Simon Denny
Modded Server Rack Display
with Some Interpretations ofDavid Darchicourt Designs as
Freelance Designer

Marciana Library ceiling(1588) as Knowledge
Visualization

This modular office furniture system was designed
by Ayse Birsel and introduced in 1999. It eliminates
cubicles, replacing them with vertical poles fromwhich desks and shelves can be hung to create
workstation clusters. […] The “human-centred”
design is intended to encourage social interaction,
facilitate communication, and foster teamwork.

3“The traditional hierarchy is reaching its limits.
More responsibility, more accountability, and theupending of management hierarchies will lead toa greater sense of purpose for rank-and-file
employees. You are all now entrepreneurs.” –Brian J. Robertson, Developer

All text quoted fromworks bySimon Denny,
written by
Matt Goerzen.

Modded Server Rack Display:
Hacking the Commons
While advocates of free software and open source
software exist in a shared ecosystem, philosophicaldifferences abound. However, on one point there is an
undeniable consensus: most projects feature a cartoonish
animal as their mascot, plush toy versions of which stand“The workplace is essential infrastructure, closelyaligned to work activities and organisational
culture, making it possible for people to work in
new and different ways and creating a strong
visual expression of the organisation’s values.”

Modded Server Rack Display:
Hacking Trust

From Camping to Conventions: Founded in 1981,
Germany’s Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of theoldest hacking organizations in continued existence.
Every four years members are joined by hackers
from all over the world at the Chaos Communication
Camp, an informal retreat held on the fringes of amajor city in Germany and suited to philosophicaldebate, political discussion, and community
building.

Modded Server Rack Display:
Hackathon
Hackathons often begin after work on Friday andgo until Sunday evening. Participants sometimes
attempt to stay awake for the entire duration,
often aided by a ready supply of pizza andcaffeinated beverages provided by organisers.

than destruction or profit, the punishment most often
did not seem to fit the crime.
Notorious network infiltrator Kevin Mitnick wasarrested in 1995 and detained for years under highsecurity, due to the belief that he could “start a nuclear
war by whistling into a pay phone.” His supporters
believed the conditions and length of his detainment were
excessive. The publishers of 2600 magazine […] drovea de-commissioned phone company van across the UnitedStates to raise awareness and support for Mitnick’s case.
Ultimately Mitnick was released in 2000, where upon
he founded a security consultancy, offering his services tomany of the companies whose systems he had illegally
accessed only years earlier.

on the desks of many developers, keeping them company
during late night hacking sessions.
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges facing free andopen source communities has been a historical reliance on
hardware manufactured by large corporations. […] While
open hardware has long been a dream of hackers, thehigh costs of customized hardware production have so far
limited their activities almost exclusively to the domain ofsoftware.

lic T

Modded Server Rack Display:
Network Hack 2.0
With the development of the modem and the massavailability of personal computers such as the Commodore
Amiga, computer networking over phone lines became
accessible to average citizens in the 1980s. Some directconnection computer bulletin board systems (BBSes) and
ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, still required

Modded Server Rack Display:
Legitimacy Hack
As hacker ranks swelled and their capabilities became
both more defined and more misunderstood, somesecurity-minded hackers began to see their role less as
explorers and tinkerers and more as experts anddefenders. Adopting the mantle of “white hat” toinstitutional credentials to access, but clever hackers could
always find a way […]. Hackers also honed their skills
and defined their communities by accessing and sharing
files on personal—and sometimes very secretive—BBS
systems, some of which advertised their unique services bycommissioning ASCII and ANSI text-based artworks frommembers of the burgeoning “art scene,” refining hacker
jargon, hacker communities, and hacker aesthetics in theprocess.

Modded Server Rack Display:
Adapting Hacking
The Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC), a student
organization formed at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (MIT) in 1946, is often considered thebirthplace of hacking culture. Known to repurpose
telephone system switches to create complex train
networks, […] TMRC members showed similar

inventiveness in accessing the institution’s treasured TX-0
and PDP-1 computers. Drawing on the MIT student
tradition of clever pranksterism, which they called“hacks”, the TMRC programmers adopted the term todescribe their methods of computer use and explorationthat went far beyond the usual number crunching. Their[…] early hacker ethos [was] defined by total access (the“Hands-On Imperative”), freedom of information,
decentralization, sharing, and a desire to improve thehuman condition.

