Issue Eight - uncopy

合 弁1

POOL — May 2012Amelia UlmanBret SchneiderDomenico QuarantaMatei Samihaian2

F/F— Amelia UlmanFotolog reached its peak in 2008 with over30 million registered users, primarilyfrom Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Asa standard photo-sharing platform, itwouldn’t be worth writing about if itwasn’t for the magnitude of its usage andcultural consequences. Fotolog becamea trend, a symbol, a brand 1 , a tribe. InArgentina and Uruguay, Fotolog userswere known as “floggers”, representinga generation of open-minded, sexuallytolerant, and educated teenagers. In Chile,they called themselves “Pokemones”.While Pokemones were influenced byJapanese culture, they shared manyinterests with floggers, such as appareland hairstyle. From head to toe, theFlogger and the Pokemon were easy todifferentiate from other subcultures, suchas Punks, Goths and Emos, even thoughtheir aesthetics were an amalgamationof many of these groups. This sartorialoverlap was something that led to themany infamous fights between old andnew tribes outside the malls of BuenosAires 2 , Santiago and Montevideo; similar tothose viral Emo vs. Punks confrontationsin Mexico. The disputes, far from merelybeing kids fighting over clothing, wereevocative of South America’s evolutionaryand transitional stage. It wasn’t allabout the hair; Floggers, Pokemonesand Emos were androgynous youth whothreatened the established patriarchaland homophobic South American culture.These groups represented that half of thesouthern cone’s youth that came from anEuropeanised middle class. This resultedin attacks, harassments, abuses and evenmurder in Argentina– in 2008, a 16 yearold was kicked to death outside of a clubby a group of teenagers from an opposingtribe, the Cumbieros.1.Fotolog was particularly addictive dueto its restrictions. Limited daily to onepicture, 20 comments, one layout, a colourchart and a 520 x 410 px Oeil-de-boeuf, theplatform succeeded because of it’s gamelikeset of rules. Its structure encouragedconsistent daily use, which became theepicenter of its allure. Fotolog forcedanyone with the aim of maintaining acurrent blog to adhere to a fastidiousuploading routine. If the opportunity toupdate was missed, the rewards would notbe reaped. To keep a popular profile, one3had to commit to strict, regular posting–once a day, every day. Similar to Facebook“likes”, the finite amount of commentsmade the 20 signatures a currency, agoal that had to be achieved regularlyfor the sake of nurturing one’s onlinepersona, leading users to overproduction,a constant desire for renovation aided bynew photos and special effects. A aestheticcommonality between the most popularFotolog users gave birth to the Floggersas a tribe or style, dictating the hair,the outfits and the musical tastes of thewinning combination for popularity. Itwas a blend of mid 2000´s European teenfashion, electro dance music, plus someelements from Emo and anime culture.This competition for attention was derivedfrom the anxious ambition to provideentertainment and garner popularitythrough updates. Cultural capitalmanifests itself in virtual environmentsjust as it does physically. Social inequalityand class become apparent online asmuch as offline, frustrating the optimisticexpectations of the net as a utopianplayground in favour of a digital mirror ofpeople’s offline realities– a conglomerateof social networks. The colours andthe fonts, the writing and the grain, allfunctioned as indicators of social class andbackground, transforming the semioticsof the interface into a decisive factor in thenature of one’s social interactions.2.In the crowd, a feeling of insecuritydiscomforts. Although users cannot livein cyberspace alone, the necessity of adwelling and the need for belonging, makethe building of a community a solutionfor uprooting, for uncertainty. While wedwell plurally, we do it separate from theothers, the strangers, protecting ourselvesfrom the hostile. Gradually, certain groupsflourished in Fotolog, cliques formed andcommunities emerged in parallel withthose forming offline. A hierarchy tookshape, mirroring the two halves of thepopulation– the higher and the lower.In a dynamic in which the peripheriesconstantly tried to become the hegemony,the formation of a new photo sharingplatform took place under the name ofFotocumbia.In 2008, the creation of this bootleg versionof Fotolog functioned as a statementagainst the rules of the original, includingtotal freedom of content (pornographic

images welcome), unlimited photouploads, music and an embedded chatroom. It was an online embassy for theCumbieros, an uprising against a systemthat didn’t accept them.While floggers were a representationof the 2000’s South American flippantyouth, which rebelled against the oldestablishment with a queer attitude,they were still middle class– they playedby European rules and were intolerantof their poorer and darker skinnedcontemporaries. On the other hand,the Villeros, the Cumbieros, emergedfrom a much lower social class. Manyof them were immigrants (or fromimmigrant backgrounds) from ruralsides of the Patagonia and from otherLatin American countries. They rejectedthe Europeanised and Americanisedaesthetics which were considered thetop of the cultural hierarchy. Claiming anew style to represent their people, withtropical and Latin American beats, theyalso embraced the stereotypes that madethem repulsive to their wealthier peers byusing violent lyrics, politically incorrectattitudes towards women, homophobia,antagonistic attitudes towards authority,and explicit references to drugs–portraying the reality of their situation asoutsiders.Floggers were the ambassadors of aEurocentric identity, while Cumbieroswere the enraged other, agitated bycynicism. The restricted access to the VillaMisera is a lock, a bolt that protects oneclass from the other. By not allowing theaccess to any outsider and by invertingthe criteria generally applied outsideof it (in the high-street, downtown), thecommunity protects itself and generatesits own economy of cultural capital. Thefortress shelters daydreaming, the fortressprotects the dreamer, the fortress allowsone to dream in peace; the communityprotects the dreamer, and the dreamercreates it’s own content 3 . The dreamersucceeds in removing herself from theperiphery and takes a place at the topof a hierarchy of her own creation. Thenihilistic aura of the Cumbia Villera wassaid to be a descendent of Tango, whichalso started in arrabales (poor quarters ofthe City of Buenos Aires) and was sung inthe immigrants’ slang, the lunfardo (mix ofSpanish and African/ Italian expressions).Being a style that ultimately became alegitimate national symbol of identity, it’s4not surprising that the initially despisedCumbia Villera music and style were laterpopularized into an acceptable depictionof the unprivileged. Carlos Tevez, whosigned with Manchester United in 2007,had cameos in a few Cumbia Villera showsand was always vocal about his upbringingin the Fuerte Apache. Pablo Lescano,frontman of Damas Gratis, precursorof the Cumbia Villera, was awarded theClarín Prize 4 , invited to perform on SusanaJimenez’s TV Show 5 and played at the MTVawards in collaboration with mainstreamperformers. Their music portrayedArgentina’s reality as tango did before it. Itwas accepted, saluted and respected.3.Every trend has a trajectory and lifespan–a rise and fall, an appropriation andrepackaging. The only way for theCumbia Villera and the Cumbierosto be accepted by the establishmentwas to lose their original meaning andbecome a commodified aesthetic. In2011 Fotolog had plans of changing thelayout that made it famous (and whichFotocumbia copied), Fotocumbia wasrotting and malfunctioning with bugs,Cumbia Villera was praised and playedoverseas in cultural events 6 while beingdiluted through religion in the mainland 7 ,Floggers barely existed anymore, anda band called the Wachiturros came tolife. The Wachiturros are a boy-band ofdubious quality, who proclaim themselvesto be Cumbieros, Rochos and turros 8 . Theywere immediately featured on TV, playedat theatres like the Gran Rex9, garneredhordes of fans and manufacturedmerchandise– all of which rapidly led tothe creation of a new subculture. Theywere soon hated by many. Viral videosand posts made reference to their past asfloggers, and a new label was created forthis new style, the one of the Flogger orthe Cheto Arrepentido (Repentant PoshKid). The Wachiturros and the ChetosArrepentidos dress like Villeros, danceCumbia but invert the symbols. By notsinging about the topics characteristic ofthe slums and distorting the aesthetic byadding a queer element, the Wachiturrosact as a subversive agent 10 .To dance in front of the real Rocho orTurro, copying his clothes but wearinglipstick, is an attack to the only valuablething the Villero possess: genuineness.The Chetos Arrepentidos play with thisdisrespect towards the holiness of the

