 00:23:02.850
We need to have
00:23:02.850 --> 00:23:06.010
other tools to talk about the value
of images, to talk about our culture,
00:23:06.010 --> 00:23:08.590
and not get trapped into these stigmas.
00:23:08.590 --> 00:23:13.400
So as an artist we need other tools
to just make, you know, reversed thumbs,
00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:16.020
we need another way to reflect
on that landscape.
00:23:16.020 --> 00:23:17.350
So then you have..
00:23:17.350 --> 00:23:20.530
I'm not gonna explain
technically, but you..
00:23:20.530 --> 00:23:21.540
laughing
00:23:21.540 --> 00:23:26.130
So, Friend Bomber, Mass Planner,
all these little things, and I got information
00:23:26.130 --> 00:23:29.560
because I was asked for the..
00:23:29.560 --> 00:23:34.800
I was asked for Schirn, Kunsthalle Frankfurt,
00:23:34.800 --> 00:23:38.350
to do another project, and they gave
me some money, and Schirn Frankfurt
00:23:38.350 --> 00:23:40.050
is based in Hessen.
00:23:40.050 --> 00:23:44.590
And Hessen delivered the soldiers to
fight the first American revolution.
00:23:44.590 --> 00:23:47.640
So I thought it would be more than
fitting to bring them back to life
00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:49.820
and fight this American revolution.
00:23:49.820 --> 00:23:50.980
So I took all the names from
00:23:50.980 --> 00:23:54.970
the actual Hessian soldiers that fought
in the United States, were paid by the British,
00:23:54.970 --> 00:23:59.250
and actually with that money the very first
contemporary art museum was funded,
00:23:59.250 --> 00:24:01.550
the Fridericianum.
00:24:01.550 --> 00:24:04.510
Anyway, 1780,
all these names I got through
00:24:04.510 --> 00:24:08.820
the wonderful Landesgeschichte
information system, but also the professor
00:24:08.820 --> 00:24:10.309
that helped me.
00:24:10.309 --> 00:24:15.830
So, these are all the accounts
that I made active.
00:24:15.830 --> 00:24:18.850
laughing
00:24:18.850 --> 00:24:23.410
But the weird thing was that all these accounts,
like, a lot of these were created in Pakistan,
00:24:23.410 --> 00:24:26.940
also, they were actually manually crafted,
also, I had like automated ones,
00:24:26.940 --> 00:24:31.400
but also tried.. this guy.. have manually
crafted ones.
00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:34.640
And then these pictures showed up,
and I actually had to explain them,
00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:40.750
like, the Hessian soldiers were white,
and like I shouldn't have like non-white.
00:24:40.750 --> 00:24:43.830
like, passport pictures on there.
00:24:43.830 --> 00:24:46.270
And then, when.. but then actually,
00:24:46.270 --> 00:24:49.020
when I was typing this in Skype,
weirdly enough all these people
00:24:49.020 --> 00:24:53.150
use Skype, which I thought was very weird,
knowing what we know,
00:24:53.150 --> 00:24:56.350
but anyway, it felt so weird to ask that
and say, like, could you please
00:24:56.350 --> 00:24:59.700
use white images, that
I'd stopped asking that.
00:24:59.700 --> 00:25:03.710
So, if somebody talks to me
about, like, the conceptual error,
00:25:03.710 --> 00:25:09.010
why the artificial army isn't all white,
it's because I don't give a fuck anymore,
00:25:09.010 --> 00:25:15.150
and I don't wanna ask somebody in Pakistan
to only use white images, cause it's fucked.
00:25:15.150 --> 00:25:17.130
applause
00:25:17.130 --> 00:25:21.910
Anyway, so of course because it's..
thank you.
00:25:21.910 --> 00:25:24.310
Because it's also of course like,
it's very weird that we're using this
00:25:24.310 --> 00:25:29.510
kind of like system where it's like...
a lot of this kind of artificial capital,
00:25:29.510 --> 00:25:34.290
of this artificial social capital is crafted
in lower wage countries,
00:25:34.290 --> 00:25:36.880
and we're actually supporting a system
by buying these followers
00:25:36.880 --> 00:25:43.400
and buying this kind of black hat SEO shit,
with like having a very large groups of people
00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:48.850
crafting this kind of.. these kind of accounts,
and.. anyway, I think there's ..
00:25:48.850 --> 00:25:52.250
a kind of messy thing, but the nice thing
about like using army as an analogy
00:25:52.250 --> 00:25:56.110
is that it brought me onto BBC News.
00:25:56.110 --> 00:25:58.290
And this is also really funny,
because I think this is again
00:25:58.290 --> 00:25:59.360
like the value of..
00:25:59.360 --> 00:26:01.850
I could've said, like, I make a..
