a couple of virtual and one onsite Artist in Residence at the netart & digital culture initiative ‘mur.at' in Graz, Austria.
Along with Edward Snowden and Julien Assange, Aaron Swartz is considered one of the most important Internet activists to date, who strongly shaped and influenced the development of the Internet in his short lifetime. As a programmer and advocate for the Open Access Movement, Net Neutrality and civic awareness, he defended the exchange of information constructively across geographic borders via the web.
He was involved in numernous projects, and his political work is continued by his friend Lawrence Lessig, the people from demandprogress.org, among many others. As a technical developer on the Creative Commons team, he worked on the implementation of free licenses (“some rights reserved”). He led the development of the nonprofit Open Library, cofounded the online news site Reddit, released as free software the web framework he developed web.py, and wrote the Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto, in which he explicitly spoke out against the privatization of knowledge.
Aaron Swartz was the immense meaning of the words open access, open source and net neutrality for the creative development of art, design as well as science. Against any commercial restrictions he countered with spectacular activism. With the use of each new technical achievement, the socio-political consequences are discussed. A natural way of thinking for people like Aaron, as for many others too. 10 years after his death, we want to revise what happened and where are we standing today? Who is involved in these thought processes or is that all just wishful thinking?
a couple of virtual and one onsite Artist in Residence (2 months) at the netart & digital culture initiative ‘mur.at' in Graz, Austria. This residency program offers the opportunity to develop and adapt existing artworks, infrastructure and possible assistance within the ‘mur.at' community to research, develop ideas, collaborate with others and produce digital artworks. We can offer the appropriate accommodation in the ‘Künstlerinnenwohnung’ located in the same building as the ‘mur.at' office for the onsite residency in Graz (Austria).
For this year we want to draw special focus on digital artists/designers/programmers/hackers/activists/you-name-it/ who advocate for Net neutrality, create and work with online Archives and/or Open Licensing models.
The residency is one part of the 2023 annual program and will take place before and during a worklab session. The worklab is organised as an “un-conference” will take place in Graz (Austria) in June 2023 and consists of a five-day program of public keynote speeches, discussions and hands-on workshops. On the one hand, content-related impulses are contributed by the Artist in Residence, in addition, impulse presentations on theoretical topics are organised by community members. The participant group of the worklab consists of local actors and external guests. Outcomes from the residency and worklab will be presented at the end of the worklab. This programm is part of the project series “aaron´s law” that includes various artistic-technical projects dedicated to Aaron Swartz and developed in close cooperation with ACOnet/net:art coordination center
