Ten Questions: Jodi

Looking at their first website from the mid 90s today, Jodi still seem fresh in their punky and twisted approach to making art on – and for – the net. The technological alienation is, at least for me, still intact when I try to navigate the exploded mass of html-code that make up the website. Since their early hacks of the world wide web and the expectations we have towards it, the duo of Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesman has engaged critically with contemporary media situations to short circuit our technological imaginaries and encourage reflection. Last time I met them, they were burning discs in a microwave, handing them out to the visitors. I still haven’t figured out what to do with the ones I got, so for now they are still in my cupboard with a stack of CD-Roms and DVDs. So be it. The discs were probably never intended for regular art world display, anyway. In fact, Jodi never really courted the conventions of institutional art discourse. That might have frustrated a few curators, critics and – let’s be honest – viewers along the way, but that is also what gives their work continued relevance in the context of tendencies towards aesthetic correctness and consensus in contemporary art.

Last week, Jodi opened an exhibition with new work at Belenius/Nordenhake in Stockholm. Kunstkritikk caught up with them over email, and the conversation is republished here in a slightly edited version.

*

 

 

“Apache is functioning normally” is a series of websites consisting out of different one-letter websites, which focus on the website adress as the sole content of the website.

You have worked with the internet artistically for two decades. What are some of the most significant developments you have observed?

How has your own work reflected the developments?

Back in the 1990s you were explicitly opposed to corporate take-over of computer technology. Is that still a concern of yours?

don’t look into the cloud

Everyone is now talking about Post-Internet Art. Are you?

Apache is functioning normally

e: J▄▀▀█▀▄        ▄▀▀█▄   ▄▀▀▄ ▄▀▄
e: J▄▀▀█▀▄        ▄▀▀█▄   ▄▀▀▄ ▄▀▄
e: J▄▀▀█▀▄        ▄▀▀█▄   ▄▀▀▄ ▄▀▄
e: J▄▀▀█▀▄   ▄▀▄  ▄▀▄  ▄▀▄  ▄▀▄       ▄▀▀█▄   ▄▀▀▄ ▄▀