A 6-minute manifesto that weaponizes copy-paste against the internet itself. Punk as hell.
This video begins with the familiar interface of the Macintosh OS X desktop, with only one folder shown, labeled "contra-internet." The user clicks over to iTunes, plays the song "Get Off the Internet" by Le Tigre, and then opens a series of PDFs of theoretical and political treatises, copying and pasting selected passages into a new text document and then using the find and replace feature to rewrite their meaning. Texts by J.K. Gibson-Graham, Fredric Jameson, Paul B. Preciado, and Subcomandante Marcos that originally opposed economic and sexual hegemony are repurposed as part of a manifesto against the internet itself, critiquing its logic and suggesting possible alternatives. This is the third work presented as part of Real Live Online, curated by Lucas G. Pinheiro and Devin Kenny. It follows IDPW's Internet Bedroom, and João Enxuto and Erica Love's Waiting for the Internet.
Direction
Blas turns mundane desktop actions into revolutionary gesture.
Editing
Ruthless find-and-replace as aesthetic and political tool.
Sound
Le Tigre's screech against the silence of PDF scrolling.
Director
Zach Blas
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of 'Real Live Online,' a 2015 exhibition examining art's fraught relationship with internet infrastructure—Blas's piece arguably ate its own context.
Blas later expanded this into full 'Contra-Internet' projects; this 6-minute origin is the concentrated dose. The PDFs he plagiarizes from? All theorists who themselves revised others—he's pirating the pirates.
No ratings yet
Sign in to join the discussion — comments are spoiler-gated to your watch progress.
Discussion starters
US
