In autumn 2024, Prater Digital dealt with the role played by the Internet and digital technologies in Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine. In this context, new strategies of warfare, which are increasingly based on automated and cybernetic means, are being established. Contrary to what we may think, modern cyber warfare does not take place in virtual space alone, but develops in places where digital communication and military actions merge.
The “Tracing the Geometry of Cyberwar” exhibition focused primarily on the dissemination of images and data in the cybernetic logics of the Internet. In this highly commercialised online space, images and news from the war mix with advertising, memes and other content. The monitoring and analysis of social networks and the targeted dissemination of images and disinformation on the Internet serve to control and enforce narratives about the war and the events of the war among the public. At the same time, however, images are also of great importance for the strategic planning of operations and their investigation.
Inspired by the research of scholar Svitlana Matviyenko, the artistic positions and discursive texts in the exhibition moved along three paths (vectors) of cyberwarfare – targeting people and infrastructure in occupied Ukraine, focusing on Ukraine’s supporter countries, and including Russia itself.
TEAM
Curator: Tereza Havlíková
Concept, design, and programming Mozilla Hub gallery space: Sarah Buser and Judith Hanke
Prater Galerie: Katharina von Hagenow, Lena Prents and Julie Rüter
Graphic design: Judith Weber
Copy editing: Carola Köhler
Sound recording: studio brod
Narrator: Lucy Jones