Zentrum für Netzkunstnetzkunst@tldr.nettime.org

Sep 16, 2026, 5:12 PM

ROTBOTS – exhibition

/rosa, Heidelberger Str. 28, 12059 Berlin

Opening: Wednesday, 30 September 2026
Exhibition: 1–17 October 2026, open Thursday–Sunday
Panel discussion "Tactical Rot": @Vuk Ćosić and Geert Lovink, 4 October 2026 (afternoon)

ROTBOTS is a project by distant.gallery, Zentrum für Netzkunst, and @vernetztematerialitaet / Networked Materiality (AdBK Nürnberg) exploring automated content as artistic practice. While we celebrate workers' rights, protest inequality and the rise of fascism, ROTBOTS looks at a new reshuffle of resources and the means of production: not looms or assembly lines, but the means of thought itself, of paraphrasing and meaning-making. Every prompt typed and every click measured feeds a content machine whose owners have automated not only labour but the labourer. When the bosses owned the newspapers, workers printed their own. Now they own the algorithms. So we build our own machines.

ROTBOTS develops semi-autonomous content machines: systems that generate and distribute artistic brainrot across social media. Rather than feeding existing extractive platforms, the project asks whether automated content can become a form of resistance. In workshops with Sam Lavigne & @tegabrain (16 May 2026), Clusterduck (5 June 2026), @iocose (13 June 2026), and @mediengruppe_bitnik (2 July 2026), participants modified, tested, hacked and reconfigured modular tools for text and image generation and automated publishing. They developed content machines based on their own practices while contributing to a shared pool of materials. Selected outcomes will be presented in a collective exhibition, alongside the release of the project's used code on GitHub.

The project was initiated by Constant Dullaart in collaboration with Fabian Hampel and the Networked Materiality class at AdBK Nürnberg. Funded by the Stiftung Kunstfonds.

A vertical video showing a poster against a dark background. A large, rough, gray spherical object appears to hover just above a concrete floor, casting a dark oval shadow beneath it. Across the upper part of the image, large white and black block letters read “ROTBOTS.” Yellow text near the bottom reads “1–17 October 2026” and “Thursday–Sunday.” Below the image, black text on a white background reads “Opening: 30 September 2026” followed by “/rosa, Heidelberger Str. 28, 12059 Berlin.”