fortress, making themselves a target forabuse and violent attacks, from onlinebullying to physical aggression. Sexualityaside, the fight is about realness, aboutthe legitimacy of class, a struggle againstartifice and a desire for a singular style.The thing that was now accepted wasthe visual, and not the original context.While Cumbia has been repackaged andmade ready to sell, it’s origins remainuntouchable and restricted, its realityrarified. The never-ending list of videos inwhich a critique is being made against theWachiturros or the Chetos Arrepentidosevokes the voice of the defeated. Theyare made by those claiming to be genuinein an attempt to raise awareness of theirlegitimacy and that which threatens it.Class imitation becoming class aversionand vice versa has existed throughouthistory. The cycling of trends continues,macro-scaled by the sampling withoutcrediting of third world beats and in theway in which underground styles areappropriated and commodified by themiddle and upper classes. In a sea ofdromology velocity wins and superficialityis easiest to digest. Class warfare pushescontent to be easily absorbable, removingany trace of criticality. With contentappropriated and the originator pushedaside, the need to be protected againstalienation arises. Once again, the outsiderbuilds a shelter where she can feel safe,protected. The dreamer creates newsymbols and new content in a neverendingattempt to reach the centre fromthe periphery.Notes1. In Spanish the word Fotolog is used to define anysort of photo blog.2. Abasto, a Mall in Buenos Aires, was the IRL meetingpoint for the floggers.3. The use of the word ‘fortress’ is not unintentional.El fuerte Apache (The Apache Fort) is one of the mostfamous re-housing projects in Buenos Aires.4. Clarín, the largest newspaper in Argentina.The Clarín Prize, is an award program that havetaken place since 1998 and honours Argentineachievements in entertainment, sports, literature,and advertising.Aires Tandem, concluded with a session of CumbiaVillera, at the Centre 104, Paris.7. At the end of the decade, Cumbia Villera’s violentand explicit lyrics turned into more pop- like,romantic and friendly topics, after an intense processof evangelisation.8. Guachos and Turros are Argentinian words fromthe Lunfardo, meaning bastard, shameless.9. The Gran Rex, which opened in 1937 as the largestcinema in South America, is today one of Argentina´sbiggest venue for the staging of international shows.10. Similar to current Chav aesthetic, firstappropriated from the underclass by the gaycommunity via fetichization, and currently madetrendy through tumblr aesthetics.Those parts of the text which are in italic, are modifiedexcerpts from Bollnow’s Human Space and Bachelard’sThe Poetics of Space.BibliographyBachelard, G. (1992) The Poetics of Space. BeaconPress.Bollnow, O. F. (2008) Human Space. Hyphen Press.Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction, A social Critique of theJudgement of TasteFrikipedia http://www.frikipedia.esHeim, M.R. (2001) The Feng Shui of VirtualWorldsPDFLlobril, G. (2002) Del Tango a la Cumbia Villera (FromTango to Cumbia Villera) PDFLoquendo, J http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHmz4hZaJG4&feature=relatedMiceli, J.E. (2005) La Cumbia Villera Argentina PDFRheingold, H. (2000) The Virtual Community:Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. MIT Press.Written from the perspective of an expat.2011-20125. Susana Jimenez’s TV show is to Argentina whatOprah is to the US (?)6. In 2011, a cultural event from the Paris-Buenos5

Notes on Hell, Blogs— Bret SchneiderBlogs are most interesting when theyresemble without being the same aslanguage, when the blogger creates anidiosyncratic syntax of imagery out of thecollective inchoate imagerie, the zoetropeof culture, like a baby organizing mobilesfrom its cradle.Do we blink more than we use to? As theworld in its vast image of inchoatenessscrolls by, we blink at it the same way, ornot the same way that Neanderthals onceblinked at the exterior world they werestarting to extricate from.That the blog is so prominent andsuccessful in its photographic stream ofthought, that it has become ‘memeticʼ, thatit can communicate and even implant ideasfrom one mind to another as if by magic, aslanguage once did thousands of years agoand still just as enigmatically today, tacitlyimplies that language and words may nothave a future. Every blog title is secretly, Dowords have a future?aspect, without a clear relation of eithercategory, because they are not understoodas categories. Blogs canʼt be understoodtoday.Blog ‘writingʼ shares with art, or at leastan old idea of art now forgotten, anattempt to write history apperceptively.Compare the artist today to the artist whowent on world discovery expeditions inthe 17th century, who was indispensablefor recording new people, things, andgeologies. It is almost miraculous thatthere was this drive, but what they thoughtthey were recording also got in the wayof being objective. All thought must beemptied, digressions, parataxes arepermitted to include those things that ourpetty little conceptualizations leave out,unbeknownst to us. We see somethingdifferent that the past saw in itself, andso too will we look as if we got in the wayof our moment, even as we obsessivelyrepresented it. There is something moredynamic and apperceptive in the blogformat, which is by default digressive,filled with paths leading away fromourselves.Blogs that are not directly art-related,that do not feature art work exclusively,that are not trying to reinvent art forthe internet age, that erroneously (butperhaps truthfully in an unintentionalway) perceive the artless bureaucracy asthe herald of aesthetic experience nowunknown, are far more interesting thanthose that are, because they examinethe true artlessness of our moment, theincapability of whole experience. Theartless blog is freer; it has the ability toincorporate a great diversity of contentwithout being limited to the tightenednarrow of stock conceptual restrictions,they lack the obsolete criteria that haddetermined a course of contemporaryart that is obsolete without realizing so,their lack is their bane of drift and theirredeeming quality.In blogs one finally sees the co-existence ofpornography and art, a situation (at least)as old as Baudelaire. Art as prostitution,that art is pornography, no longer ametaphor, put to the test in the blog lab;centuries too late? Maybe. Very literalcoexistence of what once was opposite, acauldron of uncritical coexistences andoppositions.The diaristic quality of the blog is its mostubiquitously understood and compelling6The intense difficulty of comprehendingthe moment at its best, ripest, most acute,symptomatic and problematic, is due to anoverripeness-turned-decay that thwartsrepresentation, whose decay repulses arationalized subjectivity that will onlytouch the decay with white gloves, andyet some total and whole constellationdemands to be represented, driving allreflection wild and pell-mell, reflectionmimicking a throng. If one wants to graspthe true essence of the moment in all itsbarbaric diversity, one has to mimic ”themess” (Beckett) in form, comprehensionis a formal problem of how to represent areality that has run away from us, that hasoverproduced and reproduced obsoleteforms ad nauseum.The art-obsessed blogger, whopathologically and romantically mustturn everything into art, (as opposed tothe blogging blogger), when workingunder the umbrella of contemporary artcategories, is blocked from successfullyachieving a representation of realityby an adherence to obsolete categories;both contemporary and postmodern arttropes now canonized and recognizedeven by those who cling to them asinsufficient to resonate experience. Thecontemporary art blog aims to ‘treatʼ new

