Constant Dullaart The Censored Internet, 2014 Flags, lasers, domain name Constant Dullaart (NL, 1979) works primarily with the Internet as an alternative space of presentation and (mis)representation. His often political approach is critical of the control that corporate systems have upon our perception of the world, and the way in which we passively adopt their languages. Dullaart's practice includes websites, performances, installations and manipulated found images, presented both offline and in the public space of the Internet. Dullaart’s latest sculptural body of work is based on the official list of the 12 countries named as enemies of the internet – countries such as Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam that are accused of cyber censorship and restricting freedom of information. This work is composed of the countries’ 12 flags, hung from flagpoles so as to invade the space, combined with LED spot lighting. This lighting effect changes the colours of the flags so as to make them almost indiscernible, questioning the filtering of information via the Internet. The artist’s intervention also consists of installing a local network device allowing visitors to access the booth’s free Wi-Fi, which changes the look of the Internet pages that are accessed. Through this network, every character received or sent through the Wi-Fi connection is changed into an X, and all images appear as single colours. Generating new colourful compositions each time a webpage is accessed or an email is read, this intervention illustrates how seemingly universal information is altered when accessed locally.
