• Festival
  • Research

[ Aaron
Swartz ]

Guerilla Open Access Manifesto

  • Date

    6. September 2023

  • Partner

    Schubert Theater Wien

  • Location

    Ars Electronica Linz, AT

An inspiring project took place in collaboration with Schubert Theater Vienna, a puppet theater but not for kids, who invited us to create a virtual monument of Aaron Swartz. Hailing from hackerspaces and the realms of Open Access Culture, this project strongly corresponds with some key concepts of the Artificial Museum.

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Although we have already worked a lot with AI and digital media in our puppet theater, working with the Artificial Museum and SystemKollektiv was very stimulating and inspiring. The basis, and common, familiar pillar was Aaron, but the metamorphoses and transformations inspired and united us for something new.

«
Lisa Zingerle

  • We have been enormously proud to honor Aaron and his ‘Open Access Manifesto’ as part of the performance “Spaziergang für die Figur” at Schubert Theater Wien and as a further development of the group exhibition ‘aaron’s law’ at ARS Electronica Festival 2023.

    [ Aaron Swartz ] Guerilla Open Access Manifesto depicts the metamorphosis of an analog work of art (the puppet is made by Annemarie Arzberger) into a digital one, and with this the transformation of the persona of Aaron Swartz and his astounding works by using AI tools. Hidéo SNES gave Aaron his natural voice with AI speech synthesis and Litto transformed his photo into a living person through AI face reconstruction. The exchange with the puppet theater also informed new ways of working: The puppeteering was part of the technical development of the AR piece. Litto mimicked Aaron and performed his manifest in front of the camera. These materials were used to develop an AI generated video of Aaron talking. All in all it is as if he would talk with us directly through an alternate reality.

  • 2023 was the 10th anniversary of the death of Aaron Swartz, one of the internet's greatest visionaries, political activists, hacktivists, Reddit co-founder and advocate of the open access movement. As a tribute, Renate Kreil from ACOnet | net:art coordination center has called on artists from a wide range of disciplines to explore his life and work from different perspectives in the project series “aaron's law”.

  • After the performative presentation of the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, there was a desire to continue using the AR artifact without an analog performance. We continued to develop the AR Object and, with the help of AI, finally achieved a level of autonomy that allowed Aaron to perform his manifesto himself by using a deep fake. This work fitted in perfectly with the motto of ARS ELECTRONICA 2023 “Who owns the truth?”, to which we have been invited together with the Schubert Theater.

    Known and loved for its morbidly humorous evenings and poetic visual journeys, the Schubert Theater is a place of fantasy and magic. For several years now, the team led by Simon Meusburger and Lisa Zingerle has dedicated itself entirely to puppet theater for adults and realizes new and old material, from classics and biographies to world premieres. Since 2019, Simon Meusburger and Lisa Zingerle have placed a further focus on digitality and new technologies in and for the theater.

    • Initiator:

    • Renate Kreil

    • Artists/Team:

    • Schubert Theater

    • Curation:

    • Lisa Zingerle

    • Puppet:

    • Annemarie Arzberger

    • AI voice:

    • Hideo Snés

    • AI video:

    • Litto

    • Concept and AR:

    • SystemKollektiv

    • Photos:

    • © Schubert Theater, Julie Dadsetan & SystemKollektiv

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