28 min
Octopus / GvP 7 🐙 Nestor Siré, Steffen Köhn: Of Sneakernets and Copy Houses Octopus Podcast
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A talk with Nestor Siré, Steffen Köhn and Sam Hopkins, followed by a video essay by Nestor Siré and Steffen Köhn about the (lack of) internet in Cuba and the offline sharing alternative to it: El Paquete Semanal, a country-wide offline data sharing network. With online access heavily restricted, Cuba has one of the lowest inter#net penetration rates in the world. Yet, Cuban citizens have found a way to distribute all kinds of media content in the form of El Paquete Semanal, a one terabyte collection of data that is compiled by a network of people with various forms of privileged internet access and then circulated nationwide on USB sticks and external hard drives via an elaborate network of deliverymen. In this presentation we want to describe how El Paquete has come to constitute a nested media ecosystem that facili#tates the publication of independent local media content such as video games or pdf magazines, hosts several digital marketplaces, and offers an otherwise non-existing space for advertisement.
NESTOR SIRÉ (b. 1988) lives and works between Havana and Camagüey, Cuba. Siré’s artistic practice intervenes directly in specific contexts in order to analyze social and cultural phenomena. His artistic methodology consists in expanding social structures so as to find more effective ways through which art can intervene in the complex relationships between official and informal networks. His works have been shown in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Havana), Queens Museum (New York), Rhizome (New York), New Museum (New York), Hong-Gah Museum (Taipei), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santa Fe (Argentina), among other places.
STEFFEN KÖHN (b. 1980) lives and works in Berlin. He is a filmmaker, anthropologist and video artist who uses ethnography to understand contemporary sociotechnical landscapes. For his video and installation works he engages in local collaborations with artists, software developers and science fiction writers to explore viable alternatives to current distributions of technological access and arrangements of power. His works have been shown at the Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz, Vienna Art Week, Hong Gah Museum Taipei, Lulea Biennial and the ethnographic museums of Copenhagen and Dresden. His films have been screened at the Berlinale, Rotterdam International Film Festival and the Word Film Festival Montreal, among others.
A talk with Nestor Siré, Steffen Köhn and Sam Hopkins, followed by a video essay by Nestor Siré and Steffen Köhn about the (lack of) internet in Cuba and the offline sharing alternative to it: El Paquete Semanal, a country-wide offline data sharing network. With online access heavily restricted, Cuba has one of the lowest inter#net penetration rates in the world. Yet, Cuban citizens have found a way to distribute all kinds of media content in the form of El Paquete Semanal, a one terabyte collection of data that is compiled by a network of people with various forms of privileged internet access and then circulated nationwide on USB sticks and external hard drives via an elaborate network of deliverymen. In this presentation we want to describe how El Paquete has come to constitute a nested media ecosystem that facili#tates the publication of independent local media content such as video games or pdf magazines, hosts several digital marketplaces, and offers an otherwise non-existing space for advertisement.
NESTOR SIRÉ (b. 1988) lives and works between Havana and Camagüey, Cuba. Siré’s artistic practice intervenes directly in specific contexts in order to analyze social and cultural phenomena. His artistic methodology consists in expanding social structures so as to find more effective ways through which art can intervene in the complex relationships between official and informal networks. His works have been shown in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Havana), Queens Museum (New York), Rhizome (New York), New Museum (New York), Hong-Gah Museum (Taipei), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santa Fe (Argentina), among other places.
STEFFEN KÖHN (b. 1980) lives and works in Berlin. He is a filmmaker, anthropologist and video artist who uses ethnography to understand contemporary sociotechnical landscapes. For his video and installation works he engages in local collaborations with artists, software developers and science fiction writers to explore viable alternatives to current distributions of technological access and arrangements of power. His works have been shown at the Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz, Vienna Art Week, Hong Gah Museum Taipei, Lulea Biennial and the ethnographic museums of Copenhagen and Dresden. His films have been screened at the Berlinale, Rotterdam International Film Festival and the Word Film Festival Montreal, among others.
28 min