Ars Electronica 2002: UNPLUGGED. Art as the Scene of Global Conflicts

Gerfried Stocker, artistic director of Ars Electronica discusses this year's topic.


UNPLUGGED ... means the severed thread, fractured lines of development that had been thought to move only higher and higher, the abyss alongside the routes traveled by the caravans of progress ...

UNPLUGGED proceeds from the factuality of a globally networked world from which nobody can withdraw, no matter how distant they are from the dominant US-Europe-Japan capital triad and regardless of how far away the next electrical outlet might be. UNPLUGGED focuses on the blind spots of globalization, those barriers of a mental and geographic nature that make getting connected to and taking part in this process of global networking (“the Net”) and the cultural and social models it conveys impossible, illicit or even unwelcome.

UNPLUGGED thus also confronts our own inability to enter into a networked arrangement with “the others” that goes beyond the exploitation and preservation of our own spheres of influence.

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1 comment(s)
Re: Ars Electronica 2002: UNPLUGGED. Art as the Scene of Global Conflicts (Laurent Straskraba / 2002/6/5 11:04:00)