LOOPHOLE FOR ALL
HACKING AND EXPOSING CAYMAN ISLANDS COMPANIES, 2013
PAOLO CIRIO (IT)
Loophole for All exploits available tax and legal accountability loopholes by registering a company in countries considered 'offshore centers'. Several countries in the world help businesses by providing secrecy, little or no taxation, and lax legal accountability to companies. Consequently, most of the wealthy, major multinationals and banks are incorporated on paper in those offshore centres. The services that they provide are unaffordable for the normal citizens onshore, who have to pay more taxes and legal obligations, while facing cuts to public services and increasing national debt.
Loophole for All democratizes the use of offshore centers. It provides a service to the middle class and small businesses who don't want to pay more taxes than they should. The artwork unveils over 200,000 Caymans Islands companies and reverses global finance machination for creative agendas. The website Loophole4All.com promotes the sale of real identities of anonymous Cayman companies at a low cost in order to democratize the privileges of offshore businesses.
It does this by forging Certificates of Incorporation documents for each company, all issued with the artist's real name and signature. A video documentary investigating offshore centres accompanies the piece, exposing their social costs and to envision solutions to global economic inequality. In the gallery space, the paper trail of the project is displayed with prints of the counterfeited Certificates of Incorporation and the documents of the scheme set up for the operation.
BIO:
Paolo Cirio conceptually explores issues in economics, democracy, privacy, transparency, and copyright with an innovative aesthetic. His artworks are active agents: they engage power structures, global mass media and the general public — voluntarily and involuntarily — in current social and critical debates. He is particularly interested in how media and specific arrangements of information can influence the creation and perception of cultural, political, and economic reality as well as personal emotional states, interpersonal relationships and instinctive human behavior.
Paolo has exhibited in international museums and institutions and has won numerous prestigious art awards. His artworks have been covered by hundreds of media outlets and he regularly gives public lectures and workshops at leading art festivals and universities. He has won a number of awards, including Golden Nica at Ars Electronica, Transmediale and the Eyebeam fellowship, among others.