Sarah Cook curates show in Oldenburg, Germany, 12 May - 1 Jul 2007We would like to invite you and your friends to visit the upcoming exhibition at the Edith Russ Site for Media Art in
Oldenburg.

MY OWN PRIVATE REALITY
Growing up online in the 90s and 00s

12 May - 1 July 2007

http://myownprivatereality.wordpress.com

In the last decade, the Internet has become one of the most important
tools of the information society and has changed our culture. With the
ever-increasing democratisation of the media, new social communi*ties
based in the global network have emerged, which operate with their own
rules. These new *Social softwares* are the communica*tion tools by
which interaction and collaboration online takes place, yet their use is
regulated more through social conventions than genuine software
characteristics.

Participatory platforms, such as MySpace, YouTube, or Second Life, have
become an important part of the online culture. In order to upload
content on these websites users today do not need specialist technical
knowledge and can more easily play a crucial role in the creation of
networks. The so called *web 2.0* offers a space for private
opinions to be globally shared. New forms of communication arise from
this development - individual, personal styles, which create a new form
of authenticity.

The exhibition MY OWN PRIVATE REALITY demonstrates how artists are
using the web to discuss and engage with social software and the effects
it has in the offline/real world. The net-based works included in the
exhibition deal with online developments of the last ten years and
discuss the new distinctions between private and public, the identity
structuring potential of the Internet and the possibility that today
one*s own private thoughts are so easily made public. The featured
works are not all web-based, but they all reflect the phenomenon of
social communities on the Internet and its widely discussed
democratisation, which seems to go hand in hand with these new uses. MY
OWN PRIVATE REALITY is an interface for the manifold possibilities of
networked thinking and acting.

The works in the exhibition have been selected by Sabine Himmelsbach
and Sarah Cook, whose involvement as co-curator has been supported by
her work with the online resource for curators of new media, CRUMB
(www.crumbweb.org).


Artists in the exhibition:
Cory Arcangel, Jonah Brucker-Cohen / Mike Bennett, Nick Crowe, Exonemo,
Ute Hörner / Mathias Antlfinger, Humanbeans, Miranda July / Harrell
Fletcher, Olia Lialina / Dragan Espenschied, Les Liens Invisibles,
Jillian Mcdonald, Marisa Olson, Tanja Ostojic, Annina Rüst, Thomson &
Craighead, ubermorgen.com / Paolo Cirio / Alessandro Ludovico, Angie
Waller


The exhibition is sponsored by Land Niedersachsen and EWE
Stiftung.