Flesh and Structure : the Biopolitical Commons
In these times when almost everything that forms our everyday lives in the physical world is recorded, controlled and saved on powerful servers all around the world, art comes in the spot with people questioning its role in this 21st century cyber reality. We function on wifi connections, our lives are being recorded as a big plethora of data information. Art could not stay out of it as it is indeed a big chapter of what happens globally. Digitalization of art would happen one way or another, from the usual online display of a famous painting (just google “Mona Lisa” and you will get my point) to the further appearance of an artists’ community who would use technology as a medium, creating masterpieces using software and hardware.
So we became the audience of a rapidly growing online community where artists would start taking advantage of the most precious element of what we today call “internet”: freedom of speech and expression. However, even if you googled “Mona Lisa”, you would still see and imitation of it, a bunch of pixels that would project a picture that you would still know it is not the original, thus degrading the term “online art”. In reply to this problematic, another community was formed, artists that would create exclusively on a data base for the data base. In other words, artists that would create imagery and expose it on a website and that would be all. Or not?
The Chambers Pavilion curated by Sara Ludy
That was the point when online exhibitions were created, websites that would exhibit art on the internet for the internet. And this is where ROJO comes in. ROJO is an independent organization, founded by David Quiles Guillo in Barcelona in March 21st, 2001. What David had was this simple idea: the world has access to online independent exhibitions. What if we went a little bit further and made an online biennal?
The Wrong is exactly this: an online biennal which embraces the digital art scene. Dedicated to the original purpose of it, The Wrong is creating Virtual Spaces on the internet where more than 300 artists will be exhibiting their digital art. But there is more: acknowledging the fact that internet is not everything and everything is not on the internet, ROJO introduces us to the “AFK” spaces (Away From Keyboard), choosing exhibition places from all around the world for the ones who want to be physically present in this event.
Shadow Box curated by Rollin Leonard
I could not forget mentioning the “UNLIMITED PAVILION” (or Homeostasis Lab), a decisive move that we lately stumble upon more and more often (a bright example is the AGORA, Athens Biennale). Respecting the democratic nature of the internet, this pavilion is totally open to whoever feels like creating digital art, either the generated work is amateurish or not. Right now, the Unlitmited Wrong Artists list counts several hundreds of participations, making this biennale fully accessible both to participate and to attend, and everything just one click away.
The last two keypoints of this project is what ROJO calls “META PAVILION” and the book that will be published at the end of the biennial. “META PAVILION” is, again, a virtual space where the curators will be free to exhibit their personal digital work. As for the print, in respect to the concept this biennal is based on, it will follow the guidelines of the digital world theory, narrating the way one surfs on the net. There will be random mode binding meaning that each copy will be unique just as each and everyone of us wonders around the cyber world: it is not a predetermined serial process but more of a fortuitous total of choices.