<nettime> Open Letter to ArtByte

[Institute for Applied Autonomy <iaa@appliedautonomy.com>]

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




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