forms of consciousness like the blog withcontemporary art categories that are notunderstood in their particularity, thoughsomething is understood that has not beenrelated. Whereas blogs that lack suchaesthetic rationalization render apparentthe true arbitrariness of contemporary life,and something seems related which is notunderstood, and seems incapable of beingunderstood, and is perhaps interesting forthat explicit reason.Turning the internet into an aestheticplayground or cultural ‘answerʼ toabandoned aesthetic problems would beakin to Kafkaʼs hunger artist crawling backinto his cage decades after he finally foundthe food he liked.Communication in blogs is reminiscentof the type of communication that onceoccurred between curiosity collector andits visitor, showing off ones collection,more is said through the objects thanthrough their discourse, through theraw material that just … compiles. Blogcommunication differs insofar as itmeasures not the proprietary prowessof the collector, but the striving for afinal image, for the essential image thatoutshines all the others, that becomesThe idol, whose diversity is a means ofmetabolism, and so the great public sphereof the blog also has its final goal in theend of communication, in the retreat ofheterogeneity into a single homogenousidol, and yet the goal is incapable of beingreached.Some curiosity collections in the earlycolonial era had ‘curiousʼ exotic peoples aspart of the collection—e.g. a dwarf—andthis dwarf would also be trained to givediscursive tours on the (other) objects ofthe collection, maybe realizing it itselfwas a part of the collection too. The guideemerges out the material not itself, likea demon that doesnʼt belong but is itsnatural logic. It canʼt be trusted and yet itknows better than anyone the contourswhich it conveys. Something similaroccurs with artistic discourse.Blogs are most interesting in their diaristicpanorama, mapping the shadows whichfilter through the bedroom window. Theyare hyper-individual and retreat into thissingular and very real hermetic illusion asa way of dilating its outside.Blogs perhaps function like mobiles above7a babyʼs cradle, they are captivating bydint of their mesmerization … criticalfunction. It may also be true that whatis curious about the blog form is that itattempts, unsuccessfully, but important inits ineptitude, to collapse the distinctionbetween cultural enchantment andcultural criticism.Imagery is the enemy of the blogger inthe same way that words were the enemyof the 19th century poet. They have notbeen revealed to be the true problem theyare intuited to be. Visual imagery, likelanguage in modernity, is an alien fabric,historically specific but in ways no onecan really articulate. Its constraints onconsciousness are more sensed than madeapparent, and ʻthe imageʼ is not about theimage at all, but about something alien tothe very idea of seeing.In the sense that art has always beena manner of organizing the exteriorworld that is alien from the subject, thatit is a nexus of friction between twoirreconcilable strangers, blogs sharesomething in common with art. But it isalso true that this has been accomplishedbest not via art per se, but a freer form oforganizing that art as such is too youngto know. E.g.: the journal or biographyare often more revealing reflectionsof a historical moment than are finearts, which have not really articulatedtheir position as autonomous fromrepresentation, they do not fit, cannot fit.Blogs fit, and yet something is lost. Theemergence of the blog as a ubiquitoussocial phenomena is prehistoryʼs anxiousway of trying to make sense of itself,of offering the material for historicalunderstanding in such a way that it cannotbe overlooked or avoided. Blogs areasymptotic remedies for severe collectiveamnesia.Jon Rafmanʼs 16 Google Street Viewsshows a world in which human beingsare perfunctory, anomalies, accidents, areirreconcilable blights in the landscape.Humans dot the landscape like impishfootnotes to a demonic second nature,and imply some tramp-like image ofredemption.It is certainly true that we have createda world for ourselves that necessarilyexcludes ourselves. We are not supposedto exist in the paradise we are creating, aparadise now thoroughly mapped for this

eason of unliving, life not lived. We sendzillions of images into space, into a void,as documents of an existence we want butcannot have, as documents of a hypothesis.The mapping of the world excludes thosefor whom the map is made.There is something akin to fire worshipin the glorification of the Internet, but wewouldnʼt know what.The flickering of images that volatilizevertically out of sight mimic the entrancingflames of fire. And now we can freeze &return to certain moments in a stream thatis otherwise ephemeral and passes us by.Can we really?The figure ambiguously facing the seain Rafmanʼs 16 Google Street Viewsobviously looks like David FriedrichCasparʼs Wanderer above the sea offog, and it looks circumscribed. But itis also compelling because the subjectundoubtedly recognizes that it is beingfollowed, that the narrative is a script, thatthe fog is an effect, sublimity is mappedout, but doesnʼt care. There is somethingelse on its mind. And ʻsomething elseʼis always a threat to the irrationallycircumscribed order. What is on its mind?Besides, the image also looks freer, andcaptures the moment of unknowing betterthan Casparʼs, which is symmetrical andpat in comparison to Rafmanʼs subject,which curiously looks all wrong andaberrant, freedom as calculable. GermanRomanticism was crucially philosophical,conceptualizing an aesthetic program forthe next few centuries as much as it madeits own totemic and self-prescribed art…something similar today?Caspar also painted numerous canvasesof people looking out windows, acommon trope in the 18th century(e.g. Hammershoi). There is maybesomething reminiscent of looking outinto an alien world from onesʼ abode inthe blog experience, which also bringsthat alien world into the area of singularcontemplation, as a flickering dance ofthe collective imagerie. To go out intothat natural, hellish world seems almostbesides the point of what it means toexamine a life incapable of being lived.Blogs place the arbitrary current ofexternal events back in the variegatedimpressions of discreet individuals whointerpret them differently through actively8organizing contentious impressions froma current that impresses weirdly. Theblog has to do with the image as poetrydid with the word and its simultaneousconcealing and probing of what lay behindit: something non-communicative. Thereis something about the experience of theblog that has nothing to do with imageryor communication, if only because theimagery is obviously cast as illusion, as thecurtain which … a stage for experience.…a manner of actively organizing theworld in the image of …Is there anycriteria by which to organize?The measure of the blog is the quality ofits lucidity, it is individual particularitythat is socially demanded to open up ontosomething more universal, not consciouslyof course, it exists in the way a glass sphereexists in a landscape, it distorts it butsimultaneously refracts it, all blogs arerefractions of the entire universal stream,but they are not mere illusions, thoughthey are illusions. We do not need morelight to see, we need less, to see.The metabolization of the dreamworld,and, also, the bizarre sort of refraction ofreality blended with dream that occurswhen the eyes are awakened and blurred.All image blogs are lontano effects.Undoubtedly, the best representationsof our particular moment are photoblogs, which are comprehensive withoutbragging about their openness. I donʼtspeak of a particular one—why?Thereʼs an unspeakable connection of blogimagery to ancient Greek sculpture, inthat most of the images show the crucialnexus of action, the singular moment ofgrace. Movie-stills, for example, commonon blogs, capture the moment in theimpression of the blogger, and this hasgreater flexibility than ever. But so does anunhappy ballerina.And all these images pile up as if they werealready discarded statues with peniseslopped off by barbarians, already stored insome ambiguous annal.All images crawl out from the bowels ofprehistory like cockroaches pilgrimagingfrom woodwork to the center of a roomto die. They seem to live only for thismoment, to have been practicing their

was more lucid because he had his formetout sienne, sealed off from the supposedmeans of the tools in his era.On blogs everything looks better than itreally is, and it shows how things ought tolook all the time, and how they seem likethey are just about to look, but cannot, andwill not ever, it seems. They are rhetorical,even as they approach the practical wishlist.Photo blogs show the individual cloaked inthe stuff of the world, which looks like theentire universe printed pell-mell on a clothin which the individual is swaddled. Theindividual has not yet extricated itself fromthe breast of the natural world, whichit suckles like a child that does not yetrealize it is distinct from a nature which isantagonistic to it by being indifferent to it(second nature). But the impression thatthe entire universe is presented beforethe babeʼs eyes is impression, though notmerely impression.It is perhaps true that the homogenizationof social work and socialized non-workwork renders individuals indistinct fromone another, which breeds both empathywith anyone and also impotence andgenericness. I think of Megan Boyleʼsstatement that she could tag on …from aMexican Panda Express employee to theend of her own blog post book because herindistinctness renders any perspectivepossible and immediately available, asif one could swap skins as if they aremasks. There is also a horrific side toperspectivism, which ought not be valuedin itself but as a means.Literature today ubiquitously approachesthe confessional, a form once tied toChristianity, e.g. St. Augustine andlater Rousseau, who sought to clear hisreputation, and accidentally created afreer literary form than had hithertoexisted. Rousseauʼs Confessions is thefather of all blog writing and recentliterature influenced thereby, bringingthe mundane particularity of oneʼs ownarbitrary individuality before a troopof absent judges, a truant jury. Why dopeople want to confess today? To whom?For what?The ‘confessionalʼ is not merely ‘informalʼwriting, but an integral mode of writinghistory, in the manner of a Cellini orRousseau. The indignant attitude through10which Cellini relates to everyone he comesin contact with is not an artifact of the age,but is the crux of historical detail. Celliniʼsbraggart, almost poor writing style, whichhas a naive lack of tact and self-editing,captures the spirit of the age betterthan any scientific or historical address,specifically because his subjectivity isripened to the point where it becomesan object of the era—Celliniʼs free andunedited passion penetrates the opacity ofthe moment, despite the fact that he sayshimself that he is not writing history. IfCellini—or Rousseau—was a ‘good’ writer,by the common mannerisms of omittinginessential details, weʼd have no image ofthe intimate relations that appear random,but contribute to the consciousness ofthe moment—e.g. the insults and casualviolence crudely flung around in everydirection which indicates a raw and stillquibbling set of tribal relations whichwere are beginning to transform—orCelliniʼs attention to how much he got paidfor each artwork, who owned it when,the work conditions of his shops, and soforth, that are all essential anchors tounderstand the complex social relationsof the moment. Form needs to be free andexperimental in order to articulate thenewness of each moment—in a negativesocial situation, the inessential to us isperhaps the truly essential.There is also something more or differentthan the confession form happeningin new writing, because it is obligatedto confess everything, to confess everystray thought that is not in the leastincriminating. This is an accelerationof absolute transparency—the mindsof humans become more and more likethe modernist glass building, in whicheverything is shown, everything isrefracted, everything is rendered vulgarlynaked.Now that a mollified fine art is shownto irreversibly coexist with soft porn,Greenbergʼs ‘avant-garde and kitschʼ ismade undoubtedly relevant, aestheticantagonisms cannot be ignored anylonger, even as they are.That blogs are experienced in a rapid scrollindicates that the world is best appreciatedwhen it is not seen, when it is incapable ofbeing seen.So many blogs gravitate around imageryof architecture not because they are

