From "Mutella", 1 June 2001

The Great 0 and 1 swindle...

Plagiarisers plagiarised

This net art thing just runs and runs. Recently those arch plagiarists of first generation net art stars, 0100101110101101.ORG, have been paid the ultimate compliment. Rad German neoist and bespectacled scholar of Comparative Literature Florian Cramer has been sorting the numerically literate from the goats (most people are goats btw) by creating the virtually indistinguishable identity 0100101110110101.ORG. By simply substituting a 0 for a 1 he managed to hoax info-jaded schmucks around the globe. Not only did Cramer dupe ordinary Joe's and net.art doyens alike into thinking that the much circulated source code clone of Rhizome's splash page (http://0100101110110101.ORG) was the work of the original group, but he also took part in plagiarist.org's Interview Yourself project posing as the afore mentioned enfant terribles using the same 0/1 switcheroo (http://www.plagiarist.org/iy/0100101110110101.html). Funnily enough, Interview Yourself was an attempt to get artists and other digerati to interview themselves lest illegitimate ogres of the academic world should distort their intentions for all time. Cramer's subversion of the project, not to mention his high-profile reputation as historian of net art, cleverly deflates plagiarist.org's conservative Will to Authenticity. The only problem with this project is the - to ordinary mortals - microscopic nature of the switch. But, charged with useless, self-referential obscurity, Cramer answers:

"First of all you can't be subversive without being subversive to yourself, that's very important. You miss something crucial if you think subversion means to have clearly defined enemies and act against them. The enemy always is always you, too and in the first place. That's a lesson I learned from Neoism."