MONOSKOP LOG - DUŠAN BAROK

There’s a whole unrecognized cultural revolution which has been triggered by the « download » phenomenon, since the substantial shrinking of media files’ size in the early 2000s. The accumulation of media files (mostly obtained on a free, formally not-exactly-legal basis) is then a technically induced change of cultural perspective which has produced a global endless exchange of content, epitomizing the true nature of networks and technology as « medium. »

Dušan Barok approach to this scenario has been to transform his personal collection of media (and among them a remarkable quantity of books’ pdf) about contemporary art culture and media with a special interest in the ex East of Europe, in a public database where every item is downloadable and whose updates are enjoyable in the form a (b)log.

Enhancing the (even potentially dangerous) « sharing » beyond « accumulating » he’s embodying the 21st Century « personal librarian » consistently curating and updating his collection dismissing any commercial or copyright implications, as technically irrelevant. Those librarians can constitute a new generation of active cultural agents, defining new temporary autonomous zones.

Dušan Barok is an artist, writer and cultural activist involved in critical practise in the fields of software and art. Born in Bratislava, he graduated in information technologies and Networked Media. He founded and ran a Slovak online culture portal Koridor (1999-2002). In 2003 he co-founded BURUNDI media lab and organised there a series of Translab evenings. In 2004 he initiated a wiki-based portal Monoskop for a collaborative research of media art and culture; in 2009 together with Tomáš Kovács started a free access living archive of writings on art, culture, and media technologies Monoskop Log; and has conducted research of history of media art and culture in East-Central Europe. In 2012 he co-founded an artist collective La Société Anonyme.
https://monoskop.org/Du%C5%A1an_Barok