superficial or nostalgic, or because theyare shallow formal modernists etc., butbecause they show how the world shouldbe architected but cannot be…yet. Currentsocial conditions restrict the realizationof an aesthetic world—that Trotsky oncesaid that the average person in a freesociety would be an Aristotle, can alsobe that the average building in a freeworld would be a challenging pleasure tostroll through to live in, an atmospherethat is not oppressive. Such blogs are thepreservation of a dream in a time of vulgarreality principles.Photo blogs turn real things into realimagined things.As sanctions, blogs take on the characterof the library in the baroque period,whose contemplative character Benjaminemarcated as distinct from renaissanceexternal activity. Like the baroque library,the blog is concealed from all the detritusof history, immune to decay. While thephoto blog mandates that the entire worldis cloaked in itself, and implies somethingpublic, that publicness is always aprojection/ideal.11

When an Image Becomes a Work:Prolegomena to Cattelan’s Iconology— Domenico Quaranta“The idea is to reorganize somethingalready there, re-present something thatalready exists.” 2Open Google.com. Write “dead horse” inthe search bar. Select “images”. The firstsearch result is the image of a dead horse,lying on tar, a sign knocked in its flank. Thesign says: “If you ban hunting, there willbe lots of these.” The website featuring theimage 3 explains that the macabre scenewas arranged by some farmers protestingagainst a fox hunting ban. The blog postdates back to June 10, 2007. The imageexists in two versions, almost identical,probably shot by the same camera a fewseconds away: the point of view is thesame, only the cars on the street and thepassers-by change. In the second shot, inthe background, a boy takes a picture.Also, this image has a clone. It was createdtwo years later, by an artist answeringto the name of Maurizio Cattelan, in theshape of a sculpture titled, as most of hisartworks, Untitled (2009). In the officialpicture, shot by Zeno Zotti and featuredin the catalogue of the exhibition “All”,Maurizio Cattelan’s retrospective at theGuggenheim Museum in New York 4 , theonly differences are in the setting – thelaminated flooring of a white cube – andin the sign, where the original warninghas been replaced by a simple andevocative “INRI”. The framing is exactlythe same: the white sign is at the centerof the picture, and the position of thephotographer brings the beast’s muzzleto the forefront. The horse is reproducedalmost literally: the forelegs cross, and thehind legs line up in the very same way.Once noticed the indisputableeffectiveness of the original image,Cattelan made his best to stick to it, and hejust took off the incidental details, like thepassers-by and the blue rope used to dragthe horse in the place where it was foundand photographed; and to be sure notto lose this effectiveness as an image, hecommissioned an official “media version”of the sculptural work 5 .of an allegory. Furthermore, the horse maybelong to a found image, but it has alsobeen for a long time an important part ofCattelan’s iconography, as an alter ego ofthe artist himself. In the original image,Cattelan sees the potential of a foolishsacrifice, and turns it into a universal iconwith a simple but effective reference tothe death of the Christ. A minimal shift,but one that turned the found image intosomething that, indisputably, belongs toCattelan.Cleptomania“I’m always borrowing pieces – crumbsreally – of everyday reality.” 6Maurizio Cattelan is a self-declaredkleptomaniac. In his personal mythology,the trope of the thief comes second onlyto the one of Oblomov, the idle artistrunning away from his shows, exhibitingfake medical certificates, inviting peopleto keep their vote, collecting money to paya young artist (himself) to avoid workingfor a whole year, renting his space atthe Venice Biennale and organizinganother Biennale (actually a holiday) inthe Caribbean. Cattelan the thief asked asketch artist to make portraits of himselfaccording to his friends descriptions; hestole the name plates of some professionalsin Forlì; he stole Zorro’s Z, Fontana’s cut,the Red Brigades’ star, the neon sign of acafe and a pharmacy, an entire exhibitionby another artist, and made a portrait ofhimself entering a museum from a tunneldug under the floor; but above all, he stoleideas: from other artists, the mass media,and everyday life.For obvious reasons, his appropriationsfrom other artists are quite well known.The analogies between his Love Saves Life(1997) and Katarzyna Kozyra’s Pyramidof Animals (1993), both inspired by thefour musicians of Bremen tale, have beenwidely discussed. But the list could goon for long: All (2007) makes us think toLuciano Fabro’s Spirato (1968); Untitled(2007), the woman hanging from a doorjamb, materializes out from a picture ofFrancesca Woodman’s Angel Series (1977– 1978); and both La rivoluzione siamo noi(2000) and Untitled (2000) play with JosephBeuys, his language, his mythology.Yet, these two images are also verydifferent. The first refers to a news item,the latter is a work of art. The first has therichness of reality, the latter the pithiness12Art criticism often reacted to theserobberies in an interesting way. Cattelan’sdetractors used them to prove his lack oforiginality; his supporters often minimized

them, turning them into “quotations” (thatwould turn him into a late postmodernist,which he isn’t). Clearly, the XIX Centurymyth of originality is still so strong toprevent us to follow an artist where hehimself wants to bring us, confessing overand over his inclination to stealing.What if we choose to follow him along thisway, all the way? Let’s make a workinghypothesis: that theft is Maurizio Cattelan’sfavorite formal strategy, the one he usedthe most. That beyond most of his worksthere is another image, an hidden sub-text,awaiting to come back to light.This is not an attempt to undermine thereputation that Cattelan’s work got alongthe last twenty years, but to understandthe indisputable success of the images hecreated; this is not an attempt to reducehis works to the images that inspiredhim, but to measure the differencebetween the two; this is not an attemptto demonstrate his lack of originality, butto understand what actually Cattelan’soriginality is; how he situates himselfin the contemporary media arena, andin a cultural environment where, asnovelist Cory Doctorow said, “we copylike we breath” 7 ; and what he has incommon with a new generation of artistsfor which appropriation is no more asubversive cultural strategy coming withan ideological baggage, but a natural, dailygesture, an habit, a way to contribute to anongoing discourse 8 .Permanent Food“Spector. What constitutes a successfulwork for you? Cattelan. I like when thework becomes an image.” 9Maurizio Cattelan has an absolute respectfor images. The confirmation comes fromthe quote above, where the word “image”is used with a strong, unusual meaning,in some ways closer to the medievalconcept of “icon”, or the modern conceptof “meme”. In this sense, an “image” isa visual sign that circulates outside ofthe context in which it was produced;something which imprints itself into one’smemory, and which is reused, duplicated,altered by anybody, losing all ties with its“author” and developing new meaningsany time it is used. It is something thatdoesn’t exist as a “work”, but as a “subject”with its own life, able to self-replicate andto spread itself.13Just a few artists are able to create“images” of this kind. With rareexceptions, the visual imagery producedby contemporary art remains withinits jurisdiction. For the most part, thecollective imagery of the twentieth centuryhas been developed, rather than by artists,by other professional image-makers: filmdirectors, photographers, cartoonists,designers, illustrators.In this context, Maurizio Cattelan standsout as an exception. The Italian artist,who made such a few “artworks” alonghis short career, circulated much more“images” than any other artist of his time.How did it happen?My answer is: feeding on images. An actof feeding that isn’t just stealing, but thatrather improves an image which, onceit’s out there, should be considered acommons, no more a property. Filtering,like a sieve, the tons of images that themedia – newspapers, magazines, TV, theinternet – pump on him (and on anybodyelse), and choosing the ones that he likeand that better fit in his agenda, Cattelanrephrases them and sets them free in thecommunication flow again, allowing otherpeople to find a new meaning for them.This is, you may say, what any artistdoes, but what makes Cattelan uniqueis his hunger, his instinct, his abilityto synthesize, his methodology anddetermination in producing artworksable to become an image, to enter thecollective imagery and be reproduced anddistributed in any kind of communicationsystem. As Francesco Bonami said:“Cattelan’s works have three lives. Theylive in reality, in the media and in memory.Their first life is human, the second isspiritual, the third is eternal.” 10This reference to the semantic field offood is not accidental, since Cattelanhimself (and his spokespersons) used itmany times. Massimiliano Gioni recentlyreferred to him as a “great consumer ofimages”, and talked about his “bulimiaof images” 11 . Back in 1996, togetherwith Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster andthe designer Paola Manfrin, Cattelanconceived a magazine called PermanentFood, published in 15 issues up to 2007.Permanent Food describes itself as a“second generation magazine”, declares a“free copyright” and samples images fromany kind of source: fashion magazines,

