Honorary Mention Interactive Art+
!Mediengruppe Bitnik (UK/CH)
Hidden online markets exemplify how the Internet in general, and Darknets in particular, are helping to increasingly blur the lines of national legal dictates: What is legally produced and sold in one country is not necessarily even legal in another. Being global, these markets connect diverse jurisdictions, questioning notions of legality and producing a vast grey zone of goods available virtually everywhere.
The Random Darknet Shopper is an exploration of the deep web via the goods traded there. The automated online shopping bot operated from within three exhibition spaces between 2014 and 2016 with a budget of $100 in Bitcoins per week. The bot went shopping in the deep web, where it randomly chose and purchased one item per week and had it mailed directly to the exhibition space.
The documentation provides an insight into the dark side of the Internet.
