ubermorgen, Switzerland/Austria/USA
[V]ote-auction – “bringing capitalism and democracy closer together”.
Installation: Paper-Sculpture, Drawings, Slide-Show and Video, 2000-2004

About the artwork: 

Voteauction was a website which offered US citizens to sell their presidential vote to the highest bidder during the presidential elections between Al Gore and George W. Bush in the autumn of 2000. The Website was conceived by the student James Baumgartner and later sold to the Austrian business-artists Lizvlx and Hans Bernhard (founder of etoy) from ubermorgen in Austria. A third part in the takeover was (V)ote-auction Incorporate in Sofia/Bulgaria [a subsidiary of the ubermorgen group]. The website was purchased for an undisclosed sum. Voteauction was ubermorgens main feature Media Hacking performance in the year 2000.

"[V]ote-Auction" is one of most risky and paradoxically successfull projects by ubermorgen: it is "the only platform in the world that provide the final consumer an effective role in the American election industry". A true interchange system that finally "brings capitalism and democracy closer together“. ( where is the quote from? Its from here: http://www.d-i-n-a.net/en/metagallery/ubermorgen.html) 

Several US States (Missouri, Wisconsin, Chicago, Arizona, Nevada, California, Massachusetts, New York) issued temporary restraining orders or injunctions for alleged illegal vote trading. This led to the shutdown of 2 domains (voteauction.com and vote-auction.com). Federal Attorney Janet Reno, the FBI and the NSA were investigating the case to ensure the integrity of the voting process on november 7th, 2000. Over 1800 global and national News features in online media, print, television and radio have been reported (including a 27 min. CNN exclusive "Burden of Proof")

A follow up „legal art“ action called "The Injunction Generator" was awarded with a "Honorary Mention" at the Prix Ars Electronica 2003. The Injunction Generator is a artistic software module which claims to generate on request legal injunctions and personalized documentation in .rtf/.pdf format to force a site into taking its contents offline.

ubermorgen has exhibited the [V]ote-auction CNN tape, Voteauction-Seals and [F]original legal Documents in the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum 2001, The Premises Gallery Johannesburg 2002, Museu d`Art Contemporani de Barcelona 2003, Read_me 2.4 Helsinki 2003 and Kunsthaus Graz 2004.

About the artist:

ubermorgen is an artist group created in Vienna / Austria 1999 by lizvlx and Hans Bernhard. ubermorgen is a German word for "the day after tomorrow" and "super-tomorrow"/Uber-omorrow. Behind ubermorgen we can find one of the most uncatchable (or unmatchable?, I think uncatchable is fine…) identities - controversial and iconoclasts - of the contemporary European techno-fine art avant-garde. ubermorgens press portfolio includes art publications [Artforum, Flashart, Nettime, Rhizome, Domus]  as well as international mass media [TV stations CNN, Fox, CBS, ABC.., news-papers – New York Times, Le Monde, leading online publication and radio] and a variety of underground media. 

More info at: http://ubermorgen.com and http://vote-auction.net