Modded Server Rack Display:
Network Hack 1.0
Pay telephone used to place calls from public locations.
By using phones like these instead of home telephone lines,
phone phreaks preserved their anonymity when using thephone system in illegal or semi-legal ways.

ransp

o r t : 35 m i n Wa l k i n g : 3

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Formalised Org Chart/
Architectural Model: GCHQ 1

Formalised Org Chart/
Architectural Model: Apple
Campus 2 under construction

Modded Server Rack Display:
Community Hack

Social Advocacy Bumper: In the 1980s a new wave of
hackers […] played across computer networks with
impunity— accessing any system they could find, often
merely for the challenge and sometimes also for thesensitive data they contained. Concerned by theinnumerable breaches to sensitive military, state, andcorporate systems, US law enforcement began “Operation
Sundevil,” arresting many individuals, raiding nascenthackspaces, and creating new legal regimes […] to honetheir powers. To hackers more interested in exploration

Pub“First we shape our buildings, and afterwards
our buildings shape us.” – Winston Churchill

Modded Server Rack Display:
Pro Hacking

Modded Server Rack Display:
Hacking Norms

in“Gensler counts GCHQ, Europe’s largest private
finance initiative (PFI) development, as one of its
prominent successes.” – Chris Johnson, Architect“Front line decision making with ‘pre approval’.
Because true delegation means accepting it won’t
be done as you’d do it.” – Designed by [namecensored], Lead Business Analyst/Developer,
GCHQ

Hack to Pro: The growing body of techniques
discovered by hackers to infiltrate computer
networks for any variety of reasons has led to manydifferent approaches and organizational forms.
Some hackers banded together into hackspaces,
working together to develop new tools capable ofbreaking down or building up network security.
Many of these became full-blown companies,
applying their skills to help businesses and states
secure themselves by understanding where they
were most vulnerable. Others continued to shareknowledge through underground text-basedmagazines, or sell the vulnerabilities they discoveredon black markets to the highest bidder—be theycriminal organizations or state intelligence wings.

0mr:Formalised Org Chart/
Architectural Model: Holacracy

Formalised Org Chart/
Architectural Model:Apple Campus 2 Mac Pro“Don’t allow cynics in, they can destroy aculture.”Cartoon character design commissioned from David
Darchicourt through the Behance platform during
the research phase of the 2015 New Zealand Venice
Biennale National Pavilion. Commission request
specified a cyborg version of the tuatara, New
Zealand’s national lizard.
For [the second] version, Darchicourt depicts theanthropomorphic tuatara character waving a New
Zealand flag while wearing hiking boots, a neckscarf, a slouch hat, and a t-shirt emblazoned withthe kiwi, one of New Zealand’s national symbols.

Fra Mauro World Map (1448-53)
as Data Visualization

Formalised Org Chart/
Architectural Model: GCHQ 3
Agile/Holacracy Workspace

Modded Server Rack Display
with Some Interpretations ofDavid Darchicourt Designs for
National Cryptologic Museum

Ca

POSITIVE PRESS BOARDGAME
The game’s visual identity and graphics were madeby David Darchicourt. […] “Positive Press is a new
board game that teaches school-age children tothink positively while having fun and being creative.
The game helps to prevent negative beliefs which
can sometimes lead to depression. It engages
children with its light and playful approach byincorporating a little adventure and exploration,with a journalism theme.”“DIVE INTO SOCIAL NETWORKING” AND OTHER
SMART SHARKS CARD GAMESThese David Darchicourt-illustrated card games
purchased from Franklin Learning Systems areintended to teach a variety of life skills. […]Players learn “netiquette essentials” with“social-networking diva” Tess Tiger. The gameteaches principles such as “anything posted on asocial networking site is public information” and“to be careful about revealing public information
about themselves and others.”

