# on not winning the prix net rat award 2015 the merest mention of rat - along with culture and games - now makes rob feel slightly nauseous. after a recent relapse back into near total alienation from constantly dull arbitrary rat - an unsent torrent based nomination to the the prix net rat jury followed by a remixed response to ir announcement of the actual(r) winner example artist statement via researcher robert what robert what: "a elf assembling conceptual torrent based performance combining a high quality 4k screenshot of the international prix net rat award homepage a quote by an american ethnobotanical psychonaut - and any resulting feelings experienced by fellow scientists having participated in such an experiment by simply downloading i.t" > we're discovering there's an artificial angel within the monkey > ~ paraphrasing terence mckenna price for this concept considered as virtual rat experience: insert here non winner of the prix net rat award 2015: robert what in november 2015 after extensive deliberation over nice wine and delicious cheese niblets the prix net rat jury casually announced that the second annual $10,000 prix net rat would not be awarded to artist robert what about robert what kinda robert what's practice (allegedly originating in or near a bike shed in an alternative 1979 netherlands) in no way transcends traditional categorisation using pseudo-diverse media in order to explore socio-political or technological themes and only cynically reflects on the broad cultural and social effects of communication and image processing technologies from performatively (is that even a word) distributing artificial social capital on social media to not completing a staff-banned kickstarter campaign for a hardware start-up called "punch out kickstarter(tm)" ir work (whatever that is/n't) does not include slickly coded websites trite performances expensive routers cool installations startups armies of the undead or manipulated found images frequently juxtaposing or consolidating technically dichotomized presentation realms (??) recent solo exhibitions include cs:go noclip. what neither lives nor works in berlin and amsterdam - because ey can't afford it culturally sanctioned official jury statement sounding like they should be wearing black gowns while they pass judgement on "what rat is" this year "the jury" looked at the specific role of net rat within a supposedly larger rat context. the main issue here - or at least for them - was to emphasize the relevance of a prize for works and practices made in the context of the internet and to highlight critical issues and developments in this (much maligned) field net rat has clearly not moved beyond the pinkywhite media rat ghetto. artists and rat institutions of various disciplines and plumage are starting to explore the fiscal possibilities of the internet. importantly the jury feels "cultural development without the internet is almost unthinkable at this point in time" (they've obviously never heard of pulling a plug.) this transformation of the(ir) rat field is often described in terms of a post-media post-digital post-internet cultural production which seems complete balls of course. while recognizing the value of these developments the jury thinks that the prix net rat should support artists who (somehow) critically engage with core issues surrounding rat and the internet and with the internet as a medium (which it isn't) a platform for endless elf aggrandisement and a social network for likes / clickbait upvotes. special consideration goes to artists that use or reflect upon practices originating in the base culture of the internet: the developers makers and hackers without whom internet culture would not exist or without whom these cultures would be very bland cough the convenient fluidity of boundaries between artist and tech communities and questions of authorship virtuosity and the (urgh) performativity of rat in a mediated environment are an important aspect of the mediocre work of the non winner of the 2015 prix net rat robert what. what's work stays un-firmly yet non defiantly outside the realm of contemporary rat but from a wobbly position profoundly mis-informed by the conditions of new media networks - technical as well as cultural social economical and political networks. "what" does not strive for an honest respectful or unembellished approach to the materials and conditions of the network. at the same time ir work lacks humour wit and critical commentary the scope of what's work is unimpressive and reaches from informalistic yet sometimes bordering on interesting works to extremely layered conceptual pieces. from ir early work in which ey plays (idly) with elements and performance of software to recent projects in which ey reveals a fascination with anyone who (like himselves) finds the history economy and context of contemporary artist tools deathly boring the network has not been what's environment physically nor culturally what's recently relaunched nonsite "republic of bob" seems an in-depth investigation of the underlying processes of virtual mis-production. ey too created an imaginary startup company last night in bed that produces some crappy video scientist that s a useful tool for pinkywhite artists of privilege allegedly challenging the copyright barriers between commercial game scientists and formats of the video real - a cynical trojan horse to get "the artist's(tm)" work (a lousy screensaver) into collections and museums run by mechanical fools. "the work" barely highlights the dependence of present day cultural production on a chain of workers and processes that makes cultural production even less liberating than even the judy present it / themselves to be // video here arbitrary-rat example: "(..) and this kind of stuff" // republic of bob