Exhibition //// The Day My Internet Art Paid Off!

September 15 – October 1, 2016

Artists: Željko Badurina, Maja Čule, Hrvoje Hiršl, Dina Karadžić, Tea Stražičić, Igor Štromajer

Curatorial concept: Irena Borić, Martina Kontošić, Renata Šparada

Opening

Thursday, Septemeber 15, 2016, 8 p.m.

The Day My Internet Art Paid Off! is an exhibition featuring works by Željko Badurina, Maja Čule, Hrvoje Hiršl, Dina Karadžić, Tea Stražičić and Igor Štromajer, all of which touch upon different economic aspects dictated by the new relations on the web.

The works are inspired by phenomena on the web, which is reflected in their concept, production, understanding and reception. They are symptoms, but also the consequences of Internet reality, some of them only available online. By translating them into a gallery, the boundaries between the material and the virtual world become even more blurry.

Tabs, procrastination, self-promotion, collaboration, spam, comment sections, shares, likes – these are all fragments, be it material or digital, of circulating data. On the web, the circulation performed by numerous users gives value and power to the transfer of information. Therefore, Internet economies do not only allude to typical digital financial transfer protocols, but are also based, to a large extent, on generating symbolic capital, i.e., values. Bearing in mind the context of the web as a corporate and supervised medium, the exhibition brings to the forefront the artist's reactionary role in relation to the economic models developed on the 2.0 web.

Assuming that Internet reality today impacts the way we act, socialise and think, the exhibition examines how the Internet and digital economies influence the life and position in society of the people who use them. That is to say, the users are the ones who provide information online in exchange for freedom, agreeing to be resourced to particular corporations, or, as Andrew Lewis put it in 2010, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product. This is why the exhibition pinpoints the intersections of apparently divided worlds within the existing economic setup; on the one hand, the production itself is marked by the current economic state, while on the other, the online world is the extraordinary place of exploitation and experimentation.

Željko Badurina, KITTYKITTY, 2016

Maja Čule, Thinner Barrel, 2014

Hrvoje Hiršl, Click Massage, 2016

Dina Karadžić, COMCOM, 2016

Tea Stražičić, Fire, 2016// Swamp, 2016

(with: Filip Ščekić, music; Marta Stražičić, animation)

Igor Štromajer, intima.org/intimadotorgslashfuture, 2016

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The exhibition is part of the net.cube project, started in 2015, under the Centre for Drama Art programme, which aims to ensure the conditions for continuous Internet art projects and encourage Internet art in Croatia. In 2016, the project consists of the virtual netdotcube.org domain and panel events focusing on the economy of the virtual space and online works which document and comment on economic relations in order to observe the existing situation or offer alternatives.

net.cube project is financed by the Kultura Nova Foundation, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Zagreb. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with Galženica Gallery (Velika Gorica Open University, financially supported by the City of Velika Gorica and Zagreb County).