Illustrative map commissioned from former NSA
Creative Director of Defence Intelligence David
Darchicourt, printed on Dibond. The map depicts
New Zealand as the center of the world, oriented
with the South at the top. In this work, Darchicourt
has been commissioned to draw sites, moments, andfigures frequently used to characterize New Zealandin the popular imagination. Labels picturing
members of Great Britain’s royal family, a Maori¯
Village, and a hobbit—to name just a few suchtropes—surround a scattering of cyber-themed
surfers and Air New Zealand aircraft. Red lines trace
the paths of the submarine communications cables
that connect New Zealanders to the rest of the world.

Emblem used by NSA to refer to POISONNUT, a Virtual
Private Network Attack Orchestrator (VAO) that enables
attacks on users who have taken steps to guard against
monitoring profiles online, here reinterpreted in paint on
novelty plastic peanut. The logo was designed by NSA

Custom-Ordered and Finished
Herman Miller Resolve System
Office Furniture withDavid Darchicourt Designs andImagery from SlidestnModded Server Rack Display
with David Darchicourt
Commissioned Map of Aotearoa
New ZealandCreative Director David Darchicourt while he was working
at the agency between 2001 and 2012. Charlotte Higgins
from The Guardian newspaper spoke to Darchicourt about
his role in designing this graphic […]. “My cartooning issomething they found useful from time to time—it could
be a good communication tool, helping express complex
information in a very simple way.” Darchicourt said hewas “particularly involved in working on internal security
and security awareness.”

L S < - > B r u ss e l s A i r p o rmi

BUSINESS INSIDER

Modded Server-Rack Display with
Former NSA Designer/Guardian

WIE

Code as Law: Cryptography is not only useful for
rendering messages inaccessible to unwanted
parties, it can also be used to guarantee thevalidity of a piece of information. Drawing uponthis application, hackers active on the“cypherpunks” mailing list began discussing thepossibility of entirely electronic forms of currency
in the late 1980s. After several failed but
educational attempts to create such a system, amysterious entity known only as “Satoshi
Nakomoto” released the open-source Bitcoin
software in 2009. Suddenly, a very specialized
and esoteric field of activity was catapulted into
the broader hacker community—alongsidediscussions of the radically disruptive social,economic, and political transformations such atechnology could enable.

differentiate themselves from the “black hat” label
frequently applied to the criminal and self-interested
elements of the underground community, rather thanhoarding discovered security vulnerabilities for private
profit or personal use, these hackers advocated public“full disclosure”: the publication of any discovered security
flaw in the interest of prompting governments andinstitutions to safeguard the critical services and hardware
infrastructures their users depend upon.

Modded Server Rack Display:
Hack Making
The hacker imperative to open and explore all systems haslong been constrained by the unique challenges posed byhardware and physical manufacturing. The contemporary
maker community seeks to defy these limitations byFormalised Org Chart/
Architectural Model:
GCHQ 2 Agile
RULES OF AGILE SPACE
STAND-UP MEETING SPACE: The stand-up
meeting is a core activity of the agile process,space needs to be allocated for stand-ups.
While there is nothing mystical about its spatial
requirements, without a designated location,
this vital activity can be made to suffer.
BE MESSY IN A GOOD WAY: Call it a backlash
against the abstract nature of softwaredevelopment, but agile teams are particularly
obsessed with stuff: post-its, burndown charts,
whiteboards in every format known. Agile
environments must embrace the messiness.

