Highlights of 30C3 Art & Beauty Track and Works

“You can create art and beauty on a computer.” The quote has been derived from Steven Levy’s famous hacker ethic in his book »Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution« – published in 1984, the debut year of the Chaos Communication Congress at Bürgerhaus Eidelstedt in the Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg.

30 years later »Art & Beauty« (»Kunst und Schönheit«) – its ironic twist entirely unfolding in German language – is one of five content tracks in the conference program. You can’t overlook it in the Fahrplan –  the purple colour coding is as weird as the naming is misleading.

The particular review team searched for speakers who are using hacker tools and skills to create art works which are critically dealing with the underlying technology, the very hacker culture itself, or the impact of both towards a broader audience outside the core hacker community, i. e. mass media, popular culture, art or politics.

Therefore we are very proud to present an international all-star selection of artists, hackers and theorists who followed the invitation of the CfP to contribute to the jubilee edition of the Chaos Communication Congress.

Trevor Paglen is currently one of the most prolific contemporary artists who unveils the hidden, but in an uncanny way highly aesthetic landscape of top secret U. S. military programs which heavily take advantage from the NSA’s global SigInt espionage activities.

olia lialina has been pioneering net art from the 1990s on and is asking in her lecture »Turing Complete User« what the disappearing of the computer – into the Cloud, into the Internet of Things does to the concept of its User.

Ars Electronica award-winning artist Julian Oliver is talking on the »Art of Exploit« as an introduction to critical engineering and interventions rather than art in a conventional way. Together with his partner at art collective weise7 he will present the prototype of »PRISM: The Beacon Frame« as an example of such critical work of art in the framework of the 30C3 exhibition organised by the local Hamburg Gängeviertel

Also joining the Gängeviertel’s art exhibition is Aram Bartholl with his open design laboratory and workshop »Kill Your Phone!« whereas his conference lecture »Hello World!« gives a resume of his stunning art projects like »USB DeadDrops« or »IRL map marker in public« that always blurs the symbolic orders of the digital sphere and its physical counterparts.

A highlight at the very start of the conference will be lixvlx’ lecture »What’s so funny about?« The member of the art group UBERMORGEN.COM famous for their highly controversial works like »voteauction.com« or »GWEI – Google will eat itself« is talking about the practical impossibility of interventionist art practice under today’s regime of anti-terror legislation.

Besides the conference program Art & Beauty has entered the night line and is presenting two high profile performances of artelse’s facial hacking research »Perfect Paul« and KH Jeron’s singing and dancing robot – build to take part in TV casting shows – »Sim Gishel«.

Last, but not least, the 30C3 poster-child hardware-hacking open art project »Seidenstrasse« – a revision of the OCTO installation by the artist group Telekommunisten – originated from the Art & Beauty review team’s brainstorming sessions and is adding up an all-new layer of communication infrastructure to the event: A pneumatic tube system built from non-perforated (airtight) drainage pipe and vacuum cleaners Seidenstrasse.

To sum it up: a revision to Steven Levy’s quote is overdue: »You can create more than art and beauty on a computer.«