/Nouvelle Bug

/Cyber-realist manifesto

/ Human beings are used to dividing the natural from the artificial and, within the set of the artificial, the analogue from the digital. There seems to be a natural hierarchy in the dignity of phenomena that follows this division whereby the virtual is relegated to a lower dimension of existence.

/All of this contains a seed of political and social danger.

/In fact, no one would think of separating an animal from its artifacts, the snail from its shell or the puffer fishes from their mandalas on the ocean floor.

/Cyber-realism means starting from the assumption that the virtual is a moment of reality and an expression of the nature of human beings and participates in the human condition, deciding its evolution and history. It is not a temporary phenomenon, nor a transitory fashion, but a part of the dynamic reality, which has always existed and is constantly evolving. Failure to analyze the virtual with artistic and cultural means handing over its keys to interested and violent powers, it means handing over the future of humanity to the oligarchic Moloch.

/There is no cyber-realism without re-appropriation of virtual spaces and without the legitimation of one’s experience within them. In this sense, it is necessary to reject part of the intellectual property of everything that is too large to present a possibility of circumvention, such as operating systems, logos of big brands, video games, social media, platforms.

/Imagine if the name New York, or its skyline, were an intellectual property, unnamable and unrepresentable without asking for authorization from each of the architects of each of the skyscrapers and each of the designers of each of the graphics in Times Square. Reality would become unrepresentable and the possibility to tell a story about it would be taken away from us, like it happens in tyrannies and dictatorships. We would only be allowed to represent simulations or simulacra, harmless as such.

/Cyber-realism means the right to represent one’s experience in virtual worlds exactly as they are, to restore through the work the human condition in experiencing such phenomena, and not representations of such phenomena.

/Cyber-realism means not changing an UI and the UX.

/Cyber-realism means treating the virtual spaces of video games and software as collective territories.

/Cyber-realism means re-appropriation of the virtual human experience.

/It’s not about copying, or stealing intellectual property: a film shot in a video game is not a video game, it doesn’t reproduce its interactivity. By not reproducing its interactivity, it does not remove the product from the market or damage its circulation, but promotes it. The same thing is valid for images of operating systems, technological devices and brands. Cyber-realist art does no harm to any creative and cannot be accused of doing so.

/Cyber-realism, therefore, means thinking about the virtual status quo and representing it as such. It means creating artistic and imaginary products that expose the critical issues and problems. It means creating an artistic arena in which to discuss the virtual as part of reality.

/The objective of cyber-realism is the awareness and understanding of the virtual and its dangers, the exposure of injustices and inequalities, the representation of specific human concerns of this world, the historicization of the aesthetics and subcultures of this reality, including habits and customs, oddities and specificities, artifacts and glitches, rare phenomena, avatar and nickname cemeteries, meme and gif archives.

/We cyber-realist artists are committed to ensuring that the virtual is not taken away from the real by the oligarchic Moloch to establish a hegemony protected from improper interpretations of intellectual property laws.

/Cyber-realism is humanism in the 21st century.

Andrea Gatopoulos