Modded Server Rack Display:
Hack Change
Demonstration Without Identity: In the 1990s,
technology-minded activists like the Electronic
Disturbance Theater began to translate practicesof civil disobedience into digital networks. Aroundthe same time hacker groups like Cult of the DeadCow began creating technologies such as Back
Orifice, which simultaneously disclosed security
vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system
and also enabled users to exploit them. In sodoing they motivated increased security awarenessnot by political or legal advocacy, but rather bytrollish provocation and theatrics—creating apressing need for the risks to be addressed. Suchtactics reached new heights in the mid-2000s withthe emergence of hacktivist groups like
Anonymous […] While at first characterized in
the media as “hackers on steroids,” many
Anonymous activities combined technical expertisewith sensationalist media savviness, inclusive
organizational principles, hardcore activist politics,
and a willingness to adopt masks and take theirconcerns to the streets.

subverting proprietary, mass produced hardware
capabilities or, increasingly, by collaborating to build open
hardware systems and free libraries of 3D-printable
designs. Such commons have been seized upon by both
idealists and captains of industry as tools with thepotential to radically disrupt processes of production anddistribution, as well as the social and political systems they
support.

Products for Organising: modded server rack displays

Simon Denny is fascinated by technology, notas an end in itself, but as a force that reflects
and shapes our society, our ideas, ourunderstanding. In this body of work, hetraces the emergence of hacker culture andits subsequent co-option by and collaboration
with government and big business as acatalyst for innovation.
Taking a journalistic approach to his
research – editorializing rarely – Dennyrecounts the origins of the hacker movement
as groups of people who quickly adopted avariety of positions and practices: frompranks played by computer scientists within
universities, to protests by early digital
activists. Avoiding either the demonizationor the glorification of hacking, Denny reveals
some of the ways it has become interwoven inglobal politics. He maps the activities of both“black hat” and “white hat” hackers: thoseworking against and those working within
the dominant structures of power (whether
governmental or corporate). In doing so, hesuggests the interdependency of seemingly
contrary forces.
Denny is a visual artist and locateshimself within the lineage of conceptual art
and institutional critique. The forms that heemploys to share (and to further) his research
are familiar to the realm of visual art andmuseum display, while also embodying theaesthetic of digital technology’s soft- andhardware. In Denny’s hands, museum
vitrines with their explanatory labels takethe form of modified server racks. These
racks contain objects that the artist hasbought to illustrate his story, but also
products (and their fictitious packaging) that
he has created. The narrative – written by
Denny in collaboration with artist andresearcher Matt Goerzen and artist andbrand consultant Emily Segal – shifts fromthe glass panels of the vitrines to the objects
contained inside. The books presented in theplatforms (on which the vitrines stand) arecustom-printed, their titles and back-coversummaries highlighting the key theme orstory of each work.

Amira Gad, curator of Denny’s recent solo
show at the Serpentine Galleries describes
how Denny establishes a means of readingthat is analogous to reading online: “Denny’s
use of appropriation and copying can beunderstood to mirror our current usage of theInternet; we move from one of his vitrines tothe next, just as we browse from one window
to another to complete the information beingtransferred to us. Denny’s practice, as part ofan age of digital reproduction, blurs any
possible distinction between original andcopy […] reflecting the uncontrollable natureof online information dissemination.” 1
1. A
 mira Gad, ‘Culturehacking: Inside (and Outside)
Simon Denny’s Work,’ in Products for Organising,Serpentine Galleries & Koenig Books, London, 2015,
p.188

