22 February - 27 March: Kingdom of Piracy [Media Lounge]
Kingdom of Piracy is curated by Shu Lea Cheang, Armin Medosch, and Yukiko Shikata.

Kingdom of Piracy is an online workspace exploring the free sharing of digital content - often condemned as piracy - as the net's ultimate art form. A floating kingdom adrift in the codified open source open sea, KOP will drop anchor at FACT's Media Lounge from 22 February to 27 March, bringing fourteen existing commissioned pieces, written works, and three new online projects that tap into the creative potential of shared networks: Frequency Clock (2002), Last.FM (2002), and NINE9 (2003).

Last.FM, a project by Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel, Michael Breidenbruecker, and Thomas Willomitzer, is an adaptive online music station that brings Internet radio into the new millennium: it learns what you like to listen to (and what you don't) and connects you to other users with similar tastes. Mongrel/Harwood¹s NINE9 (developed while artist in residence at the Waag Society Amsterdam) is a social software project that provides a new way to collaborate online; it allows NINE groups or 9 individuals to map a text/image/sound archive for life-sharing and collaboration. To round out the show, r a d i o q u a l i a (honor harger and adam hyde) provides a solution to the eternal dilemma: nothing on TV. Their project Frequency Clock allows you to intervene in Internet TV and radio stations and set the broadcast schedule yourself; now, you can watch what you want, when you want. Each of these projects will be making their first Kingdom of Piracy appearance at FACT.

KOP will also present BURN (2003), a specially commissioned installation and filesharing interface inspired by a recent incident in which the Chinese government set fire to thousands of bootlegged CDs. During the installation, the BURN webserver will be transformed into a rich archive of public domain MP3s, which will be made available for the public to download and burn to CD in FACT's Media Lounge. Don't miss the KOP forum on March 7 and the BURN Open House on March 8.

7 March: KOP forum [The Box] Join Armin Medosch, Shu Lea Cheang, the artists of Kingdom of Piracy and guest experts as they discuss the KOP projects and contextualize them within broader issues regarding fair use v. piracy, community networking and intellectual property rights.

8 March, 2 PM: BURN Open House [FACT Centre] Kingdom of Piracy takes over the FACT Centre for a day, saturating its recirculated air with the hum of wireless networking activity. During the BURN Open House, KOP artists will work with community groups and the general public, giving you a chance to have some one-on-one time with the Pirate Kings and explore the artistic potentials of community networks, from filesharing to online collaboration. We'll provide the blank CDs (while they last); bring a laptop if you've got it; this will be a hands-on event!