hometown 4.6.8+hometown-1.3.0diyer / participant observer
OpenAI just shut down its Sora video generator. It seems we're witnessing the beginning of the end of the GenAI bubble.
Hyperscalers like OpenAI never had realistic business models, but the Iran war and soaring energy costs have made these models even less viable.
If OpenAI is forced to evaluate the profitability of its services, it will likely keep military and B2B services, as well as cheaper, less computationally demanding text generators.
OpenAI has an added problem: compared to Anthropic's Claude, ChatGPT is now like Altavista's search engine compared to Google's in 1998. This realization is slowly seeping into the mainstream.
Due to its investments in data centers and contracts with computer hardware manufacturers, OpenAI has single-handedly drained the personal computer market of GPUs, SSDs, RAM, and hard drives. Exploding prices mean that local AI systems (local LLMs and image generators) are no longer viable alternatives for most people. This creates a bottleneck for AI image generation, from Sora to other AI image generator services.
The end of Sora could mean that OpenAI is in trouble and that the long-predicted AI industry crash similar to the 2000 dot-com crash is near.
Not to mention the exhaustion of water supplies caused by that infrastructure (that better may not exist)....
Ars Electronica's curatorial statements says art should be a way to negotiate; a space where things aren't clear and we have to ask questions. Fine. Read closely, it's a giant piece of avoidance, cowardice and wanting the cake and eating it too.
It says a festival "cannot and should not be neutral"; every invitation is a stance. Indeed. But it also demands "symmetry of understanding": treating every viewpoint with equal seriousness. You can't do both. A stance means picking a side; equal treatment means not. It wants credit for both, so it never says what its side is. That's not a position, just pretending to have one.
The reveal: we need "symmetry of understanding, not symmetry of facts." The example is genocide, which is a question of fact and law. Sensing the problem, they add that we should treat views equally "without weighing them against one another". But treating two views equally is weighing them.
Next paragraph: war crimes and breaches of international law "belong to legal processes and international institutions." So it's about facts after all, raised only to excuse the curators from deciding, while the rest mocks "moral certainty". The law is solid enough to defer to, but not clear enough to have consequences. Avoiding responsibility while sounding careful.
Anarchival talk with Florian Cramer
21th May, 19:00–21:30, @roodkapje_rotterdam@mastodon.social | Free entrance 💜
What is the difference between a hoarder and an archivist?
Eccentric (an-) archives: histories of experimental, fantastic, and anarchic archives.
In this second anarchival talk we will hear from researcher & DIYer Florian Cramer.
During this talk we approach the concept of the anarchive from the viewpoint of artistic practice and collection. Archives are often seen as institutional, preserving, and focused on canonical heritage. Yet archives can also be eccentric, chaotic, and anarchic collections shaped by obsession and idiosyncratic systems.
Think of record collections, eccentric libraries, a hoarder’s apartment, or collections of subcultural production. What is the difference between a personal composition of objects, a collection, or an archive?
📍Keileweg 10a
💜Free entrance
Poster by droom.iris
This project needs support:
"BuurToren is a solidarity initiative in Rotterdam to provide housing (mostly by squatting vacant buildings) for people who are homeless and/or undocumented.
It currently houses 9 people, and we want to house more!
BuurToren was founded by an activist coalition that emerged when the Bed-Bad-Brood Scheme in Rotterdam was discontinued in 2024— which had provided temporary shelter and basic services to undocumented people in the Netherlands who fell into the so-called 'asylum gap' since 2014. These people are still here and have no where to go!
To increase the living capacity, the buildings still need a lot more work! (and heating systems)
We are crowdfunding for this, and also calling out for more people specialized in building construction and the trades who would like to donate their time and/or expertise." (Tomi Hilsee)
Crowdfunder:
https://whydonate.com/fundraising/housing-for-undocumented-homeless-in-rotterdam
https://buurtoren.nl
buurtoren@riseup.net
follow: https://lnkd.in/ejStyrUY
R.I.P. Valie Export
She struck me as an extremely sharp person on the two occasions I encountered her: in 1988 in Berlin and in 2009 at WORM Rotterdam.
moving images from her retrospective exhibition at C/O Berlin in 2024:
https://archive.org/details/2024-05-04-EXPORT18/2024-05-04-EXPORT18.av1.mp4
€21 million fraud about non-existing digital NFT art
[summary of a paywalled, German-language article]:
German prosecutors have filed fraud charges against five individuals who allegedly used the promise of digital art and NFTs to run a €21 million Ponzi scheme. The group operated a cult-like investment club called "Der Schwarm" (The Swarm). Capitalizing on the hype surrounding digital NFT art, they sold purported fractions of digital artworks, which they labeled as "Pixels" or "NFSTs." During online presentations to over a thousand participants, the leader of the group Gerd K. ("Ger-D") claimed that he would sell a single image from the collective for ten billion dollars, and that he planned to open galleries in New York, Tokyo, and the Philippines.