Secret PowerIn 2013, the whistle-blower Edward Snowden
leaked to The Guardian and otherinternational newspapers a large number ofsecret documents produced by the American
National Security Agency (NSA) and its
partner countries of the Five Eyes
intelligence alliance: United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand. The
documents – predominantly internal memosand PowerPoint presentations – revealed theextent to which the intelligence agencies ofthese countries were monitoring the private
communications between their citizens
domestically and with foreigners. Wheninvited to represent New Zealand at the 2015
Venice Biennale, Denny proposed a projectthat would investigate these slides as visualexpressions of a broader culture ofsurveillance.
Denny worked together with graphic
designer David Bennewith in examining the
iconography of these documents that were
never destined to be made public and which
thus do not adopt the tone or appearance ofofficial national statements. Indeed, as Keller
Easterling notes of the slides: “In addition to
the usual eagles and globes, there are cartoon
animals or cartoon bad guys wearing bandit
costumes or a clip-art leprechaun andfour-leaf clover to decorate materials about
BLARNEY, an NSA telecommunications
surveillance programme.” 3Intrigued by the unexpected aesthetic of
the NSA’s designs, Denny and Bennewith
sought for their author figure and discovered
David Darchicourt, Creative Director at the
NSA between 2001-2012. Denny
commissioned Darchicourt – now working asa freelance designer and illustrator – tocreate a new map of New Zealand, featuring
several elements related to the country’s
participation in the Five Eyes alliance (suchas the location of a listening station, or the
points at which optical cables reach thecountry) together with tourist-related
features. The resulting map appears in thelarge module that we encounter on entering
the space. Other designs by Darchicourt arepresented and/or appropriated in the otherlarge server racks, to the left and the right. In
the one single server rack, Darchicourt
himself appears, drawn in his own cartoonish
style, with information taken from his
LinkedIn profile and website. The work
incorporates quotes from an interview with
Darchicourt by The Guardian, whoapproached him when Denny’s project
became public, revealing to him for the firsttime the context in which his newly
commissioned design was being shown.
Such a feedback loop is typical of Denny’s
approach, which is analytical but neverpolemical. As Robert Leonard, curator of the
Venice Pavilion in 2015 notes: “The vitrines
include evidence Denny has found, but also
evidence he has commissioned. Indeed,nothing is unprocessed. Denny has treatedalmost every item, determining its scale,sheen, and placement, translating it from one
medium to another.” 4 The result is
information overload, putting us – the viewer– metaphorically into a similar position to the
NSA: trying to sift through data to makesense of it all. For Leonard, this is Denny’s
implicit critique: “The NSA does not likecomplexity. It needs to defeat information
overload in order to distill complexity into
simplicity, into goodies and baddies, us andthem. Denny, by contrast, revels in suchinformation overload for the uncertainty it
brings. He uses it to exercise us, to stretch us,
to make us more suspicious, self-conscious.” 5
In Venice, Denny selected the Biblioteca
Marciana as one of the venues for SecretPower.6 This library is a repository ofknowledge, but also a representation of
power. Designed by Jacopo d’Antonio
Sansovino in 1537 and decorated by painterssuch as Titian and Tintoretto, the libraryuses classical mythology to celebrate thedivine destinies and the civil and military
duties of man. Its holdings include the Fra
Mauro map, which charts the geopoliticalknowledge available to the Republic ofVenice when it was at its most powerful. Of
this symbolically and visually charged space,

Products for Organising: organisational charts / architectural models

Winston Churchill – with his talent foraphorism – once declared: “First we shape
our buildings, and afterwards our buildings
shape us.” Denny quotes the global
architectural firm Gensler using this phraseof Churchill’s in one of the pieces presented
here. These works explore how largeorganizations are adopting management
practices – and architecture – based onmodels of radical flexibility and open
collaboration.
Denny takes as his case studies the newheadquarters of Apple (Campus 2) currently
under construction in Cupertino, USA, andthe British Government Communications
Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham,
England. Both buildings have an open,
circular floor-plan: Campus 2 is nicknamed“the Spaceship,” while GCHQ is known as“the Doughnut.” The latter can be seen as thearchitectural embodiment of the management
structures it employs: Holacracy and Agile.
As Amira Gad explains, Holacracy is “a new
way of running an organization that aims toremove power from management hierarchyand distribute it across clear roles that are
dynamic and allow room for autonomous
execution. ‘Circles’ replace teams and ‘Roles’
replace job descriptions. Agile, a highly
flexible methodology that grew out ofsoftware development methods, emphasizes
flexibility and evolving collaborations
between teams prompted to constantly
reassess themselves.” 2
Denny is intrigued by the way that twovery different organizations – one of theworld’s most successful technology
companies, the other a government
intelligence agency – adopt similarorganisational structures that are built uponideologies which were initially fundamental
to counter-culture movements. Hacker
collectives were early adopters of working
methods and spaces that were closely
connected to – and replicated by – thesoftware they were developing.

