How I Learned to Love the Virus
Welcoming Address: Martin Schumacher, Senator for Culture City of Oldenburg
Look for the aesthetic in that which you fear.
The virus experts Luca Bertini (vi-con) and Jaromil report on appreciating computer viruses.
Few users know how a virus works and even fewer can estimate their real danger.
Luca Bertini from vi-con sees the potential for poetry and aesthetics in a virus. Bertini developed two love viruses, which search for each other throughout the Internet without damaging any computers or files. They live for a while in slightly unstable folders and leave a little sign of their presence. If the two viruses do not find each other they each retreat and thy their luck in another computer.
Jaromil: "A virus writer is interested in exploring the permability of the net. A rhizome of such and so many dimensions as the internet cannot be represented by any map ... Injecting a contrast medium into the organism to follow shape and structure will produce an angiogram showing the typical arrangement of veins. Let us now make an effort and consider the origins of the Instinct of Exploration as we can represent it in our own history, the history of the organic world as we know it."
"Michelangelo" or "I love You" created a panic in the Web and the press reported on worldwide disruptions and devastating losses. Virus programmers and virus-hunters are a solid part of a system in which programming a virus has advanced to being a criminal act. This has legitimized the lucrative business of virus scanners as the last rescue before the total breakdown. With this event, Edith Russ Site for Media Art gives its visitors the chance to view this phenomenon from another perspective and to find the aesthetic in that which they fear.
In cooperaton with the Office of Business Development Oldenburg.