Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 16.8
A screenshot of
Augmented Perspective
, 2011, molleindustria, augmented reality,
copyright molleindustria
Italian complicity with the Chinese dictatorship, stating, “While the international
art community is mobilizing for the release of Ai Weiwei by pressuring Chinese
authorities and demonstrating at embassies around the world, the Venice Biennale
provides a central stage for government-endorsed Chinese art, becoming, de facto,
an accomplice of this unacceptable attack on freedom of expression” (Molleindus-
tria
2012
).
For REFF—Roma Europa Fake Factory—“Defining what is real is an act of
power. Being able to reinvent reality is an act of freedom (see Fig.
16.6
). REFF
promotes the dissemination and reappropriation of all technologies, theories and
practices that can be used to freely and autonomously reinvent reality.” (REFF
2011
)
This commitment is what led the artists to invent
REFF AR Drug
, an augmented
reality drug combining three “very powerful molecules”:
REMIXine
, “known to
augment the total entropy of systems”;
REALITene
, whose “configuration is not
determined in the lab, but is left to the shaping processes enacted by the patient and
its surrounding context”; and last but not least,
REINVENTum
, “a compound that
collaborates with the other molecules found in our drugs to reassemble components
into new forms once their bonds have been disassembled.”(Ibidem) According to
the artists, the purpose of the drug is to treat biopolitical issues such as social
depression, fear of the future, precariousness, anthropological distress, lack of
opportunity, communication totalitarianism, scarcity of freedom and intolerant
social ecosystems. It has yet to be launched on the market.
CONT3XT.NET is more conceptual in its work. Founded in January 2006 by
Sabine Hochrieser, Michael Kargl, Birgit Rinagl and Franz Thalmair, this Vienna-
based collective takes the idea of the 'context' as its starting point, to reflect upon
the spatial, temporal, discursive and institutional framework in which contemporary
conceptual artistic practices are grounded. For the Invisible Pavilion the collective
produced
Blemish
, one of the most scheming and intriguing works streamed. As the
artists explain, “The work
blemish
pursues the technological limitations of mediated
