Interactive Art+
GOLDEN NICA
“(…) has been developed as the sum of a process of interdisciplinary scientific research, philosophical reflection, and artistic practices, setting up a device for VPN connections, AI, and tax collector bots at the service of a global system of economic and social welfare.” (Jury Statement)
Installation
More than 2.5 trillion bytes of data are generated daily. Every click, every Tweet, every post generates data that can be sold. In return for free services, we swap this data with Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook et al. The digital economy earns billions and concentrates these profits in the hands of a few big players.
LarbitsSisters regarded this as a totally unacceptable situation, and it motivated them to initiate their BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign. The internet installation makes use of a troop of bots that comb through Twitter accounts for particular keywords: affluence, Apple, assets, benefit, common, data, data economy, cash, and cost. When they’re found, the respective Twitter user is contacted and invited to join the BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, which the user can do in a variety of ways: create and launch their own bots, or send a digital postcard from BitREBUPLIC to a CEO of one of the ten biggest high-tech companies or the chancellor/prime minister of their country of choice.
Each of these activities in turn generates new data—which is to say new BitSoil—and the resulting profit is divided up fairly and transparently among all participants. The general public can follow this process on Twitter or on site.
