Interventionist Internet Art and The Aesthetics of Information Ethics

The documentation of this presentation comes from Human: the Third Biennial PARSE Research Conference (2019).

Paolo Cirio examines the ethics and aesthetics of working with online piracy, data breach, identity theft, privacy, fake news, algorithms, and hacking. Cirio explores boundaries, responsibilities, and the consequences of reconfiguring social dynamics for artistic and social agendas. His artworks are often active agents – they elicit reactions from the subjects of the works and participation from the audience. The interactions and processes from his interventions generate online performances. These socially engaged art involve the public in critical debates for change driven directly by his artistic concepts and creations, which often embody personal risks and challenges. Cirio has often been subject to investigations, legal and personal threats by governmental and military authorities, powerful multinationals, global banks and law firms, as well as online crowds of ordinary people. For instance, his artworks have unsettled institutions such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, VISA, Pearson, Cayman Islands, and NATO, among others. The ethical and social relations created by these artworks produce aesthetic forms, which concerns the field of the aesthetics of ethics, while they address the ethics of global finance, politics, and information technology.

Paolo Cirio website: https://paolocirio.net/