00:26:01.850 --> 00:26:05.250
like a large collection of
phone verified accounts,
00:26:05.250 --> 00:26:09.800
but I think by saying I made
a fake army, or I made an army,
00:26:09.800 --> 00:26:12.270
got me on the news and then
the funny thing is that actually
00:26:12.270 --> 00:26:16.520
although it's been on the news
and in the Guardian again,
00:26:16.520 --> 00:26:21.580
the nice thing is over half of
the army is still alive.
00:26:21.580 --> 00:26:25.760
So they're still out there, I'm still
distributing likes,
00:26:25.760 --> 00:26:26.870
I'm still using that.
00:26:26.870 --> 00:26:28.110
If you would want to help me,
00:26:28.110 --> 00:26:30.750
please give me.. if you have like
spare Facebook accounts,
00:26:30.750 --> 00:26:34.140
which I hope you don't,
if you do, fuck Facebook,
00:26:34.140 --> 00:26:39.700
get the fuck out of there,
but also, if you do have them,
00:26:39.700 --> 00:26:44.060
give them to me and please accept
the friends of like another 1000 soldiers
00:26:44.060 --> 00:26:46.930
and the next few thousand soldiers
that I'm gonna make,
00:26:46.930 --> 00:26:49.180
and let's create some social noise.
00:26:49.180 --> 00:26:52.231
Let's create some social noise
of like.. and fight this kind of
00:26:52.231 --> 00:26:56.750
weird artificial system of like
quality validation through..
00:26:56.750 --> 00:27:01.580
through this kind of artificial social
measurement system.
00:27:01.580 --> 00:27:04.309
So yeah, like.. fuck Facebook.
00:27:04.309 --> 00:27:10.100
Anyway, I'll just play with a short piece
of.. is that a zero or do I have like
00:27:10.100 --> 00:27:11.680
a few more minutes left?
00:27:11.680 --> 00:27:12.680
Ok.
00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:15.420
So I'll play a short.. a brief part
00:27:15.420 --> 00:27:19.630
of my video would like..
my call to war, let's say.
00:27:19.630 --> 00:27:24.410
phone ringing
This is not a part of the video.
00:27:24.410 --> 00:27:25.620
laughing
00:27:25.620 --> 00:27:29.520
[voice] Hi and welcome to our tutorial.
00:27:29.520 --> 00:27:34.170
[voice] In this video, we will show you how
to create identities through the quick star
00:27:34.170 --> 00:27:39.780
wizard.
00:27:39.780 --> 00:27:56.640
trumpet playing, yelling
00:27:56.640 --> 00:28:32.850
energetic brass instrumental music
00:28:32.850 --> 00:28:35.890
applause
00:28:35.890 --> 00:28:37.790
constantdull: Yeah, thank you very much.
00:28:37.790 --> 00:28:44.750
applause
00:28:44.750 --> 00:28:51.180
So, yeah, if there's questions, I would just
like to say, at the end of the project
00:28:51.180 --> 00:28:53.160
I'll also release like a..
of course, like the
00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:54.910
cool little graphs that you see
00:28:54.910 --> 00:28:59.800
when you hit the BBC how many profiles
were deleted by Facebook, and how,
00:28:59.800 --> 00:29:05.090
and like.. and you'll see like how many
little like attacks sparked which..
00:29:05.090 --> 00:29:07.480
how many deletions,
and these kind of things.
00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:13.380
But, again, if you could help me
have these fake identities
00:29:13.380 --> 00:29:17.040
infiltrate the real world with the
real identities and let them
00:29:17.040 --> 00:29:20.040
mash up together, I would be
very grateful for this project.
00:29:20.040 --> 00:29:25.130
Herald: I would also like to boost up
my Instagram, my Twitter, my Facebook too.
00:29:25.130 --> 00:29:27.610
constantdull: Oh, you want more followers?
Herald: Yeah!
00:29:27.610 --> 00:29:28.460
constantdull: Oh yeah, ok.
Herald: Please.
00:29:28.460 --> 00:29:29.460
10,000..
00:29:29.460 --> 00:29:30.460
constantdull: I get that a lot.
00:29:30.460 --> 00:29:32.790
Herald: Are we not friends?
100.000
00:29:32.790 --> 00:29:33.610
audience laughing
00:29:33.610 --> 00:29:36.200
laughs Thank you so much
for the super-interesting talk.
00:29:36.200 --> 00:29:42.580
We.. I think we time for 2 questions,
or even 1 question from..
00:29:42.580 --> 00:29:45.880
constantdull: Oh, but there's a big..
there's a big no on that.
00:29:45.880 --> 00:29:47.260
constantdull: I'm..
Herald: No.
00:29:47.260 --> 00:29:48.260
No.
00:29:48.260 --> 00:29:51.429
So.. yeah, actually..
if there's any questions then I think
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we can do that outside of the talk right now.
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Thank you very much!
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constantdull: Thank you!
applause
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postroll music
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