Under the Viral Shadow

Ask anyone how the postal system works and they would give a vaguely correct description. Few however would come close to describing how email, let alone a computer network itself, actually functions. With this lack of knowledge comes a risk; we lack the practical understanding to effectively read the infrastructural and political implications of our increased dependency on this technology.

In this 3-day version of the popular NETworkshop intensive, participants learn low-level networking using only command-line tools and network hardware. In doing so they not only grasp how to create and manipulate computer networks, but how they can be used to manipulate us.

By learning about routing, addressing, core protocols, network topologies, packet capture, and dissection, students become dexterous and empowered users of computer networks. Complete documentation and software are provided.

No prior experience is necessary.

Sarah Grant is an American media artist and educator based in Berlin at the Weise7 studio. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from UC Davis and a Masters in Media Arts from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. Her practice engages with the electromagnetic spectrum and telecommunication networks as artistic material, social habitat, and political landscape. Since 2015, she has organized the Radical Networks conference in New York and Berlin, a community event and arts festival for critical investigations and creative experiments in telecommunications. She is currently the Visiting Professor of New Media at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and a Digital Fellow at the Weizenbaum-Institut in Berlin.

Danja Vasiliev is a Critical Engineer born in Saint Petersburg, currently living and working in Berlin. Vasiliev studies Systems and Networks through anti-disciplinary experimentation with hardware, firmware and software. Using computational platforms, he engages in the examination and exploitation of System and Network paradigms in both the physical and digital realms, network insecurity, software/OS modification, hardware re-engineering, digital forensics and other technology-related subjects. Since 1999, Vasiliev has been involved in computer-technology events, media art exhibitions and seminars around the world. He has received a number of awards and mentions at Ars Electronica, Japan Media Art Festival, and Transmediale, among others. In October 2011, together with his colleagues Julian Oliver and Gordan Savičić, Danya Vasiliev co-authored The Critical Engineering Manifesto.