🗓️April 7-23, 2006
YOUTH CENTER OF THE STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM
📍45, Moyka River Emb, St. Peterburg 191186 Russia
◆Hackers and Crackers◆
NET ART PROJECT >> HACK THE PLANET
The international exhibition “Hackers and Crackers” presented a curated selection of digital works collected by Worldartmedia and the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) in St. Petersburg. Highlights included an online unauthorized access session by Jolanta Gora-Wita (New York), and a media performance titled “Meat Grinder” by Sergey Teterin (Perm).
The goal of the project was to initiate an open audio-visual dialogue between network artists and the audience, exploring the cultural implications of hacking and cracking beyond their technical meanings. For many participants—international artists, hacktivists, and experts in network art—this exhibition marked a rare opportunity to showcase their work outside of traditional institutional settings.
The exhibition featured interactive and performative projects based on media art, software modifications, and real-time audience engagement. These works explored the intersection of technology, art, and communication, highlighting how network culture shapes modern life.
Among the featured works by Russian artist Sergey Teterin were:
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Movie Mincer: A repurposed Soviet-era meat grinder transformed into a PC-compatible device that projects hand-cranked video streams onto a screen. Connected via a standard PS/2 port, the device revives the spirit of early cinema with a humorous twist.
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Cyber-Pushkin 1.0 Beta: A virtual poetic idol that generates computer-written verse, raising questions about the future of poetry and the boundaries between artificial and human creativity.
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Twins – The Perm Oracle: A fictional “ancient Ural divination” project developed over eight years online with contributions from writers, designers, and programmers from various countries. The project explores the construction and cultural implantation of artificial myths.
The Hackers and Crackers exhibition was the first event in the Unauthorized Access festival series, with subsequent editions planned in cities including New York, Warsaw, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing, and Valencia.