LIFESCIENCE: FREEBIOTS

["Roc Parés" <rocpares@netscape.net>]

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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
http://www.aec.at/lifescience
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The economy of the Internet is based o=
n the access to information. Unlike broadcasting mass-media, the interne=
t is an interactive communication medium, so there=92s no need for audimeter=
s, because the access to information is made by individuals through computer=
s with a two way connection to the net and have an IP address which leaves a =
trace on the servers. By monitoring and using such traces, companies have pe=
rverted the spirit of interactivity and have created frontiers that break th=
e unity of the Internet and spoil the possibility of a culture of participat=
ion.

Every time a server gets a hit and every time a search engine gets a quer=
y, the owners of the site learn about the needs, the desires and the interes=
ts of potential customers. Tracking access to information is made directly b=
y server owners through their access statistics and indirectly through the s=
earch statistics provided by information search engines and directories. To =
some extent, the ownership of access information is more valuable than infor=
mation itself, given that for a server owner information about access has a =
market price while information (knowledge) supposes a cost. This explains th=
e fact that a result screen of a search engine or a highly transited site ca=
n be hired as space for publicity, no mater the quality of its content. <B>W=
hen access by itself becomes an issue of commercial and statistic interest, =
the link between access and information breaks down.

Information about access is the boundary between amateur and professional =
content delivery and dissemination. An interface designer or an interaction =
scriptwriter both get paid for increasing the amount of access to certain in=
formation. On the contrary, web specific art projects are usually trying to =
break the economy of the internet in a metaphorical sense; either they creat=
e visions and slogans about free information (which range from hacker anti-c=
opyright activism to amateur like content and fake corporation paraphernalia=
), or they build tautological interfaces which are not an access to informat=
ion, but only interaction for interaction=92s sake (which go from the casual =
and playful to the transcendental and meta-linguistic and auto-referential). =
Although all these art works are highly valuable, they are poorly known and =
thus incapable of achieving their intentions. They can be seen as an express=
ion of the urge for a real and effectively free public space.

Economic dictatorship of access monitoring is creating enormous differenc=
es within the Internet, a medium that promised equal opportunities of visibi=
lity to all. The dramatic transformation of this medium in the last five =
years responds to the logic of market taking over the logic of participation =
and knowledge.

FREEBIOTS is a web specific art proposal by Roc Par&eacute;s, which uses =
information and communication technologies to create automatic and unpredict=
able hits and queries all over the Internet. The intention is to dismantle t=
he present economic logic of the Internet, in order to take it forward to th=
e state of freedom dreamed of by its utopian founders and defenders. 

FREEBIOTS are artificially intelligent agents, which will start moving ar=
ound the Internet in January the 1st, 2000 at 00:00.00 GMT. Their =
mission is to create confusion by invalidating all access and search statist=
ics on the Internet. Desired foreseeable consequences are the end of adverti=
sing and investing by all corporations on the World Wide Web, the loss of cr=
edibility of all market trends detected through Internet tracking, the resti=
tution of free public space and respect for intellectual property rights as =
opposed to copy and access rights.


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