When the Korea Web Art Festival commissioned a new online work, the artists executed a subtle hack without informing anyone, including the curator. On the opening night, they logged into the exhibition website and exploited a minor security flaw to swap the names of the artworks.
The artworks themselves were not altered, but visitors to the exhibition were unknowingly redirected to different works than the ones they had selected. This altered version of the exhibition was live for a few hours before the vulnerability was fixed and the original version was restored.
The artists were intrigued by the idea of performing online, but the action had catastrophic consequences. The Korean Ministry of Culture responded by firing the curator and canceling the festival entirely, while some of the participating artists felt deceived. The event sparked a heated online debate, raising questions about authorship, the potential of online art, censorship, and identity.