illustrations, posters, art magazines,newspapers, fanzines, catalogues, and,of course, the internet. Everything ispresented out of its context, without textlabels and references, cleaned out from itsfunctional status of advertisement, workof art, amateurish creation, and from itsown history. Permanent Food is literallywhat the title declares: a permanent actof feeding imagination, thanks to what’sselected and to the way it was put together– an ephemeral assemblage open to thecontribution of the user, since the bindinghas a tendency to break up. In otherwords, the magazine is an ode to re-use,a collage meant to be destroyed and puttogether again, a work of appropriationand sharing.The semantic area of food is recalled alsoin the scatological title of Toilet Paper,Cattelan’s brand new magazine, launchedwith the fashion photographer PierpaoloFerrari in 2010, after his farewell to art.It is, again, a magazine made only withimages, but these images are not stolen,but original, professionally produced in astudio. As Pierpaolo Ferrari explained:Every image is the result of an idea, oftensimple, and later becomes a complexorchestration of people participating ina tableaux vivant. This project is also arelief valve for our minds. We both workin fields where thousands of imagescirculate. Producing images is part of ourjob… 12And yet theft, sometimes announced, moreoften not, takes place in Toilet Paper aswell. Let’s take, for example, the November2011 issue. The back cover declares itsinspirations: Mike the Headless Chicken,Mario Sorrenti, Richard Avedon. Mike theHeadless Chicken was a chicken that livedfor 18 months after his head had beenmostly cut off. The story dates back to theForties, and was largely discussed in themedia. The image published in Toilet Paperis a faithful reproduction of one of Mike’sbest known photographic portraits: thechicken stands firmly, its head on the table,right in front of its legs.Mario Sorrenti, an Italian fashionphotographer, inspired the image of ananonymous model in pants, her bodycovered by an horde of yellow clothespegs.As in the case of the dead horse, the14differences between the copy and theoriginal are minimal: Sorrenti’s black andwhite photo became a color photography,the layout changed from vertical tolandscape. When the original image workswell, variations are, for Cattelan, uselessmannerisms: much better to keep it as it is.It’s not easy to say how many other thefts,or loans, can be found in the various issuesof Toilet Paper. Here, like in PermanentFood, Cattelan explores the underworld,choosing images cultivated in smallniches, with a low level of visibility andnot, like a pop artist, images that alreadyentered mainstream culture. However,it’s quite easy to find, in the issue we areconsidering, the tribute paid to the cutecat meme. Well rooted in the popularimagery, this interest for cute cat picturesliterally exploded online, where theyhave been shared and modified, addingshort notes in a grammatically incorrectEnglish that turned them into “LOLcats” 13 .Without any text, Toilet Paper‘s cute catphoto seems to be there waiting for its owntransformation into an “image”.Internet Memes“If you have an apple and I have an appleand we exchange these apples then youand I will still each have one apple. But ifyou have an idea and I have an idea andwe exchange these ideas, then each ofus will have two ideas.” George BernardShaw 14The last example brings us back to theinternet: a context that, according to whatI wrote so far, is interesting for at leastthree reasons. First the internet, howeverephemeral and always changing, offersgood opportunities to keep track of thelife of an image. Even when the originalgets lost, images are often copied anduploaded to other websites. Often they aretagged in ways that makes it possible to getthem back from the nowhere where theydisappeared thanks to a simple “GoogleSearch”. In other words, while it might bedifficult or even impossible to trace theorigin of an image seen on a magazine, anunderground fanzine or a wall, online it’srelatively easier to find what Cattelan saw,years ago, and inspired him a new work.There, the reach of his plumb can still bemeasured.Second, the internet is an extraordinaryplace for the circulation of images.An horizontal, democratic, bottom-up

medium, the internet allows an imageto become successful without makingits appearance on the mass media in thefirst place. Internet images don’t belongto anybody, they are public domain. Theyspread and are used and abused accordingto their own potential, and not thanksto the firepower of those who make anddistribute them. There, you don’t needmoney, powerful means of productionand authority to be seen by millions ofpeople: you just have to satisfy a specificneed at a specific time, according to rulesthat’s not easy to convert into a recipe.Did you never make eye contact with thedramatic chipmunk? Did you never dancelistening to Charlie Schmidt’s piano cat?Did you never share a lolcat on Facebook?If you are able to use it, the internet is anextraordinary source of “images”, and anaddiction for those who are, like Cattelan,hungry of them.Last but not least, the internet is the placewhere the idea of copyright that Cattelanadopted in his work as an artist and as aneditor was actually developed in the firstplace. George Bernard Shaw’s sentence,quoted at the beginning of this paragraph,was displayed full page in the 11th issue ofPermanent Food. That sentence is probablyone of the most sampled quotes of thedigital age, first appropriated by the freesoftware community, and later by thosewho would like to apply the same model toany kind of cultural artifact.steel of a black rubber boot stretched overthe bust of a human head. The originalpicture dates back to 2006, and was largelycirculated around the Web, probablythanks to its fetishist and masochistimplication, as a fast Google search for“rubber boot head” immediately shows.Cattelan reconstructs the vernacularimage, playing with its high cultureassociations (Fantomas, Surrealist objects)and finding for it a position in his longgallery of self-portraits. Again, the officialpicture (shot by Zeno Zotti) displays thesame framing of the original meme.In this case, “meme” is the right word,because the image has been appropriatedand used as well by many otheranonymous web users. A comparisonbetween Cattelan’s work and thesevernacular appropriation of the sameimage is interesting. Whatever the purposethat originated the image was, the pictureof the rubber boot head was used in many“demotivationals”, images created usinga standard layout (a black frame with asarcastic text label) that makes the picture“say” different things any time: jokesabout originality, the right use of rubberboots, the safety of using it that way, or…diarrhea. Using a different language andapproaching different audiences, Cattelanand the other users who appropriated thesame image are actually doing the samething: using an image produced by othersto say something that belongs to them.Besides the dead horse, there are atleast two more works by MaurizioCattelan whose origin can be found forsure in an internet image. The first is a2002 sculpture, as well called Untitled(2002), displaying a taxidermied donkeysuspended to an overloaded cart. Cattelanfound inspiration in an image widelycirculated online in the late Nineties, shotsomewhere in the Middle East and stillquite easy to find googling “funny donkey”.This appropriation – mentioned also onthe Guggenheim catalogue – strikes, again,for its transparency: in the official, “mediaversion” of the work, now part of the DakisJoannou collection – the framing is thesame of the original image, and the visitorwalking on the left is in the same position,and plays the same role in the economy ofthe image, of the Arab man watching thebizarre incident.The third work, Untitled (2009), is asculpture in polyurethane rubber and15True, a swallow doesn’t make a summer.But three, demonstrable references do notonly support the main idea developed inthis essay – that theft is one of Cattelan’sfavorite artistic strategies – but also itsmain corollary – that the internet is oneof his favorite sources, and one of thearchives we have to browse if we want totrace the origins of his images. They inviteus to focus on works whose dependanceon existing images has still to be proved.They provide a fertile ground for researchand hypotheses. In many cases, of course,it will be almost impossible to prove thesehypotheses without a complete accessto Cattelan’s “browser”, his physical, ormental, archive of images. An archivethat promise to be huge, because ofhis hunger of images and because hisfamiliarity with the internet started veryearly. Back in 1996, the American websiteAda’web launched, in collaborationwith Permanent Food, Permanent Foam,“a second generation webzine with a

