Artist
Dennis Cooper made a horrifying discovery June 27: His 14-year-old blog—the
sole home of his experimental writing, research, photographs, and more—was
gone, Art Forum reports.
According
to Fusion, Cooper's blog was hosted by Google-owned Blogger, and those headed
to denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com are greeted with the message,
"Sorry, the blog at denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com has been
removed. This address is not available for new blogs." It's not all he
lost: Google also deactivated his Gmail account, which held his contacts and
gig offers, the Guardian reports.
The
only explanation Google gave Cooper, who considers his blog a "serious
work of mine," was a stock message that he was in "violation of the
terms of service agreement." Cooper on Saturday wrote on Facebook that
despite numerous efforts to communicate with Google, it "remains
completely silent, not a comment, response, explanation, nothing." Google
has apparently made one comment, to Fusion, saying only it is "aware of
this matter." The incident is raising concerns among the art community
about the power Google and other corporations now have to control artistic
voices.
"I
think this is definitely censorship. The problem is nobody knows what the
specific issue is and certainly Dennis has posted images that one might find
troubling,” Stuart Comer, curator at MoMA, tells the Guardian, which notes
Cooper's blog featured an adult content warning. All Cooper knows is that other
artists need to learn from him and "back everything up," something he
did not do, meaning he has lost, among other things, a gif novel he's been
writing for seven months. A Change.org petition is asking Google to restore the
blog.
Want a websites? Contact Spokes Technologies