About parasite-net

parasite-net aims at raising the public awareness of artists and designers, through providing them with their own web space on the parasite-net platform in order to help to present them to a wider public. The platform parasite-net should serve as a database of artists and designers and it is striven for it to become a tool for professionals out of the art and design sector used to discover new talents. On the other hand it can also be used in order to get information on new works of specific artists and their exhibition schedule. Participants who already have their own website and who want to use parasite-net for an additional presentation possibility in order to belong to a larger community of artists and designers are welcome as well as those, who want to use parasite-net for their first presentation in the internet. As a database for artists and designers parasite-net does not claim to be the sole place that can be consulted for data about artists and designers but rather aims at networking different existing platforms and provide the possibility to get connected to each other. parasite-net is giving artists and designers the chance to keep their sites up to date by themselves. In each account that the members generate an easy-to-use form is provided where members can fill in basic data and furthermore there exists a simple upload function in order to add images, video files, CVs, or news in your personal blog. The name parasite-net has derived from a parable by the French philosopher Michel Serres in his book “The parasite“. In this story a poor man stands outside a fancy restaurant and sees a rich man eating roast inside. The poor man smells the delicious roast and thinks to himself if he smells this wonderful odour of the roast a little longer his hunger will be gone and he will feel saturated. Suddenly, the owner of the restaurant runs outside up to the poor man and says to him that he has to pay in order to stand here and smell the wonderful odour of the roast. Soon a heated argument evolves. A minute later another man passes by and offers to settle the dispute. He asks to the poor man for a coin and puts it on the floor. Then he starts to spin the coin so that it produces a mellow tone and he says: “The roast is paid with money and the smell of the roast is paid with sound.“ In order to guarantee a certain coherence amongst the members of parasite-net, the artists and designers who join the platform are revised from time to time by an international board of art/design advisors as we want to control the quality of users that we support through our work. Users that do not fit the profile of the platform will not be admitted to be displayed on the platform and this can be done without further notice.