selection of pages taken from sites all overthe world wide web.” The website – anancestor of Delicious, allowing user tovisit a collection of links and to contributewith his own links – is now a collection of“404 not found” pages, but it allows us todate Cattelan’s interest in the World WideWeb 15 .A work whose “internet pedigree” is likely,but difficult to prove is Untitled (2007), thesculpture of a suspended horse with itshead stuck in the wall. Look for “stupidhorse” on Google Images and you willimmediately see the similarity with theimage of an horse with the head stuck in atree. In this case, some changes have beenmade: Cattelan’s horse is not sitting onthe floor, but suspended at a considerableheight, as if it got caught in the wall whilejumping an obstacle, or as if it is theback side of an invisible hunting trophymounted on the other side of the wall; andstill, the similarities with the found imageare quite strong.The same ambiguity can be found inUntitled (2008), a sculpture featuring twoabandoned shoes with plants growingin them. Apparently, this work wasinspired by an image posted in 2007 onan Iraqi blog called “Soldier at home”.The two images display the same kindof shoes, and the same kind of plants;the framing is different, but they areboth set on a threshold. Cattelan’ssculpture was made for an exhibition ina Nineteenth-century former synagoguein Germany, that survived the Nazisbecause a farmer employed it as a barn.But if its relationship with the Iraqi blog’simage could be proved, we’d probablyunderstand more about the peacefulsadness, and the sense of impermanencethat it generates in the viewer. Again,Cattelan appropriates a found image,giving it a new meaning and reintroducingit in the media landscape, allowing othersto use it as well.Yet, the relationship between these twoimages is mined by the emergence ofmany other, similar images. Using shoesas flowerpots seems to be quite a popularactivity, as proven by searching for “shoesplanters” on Google. So, the questionis: is Untitled (2008) a classical exampleof appropriation, or rather part of theongoing history of a meme?The fact is that Cattelan’s work establishes16a give-and-take relationship with thevernacular imagery circulating on theinternet; and this relationship is extremelysuggestive, even when it isn’t fullydemonstrable. A tentative phenomenologyof this relationship could be articulatedlike this:1. Direct appropriation: Cattelan’s sees animage, and turns it into something else.2. Preliminary research: Cattelan wants todo something, and before doing it he startsa web search for related keywords, inorder to study similar visual solutions andfinally come up with a successful image.3. Interference: Cattelan’s image is part ofan ongoing flow, or, as we said before, ofthe ongoing history of a meme.Most of the examples we did so farprobably belong to either the first or thesecond category: Cattelan finds the imageof the dead horse and decides to turn itinto a work of art; or he wants to write anew story for his favorite alter ego, startsa web search for “stupid horse”, finds animage and use it as a starting point for anew work. But what about, for example, APerfect Day (1999), where he taped to thewall his gallerist Massimo de Carlo? Is itjust another occurrence of the “taped tothe wall meme”, that produced a plethoraof pics and YouTube videos easily availableonline, or the starting point for it? DidCattelan appropriate an image, contributeto a meme or start it?And again: what is the relationshipbetween Untitled (2000), a picture of aman with a big cork in his mouth, and thepictures of freaks filling their mouth withalmost everything?Or between Betsy (2002), the old ladysitting in the fridge, and the dozens ofpretty girls who tried to do the same? Maythe two bunnies with big eyes (Untitled,1996) have been influenced by the popularculture obsession with large pupils asdisplayed in manga, porno and sci-fiiconography related to biotechnologies?And what do the two big dogs nursinga chick have to share with the popularinterest for images documenting bizarrerelationships between beasts? Are wereally sure that now famous images suchas the suicide squirrel (Bidibidobidiboo,1996), the ostrich with his head stuck inthe gallery floor (Untitled, 1997), the cow

with two Vespa handles inserted into itshead as horns (Untitled, 1997), the donkeywith a TV set on its back (If a Tree Falls…,1998), the buried fakir (Mother, 1999), theKu Klux Klan elephant (Not Afraid of Love,2000), and even the kneeling Hitler (Him,2001) and the Papa crushed by a meteorite(La Nona Ora, 1999) are only the outburstof Cattelan’s imagination and genius?Maybe they come from somewhere else.Maybe he just discovered them, navigatingthat rich forest of signs that was once thecity, and that is now the net.I’m also in debt with Alterazioni Video, who after thepublication of this text in Italian sent me some newlinks.2. “Nancy Spector in conversation with MaurizioCattelan”, in VVAA, Maurizio Cattelan, Phaidon Press,London – New York 2000. P. 8.3. http://www.targetrichenvironment.net/?p=897.4. Nancy Spector (ed.), Maurizio Cattelan. All,Guggenheim Museum Publications, New York 2011,p. 241.ConclusionsTo become an image means to abandonthe condition in which a work of art isreferred to by name, in a usually narrowdiscursive space, and embrace thecondition of those images who everybodyknows, usually without knowing what’stheir name and where they come from.Cattelan was able to reach this goalbetter than any other artist. Probablythis is why most of his works are untitled.His sculptural works are made to bephotographed, shared, distributed,commented and manipulated by others.We may go even further, and say that theyare born to be used in a demotivationalposter. Often they come out fromthe information flow through casualbrowsing, looking for such keywordsas “squirrel suicide”, “sitting donkey”,“dead horse”. A few artists share the sameawareness about the ways images arecirculated in the media. Cattelan provedit with his publishing projects, PermanentFood and Toilet Paper. With his recentretrospective, which is literally invadingthe internet with its kaleidoscopic photodocumentation 16 . With L.O.V.E (2010), thefirst true “memement” in the history ofart: a monument born to be photographed,shared, used as an emoticon in a chat, or asa response in an email.But to consider Maurizio Cattelan’s workthis way may also provide a better groundfor understanding the work of a youngergeneration of artists who grew up in thesame information environment, and whorelate to it in very similar, or completelydifferent, ways.Notes1. This essay has been inspired by a conversation withEva and Franco Mattes. They first discovered, andpointed to my attention, some of the appropriationdiscussed in this text. I stole them many ideas, but ofcourse I’m fully responsible of the way I used them.175. According to Massimiliano Gioni, “when hemakes his sculptures, Cattelan thinks since the verybeginning to their translation into an image. Usuallyonly one image of his sculptures circulates, and itbecomes the media version of the work.” “In mediares”. Massimiliano Gioni interviewed by LuciaLonghi, in Flash Art Italia, Issue 299, February 2012,p. 34. My translation.6. “Nancy Spector in conversation with MaurizioCattelan”, cit., p. 17.7. Cf. Jason Huff, “We Copy Like We Breathe: CoryDoctorow’s SIGGRAPH 2011 Keynote”, in Rhizome,August 12, 2011. http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/aug/12/cory-doctorows-siggraph-2011-keynote/.8. Cf. Randy Kennedy, “Apropos Appropriation”,in The New York Times, December 28, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/arts/design/richardprince-lawsuit-focuses-on-limits-of-appropriation.html?_r=1.9. “Nancy Spector in conversation with MaurizioCattelan”, cit., p. 22.10. Francesco Bonami interviewed by Lucia Longhi,in Flash Art Italia, Issue 299, February 2012, p. 31. Mytranslation.11. “In media res”, cit., p. 34. My translation.12. Pierpaolo Ferrari, in Elena Bordignon, “ToiletPaper Magazine”, in Vogue.it, September 14,2010, www.vogue.it/people-are-talking-about/artphoto-design/2010/09/toilet-paper-magazine.Mytranslation.13. Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat.14. Quoted in Permanent Food, Issue 11, 2003.15. Cf. http://www.adaweb.com/context/pf/foam/toc.html.16. Francesco Bonami goes even further, saying: “Hiswork is related to the media image. The pictures of

the Guggenheim exhibition tell us about a show thatdoesn’t really exist. The museum looks much bigger,the works seem to explode in space […] But what willremain in memory and in the history of art are thepictures, and thus another show […] The picturesof the show are the true show, the one the artistimagined, without the technical problems. The idealshow.” In Francesco Bonami interviewed by LuciaLonghi, cit., p. 31. My translation.18

