The Institute of Alice Guo Studies (copy)

How do we transform the extremophile into a situated artist-activist institution? What does it look like and what if we can make copies of it as easily as we duplicate, modify a meme? The Institute of Alice Guo Studies (copy) is a research and production agency concentrating on pirate strategies, mediatic capacities, and governance networks that condition "another" Philippine life. Fugitive mayor and fraudster Alice Guo is our person of interest, using her as a medium to investigate our extreme realities. What do we take from love scam operations, fictive identities, and seductive Tiktok propaganda in the formation of new institutes that could face our current conditions? Under the Lab 4 Weird Futures, collaborators are invited to make copies of the Institute by hacking into production, programming protocols, and designing futures for an institution under permanent state of emergency: like a zine or a meme, one that's reproducible, on-the-move, always mutating. 

About Mac Andre Arboleda 

Mac is an artist interested in exploring the sickness of the Internet through research and dialogue, art and text, organizing and publishing. They are the Founding President of the UP Internet Freedom Network and co-founder of the Artists for Digital Rights Network. A recipient of the 2024 Judson-Morrissey Excellence in New Media Award, they have previously completed residencies hosted by Beta Festival, transmediale, Akademie Schloss Solitude, and the ESRC Digital Good Network. Their texts have appeared in ACM Interactions, fine print magazine, and ADJACENT, among others. "ILOVEYOU: 25th Anniversary" is a radio special they recently programmed inviting tech saboteurs, trade unionists, and cultural workers to commemorate the legacy of the computer virus, broadcasted on Manila Community Radio and Radio Alhara. Previously, they co-organized Zine Orgy (2015-2020) and Munzinelupa (2018-2020), both events-based platforms for artists and independent publishers held in Los Baños and Muntinlupa City, Philippines respectively. 

Potential collaborators (skills, background, interests) 

Ideal collaborators are artists, technologists, designers, community organizers, and influencers sick of the art world, the academia, and/or the NGO industrial complex, with experience in disbanded collectives, criminalized or outsourced labor, and/or failed movements.  

We're especially interested in those who are able to think with, through, and beyond the extreme conditions of the Philippines to test the building blocks for an institute fit to respond to the current global crises. Tech tinkerers, meme-makers, gender dissidents, and tech unionists are especially encouraged to join the project team.