Denny explores the motives behind suchorganisational structures and the way inwhich they can be appropriated andformalised through architecture. His
sculptures take the form of architecturalmodels, whose display method is reminiscentof a commercial trade fair, with easily
demountable and standardized platforms,
and graphic design that features quotes frommanagement gurus and property developers.
These wheel-like forms also function as
noticeboards, suggesting the outcome of abrainstorm session, full of motivational
catchphrases, bullet points and diagrams.
Like a visual anthropologist, Denny employs– and in doing so, reveals – the aesthetic of
the contemporary workplace.
In examining GCHQ, Denny’s work
touches upon questions of national security,
the culture inside powerful organizations,the invasion of privacy, and the mapping of
knowledge, topics explored in the works inthe following gallery space. His reproductionof the Fra Mauro map acts as a frontispiece tohis earlier project: Secret Power.

Secret Power

Biography

Denny says: “It’s revealing to compare thosemaps and globes with the icons and graphics
in the Snowden slides, which describe themost sophisticated geopolitical tools
available to the United States and its Five
Eyes partners today.” 7
For his exhibition at WIELS, Denny has
transformed the Marciana’s ceiling into afloor sticker. In this inversion, the gods arebrought down to earth, perhaps suggestingthat the seemingly all-powerful NSA can also
be brought down to earth, or made moretangible, by the revelation of its internallanguage, structure and iconography.

Simon Denny (b. 1982 in Auckland, New
Zealand) lives and works in Berlin. Soloexhibitions include: Serpentine Gallery,
London; MoMA PS1, New York (both 2015);
Portikus, Frankfurt (2014). Recent groupshows include: 13th Lyon Biennale (2015),
After Babel, Moderna Museet, Stockholm(2015); Europe, Europe, Astrup FearnleyMuseet, Oslo (2014); Art Post-Internet, Ullens
Center, Beijing (2014). Denny represented
New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale(2015).

3. Keller Easterling, ‘KOH-wa-ee’ in Products for
Organising, op. cit., p.184.
4. R
 obert Leonard, ‘Too Much Information,’ in SecretPower, Mousse Publishing, Milan & Koenig Books,
London, 2015, p.15
5. Ibid., p.16
6. T he second venue for Secret Power in Venice was
the Marco Polo airport, the first airport to be built
post-September 11.
7. ‘ Mary Barr Talks to Simon Denny’ in Secret Power,
op. cit., p.96

2. A mira Gad, ‘Culturehacking: Inside (and Outside)
Simon Denny’s Work,’ in Products for Organising,Serpentine Galleries & Koenig Books, London, 2015,
p.188

List of Works

Products for Organising: Modded Server Rack
Displays
For all 12 Modded Server Rack Displays:
Narrative by Matt Goerzen, suggested product title
by Emily Segal
Modded Server Rack Display: Hacking the Commons(2015)
Courtesy: private collection
Modded Server Rack Display: Network Hack 2.0 (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Modded Server Rack Display: Adapting Hacking (2015)
Courtesy: Alastair Cookson Collection, London
Modded Server Rack Display: Network Hack 1.0 (2015)
Courtesy: private collection
Modded Server Rack Display: Hack Making (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Modded Server Rack Display: Pro Hacking (2015)
Courtesy: Collection Matthew Gorson
Modded Server Rack Display: Hacking Norms (2015)
Courtesy: private collection
Modded Server Rack Display: Legitimacy Hack (2015)
Courtesy: private collection
Modded Server Rack Display: Hack Change (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Modded Server Rack Display: Community Hack (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Modded Server Rack Display: Hackathon (2015)
Courtesy: Daskal Collection
Modded Server Rack Display: Hacking Trust (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

Products for Organising: Formalised Org Charts/
Architectural Models
Formalised Org Chart/Architectural Model: Apple
Campus 2 under construction (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

20.05 – 14.08.2016

Formalised Org Chart/ Architectural Model: GCHQ 2
Agile (2015)
Courtesy: Eugenio Lopez
Formalised Org Chart/Architectural Model: GCHQ 3
Agile/Holacracy Workspace (2015)
Courtesy: Rubell Family Collection
Formalised Org Chart/Architectural Model: Apple
Campus 2 Mac Pro (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Formalised Org Chart/Architectural Model:
Holacracy (2015)
Courtesy: private collection

