Launch of Open Secret:
The New Extractivism, and Escaping the Clearnet
With Vladan Joler, Caroline Busta and Nadim Samman

A new form of extractivism defines life in the 21st Century. It is one that reaches into the furthest corners of the biosphere and the deepest layers of human cognitive and affective being: The stack that underpins contemporary technological systems goes well beyond data modeling, hardware, servers, and networks. Today’s full stack reaches into capital, labor, and nature, while demanding an enormous amount from each.

Vladan Joler’s newly commissioned video The New Extractivism gathers different concepts and images of this ‘new extractivism’ together. They add up to a blueprint—for a machine-like superstructure; a super allegory that encompasses the whole world.

Additionaly, drawing from her newly commissioned essay for Open Secret, the author and critic Caroline Busta surveys prospects for Web 3.0. At the edge of the ‘clearnet’ (the part of the internet that is publically accessible) the ‘dark forest’ begins. This shadowy realm offers artists shelter, a place to create—away from tracking, trolling, hype, and formatted ‘social’ experiences. What can we learn from it?

This event inaugurates Open Secret – a six-month long online program exploring the role of the technological hidden in our apparently “open” society.