Random Darknet Shopper

In the hidden underground of the Internet, inaccessible to conventional browsers and search engines, lie flourishing markets where one can buy anything under the sun, including hard drugs and all varieties of weapons. The Zurich art collective !Mediengruppe Bitnik has programmed a software that shops these markets – automatically, uninfluenced by the artists. The software’s allotted budget was $100 in bitcoins, an anonymous, encrypted, digital cryptocurrency. Their bot’s purchases included counterfeit sneakers and brand name jeans, a credit card, a scan of a Hungarian passport, and ecstasy pills.

After an exhibition in St. Gallen, Switzerland, the purchased objects were confiscated by the Swiss district attorney. Yet, to what extent can software, acting without human influence, be made responsible for illegal actions? And how is it possible to reconcile the confiscation with the principle of artistic freedom? The Swiss authorities destroyed the ecstasy, to preclude endangering third parties, but ultimately returned the objects to the artists.

»Random Darknet Shopper« aligns itself with the tradition of Mail Art, in which the organized infrastructure of sending and receiving via the postal service becomes the material of artistic transformation.

The documentation of the project is available online.