ThePirateCinema

Which work have you chosen?
I have chosen the work of Nicolas Maigret called “The Pirate Cinema”

What is it?
This work is essentially fractions of peer-to-peer file sharing. It shows the hidden activity in real time and also shows the geographical region. There are different examples showed on the performance/presentation, such as;
- Music
- Audio books
- Movies
- Porn
- Documentaries
- Video games
The whole composition is based on the BitTorrent files being exchanged.

How does the work operate and what kind of software/programming language was used?

The work operates in such way that it picks up files which are currently being shared between users via the “P2P” (peer-to-peer) networking technology of file sharing. This file sharing is in real time and consists of irrational cuts of the files that are being exchanged.

Most likely, the P2P software program ( and a telecommunications control software?) was used in this piece. The running and control of telecommunication surveillance is a responsibility of telecommunications control software.

What is the concept? (the plan or intention)

In www.thepiratecinema.com it is said, “This model is more than a type of digital network architecture, as it clearly reflects ideological choices that have an impact on the way society is understood.”

I can really relay to the idea that this Peer-to-Peer file sharing on the web being almost like a metaphor of society nowadays. It is said that it reflects choices, and by that I believe what is meant is the extend of freedom people have on the internet. It is their choice if they want to share an article, or maybe even write an article, or direct and upload a short movie. The concept of this work is also interconnection on the internet platform. In the Performance of “The Pirate Cinema”, we see multiple fragments of this information being shared. In such way, when applying for a job for instance, people share personal information such as DOB, previous jobs, previous school or university, photos of themselves, and all this, to prove that they can fit into the utopia.

What do you like about it?

I like the fact that it is both image and sound and that the artist has expanded his view to all different categories of the media such as audio of people learning languages, movies, music and etc. I also really enjoyed the opening and the vivid statement from the first torrent stating that “Home Cooking Is Killing The Restaurant Industry” , because of the first torrent being shared was of cooking recipes from famous restaurant. I thought it made a strong point. The actual statement sounds quite ridiculous to me. In a way mirrors how some people may say that the internet can be considered to make our life worse than better. I also liked the use of a map when presenting the speech of people speaking different languages and how the country of each language will light up whilst the language is being spoken from that same country.

Can you try to look at the source code and decode some of the logics?

Who is the artist and what is her/his background?

It is almost impossible to find any information on Nicolas Maigret’s background.

In an interview he says that “Back in 2008, I was interested in materializing the abstraction of data that is endlessly collected as machine-language inside black boxes”
( http://www.digicult.it/news/global-proxy-an-interview-with-nicolas-maigret/ )
This is just a description of what his career really is.

-Nicolas Maigret exposes the internal workings of media, through an exploration of their dysfunctions, limitations or failure thresholds which he develops sensory and immersive audio visual experiences.
-He teaches at Parsons Paris and cofounded the Art of Failure collective in 2006. (http://thepiratecinema.com/installation/ )