Troll Culture:A Conversation with Stefan Krappitz— Matei SamihaianFinding out about Stefan Krappitz’s bookTroll Culture, felt like an odd coincidence,as I was in the process of investigatingthe possible connections between theart of trolling and trolling as an artisticpractice. I stumbled upon Olia Lialina’slink one day while looking up socialhacking strategies and pre-2.0 trolls thathad to adapt their tactics to a new socialnetworking reality. I knew that trollswere really marginalized by the media (arecent action by the BBC underscores thistendency) and was curious to discoveralternatives approaches to this premise,approaches that were opposed to the viewof trolls being these sinister basementdwellers planting traps on different onlineplatforms while lurking in shadowyspaces waiting for innocent victims. Sucha surprisingly narrow understandingsof troll culture paints, what is actuallya very fluid and adaptive practice–intoa modern day portrait of a gargoyle infront of the computer screen. As I wasreading Krappitz’s book, the alternativeunderstanding of troll culture I waslooking for began to present itself. WhatI read wasn’t a one sided affair either: itboth exemplified the awesome and funparts of trolling while criticizing actionsthat picked on defenseless victims or thatused insults as vicious weapons.and still is very inspiring to me. Trollingwas always something that fascinatedme, because it can be so much fun to usean infrastructure in a different way thanit was thought of (Tobias Leingruber i.e.FFFFF.AT calls this “skating the web”.Also an influence). I’m not claiming to bea supreme expert in trolling, but I lovedto troll Internet forums or chat roomswith my friends in the late 90s and early00s. When I got aware of 4chan andEncyclopedia Dramatica, I was fascinatedby the creative methods some of the trollsdeveloped there.At first, my topic was 4chan, Anonymousand its troll culture, but since the approvalof the topic, Cole Stryker announced abook entitled Epic win for Anonymousand the Anonymous movement grewsomewhat bigger than troll culture. Ineither wanted to rewrite Strykers book(since he had already written it very well),nor did I want to write on the politicalaspects of Anonymous protests. I was moreinterested in the troll culture part of thetopic, so I narrowed it all down a bit.At the same time, I really saw a strikinglynegative consensus in media coverageabout trolls. Even interesting bookslike Stryker’s describe trolls as “boredteenagers”. This is not fair, in my opinion!Another thing that bothered me was thelack of literature on trolling.I thought about this for a while and starteddrawing lines between the Anonymousmovement, artistic practices and thetrolling strategies that Troll Culturetouched upon. Some of these lines weredotted, some broke off somewherein-between, while others connectedseemingly unrelated actions and criticalpositions. I felt the need to find outmore about these possible connectionsand interactions so I sent Stefan somequestions I had regarding his book. Belowis our conversation.Matei Sâmihăian The first obvious questionis why did you choose to concentrate onthis subject for your book? What did youfind so interesting about trolling?Stefan Krappitz At first, I was reallyinfluenced by Olia Lialina’s and DraganEspenschied’s work on Internet amateurculture. Their way of seeing the goodthings in Geocities or Comic Sans MS was19For example, most of the few cited textson Wikipedia are from the 90’s and belongto books that don’t even concentrateon trolling (Judith Donath writes aboutidentity and deception on the Usenet, andJulian Dibbell writes about a griefer in anearly text based online community calledLambda MOO).My motivation was to prove thattrolling can be fun. I wanted to show thephenomenon of trolling as somethingworth researching. It was also veryimportant to me to show the whole thingfrom a rather neutral point of view bydescribing both “how to be a troll” and“how to defend from trolls”.MS Given the multiple forms of action youinterpret as trolling (the Socrates examplein the book), what do you think thedifference is between trolling and culturehacking? Is it the lulz?

SK Yes, the lulz is a very important part ofit.Lulz is by the way an often misinterpretedword. It can’t be used as a synonymto lols. Lulz includes some form ofSchadenfreude.MS Isn’t that too much of an insider jokethat rings a bell only to a chosen few?live on every television station. Getting aleading politician of your state to read afake message was definitely lulzy for thefew that recognized its real source by theGerman chanspeak.As it was revealed to be fake, thewhole German media was put in anembarrassing situation for not evenchecking the source of the message.SK It lies in the nature of trolling, thatnot everybody, especially not the victim,knows what is happening. However, ifmore people do know about the joke, theoverall lulz created by it is increased.Often, it is enough to reveal the jokeafterwards. Think of David Thorne,who created a fake profile of a younggirl on Facebook. This girl “forgot” to sether birthday party to private and tenthousands of users joined the Facebookpage for the party all the while Mr. Thornewas selling t-shirts to the “best partyever”. Politicians and journalists all of asudden started to discuss this Facebookparty. After all the buzz settled down,David Thorne revealed the true story. Ifhe hadn’t, this would have remained justsome poor girl’s crashed birthday party,but by revealing the whole story, manylulz have been had afterwards with all thebuzz that was created. All of this made methink,“Well played, Mr. Thorne.”Sometimes however, being one of thefew in on the joke is just the best thing oftrolling. There is a good example fromGermany. After a school gun rampage,politicians blamed violent video gameslike Counter-Strike or aggressive musiclike Slipknot for it. Apart from thetragedy that is connected with a schoolrampage, reactions from politiciansand the media enraged the youngergeneration. When there was a schoolshooting in Winnenden, a random trollfrom krautchan (German 4chan) fakeda suicide note from the shooter as akrautchan forum post. The German mediasomehow got ahold of this and criticizedthe whole Internet, because this guy hadforetold his doings before online onlynobody took him seriously before. Themessage itself was really digging up allthese stereotypes and it got so far that theinterior minister of Baden-Württembergread the message, which was full of hiddenGerman chanspeak (grillen gehen = go toa barbecue = commit suicide or Bernd =The name for the German Anonymous),20MS To me it seems more like a microculture– a trolling-specific one (gamegrifeing, 4chan raids etc.) – that’s onlyrelevant to specific cases or actions. Isn’tthere a danger to pinning down these veryfluid strategies into a genre or a cultureor to analyze them in an anthropologicalmanner?SK You are absolutely right. This is why Iused a relatively wide definition.As I wrote in the introduction to thechapter, “Be a Troll” those methods changeall the time. Trolling is about alwaysfinding new ways to act differently fromwhat people would expect. This is alsothe creative aspect that I like the mostabout trolling. Infiltrating a system, likeTracky Birthday called it. When writingabout trolling techniques, all you can andshould be doing is making exemplary“screenshots”. Fitting these liquid formsinto fixed traditional academic categoriesis not the right thing here. It’s not about thecurrent techniques, but about the creativemethods in generating new ones. For this,I give various examples in my book andexplain how they work, in order for you todevelop them further.Think of a feminist community. If youwould create an account just to writesomething like “Why are you on theInternet? Get back to the kitchen and makeme a sammich!”, the only thing likely tohappen is that your account and the postgetting deleted. So many people have triedthis before, that by now, the message hasbecome pure noise to a target group. To bea successful troll you have to come up withsomething new.MS After recently seeing a video about aWelsh troll that was defaced by the BBC, Ifound myself lurking on different channelsto see reactions to the video. While in yourbook you criticize these simple mindedtrolling strategies, what is your reactionto the replays and comments in relation to

