Come Closer #1, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam

End of 2017 I was approached by curator Radna Rumping and director Michiel van Iersel of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, the church in the heart of the oldest part of Amsterdam where Rembrandt's wife is burried, to suggest a theme and guests for an evening in their Come Closer series. They asked for any important or influential phenomenon from the history of internet art and internet culture of the previous two decades. I immediately thought of the dramas that unfolded around the online persona Netochka Nezvanova (NN), aka Antiorp, integer, m9ndfukc and more at the end of the nineties. The true identities of the persons behind this entity are still a mystery, but it was most likely a varying group of people. I invited artist Martijn van Boven to present a film he made with NATO.0+55+3d, video software created by this entity or collective, and also artist and academic David Gauthier to present his study of mailinglist dynamics of the late nineties, and theorist Florian Cramer to provide more context. Radna Rumping commissioned artist Damon Zucconi to make a new work around NN. We had a great evening despite the cold. It was January 2018 and the church was unheated. Everyone was dressed for outdoors. It was the first time I gave a talk wearing winter coat, gloves and a hat. The picture here shows the last part of the evening, when Florian Cramer presented his analysis of online troll culture from the nineties through to the alt.right's wrecking ball influence at the time of his talk. All presentations happened within the exhibition of works by Christian Boltanski that was happening at the time.