PRESS release "GWEI - Google Will Eat Itself"

We generate money by serving Google text advertisments on a network of hidden Websites. With this money we automatically buy Google shares. We buy Google via their own advertisment! Google eats itself - but in the end "we" own it!

By establishing this model we deconstruct the new global advertisment mechanisms by rendering them into a surreal click-based economic model.

After this process we hand over the common ownership of "our" Google Shares to the GTTP Ltd. [Google To The People Public Company] which distributes them back to the users (clickers) / public.

A bit more in detail

One of Google's main revenue generators is the "Adsense"* program: It places hundreds of thousands of little Google text-ads on websites around the world.

Now we have set up a vast amount of such Adsense-Accounts for our hidden Web-Sites. For each click we receive a micropaiment from Google. Google pays us monthly by cheque or bank-transfer to our Swiss e-banking account. Each time we collected enough money, we automatically buy the next Google share [NASDAQ: GOOG, todays value ~430.- USD] - we currently own 40/forty Google Shares.

Important: Google Will Eat Itself works by using a social phenomenon rather than depending on a purely technical method (for example a simple click-farm). Because of this social dimension empowered by technology, Google is not able to fight GWEI and it`s franchises by using their regular counter-fraud methods.

GWEI - Google Will Eat Itself is to show-case and unveil a total monopoly of information , a weakness of the new global advertisment system and the renaissance of the “new economic bubble" - reality is, Google is currently valued more than all Swiss Banks together (sic!).

Side stories

During our relationship with Google, we understood more and more that this friendly-fire, monster-corporation must be transformed into a public institution. The solution: The "buerau for search-engines and digital intentions".

Google Will Eat Itself has been exhibited in Galleries and Museums around the globe (The Premiese Gallery Johannesburg, Neurotitan Gallery Berlin, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney). Upcoming shows: Transmediale 06 Berlin, Overgaden Contemporary Art Institute Copenhagen, Hartware HMVK Dortmund, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, New Museum New York.
http://www.gwei.org/exhibitions

In the Press

"In 23 million years, Google will fall to the rebellion." Village Voice

"This project, as I understand it, is a meditation on the economics of Google."
John Battelle's Searchblog

„Un plan machiavélique...“ La Liberation

"This is indeed cybernetic critique!" Søren Pold

"The real objective is to hijack hits from people searching for information..."
Guerilla-Innovation Blog

Online Project Documentation

http://www.gwei.org

Media Contact

Hans Bernhard
hans@ubermorgen.com
+43 650 930 00 61

The Authors

UBERMORGEN.COM feat. Alessandro Ludovico vs. Paolo Cirio

Hans Bernhard is the founder of etoy, a art-group famous for their digital hijack (1996) and the TOYWAR (etoy vs eToys Inc., 1999/2000) and of UBERMORGEN.COM, the masterminds behind [V]ote-Auction, (CNN called Hans a "Maverick Austrian businessman"), NAZI~LINE (a collaboration with Christoph Schlingensief), AnuScan.com and Psych|OS.
www.etoy.com
www.hansbernhard.com

lizvlx is the founder of 194.152.164.137 and UBERMORGEN.COM, the masterminds behind projects such a s [V]ote-Auction (a vote-selling platform during the presidential elections 2000. The Result: 14 Lawsuits, 2500 News-features worldwide, CIA, FBI, NSA, Janet Reno), *THE*AGENCY*, bmdi.de, IPNIC.ORG / Injunction Generator, BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR and ART FID.
www.ubermorgen.com
www.vote-auction.net
www.ipnic.org

Alessandro Ludovico is a media critic and editor in chief of Neural magazine. He has written: 'Virtual Reality Handbook' (1992), 'Internet Underground.Guide' (1995), 'Suoni Futuri Digitali' (Future Digital Sounds, 2000). He's one of the founding contributors of the Nettime community and of the 'Mag.Net (European Cultural Publishers)' organization.

Paolo Cirio, aliases bidibid, 1979, lives in Turin, Italy. Paolo Cirio is part of a software-art collective [epidemiC]. As agitprop he organizes illegal events, from net-strikes to art happenings on streets and other various media jammings. He works also in video-art and in street-art. Activist against militarism of NATO, he is editor of a main international web portal about it. He works as web designer and web developer.