The Wrong 3 : Radical Inclusion (Post 2)
Today, November 1, 2017 marks the opening of the third iteration of The Wrong. As in previous years, it offers a wide range of exhibitions and events – both online and off. To try and describe The Wrong in a meaningful way would be like trying to describe what a color looks like to someone with a vision impairment. I might be able to get close, but it wouldn’t quite be the same as experiencing it.
In The Wrong‘s words, its aims are:
“To create, promote and push positive forward-thinking contemporary digital art to a wider audience worldwide through a biennial event that gathers an extensive selection of digital artworks, while embraces via its exclusive instant radical inclusion trademark technique; the young artists and curators of today’s exciting digital art scene.”
I became involved with The Wrong during its first run when I curated a pavilion focused on new web-based artworks that emphasized text-mode graphics and legacy file formats ( pl41nt3xt pavilion with lots of broken links now ). In the current iteration I’ve been helping out how ever I can as a council member. Thank you, David Quiles Guillo, for including me and everyone else in this sprawl. I have looked forward the rush of energy and new/different work to explore. And, like other conferences/biennales, I’m always overwhelmed and miss a lot.
As I reflect on my experiences with The Wrong as it opens once again, it makes me feel like I did with my first interactions with the internet. The feeling is one of excitement and mystery, when everything seems like a new discovery that I want to share with others… a sense of community through remote connections and extended conversations that I’m just finding. I don’t normally get this feeling anymore. And rather than the obvious “it was better in the old days” or “social media ruined everything” mentality, I think this missing feeling comes from the internets presence in both personal and professional life now. I’m not hiding out in the computer room at school during study hall playing a text adventure anymore… I’m living online and off and those two things aren’t different or separate anymore. The Wrong reflects that and more.
Get some pizza and a soda, turn off all the lights, hunker down with your glowing screen machine, and click around. Put your pants on and head out to one of the embassies. Email your old friend from the bbs that got taken down cause nobody wanted to pay the domain and hosting fees anymore. Take your time its old and new and everything at once.