vuk cosic

anika meier @postanika

In conversation with Vuk Ćosić (@supperman) for SLEEK The Internet After Failed Utopias AM What are your thoughts when you hear a new generation of artists saying, »We’re going to democratize the art world. We don’t need gatekeepers. We don’t need institutions«? VC It’s a little sad because I literally recognize sentences from our manifestos or posts written in the middle of the night, and I see them again today, as if we were speaking about the same utopian possibilities. I don’t buy it. That rhetoric was abused by network speculation, especially by NFT people. The rhetoric of liberation, zero gatekeepers, or disintermediation was captured by the crypto crowd because they have a use for an active, participating audience of creators. NFT artists are slightly trapped by that rhetoric. It’s not their text. It’s the text of the Bitcoin people, or blockchain people in general. But if there are kids out there who believe in it, and they generate work while believing in it and trying to make it happen, then it may be good. Maybe it’s like a useful psychosis.

Upstream Gallery @GalleryUpstream

Opening tonight in Berlin @constantdull @PankeGallery

The Second-Guess @_second_guess

🔜 In »Blink of an I«, Vuk Ćosić (@supperman) looks not at WHAT stories we tell, but HOW we tell them, zooming in on the imaginary space where signs of a language have not yet become meaning. 9 September • 6 PM CET

ARTXCODE @artxcode_io

ARTXCODE (@artxcode_io), in partnership with Rhizome (@rhizome), is pleased to announce the artists of WEBSITES WEBSITES WEBSITES! (WWW!), a group exhibition curated by Sofia Garcia (@sofiagarcia_io) of ARTXCODE and Vienna Kim (@bennavkim) and Benoît Palop (@benoit_tokyo_) of LAN Party, celebrating the website as an artistic medium and marking the 30th anniversary of Rhizome, the pioneering institution for born-digital art and culture. The exhibition features works by 0xfff, Chia Amisola, Kim Asendorf, Mika Ben Amar, Petra Cortright, Vuk Ćosić, Damjanski, Simon Denny, EXONEMO, Sarah Friend, Auriea Harvey, SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, Jan Robert Leegte, LIA, Maya Man, Lorna Mills, Nolen Royalty, Rafaël Rozendaal, Luke Shannon, and Molly Soda. Together they span three decades of practice on the web, from the playful interventions of 1990s pioneers to the poetic web experiments of artists navigating today’s algorithmically saturated internet. Presented as live websites installed physically across the gallery and online, WWW! bridges generations of artists to show how the website remains a radical artistic space: one that belongs to no platform and answers to no algorithm. On view September 21–27, 2026, with an opening reception on Monday, September 21, 6–9PM, at 39 Great Jones St, New York. Works will be available for direct acquisition throughout the run of the exhibition, in-person or online, via Fellowship (@fellowshiptrust), with a portion of proceeds benefiting Rhizome’s work as a memory institution for digital art. The venue for this exhibition was graciously provided by New International Picture Company.

anika meier @postanika

In conversation with Vuk Ćosić (@supperman) for SLEEK The Internet After Failed Utopias AM What are your thoughts when you hear a new generation of artists saying, »We’re going to democratize the art world. We don’t need gatekeepers. We don’t need institutions«? VC It’s a little sad because I literally recognize sentences from our manifestos or posts written in the middle of the night, and I see them again today, as if we were speaking about the same utopian possibilities. I don’t buy it. That rhetoric was abused by network speculation, especially by NFT people. The rhetoric of liberation, zero gatekeepers, or disintermediation was captured by the crypto crowd because they have a use for an active, participating audience of creators. NFT artists are slightly trapped by that rhetoric. It’s not their text. It’s the text of the Bitcoin people, or blockchain people in general. But if there are kids out there who believe in it, and they generate work while believing in it and trying to make it happen, then it may be good. Maybe it’s like a useful psychosis.

anika meier @postanika

Vuk Ćosić is credited with having coined the term Well, apparently that was a hoax, Vuk Ćosić claimed when we spoke. »We happened to like practical humor, pranks, and hoaxes, so in a sense, it rhymed with our attitude. That was a hoax piece by Alexei Shulgin on our mailing list, nettime, and he invented a story that I had received an email that was totally garbled, and in it, I saw some stuff that looked useful. Pit Schultz suggested this name, and we loved it because it made dot art like dot doc, you know, like a file extension, like a Word file. And we said, ›Oh, this is cute,‹ and we liked it, and we accepted it, let’s say, as the label.« – Vuk Ćosić (@supperman)

anika meier @postanika

In conversation with Vuk Ćosić (@supperman) for SLEEK The Internet After Failed Utopias AM What are your thoughts when you hear a new generation of artists saying, »We’re going to democratize the art world. We don’t need gatekeepers. We don’t need institutions«? VC It’s a little sad because I literally recognize sentences from our manifestos or posts written in the middle of the night, and I see them again today, as if we were speaking about the same utopian possibilities. I don’t buy it. That rhetoric was abused by network speculation, especially by NFT people. The rhetoric of liberation, zero gatekeepers, or disintermediation was captured by the crypto crowd because they have a use for an active, participating audience of creators. NFT artists are slightly trapped by that rhetoric. It’s not their text. It’s the text of the Bitcoin people, or blockchain people in general. But if there are kids out there who believe in it, and they generate work while believing in it and trying to make it happen, then it may be good. Maybe it’s like a useful psychosis.

Palantir @PalantirTech

Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software. 5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. 6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost. 7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way. 8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed. 11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice. 12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin. 13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. 14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war. 15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia. 16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn. 17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives. 18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. 20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim. 21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what? Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska