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RTMark (derived from "Registered Trademark") is an activist collective that subverts the "Corporate Shield" protecting US corporations.

RTMark is itself a registered corporation which brings together activists who plan projects with donors who fund them. It thus operates outside the laws governing human individuals, and benefits from the much looser laws governing corporation. [1]

What does ®TMark do?

®TMark receives project ideas from internet users, then lists them (here). Each listed project has its own discussion list (linked from the project). When a project requires a bit of funding to be accomplished, sometimes investors will step up to the plate and offer their help. Even more often, people will offer non-financial help or feedback.

How is ®TMark defined, in legal terms?

®TMark is a brokerage that benefits from «limited liability» just like any other corporation; using this principle, ®TMark supports the sabotage (informative alteration) of corporate products, from dolls and children's learning tools to electronic action games, by channelling funds from investors to workers for specific projects grouped into "mutual funds."

So ®TMark is just a corporation?

®TMark is indeed just a corporation, and benefits from corporate protections, but unlike other corporations, its ‹bottom line› is to improve culture, rather than its own pocketbook; it seeks cultural profit, not financial. [2]

Internet provocateurs JODI pioneered Web art in the mid-1990s. Based in The Netherlands, JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) were among the first artists to investigate and subvert conventions of the Internet, computer programs, and video and computer games. Radically disrupting the very language of these systems, including interfaces, commands, errors and code, JODI stages extreme digital interventions that destabilize the relationship between computer technology and its users. [1]

JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) was formed in 1994. Joan Heemskerk was born in 1968 in Kaatsheue, The Netherlands. Dirk Paesmans was born in 1965 in Brussels, Belgium. Heemskerk and Paesman both attended Silicon Valley's electronic arts laboratory CADRE at San Jose State University in California; Paesmans also studied with Nam June Paik at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf. JODI's works are typically seen online. Their recent solo exhibitions include INSTALL.EXE at Eyebeam, New York, which toured to [plug-in], Basel, and BuroFriedrich, Berlin; and Computing 101B at FACT Centre, Liverpool, England. Their works have also been exhibited at Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow; Kunstverein Bonn; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany; Documenta X, Kassel, Germany; Harvard Art Museum, Massachusetts; EAI at ICA, Phillidelphia; and Lisson Gallery, New York, among many others. [1]

Misusing technological tools and languages has been a trademark for Jodi.org (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) since the mid-nineties, when they emerged as the pioneers of a movement which later became internationally known as net.art. Starting by applying this creative strategy to browsers, subverting websurfing logics and hacking the graphic interface, they then moved to videogames and finally to the so-called Web 2.0, deconstructing platforms such as Blogger, Google Maps and now Twitter. [2]

Selected net art pieces [3]

Super Mario Movie Super Mario Movie Super Mario Movie
Artist Cory Arcangel discusses Super Mario Movie
Super Mario Movie

Super Mario Movie is a reprogrammed 8-bit Nintendo game cartridge revolving around the famed Italian plumber Mario who first made his appearance in 1981 as a character in the videogame ‘Donkey Kong’. Since Mario’s rise to fame he has become the main character in approximately 200 different videogames, making him somewhat of a pop-culture icon. In this work Arcangel hacks the game cartridge to produce a 15-minute movie showing how Mario’s life has spiralled out of control as a result of the gradual decay of his outdated technology. In the opening scene we read the following text; “as a video game grows old its content and internal logic deteriorate. For a character caught in this breakdown problems affect every area of life.” Whilst being partly satirical, Arcangel is also describing the natural degradation process that eventually affects all information storage devices and the short life-span that these technologies experience. This is partly due to the rapidly evolving pace of technological advancement and as such can be read as a comment on our insatiable hunger for constantly new and updated technology. [1]

Cory Arcangel (born May 25, 1978) is a Brooklyn, New York post-conceptual artist who makes work in many different media, including drawing, music, video, performance art, and video game modifications, for which he is perhaps best known.

Arcangel often uses the artistic strategy of appropriation, creatively reusing existing materials such as dancing stands, Photoshop gradients and YouTube videos to create new works of art. His work explores the relationship between digital technology and pop culture. He is a recipient of a 2006 Creative Capital Emerging Fields Award. [1]

Notable Works:

Super Mario Clouds Arcangel's best known works are his Nintendo game cartridge hacks and reworkings of obsolete computer systems of the 1970s and 80s. One example is Super Mario Clouds (2002), a modified version of the video game Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo's NES game console in which all of the game's graphics have been removed, leaving a blue background with white clouds scrolling slowly from right to left. [1]

Pizza Party Pizza Party (2004) was a free, functional software package that could be used to order Domino's Pizza through a command-line interface. The program allowed users to order pizza by typing in commands such as pizza_party -pmx 2 medium regular, which - according to the artist - would order two medium crust pizzas with pepperoni, mushrooms and extra cheese. The piece was commissioned by Eyebeam and implemented by Mike Frumin. [1]

Punk Rock 101 Punk Rock 101 (2006) is an example of Arcangel's work with the web as an artistic medium. For this piece, he re-published Kurt Cobain's alleged suicide letter alongside a series of Google Ads. The ads are tailored to the content of any given page, and the piece juxtaposed Cobain's angst with ads selling social anxiety treatment and motivational speaking. Art critic Paddy Johnson wrote of the work, "This is quite possibly the most brilliant subversion of the medium I have seen." [1]