Specters of the Internet
Information technologies have always been accompanied by supernatural phenomena. With the establishment of telegraphy, the deceased began communicating via binary knocking. Today, we believe in artificial intelligence, 5G conspiracies, and cryptocurrencies. Superstition is central to the user experience of digital worlds. At the same time, unresolved conflicts and incompatible utopias haunt the internet like a freudo-marxist glitch.
As paranormal investigators, we pursue these uncanny phenomena through our inventory of ghost-hunting tools. Using EMF detectors, we explore network conspiracies and attune ourselves to 5G radiation. Our WIFI sniffers capture invisible presences that follow us like an unseemly shadow. IP maps and the Ouija-API open paths into forgotten networks. Deep in the digital Orcus, we summon comrade Alexa and ask Zuse’s Z3 about its unfulfilled business. Our cases range from gendered poltergeists haunting smart homes to Cold War specters inscribed into network protocols.
We invite you to join a cybernetic séance. Let us delve into these virtual shadowlands together. Examining a local WIFI anomaly becomes an access point into obscure stories of invisible labor and lost futures. Is the haunting cookie indeed a Marxist specter? Follow us through Styx and Stack!
Biography
Nick is an artist and researcher interested in Digital Design, Media Art, and Urban Theory. Through speculative design and artistic research, he investigates the historical, material, and political dimensions of (urban) digitalization projects. Also, Nick is a Research Associate at the TUM Chair of Architectural Informatics.
Biography
Lena-Maria Stupitzky is a media artist based in Munich. Her work includes collages of research and theory, addressing complex socio-technical issues. She explores how large-scale processes like information infrastructure or agricultural terraforming relate to material work, subjective ideals, privilege, and situated knowledge.