The scheme relied on aggressive word-of-mouth recruitment and private Telegram groups. Over 16,000 people were lured into paying monthly fees to a Bulgarian shell company. Following police raids, authorities discovered that while the followers were sold on the dream of "digital art", the perpetrators were hoarding traditional, tangible wealth, seizing nearly 100 pounds of gold and silver, luxury watches, and a Maserati.
Without paywall:
https://archive.ph/bEKCD#selection-633.0-1689.1
This Tuesday, 21st April, in my monthly program Slow Scan TV on Radio WORM, 22.00:
Malcolm LeGrice, Berlin Horse (1970)
one-hour slow scan broadcast, with 1/100 of the original frame rate, of the 6:37 minutes film.
(You can receive/view the images by installing the Open Source app "Robot36" on an Android smartphone, or the commercial app "SimpleSSTV" on an iPhone, and point your phone to a speaker playing the radio broadcast.)
Why the 'Prospects' exhibition organized by Mondriaan Fonds at #ArtRotterdam for artists who received its 'Starter' stipend has become problematic - op-ed by Simon Kentgens, in Dutch:
https://metropolism.com/nl/opinie/wat-zijn-onze-prospects/
The text critiques how the Mondriaan Fund Artist Start grant subtly steers emerging artists toward the commercial art system. By combining funding with the “Prospects” exhibition at Art Rotterdam, artists are nudged to produce object-based, sellable work, marginalizing process-driven, social, or non-market practices.
The problem is intensified by the venue: Rotterdam Ahoy also hosts a controversial arms trade fair, creating an ethical entanglement between publicly funded art and militarized industry. Artists are forced to choose between visibility and complicity.
Additionally, access is restricted: audiences must buy relatively expensive tickets, excluding lower-income publics—especially in Rotterdam-Zuid. Thus, public funding paradoxically supports an exclusive, market-aligned system that shapes art production, links it to problematic industries, and limits public access.
Mijn tekst- en beeldverslag over 'Herdenken zonder Grenzen', de alternatieve herdenkingsbijeenkomst in Rotterdam, voor Doorbraak:
https://www.doorbraak.eu/herdenken-zonder-grenzen-in-rotterdam-beeldverslag/
- met Ineke Palm, Derek Otte en veel anderen.
Today at 20.00-21.00 on Radio WORM: debut of my new monthly radio program 'Slow Scan TV' - a one-hour transmission of analog images via audio, using 1970s slow scan tv technology (originally developed for transmitting images over amateur radio).
The first episode will celebrate today's 25th anniversary of filmwerkplaats Rotterdam, with a slow scan tv version of a black-and-white 8mm/16mm film portrait of filmwerkplaats shot by me, Francien Van Everdingen and Lichun Tseng in November 2025. Its original 1300 frames/54 seconds will be transmitted as 100 frames in 60 minutes.
To receive/see the images, I recommend the Open Source Android app Robot36 :
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/xdsopl.robot36
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xdsopl.robot36
Tomorrow, Tuesday 16th June, I will be part of the Neurodiversity Pride Day symposium "Designing for Belonging" at De Nieuwe Bibliotheek Almere, Netherlands, organized by Neurodiversity Foundation.
From the announcement text:
"What does it take to move from spaces that accommodate neurodivergent people to spaces that are genuinely shaped by them?
DESIGNING FOR BELONGING
Reimagining Cultural Spaces Where All Minds Thrive
This conference starts from a simple but radical premise: belonging is not a feeling that happens to people. It is something we design.
For cultural spaces, museums, libraries, community centres, urban regeneration sites, and the people who work within them, this is both a design challenge and a justice question.
Designing for Belonging brings together urban regenerators, cultural professionals, social innovators, educators, and neurodivergent practitioners to explore what genuine neuroinclusion looks like when it moves beyond compliance and into culture. When it stops being an add-on and starts being the foundation."
