Invitation: global deconstruction of d-commerce

[Anna Balint]

from: <mailout at onair.co.za>

Gwei

global deconstruction of d-commerce
a show by Hans Bernhard & Alessandro Ludovico

Opening 17:00 - 20:00 S aturday 2 April 2005
The Premises at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre

Exhibition runs 2 - 23 April 2005

Project -

Google Will Eat Itself
We generate money by serving Google advertisments on our website. 
With this money we automatically buy Google shares via our Swiss e-
banking account. We buy Google via their own advertisment! Google 
Eats Itself - but in the end we'll own it! By establishing this model we 
deconstruct the new global advertisment mechanisms by rendering 
them into a surreal click-based economic model. We inject a social virus 
("let's share their shares") into their commercial body hidden under a 
polite and friendly graphic surface. The exhibition at The Premises is the 
official GWEI.org release after a 12 month collaboration between the 
project coordinators - Hans Bernhard and Alessandro Ludovico 
(Neural.it).

Background -
Hans Bernhard (1973) lives and works in Vienna and St. Moritz, founder 
of etoy - http://etoy.com & UBERMORGEN.COM - 
http://ubermorgen.com . Aliases: hans_extrem; etoy.HANS; 
etoy.BRAINHARD; David Arson; Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer; h_e; 
net_CALLBOY; Luzius A. Bernhard; Andy Bichlbaum

"His style can be described as a digital mix between Andy Kaufman and 
Jeff Koons, his actions can be seen as underground Barney and early 
John Lydon, his "Gesamtkunstwerk" has been described as pseudo 
Duchampian and Beuyssche and his philosophy is best described in the 
ubermorgen slogan: "It's different because it is fundamentally 
different!"" - Bart Kessner.

Behind the artist-duo UBERMORGEN.COM [lizvlx & Hans Bernhard] we 
can find one of the most uncatchable identities - controversial and 
iconoclast - of the contemporary european techno-fineart avantgarde. 
Ubermorgen is a german word for "super-tomorrow". French 
philosopher Jean Beaudrillard once said about 
Ubermorgen: "ubermorgen means the day after tomorrow, a slight tip 
towards their aestehtic and activist vision and prejudice, they are 
hardcore and radical in their actions and they are extremely strange 
and highly intelligent people". The permanent amalgamation of fact and 
fiction points toward an extremely expanded concept of one’s working 
materials, which for Ubermorgen also include international rights [Legal 
Art], democracy and global communication networks.

Projects include: http://vote-auction.net - Voteauction, The Injunction 
Generator - http://ipnic.org , AnuScan.com, *THE*AGENCY* for manual 
election recount, NAZI~LINE [with C. Schlingensief], BMDI.de, WTO 
Salzburg [with The Yes Men], Pixelpainting, Webpainting, [F]original. 
Hans Bernhard’s work includes etoy, the etoy.CORPORATION, The 
etoy.holding, the digital hijack - http://hijack.org , etoy.SHARES - 
http://share.etoy.com and the etoy.TANK-SYSTEM - 
http://fanclub.etoy.c3.hu/tanksystem .

Ubermorgen’s core activity is media hacking - finding weak spots on 
and off the global market of attention; mass media & fine art. Due to 
this fact, several hundred clean cut news features in art publications 
[Artforum, Flashart, Nettime, Rhizome, Domus]  as well as international 
mass media [CNN, Fox, CBS, ABC, Radio & News-Papers – New York 
Times, Le Monde, NZZ, all leading Online Publications ] and a variety of 
underground media [Neural.it, Hacktivist, Samisdat, alt.bin.kittenporn, 
Newsgroups & Mailingslists] were published.

Exhibitions & Awards: Konsthall Malmoe, NTT ICC Tokyo, Lentos 
Museum of Modern Art, SFMOMA, Kunsthaus Graz, Ars Electronica KOP 
Taiwan, EXPO.02 Switzerland Aldrich Contemporary Art, c3 Budapest, 
Museu d`Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Blasthaus San Francisco, 
Secession, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 
ART Basel. In 2003 Ubermorgen received a "Honorary Mention" from Ars 
Electronica media festival in Linz / Austria. In 1996 Hans Bernhard was 
awarded with the golden Nica [etoy / the digital hijack; net.category, 
Prix Ars Electronica].

Alessandro Ludovico is a media critic and editor-in-chief of Neural 
magazine since 1993 (Honorary Mention, Net.Vision, Prix Ars Electronica 
2004). He has written: 'Virtual Reality Handbook' (1992), 'Internet 
Underground.Guide' (1995), 'Suoni Futuri Digitali' (Future Digital 
Sounds, 2000). He's one of the founding contributors of the Nettime 
community and of the 'Mag.Net (European Cultural Publishers)' 
organization. He writes for various international magazines and is also 
an expert on the Runme.org board, a collaborator of the Digitalkraft 
exhibitions, and has curated different new media art exhibitions. 
Weekly he conducts 'Neural Station' a radio show on electronic music 
and digital culture and is part of the n.a.m.e. (normal audio media 
environment) group.

Supported by -
Red Bull
Sansui
Zabo AV

The Premises at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre
Loveday Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa
+27 (0) 11 877 6859
www.onair.co.za/thepremises
thepremises at onair.co.za

Gallery Hours -
Tuesday - Saturday
12h00 - 20h00
Manager -
Michael MacGarry
+27 (0) 73 279 5290
mm at onair.co.za
www.onair.co.za
office at onair.co.za

Directors -

Stephen Hobbs

+27 (0) 11 403 8358

sh at onair.co.za

 

Marcus Neustetter

+27 (0) 11 339 2785

mn at onair.co.za

 

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