etoy.CORPORATION
etoy is art and invests all resources in the production of more art. The firm represents the core and code of the corporate sculpture. It controls, protects, promotes, and exploits the cultural substance (intellectual property / etoy trademark) and the etoy.ART-COLLECTION. etoy intends to reinvest all financial earnings in art - the final link in the value chain.
etoy.CORPORATION - founded in 1994 - is known for its pioneering role in internet art (etoy.INTERNET-TANK-SYSTEM / etoy.com, 1995), controversial operations like the digital hijack (1,5 million search engine users kidnapped in 1996), the domain name battle TOYWAR with eToys.com (an American multi billion dollar company that tried to take over the etoy.com domain name in 1999) or the etoy.TANKS (mobile studio and exhibition units built in standard shipping containers).
etoy twists artistic production and appearance in a world dominated by ambivalent parameters: mass production and consumption of information and goods, global transportation, branding, maximization of profits, growing complexity, technological penetration of life and virtualization. etoy is incorporated as a privately held shareholder company to replace the traditional concept of the genius artist with a brand that is owned, controlled and fed by hundreds of stakeholders: 25 etoy.AGENTS, a few investors, art collectors and many fans. The only available product in the art market is the etoy.SHARE: unique Swiss stock certificates visually document the etoy.HISTORY and represent the idea of sharing intangible assets such as knowledge, passion and code or social networks and cultural value. etoy.SHAREHOLDERS invest their workforce (agents, contributors and advisors) or cash (art collectors, donors and fans) into the venture that is art and reinvests all profits into the production of more art. Depending on the market situation and projects between 10 and 25 etoy.AGENTS work for the art group in return for etoy.SHARES.
Digital Hijack (1996) – http://www.hijack.org/
Between march 31 and july 31 1996, etoy.SOFTWARE-AGENTS automatically infiltrated the world wide web's global search engines (lycos, infoseek, altavista, etc.) by placing over a thousand designated keywords (porsche, startrek, bondage, selbstmord, censorship, fassbinder, etc.) within the top 10 rankings, thereby setting up a trap for net travelers and technology tourists. with this action, etoy demonstrated the «space» behind the popular interfaces of the world wide web. they took control of the systematic illusion of net-quests for information.
the weak points of the internet and the twilight zone of the medium formed the location of the action. search-servers were transformed into a stage: etoy.UNDERGROUND FEEDING THE INFO-SPIDERS!
Toywar (1999) – http://toywar.etoy.com
The TOYWAR.com NET.ART.PRODUCT was designed in november 1999 to prevent the destruction of the etoy.ART-BRAND and to research the potential of an elaborate, effective but playful resistance system against the old fashioned corporate bulldozing power used by eToys Inc. (one of the biggest e-commerce companies in the world / incorporated 1996) who attempted unsuccessfully to take over the etoy.com art brand.
TOYWAR.com did not follow common political strategies: TOYWAR.com successfully mobilized the net-community (among them hundreds of journalists), involved the enemy in a insane TOYNAM situation (preventing overview by fighting on too many layers with the help of 1799 soldiers) and turned eToys´ aggressions against themselves (martial arts for the net) until art finally neutralized the naive power of money. by playing a game on the web, in the court room and on the NASDAQ the etoy.CORPORATION and supporters forced eToys to step back from their aggressive intention. the reason for this success was the combination and involvement of all kinds of people (artists, lawyers, riot-kids, university profs, business people, freaks and djs). TOYWAR IS BEYOND YOUR CONCEPTION OF REALITY! THIS IS ITS BENEFIT. NO ONE CAN CONTROL IT... 1799 RECRUITED AGENTS BUILT ITS DISTRIBUTED BRAIN WHICH IS TOO COMPLEX TO DESTROY. MONEY & POWER DO NOT EVEN TOUCH THIS SYSTEM. EXAMPLE: dj-toys submitted TOYWAR.lullabies which became the original soundtrack of the this action. more than 50 specific songs / tracks for a resistance CD were uploaded within a few weeks.
TOYWAR is one of the most successful and most famous art products from the etoy.CORPORATION since the "digital hijack" in 1996. it is now a living monument that reminds people about the fact that power relations have changed...
Mission Eternity (2006 ff.) – http://missioneternity.org
Independent of religious beliefs and scientific speculations, MISSION ETERNITY explores life after death. The operation is based on facts: all we know for sure is that we leave behind mortal remains and a massive body of information. etoy exploits computer technology to store and process human remains forever.
The dead continue to exist as biomass and traces in the global memory: in governmental data-bases, in family archives, in professional records, and in emotional data stored as electrical impulses in the bio-memory of our social network.
At the heart of MISSION ETERNITY stands the creation and ultra-long-term conservation of M∞ ARCANUM CAPSULES, interactive portraits and digital communication systems for human beings facing death (M∞ PILOTS).
The M∞ ARCANUM CAPSULES contain digital fragments of the life, knowledge and soul of the users and enable them to design an active presence post mortem: as infinite data particles they forever circulate the global info sphere – hosted in the shared memory of thousands of networked computers and mobile devices of M∞ ANGELS, people who contribute a part of their digital storage capacity to the mission.
At the heart of MISSION ETERNITY stands the creation and ultra-long-term conservation of M∞ ARCANUM CAPSULES, interactive portraits and digital communication systems for human beings facing death (M∞ USERS). The M∞ ARCANUM CAPSULES contain digital fragments of the life and “soul” of the USERS and enable humans to maintain an active presence post mortem: as infinite data particles they forever circulate the global info sphere – hosted in the shared memory of hundreds of networked computers and mobile devices such as cell phones of people (M∞ ANGELS) who contribute a part of their digital storage space to the project.
