No Other Day is a Chicago-based music and visual art collective. The group's philosophy centers on elimination of the self through multimedia art projects.
The early internet, known as Web1, primarily connected universities before expanding to the public, serving as a space to escape societal norms and conventions. Much like the open and free nature of Web1 protocols, the content shared by users was also open and free. Forums and anonymous boards were the main spaces for online interaction, where users often used pseudonyms and avatar photos to maintain anonymity. This anonymity allowed users to experiment, create new futures, cultures, and languages away from societal judgment and economic pressures.
However, as the internet grew, it attracted the attention of capital interests. Initial attempts to monetize the internet resulted in the dot-com bubble, causing significant financial losses for many companies. Despite these setbacks, it became clear that the internet was not a passing fad and needed to be absorbed and commodified. By the mid to late 2000s, a new model, not dissimilar to television, began to emerge: free content distributed through established platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or most recently TikTok, created a captive audience, ripe to be advertised to. Additionally, with the ever growing, self propagating data lake in their hands, these tech giants began selling it to data brokers, who could suddenly acquire users location, interestests, political affiliation, health, marital status, and much more.
The cultural impact was strongly felt in the 2010s. Since these new social sites encouraged or required users to use their real names, phone numbers, emails, and photos, the internet gradually shifted from an alternative reality where anything is possible to a distorted, heavily edited, reflection of real life. This shift — from anonymous to explicit — meant that one's online identity became inseparably linked to their real-world self. Online opinions, thoughts, and preferences had to align with real-life understandings — benefitting the new cloud capital owners who profit from data brokerage and algorithmic marketing.
We advocate for the removal of identity from the online self, sharing personal information only with close real-life companions. Providing less information, or even disinformation, about your preferences is a form of rebellion in the age of data brokerage. Since it is difficult to be an active member of society without any online presence, we recommend using disinformation whenever possible. Tools like AdNauseam can aid in creating digital confusion and the methods outlined in Obfuscation will help you diminish your digital footprint of identifiable information.
Just as the open protocols of Web1 allowed for free and creative expression, we believe that access to tools and artworks should be free and accessible to everyone. We refuse to claim authorship or credits for any work we create now or in the future. You are free to take any work created by No Other Day and re-appropriate it as you see fit, as we believe that you become a co-author through your engagement with it. All music by everyone.