From "Le Monde", 15 Oct 1999

The thousands ideas of an exhibition-yard

Catherine Bédarida

More than a presentation of works, almost absent, ZAC presented to the Museum of Modern Art seems, most of all, a space for information and meeting round the invited artistic structures, in a context less alive than the hosts themselves. Stuck on the walls, left in piles on the tables or even on the ground itself, tens of flyers squared, rectangular, shaped like a box of matches or postcards, are at visitors' disposal. You can find everything: announcements of exhibitions, visiting cards of graphic designers, suggestions ("Humour problems? Sonorous solutions"), addresses of hairdressers artists...

ITALIAN «VANDALS»

[...] Besides its function of information, the ZAC festival becomes every day a place for debates and performances that allow young artists to get in touch with each other. « We are vandals, or maybe constructors », thus three young Italians presented themselves during the first week-end. Remaining anonymous, they claimed their strategy of hacking other artists' site, during a debate on art and Internet. «We refuse the notion of author in Internet, because the author, is the net, is the interactivity, for interactivity we don't not mean the mouse's click but human decision». In their site (0100101110101101.ORG), you can find the traces of their polemic with a private american gallery which defends its rights, included the ones in Internet. «Internet must remain free from these problems of fakes, plagiarism, rights which have invaded the art market», protest the "vandals". The Dutch artist Jodi, author of a very imaginific site which bears the same name, also hacked by the anonymous of 01, didn't want to face them.

 

Les vandales
The web site of three young italian artists who hack other artists Internet sites

Jodi
The site of the two artists Joan and Dirk