how to quit

ongoing research / performative workshops / digital support group
in conversation with halfdan mouritzen, maia lorentzen, henrik chulu, andreas hjort bundgaard
materials: words, thoughts, dreams and infrastructural hacking
dimensions: variable
year: 2018 -> ongoing

2017 was the year when internet startups and communication platforms in general really lost the last of their positivistic lustre and democratic entitlement. it is clear that the internet and the new economy that it facilitates has become one of standardisation and invasion, not community building and empowerment. mainstream internet outs the weak and benefits those that assimilate the mindset and values of the white californian male. at the forefront of this stands the hyper professionalized artist: the prototype for the precarious worker of the future, the wet dream of the sharing economy: gentrifying the mental landscapes of the new working (creative) class, undermining the welfare state.

the internet runs on computers. computers are turing complete machines, that is, their core functions can be re-written. the internet can still be radically redesigned.

"how to quit" is a performative conversation and workshop series. through a series of meetings concrete tools to alter / subvert and to quit mainstream internet infrastructure will be presented through hands-on workshops. alongside the workshops conversations will be held on other internets: how could we imagine a net radically redesigned from other perspectives?

could some of these perspectives become real somehow? can we summon something different and make it real?

how to quit was part of the | meter | space exhibition "shaking the habitual: what is your utopia?" with two performative workshops and the installation "voice machines" by jacob remin.

utilising abandoned and forgotten land lines, voice machines offers the service of real human voices available 24/7 for your listening pleasure and comfort. for "shaking the habitual: what is your utopia?" the voice machine recited the utopian quote by krishan kumar on the following number: +45 33228084

“Utopia confronts reality not with a measured assessment of the possibilities of change but with the demand for change. ‘This is the way the world should be.’ It refuses to accept current definitions of the possible because it knows these to be part of the reality that it seeks to change… Oscar Wilde was right: 'A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”

the group initiated for “shaking the habitual” has since reformed as “centre for cyber wellness” and now resides on www.cyberwellness.dk