Secret Power
Fra Mauro World Map (1448-53) as Data Visualization(2016)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Modded Server Rack Display with David Darchicourt
Commissioned Map of Aotearoa New Zealand (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Modded Server Rack Display with Some Interpretationsof David Darchicourt Designs as Freelance Designer(2015)
Courtesy: private collection

Simon Denny
Business Insider

Modded Server Rack Display with Some Interpretationsof David Darchicourt Designs for National Cryptologic
Museum (2015)
Courtesy: Lewben Art Foundation
Custom-Ordered and Finished Herman Miller Resolve
System Office Furniture with David Darchicourt
Designs and Imagery from Slides (2015)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

ENGLISH

Modded Server-Rack Display with Former NSA
Designer/Guardian (2016)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Marciana Library ceiling (1588) as knowledge
Visualization (2016)
Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

Formalised Org Chart/Architectural Model: GCHQ 1(2015)
Courtesy: collection Si Shang Art Museum, Beijing

EventsInfo

19 May 2016, 19:00,
Opening & conversation between Simon
Denny & Zoë Gray (EN)

Simon Denny: Business Insider
20.05 – 14.08.2016
Curator: Zoë Gray

1 June 2016, 19:00,
Look Who’s Talking guided tour by Zoë Gray,
WIELS senior curator (FR)WIELS
Avenue Van Volxemlaan 354,
1190 Brussels+32 (0)2 340 00 53
welcome@wiels.org
www.wiels.org

14 June 2016, 19:00,
Look Who’s Talking guided tour by Vivian
Ziherl, Amsterdam-based critic and curator(EN)
28 June 2016, 19:00,
Lecture Speaking law to power – about
secrets, cowboys and spies in a data-driven
world by Mireille Hildebrandt, Research
Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels(EN)
14 August 2016, 14:00,
Film screening: CITIZENFOUR (2015),
Laura Poitras’ portrait of Edward Snowden
EN (Subtitles in French)

Open from Tuesday until Sunday, 11am-6pm
Closed on Mondays
Every first and third Wednesday of the monthopen until 9pm
Exhibition organised in collaboration with
the Serpentine Galleries, London
With the support ofVan Den Weghe
Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
T293 RomeJackson Tang

Design: David Bennewith / Colophon, with Bram vanden Berg (citing the WIELS house style developed bySara De Bondt)
ER / VU: Dirk Snauwaert — Av. Van Volxemln 354,
1190 Brussels

Introduction

In his work, Simon Denny explores how power, politics and aesthetics
are intertwined. With a critical eye, he unpicks the structures thatshape our lives, be they governmental, corporate, architectural, legal
or rhetorical. Questioning how changes in technology alter our
experience of the world, Denny’s work is as multi-layered and complex
as the reality in which we now find ourselves.
Sometimes labelled “post-internet”, Denny’s practice is reflective of
the systemic societal changes that have taken place in recent decades,
referred to as the digital revolution. In his installations, he adopts
techniques such as “drag and drop” or the zooming in and out oflayers of information that the Windows-like interface has madecommonplace. Yet his work remains determinedly sculptural in its
materiality. He uses his skills of synthesis and image-making torender immaterial information tangible.
The exhibition appropriates the title of a popular US-founded global
news website, which features business, technology and celebrity
stories: Business Insider. Its CEO and editor is a former Wall Street
securities trader, who was charged with fraud and banned fromtrading. Using a title that is anonymously corporate yet politicallycharged, Denny raises the question of his own complicity with thefields that he investigates.
Given Denny’s interest in how information is shared and visualized,
and his fascination for maps as both tools and symbols, we decided to
produce a map as a guide to this exhibition. Conceived together withDavid Bennewith – a long-term collaborator of Denny’s – it contains an
introduction to the three distinct but related bodies of work in theshow. The map features quotations taken from the works themselves.