[NetBehaviour] CuratingYouTube presents: ANONYMOUS: SHARED IDENTITY IN THE ERA OF A GLOBAL NETWORKED SOCIETY.

[info]

CuratingYouTube presents: ANONYMOUS: SHARED IDENTITY IN THE ERA OF A 
GLOBAL NETWORKED SOCIETY.

http://www.curatingyoutube.net/anonymous/index.html

On September 29th, 2011 on the occasion of the festival 'TodaysArt 
2011', CuratingYouTube will open the online exhibition „Anonymous: 
Shared Identity in the era of a global networked Society' at the Speed 
show 'Landscape Deconstructing Social Networks and Web 2.0'.

The exhibition attempts to give an overview of the movement of the 
Internet-activists 'Anonymous' through a comparative and aesthetic 
investigation in the form of a series of video-grids including videos 
that were made by the activists in the course of their protests activities.

'Anonymous' is applying the medium 'web video' in order to announce its 
activities taking place on the Internet and in real space, as well as 
call for others to participate. Thus, the videos should be seen as an 
important interface between the Internet and the so-called real world.
Due to their specific aesthetics, the videos have constituted a kind of 
'corporate identity' related to 'Anonymous'. Their film language, their 
aesthetic appearance and their style were therefore constitutive of the 
entire movement.

As explicitly leaderless group with a political orientation, centered 
around human rights like free speech and free access for information, 
'Anonymous' makes use of the network structures and the social network, 
its services and platforms like Twitter, IRC, 4chan, youtube, etc. by 
using these forms of communication to organize upcoming peaceful 
protests. Although the members act anonymously, some user groups such as 
4chan, the Chaos Computer Club and The Pirate Bay are associated with 
'Anonymous'.
In 2008 'Anonymous' became generally known with the 'Project 
Chantology', an extensive protest against the Church of Scientology. 
That campaign already revealed the specific culture of protest that 
'Anonymous' is using to this day: Internet-organized real-world 
demonstrations combined with Internet activism as DDoS attacks, video 
messages and video documentation of the protests, with the call to join 
them. Since then, a series of so-called 'anon-operations' followed: e.g. 
'Operation Payback,' which was directed against the opponents of 
Wikileaks, or 'Operation Didgeridie' and 'Operation Tunisia'. In the 
course of both operations, 'Anonymous' accused the governments of 
Australia and Tunisia of violating the right to freedom of expression.
Since 2010 state agencies reinforced their investigations against 
'Anonymous' and began arresting alleged members of the movement. 
Currently 'Anonymous' participates in the campaign 'Operation Wall 
Street' or '#occupywallstreet', that has been taking place since the 
17th September 2011 in the form of an occupation of Wall Street 
following the example of peaceful demonstrators of 'the Arabic spring' 
or those who occupied public squares in Spain.

The usage or the performance of a shared identity began on image-boards 
like 4chan where users posted pictures and comments using the 
multiple-user-name 'anonymous'. Shared identities can be designed in the 
form of a 'character' (avatar or fictional character) or in a more 
abstract way with the aim to identify common goals and philosophical or 
political ideas. A shared identity is formed by the users while building 
internal rules and recurrent or recognizable concepts and signs such as 
linguistic or pictorial patterns that are used in a heraldic form (using 
simple design tools in an interpretive way) not only in order to be a 
part of the corporate identity for a self-chosen period but also in 
order to shape it.

'Anonymous' uses YouTube as a publishing platform. Frequent copies and 
remixes of the videos as part of the shared identity 'Anonymous' as well 
as of the common usage of YouTube can also be understood as an emphatic 
process of transformation from the specific languages of videos (what is 
an artistic and aesthetic activity) into a political statement. The 
videos on YouTube are arranged through a simple recognition effect based 
on theirs formal language, although, at the same time, these forms of 
identification become dynamic because of the the permanent 
modifications, adaptations and rearrangements made by the users. The 
specific 'Anonymous-style', its common practice of appropriation, 
citation, modification and rearrangements of video-sequences, sounds and 
texts, finds its 'natural environment' on YouTube while spreading out on 
the Internet in a viral and dynamic way.

To provide the complexity of the iconography of the web video - film 
language, the exhibition has put together a series of 
multi-channel-video-installation-grids.
In the merging and contrasting of different videos that were posted by 
'Anonymous' on YouTube, the exhibition visitors are encouraged to 
consider the specific means of representation and self-presentation of a 
new form of protest culture and 'artificial identity', as well as to 
perceive the various references to past political and other cultural 
figures.
The 'Anonymous - videos' make use of an arsenal of characters and 
methods, which can be critically considered. Nevertheless, the 
exhibition wants to convey the productive tension built by the friction 
of the different propagandistic funds, brand strategies and artistic 
methods that 'Anonymous' uses in order to constitute a collective or 
shared identity via a dynamic aesthetic and to provoke grassroots protests.

curated by Sakrowski for CYT with support from Ute Fischer