[artinfo] Dulltech

[Josephine Bosma]

The unexpected happened: artist Constant Dullaart is very close to 
reaching his 30.000 euro goal on kickstarter. He is now at about 
25.000 with only 20 hours to go. Dullaart has developed a video 
player for art installations under the name Dulltech. Apart from the 
player being a solution to issues in syncing video's in art 
installations however, this project highlights some critical issues 
in media art itself.

You can help realize this work by pledging anything from 30 to 6000 
euros, the latter for the gold pledge I wish I could make myself. 
This project is particularly interesting for institutions that 
present video art.

If you want to read more about this project here are some links and 
some quotes:

Interview for the ICA:

"How does this model work for institutional critique, or works that 
can't be explained in the preferred two and a half minute pitch 
video? "Explain the value of your work in this elevator pitch so my 
uninterested uncle can understand it." In the meantime I am getting 
emails from Kickstarter to sharpen up my video, to keep tweeting 
happy tweets, to thank my backers with personal emails, to clarify my 
project, to pay large sums to get onto mailing lists with guaranteed 
interested backers and investors. Between my research of starting a 
company-to which this Kickstarter campaign belongs-and riding the 
neoliberal snake, this happy corporate optimising bullshit is getting 
to me."
https://www.ica.org.uk/blog/neoliberal-hardware-lulz-constant-dullaart

Article on Rhizome:

"For Dullaart gaining access even to view the conditions of labor 
means operating within its stratification as a business. Similar to 
other migrant laborers in the region, those who Dullaart and his 
colleagues interviewed prior to contracting the O.E.M. came from 
rural areas in China to Shenzhen because of their desire to be middle 
class, the higher wages available compared with local agricultural 
labor in their hometowns and the factory's provision of room and 
board as well as some benefits. Despite the unsettling reaction to 
Chinese factories, when one criticizes the product for using the 
labor in Shenzhen, one  also criticizes the products that form the 
infrastructure of the web."
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2015/sep/29/dulltech/


Link to the kickstarter page of Dulltech:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1271076119/dulltechtm-straightforward-technology-for-you-and

I invite you to help this project along in any way possible, this 
includes any criticism you might have.