Can the code of a virus be read like a poem? Maybe even a revolutionary poem metaphorically celebrating the defeat of the operating systems of capitalist society? That seemed to be the challenge that the hacker group [epidemiC] proposed to Franco “Bifo” Berardi at a symposium held in connection D-I-N-A (Digital Is Not Analog) digital art festival. The philosopher with ties to the Italian autonomist movement grabbed the microphone and began reading the code of the infamous ILOVEYOU virus worm that spread on the Internet in the spring of 2000. Berardi starts out in a sober manner reminiscent of how a computer generated voice would read the text, but as the reading continues he becomes more and more agitated – more and more human, one could say – turning the event into an abstract political speech.

Image: [epidemiC] "loveLetter.vbs reading" Bologna, D-I-N-A Festival, May 24, 2001