Platform Parasite: A Personal Voyage

by Cosmos Carl

 

opening: 26th April 6.30-9pm

exh: 26th April – 29th June.

 

 

Platform Parasite: A Personal Voyage is a pilot episode of a new series by Cosmos Carl commissioned by Banner Repeater.

 

Cosmos Carl - Platform Parasite is an online platform that hosts nothing but links provided by the artist, be they encrypted, inside an archive, available through open source software, live-streamed, downloadable, in a webshop, on the dark web, or on street view. The work hosted by Cosmos Carl is directly accessible through the hyperlinks displayed on the website. Founded and curated by artists Frederique Pisuisse and Saemundur Thor Helgason the project aims to encourage artists to reclaim (commercial) online platforms to produce and display their art. This means that the work is displayed on an existing platform that is neither designed nor hosted by the artist with the aim that people may stumble across it, not necessarily viewing it as art.

 

The premiere episode at Banner Repeater: 'Platform Parasite: A Personal Voyage' is named after Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series and guided by Jolanda, a cyber-witch, who takes the visitor on a journey through the city of Amsterdam to explore some of the contradictory conditions that occur in an era characterised by the increase in Privately Owned Online Public Space (POOPS). Issues regarding privacy and the currency of data become entangled with everyday activities that willingly engage with the ‘free’ services on offer, whereby the analysis of extractive data-mining practices underscore the very business model of platform capitalism itself.

 

Cosmos Carl parasitically utilises privately owned platforms for the display, distribution and production of art, as a means to advocate for the use of online public space in alternative ways. Cosmos Carl exists as an archive, holding over 125 links to artworks hosted on platforms scattered throughout the commercial internet.

 

Platform Parasite: A Personal Voyage includes critically engaged contributions from Snorri Ásmundsson, Gnax Type, Art+Feminism, Alex Frost, Kate Mackeson, Angels Miralda, Joseph Ridgeon, Jorik Amit Galama, Emilia Bergmark, NX Panther, Harry Meadley, Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson, Laura Yuile featured on the parasitical online art platform Cosmos Carl.

From April 26th onwards, Cosmos Carl will migrate to www.cosmoscarl.com.