Dasha Ilina – ADVICE WELL TAKEN Folk Tales of Digital Salvation

dasha-ilina

EMAP / Impakt, English, 186 pages, 2024, The Netherlands

ADVICE WELL TAKEN is an artist book of the kind that only enlightened tech-culture artists can make. It fits seamlessly into what Dasha Ilina (interviewed in issue #66) defines as ‘techlore’, or, as the subtitle also reads: ‘folk tales of digital salvation’. Explicitly inspired by Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, yet explored with her own unique taste and perspective, the book contains what Ilina has been collecting for some time: tales from internet folklore about alleged hacks, DIY solutions, conspiracies and, more generally, the opaque functionalities of modern technologies. The narrative of these tales, drawn from the twenty video recorded interviews, is condensed into a few lines in print and has a strong narrative force that is in continuity with her previous project, Center for Technological Pain. They straddle the threshold between good and evil, the invisible intrusion into our own intimate space, and some unexpected (miraculous) tips that put technology at our service rather than the other way around. This text contains a wealth of work exploring technoculture in its popular and contradictory manifestations. The book, designed by Supisara Burapachaisri in a pretty retro (1990s) graphic design, is also an archive of the artist residency she spent at IMPACKT as part of the European Media Art Platform (EMAP) program.