transmediale 2008

Under the motto CONSPIRE... transmediale.08 aimed at examining dubious worlds of story-telling and remote opinion making in order to look critically at those means of creative conspiratorial strategies, that offer the potential to uncover new forms of expression in digital discourse. With conspirative speculations taking over society's cultural rules the distinction between truth and fiction was no longer possible and suddenly many things turned evil. The programme included artists who challenged, undermined and bypassed each other in their hidden and unspoken strategies of mystification.

On a conference lasting for several days researchers and scientists argued about various topics concerning the threatening reality of ongoing conspiracy deriving from online-networks including the post hysteria of 9/11. Ethic, aesthetic and forensic questions were combined with the search for the cultural origin of conspiracy and one wondered whether it could be an intelligent and enjoyable strategy to create tempting curiousity for a brave disclosure of mysteries. The exhibition and the film & video programme dealt with anti-conspiratorial strategies and the various kinds of performances were engaged in different aspects of the global network that is the internet. The jury session by definition is a conspiratorial act: it seemingly embodied the arbitrtary execution of power and through lurking dynamics and decision-making darting sideways in often unexpected fashions a winner was selected in an almost haphazard manner.