Linda Rocco

Despite the Internet's original promise as a new infrastructure for producing and distributing art, the shift to Web 2.0 has consolidated a centralised corporate model that encloses networks’ social, organisational, and economic capabilities within gated platforms. In curatorial discourses, attempts to democratise the curatorial function through the Internet have largely crystallised in a limited view of curators as arbiters of taste, tasked primarily with selecting, juxtaposing, and arranging content. At the same time, the Western-centric approach to art promotes zero-sum cultures and a scarcity paradigm, stifling the collaborative networked potential of artists' practices— online and offline.

This research is positioned in an underexplored interstitial space of curatorial practice. It investigates the Internet as a medium, recognising in the networked environment a fertile territory for innovation in the arts. This approach aligns with the ambition of the curatorial to permeate society through porous, responsive, and practice-led mixed methods. It does not compromise on the conventions of making and showing – limited to the gallery or the museum – but as an engine for change it forges new rhizomatic pathways for systemic transformation.

In a cultural landscape increasingly influenced by AI tools and algorithmic curation, where creativity is perceived as a renewable source of innovation, this study argues that curatorial work must extend beyond traditional gatekeeping. Consequently, I have identified timely functions to integrate into the expanded field of the curatorial, in alignment with contemporary conditions of making, valuing, and distributing work. This reinforces the urgency for curatorial practice to engage, beyond specialism, with new publics and hybrid contexts.

This research leverages the Industry 5.0 framework to propose new ways of thinking and doing that reconstitute art's social, economic, and organisational foundations. As outlined by the European Commission, Industry 5.0 suggests an integrated model of human-technology collaboration, prioritising human capital and focusing on resilient, circular, and regenerative systems. This approach allows me to envision how emerging technologies, alternative working paradigms, and decentralisation principles can reformulate artists' labour and the sector's operations. If the transition from the traditional artworld to a market-driven art industry is inevitable, leveraging Industry 5.0 could facilitate the shift towards ecosystemic conceptualisations of new models and a new arts ecology. Although still surfacing, participating in Industry 5.0 and web3 debates and advocating for the agency of creative workers emerges as essential in times of increased automation.

The two core practice elements – the unlike network and its learning protocol – explore the potential of digital network systems to enable distributed governance, sophisticated resource coordination, new value paradigms, and labour exchange. Presented as early-stage prototypes, highlighting conceptual promise rather than flawless design, these propositions proactively address the need to rethink the ossified practices of Western art. Simultaneously, they advocate for the value of creative and cultural work as essential public goods and innovation engines.

The modelling of unlike creates a context for collaboration that does not yet exist, demonstrating its significance within and beyond the field of art, as a blueprint for the future.