From The Garden of Communication to the Dark Forest of the Internet

Networked art in the age of automation: talks, performance, and platform launch. Free & hybrid.

HISTORY/REALITY #4: from the Garden of Communication to the Dark Forest of the Internet

How do we archive and curate networked art in an age of automation and new, emerging superintelligence?

Presented in association with archivuminternetwork: 30 Years of artpool.hu, this event takes two contrasting visions of the internet as a starting point to explore a range of approaches by artists, archivists, curators, and historians. In 1998, Anna Balint envisioned the web as a 'garden of communication', an open, collaborative space shaped by human interaction. Nearly three decades later, Bogna Konior reimagines it as a 'dark forest, ' characterised by opacity, automation, and increasingly fraught navigation.

We'll be guided by presentations by Elly Clarke [Dragging the Archive] and Flóra Barkóczi [netartdothu], as well as a new live performance by Viktória Monhor. Additionally, as the final event in the History/Reality series, Judit Bodor & Roddy Hunter will launch The Digital Attic Archive, following a three-year project reconnecting the internationally dispersed artist's archive and self-historicisation project initiated by artist Pete Horobin in Dundee, Scotland, in 1980.

The event is free and open to all. It will be of particular interest to artists, curators, and art historians working with performance and networked media, or to those interested in digital humanities more broadly. It will also appeal to archivists, librarians, and cultural heritage professionals, as well as independent cultural workers interested in self-organisation and community-driven platform-building.

This is a hybrid event. Reserve your spot to join us in-person at Artpool Art Research Centre in Budapest, and stay with us for the preview of archivuminternetwork: 30 years of artpool.hu at 6pm. To join us online instead, register here. Online attendees will receive the link closer to the event. The event will be held in English.