Detailed schedule, lineup & pay-what-you-like ticket:
https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/designing-for-belonging-reimagining-cultural-spaces-where-all-minds-thrive-tickets-1988750293664
for present/future institutional critique:
Epstein/Brockman/Bezos/Bryn/Gates/Page/Parker/Zuckerberg/Obrist/Abramovic
25 years filmwerkplaats Rotterdam; celebration & screenings at WORM Rotterdam during International Film Festival Rotterdam, 3rd February 2026.
With Esther Urlus, Lichun Tseng, Nan Wang, Judith van der Made, Joost Van Veen, Francien van Everdingen, Ieke Trinks, Tim Leyendekker, Li-chen Kuo, Raluca Croitoru & many others
https://archive.org/details/2026-02-03-filmwerkplaats_25_years.av1
[also happens to be the 400th video in my archive of documenting DIY events (mostly) in Rotterdam.]
#experimentalfilm #handmadefilm #16mmfilm #8mmfilm #artistrunfilmlab #IFFRr #IFFR2026
[my moving images of] Performance Art in WGW #5, hosted by Ieke Trinks:
Elisabeth Harnik + Jaap Blonk (piano & voice, improv); Frans van Lent ('A process begins with nothing and ends with nothing'), Philemon Mukarno ('boundary between body and expression'), Vanita Monk & Johanna Monk ('How Johanna Explains Artworks to a Dead Vanita'); WegGeefWinkel, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 12th April 2026.
moving images:
https://archive.org/details/2026-04-12-blonk_harnik_van_lent-mukarno_monk-wgw.av1
OTHERWISE DISPATCH #003
" The Loss Stays in the Market "
a just-in-time open call
:: v. TL;DR ::
SEEKING COURIERS FROM ANYWHERE in THE WORLD ☛ EU / NETHERLANDS
要從任何地方去歐洲，請跟我們聯繫。
有朋友要從任何地方去歐洲，請跟我們聯繫。
Write to us if you are travelling to Europe.
Write to us if someone you know is travelling to Europe.
You are receiving this missive because you are a friend or supporter of LIGHT LOGISTICS, have couriered for or read with us. Some of you have been Courier of the Month, some we keep in touch with on a regular basis, and some of you... "Long time, no see."
If you or someone you know happens to be travelling to the EU from anywhere in the world between now and end-April, please join this new distribution scheme and facilitate further explorations of how deep networking can go.
These clothing items, by trajectorial affinity and coincidence, will be part of an alternative South-North dialogue on logisticality as narration —— or, a yarn! More information available on request.
_____
預計於2026年4月中至下旬送達荷蘭
TO BE RECEIVED in NETHERLANDS by mid-late April 2026
* 此項目將提供一筆150歐元的報酬，用以支付額外託運行李或運費。
* A fee of €150 will be provided to cover extra check-in luggage or shipping costs.
@adam_harvey@tldr.nettime.org Because all of this was based on a fundamental misunderstanding from the beginning on. "All art is political" in the past meant to welcome lefty Western "expat" artists as an exorcism and redemption of Germany's Nazi past, to be the tokens for the country having shed nationalism. When those same international artists voiced their solidarity with Palestinians, this disturbed a German post-war narrative in which the state of Israel is the even more significant redemption of the Third Reich and the holocaust. In the mainstream German perception - which reaches from the conservative right, includes the liberal-progressive center up to parts of the radical Antifa left -, those "expat" artists violated the German social contract which includes to purposefully not differentiate between Jewishness, judaism, zionism and Israel, and consider any attack on the latter the violation of a cultural and political taboo. "All art is political" in Germany thus means to be intentionally silent on Gaza. Questioning the legitimacy of that war and Israeli sovereignty would, in the end, wreck the German identity which depends on this redemption trope as well as its larger narrative of "Germany's (postwar) way to the (liberal) West". The international artist community in Berlin was a very powerful token of that narrative.
The Dutch WO vs. HBO system insanity goes so far that Dutch ("WO") universities now reject international students with foreign university B.A. degrees in Fine Art for their Masters programs, because they consider such a degree not a university degree.
The Hague, Netherlands
'Performance Art in WegGeefWinkel #3', with Sarojini Lewis, Hours of Falling (Elena Waclawiczek + Hannes Buchwieser), kick.529, host: Ieke Trinks, Rotterdam, 25th January 2026
