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THE BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR
' ubermorgen
ubermorgen
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'Inke Arns
Inke Arns
[F]original—Authenticity as
Consensual Hallucination
The centerpiece of this one-woman show (Version 1.0 at [plug.in] Basel followed by Version 2.0 at Ars Electronica 2005) is the BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR that visitors can use to produce individually customized bank statements. In doing so, they are free to determine the amount and type of deposits and credits as well as the degree of design abstraction of the resulting document, an [F]original that manifests itself as an array of pixels on the monitor screen.
On the basis of two forerunner projects ( [V] ote-auction.com, 2000, and Injunction Generator, 2001), UBERMORGEN.COM has developed the concept of the “[F]original” from which the BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR is derived. UBERMORGEN.COM refers to all legal complaints, temporary injunctions and court verdicts that are generated in conjunction with these procedures as “[F]originals”—a combination of “forge” and “original.” On one hand, the interweaving of fact and fiction expressed by this neologism refers to a significantly expanded concept of materiality that, for UBERMORGEN.COM, also encompasses international law, democracy and global communication (input-feedback loops); on the other hand, with its strategy of consciously (affirmatively) producing [F]originals (for example, court orders handed down by users themselves by means of Injunction Generator (http://www.ipnic.org), UBERMORGEN.COM is thematicizing the growing proliferation of [F]originals in everyday life. [F]originals purport to be something (e.g. an authentic article) but, upon closer examination, prove to be nothing more than a consensual hallucination (to cite William Gibson’s famous definition of cyberspace in his 1984 science fiction novel Neuromancer ). The designation [F]original can be applied to any “original” document that, in the narrow sense of the term, is not an original at all-for example, one that is produced by machine and without a validating signature:
Merely pixels on screen,
Just ink upon paper
(UBERMORGEN.COM)
Thus, UBERMORGEN.COM suggests that these documents produced mechanically or by software could also take on a much different appearance. A bank statement that consists of a certain number of dots (pixels or specks of ink) could just as easily assume the form of a work of art, or could even be depicted in a more financially flattering or optimized way (i.e. upwardly or downwardly adjusted bank balance) through “re-arrangement” of the dots. Thus, according to UBERMORGEN.COM, not only is the relation between the “real” account balance and its representation an arbitrary one, but the account balance itself is also virtual.
Der BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR online
http://www.ipnic.org/BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR
Ausstellungsorte: [plug.in] Basel, Ars Electronica Linz, Hartware MedienKunstVerein Dortmund, Artnode / Overgaden Kopenhagen. Publikationspartner: Neural.it, Bari
Förderung: BAK / Schweiz. Bundesamt für Kommunikation, Stadt Wien MA7
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