the way the BBC handled the whole issue?Is there something at stake here?SK This is a really difficult question,because you can’t generalize. In thiscase, I really don’t like the way the BBCis approaching the troll. He had no realchance. The sole purpose of the interviewon the street was to make him look likea stupid sociopath. It could have beenreally interesting to find out about hismotivations, but obviously the BBC wasnot interested in this. If you want tofind out about a trolls motivation, youshouldn’t be so extremely judgemental,but rather respect them, even if the troll ISa sociopath.On the other hand, this guy is not a goodtroll at all. While I found it extremelydifficult and overbearing to point out theborder between morally bad and goodtrolling, I tried to give it some direction.Just writing insults on a memorial pageon Facebook is as creative as randomlypunching a twelve year old schoolgirlin the face. Creativity is somehow anindicator of quality here.There is however some kind of guideline totrolling in my book.Julian Dibbell wrote:the Internet is serious business’ meansexactly the opposite of what it says. Itencodes two truths held as self-evident byGoons and /b/tards alike — that nothing onthe Internet is so serious it can’t be laughedat, and that nothing is so laughable aspeople who think otherwise.While there is nothing more ridiculousthan people taking certain things on theInternet too serious, it is quite normalto care about your real-life. When I’musing the term real-life, please note thatit does not necessarily exclude onlineactivities. Life on the Internet is real tooand sometimes it matters and other timesit doesn’t. Deciding where to draw theborder is one of the most important thingswhen it comes to identity on the Internet.Ruining this real-life and laughing aboutpeople taking it seriously is, contradictoryto mocking people who are taking weirdaspects of online life too serious, the lamestvariation of trolling.The comments on the video are interesting,in that they somewhat resemble the21unfiltered view of the users. While someare just negative about trolling, others goin the direction of “trolling can be fun, butthis guy is not even a real troll for he is justrandomly insulting people.”This is also somewhat similar to myopinion.Trolls should judge their own actionsand try to be as creative as possible andto create maximum lulz! By just hurtingpeople that are legitimately grieving fortheir lost ones, you are neither creative,nor are you creating lulz for anybody elsethan yourself.After all, this video shows the badreputation of trolling in traditional mediaversus the more sophisticated reputationof trolling among the users (comments). Ireally like this confrontation.MS In your view trolling as a culturalphenomenon is closely linked toanonymity. Do you feel like trollingshouldn’t happen on social networks likeFacebook or Google+ or that it should bedone in a different way? I’m thinking thatyou’ll probably feel more “entitled” to trolla friend rather than a stranger, but thenwhere’s the lulz…SK While I link trolling to anonymity, I alsodo link it to identity or pseudonymity. Atfirst this sounds conflicting, but at a closerlook, it is not. Both anonymity and identityare listed as techniques against trollingin different sources I reviewed and itperfectly makes sense.The idea of trolling linked to anonymity issomehow obvious:If everybody is anonymous, you cannot bemade accountable for your actions. Yourtrue self remains hidden and this makes itreally hard for you to be confronted withyour own actions.On the Internet, this is known as JohnGabriels Greater Internet FuckwadTheory or, in psychology, as the onlinedisinhibition effect.On the other hand, people are morelikely to expect trolling in anonymousenvironments. That’s why 4chan hasthe rule “Pics or it didn’t happen!”.Timestamping is also a necessarytechnique to get credibility in anonymous

environments.In addition, it is really difficult to pick atarget and see the effects of your actions asa troll when everybody is anonymous.Identity is often cited as a good techniqueto prevent trolling, which is not completelytrue. While trolling on Facebook orGoogle+ is harder than in anonymousenvironments, results can be a lot morerewarding.There are several reasons for this: First ofall, people on Facebook are normally notexpecting trolls as their conversationalpartner. Second, it is really easy to pick outa target. Third, the troll sees the impactof its actions. The only difficulty in thoseidentity-based environments is to fake areasonable identity. I’ve seen threads on4chan, where troll accounts on Facebookbuild networks by befriending eachother. A fake account with 78 friends ismuch more believable than one with zerofriends.An example on how to troll your friend onFacebook would be (your friend needs tobe in the same room with his computer)to sneak to his computer when he is awayto the bathroom or gone for a smoke,and set the default privacy options on hisFacebook to “visible just for yourself”.Since he likely doesn’t expect this, he willcontinue posting stuff and wonder whynobody likes or comments on his posts.There are lots of good ways to troll onFacebook and Google+. David Thorne usedFacebook too when he set up that fakepublic Facebook party. Nobody expectedthe young girl to be a fake profile of a troll.That way the whole action could work.MS Internet serious business? GabrielaColeman sees the lulz as a departure pointtowards a more socially engaging way ofpolitical activism. What’s your take on thesubject?SK I think that the border between activismand trolling is really blurry.and covered himself in Vaseline and saidtoenails and pubes. He then ran into aScientology building and smeared thepubes and toenails all over the place. Sincehe was also covered in Vaseline, he wasso slippery that the security couldn’t grabhim. Other members of Anonymous filmedit and uploaded the footage to YouTube tospread the lulz.In the actions of Anonymous, bothcollective trolling and activism are reallyclose and most of the times include eachother.YouTube PornDay, for example, was anaction in which Anonymous protestedagainst YouTube’s policies by flooding itwith porn. The aspect of lulz is bigger thanthe activist component, which classifiesthe action as trolling.MS Art as trolling or the art of trolling?Some artists employ trolling strategieswithin their work, I’m thinking of jodi’sthumbing youtube project, the Ten Tentenfacebook one, but also of Tracky Birthdayor Costant Dullaart promoting his IRLexhibition by trolling almost everyone inhis Facebook list. There’s certainly a sortof difference here by means of targets andlulz audiences. How do you see this artistictrend in relation to troll culture?SK Trolling is an art!I see great potential in trolling as an art.One example, which is also covered inmy book, is Dennis Knopf, aka. TrackyBirthday’s Bootyclipse, where hedownloaded bootyshaking videos fromYouTube, removed the bootyshaking andre-uploaded them to YouTube under theexact same name with the same tags as theoriginal.He also trolled everybody by setting up afake NY-Times page (that is down now),containing an interview with himself,when he launched his new album called“New Album”.While some forms of protest, like hackingthe website of Paypal are easier to classifyas activism (they didn’t do it for the lulzprimarily), others are classy examples fortrolling. Remember operation slickpubes?A guy from NYC collected the pubes andtoenails of other members of Anonymous22Another great troll/artist is DraganEspenschied who made a collaborationwith Aram Bartholl when he spreadthe fake news, that Google Streetviewnow costs money in Germany becauseotherwise Google couldn’t afford the costsof everybody requesting to get their houseblurred out (that is an actual problem with

the people here in Germany). He attacheda link to a fake Streetview page thatrequired payment to browse the content.Although the input fields for the paymentinformation were dummies, the site gotmarked as a phishing site very quicklyand disappeared, but the idea behind thisaction is really nice.Since trolling is about creative play withpeople’s expectations or about infiltratingsystems, I see a big connection to art!MS Do you have some good examples of RLtrolling?SK Of course! RL trolling can be a lot of fun!I remember trolling Aram Bartholl once,when he held a lecture at Merz Academyand went outside to get a cup of coffee. Iran forward to his notebook and pluggedin the receiver for my wireless mouseto the back of his notebook (one of thosethat stand out just 3 millimeters whenplugged in). As he came back and showedus something, I could safely open anyYouTube video while he was talking to uswith the projection in the back. Even as herealized, that something is wrong, he stilldidn’t know how it worked!Another more artistic action, two fellowstudents and me came up with (also duringthe workshop with Aram Bartholl) wasinfiltrating Media Markt (German versionof BestBuy). We printed out pictures andput them on USB-Sticks and went into theMedia Markt. Then we photographed thepictures with the digital cameras they hadon display and used their displays as ourcanvas. Then we went on to the computersand set the pictures from our USB-Stick aswallpapers on the PC’s and Notebooks.Tracky Birthday came up with a nice ideato troll party people when I talked to himabout my book. Just take an existing partyand design new flyers for it. The fakeflyers, however, state that it is a pyjamasparty or some bad-taste party. Print themat some online discount printer and laythem out everywhere. Then turn up at theparty to see the people going to a regularparty in pyjamas.Another great idea, I found somewhere onthe Internet involves those deer-camerasthat automatically take pictures whensomething in front of them moves. All youhave to do is open the box and borrowthe SD-card. Then, at home, open one ofthe pictures on the card and photoshopsome kind of monster into it. Then put thecard back into the camera and wait for thetelevision to broadcast a story about themonster in the woods.Again, all this works because you wouldnot expect someone to do this.MS Are you a troll?SK Aren’t we all trolls sometimes?Here is a record of my most epic actions asa troll:http://nm.merz-akademie.de/~stefan.krappitz/—Edited by Cristina VremeşWe started some kind of exhibition likethis. Sadly, while the employees had noidea what we were doing with the USB-Sticks, they did see our camera veryquickly and threatened to throw us out ofthe shop immediately if we go on filming.Therefore, the documentation sucks.Not that artistic but still really nice issticking small trollface stickers over thesensors of optical mice, or making candyappleswith onions instead of apples, orsomehow getting people to visit shock siteslike lemonparty.org (don’t go there unlessyou want to see three elderly men doing“things.”)23

ColophonSet in Droid Serif, Droid Sans and DroidJapanese (2008). Designed by SteveMatteson of Ascender Corporation for theAndroid platform. Licensed under theApache License.Pool is a platform dedicated to expandingand improving the discourse betweenonline and offline realities and theircultural, societal and political impact onone another.http://pooool.info/24