In My Computer – Winner!

Abandon Normal Devices and Link Art Center are proud to announce Michael Mandiberg as the winner of the In My Computer Open Call. The open call invited artists, thinkers, and computer enthusiasts to submit proposals for projects for the ongoing book series In My Computer.

For In My Computer #12, the Link Art Center and AND joined forces in order to select and commission a project that will be made public in two steps: first as an online project, and later as a publication. The jury (Domenico Quaranta / Link Art Center; Fabio Paris / Link Art Center; Gabrielle Jenks / AND; Ruth McCollough / AND) reviewed over 50 applications, and decided to award Mandiberg for his project, FDIC Insured.

Since 2008, Mandiberg has been methodically downloading logos for the many banks that failed and were closed by the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), during the great recession. Before the visual identities of these banks were erased from the web, Mandiberg downloaded their logos – preserving an otherwise lost history. Around 500 bank logos have been saved on Mandiberg’s computer and eventually restored, if only as low resolution images. This logo collection will be made available as a web archive of digitised vector versions, along with a book.

About the artist:

Michael Mandiberg is an interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator. His work traces the lines of political and symbolic power online, working on and with the Internet in order to comment on and intercede in the real and poetic flows of information. He lives in, and rides his bicycle around, Brooklyn. His work lives at Mandiberg.com.

About the project:

In My Computer is a series of books collecting unpublished material available in your computer, produced by Link Editions and circulated both in digital and printed form through the print-on-demand (POD) service Lulu.com. The book can take any shape compatible with POD’s production and distribution standards.

LINK Editions is a publishing initiative of the LINK Art Center, a curatorial platform promoting artistic research with new technologies and critical reflections on the core issues of the information age. LINK Editions uses the print on demand approach to create an accessible, dynamic series of essays and pamphlets, but also catalogues and artist books. All books are released as digital e-books (pdf / epub) and paperbacks. Link Editions is a not-for-profit initiative and all its contents are circulated under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license.

Credits:

This project is realized in the framework of Masters & Servers. Networked Cultures in the Post Digital Age, a joint project by Aksioma (SI), Drugo more (HR), Abandon Normal Devices (UK), Link Art Center (IT) and d-i-n-a / The Influencers (ES) that was awarded with a Creative Europe 2014 – 2020 grant. For 24 months from September 2014, Masters & Servers will explore networked culture in the post-digital age.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.