In the wireless era, is the paper medium simply passé for the work of activists? Are zamizdat, fanzines and political magazines just good for historians? After the mid-nineties zine crisis due to a sudden rise of the cost of paper and the advent of the Internet, the actual role of magazines seems to be re-defined and still strategical for the circulation of ideas.
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This short essay was written in the run up to the fourth Next 5 Minutes festival of Tactical Media, which took place in Amsterdam September 11 - 14, 2003.
Door Geert Lovink
Amsterdam, december 1995
(voor Next 5 Minutes 2 - internationaal festival voor tactische media, 1996)
'CYBERPOSITIVE'
O(rphan) d(rift>)
Cabinet Editions
ISBN 0-952-58240-6
Public Agency in Hybrid Space
Lead-essay for the theme issue "Hybrid Space" of OPEN, Journal for Art and the Public Domain, #11, (Amsterdam / Rotterdam, 2006).
The Negative Dialectics of the Net
In his essay, "Presenting the Unpresentable: The Sublime", Jean-François Lyotard observes that capitalism, technoscience and the pictorial avant-garde of the twentieth century share an 'affinity to infinity'. All three point towards a sensibility that is constitutive for the experience of the modern world.
Dr. Shahidul Alam, internationally renowned photographer, activist, founder and Managing Director of the Bangladesh multimedia company, Drik, founder of Chobi Mela International Photography Festival and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, was forcibly abducted from his home on the night of 5 August.
Shahidul Alam was granted bail on November 15, 2018 and released from jail, but still faces a maximum of 14 years in prison if convicted.
News and updates #freeshahidulalam
The need for net criticism certainly is a matter of overwhelming urgency. While a number of critics have approached the new world of computerized communications with a healthy amount of skepticism, their message has been lost in the noise and spectacle of corporate hype-the unstoppable tidal wave of seduction has enveloped so many in its dynamic utopian beauty that little time for careful reflection is left. Indeed, a glimpse of a possibility for a better future may be contained in the new techno-apparatus, and perhaps it is best to acknowledge these possibilities here in the beginning, since Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) has no desire to take the position of the neoluddites who believe that the techno-apparatus should be rejected outright, if not destroyed. To be sure, computerized communications offer the possibility for the enhanced storage, retrieval, and exchange of information for those who have access to the necessary hardware, software, and technical skills. In turn, this increases the possibility for greater access to vital information, faster exchange of information, enhanced distribution of information, and cross cultural artistic and critical collaborations. The potential humanitarian benefits of electronic systems are undeniable; however, CAE questions whether the electronic apparatus is being used for these purposes in the representative case, much as we question the political policies which guide the net's development and accessibility.
ReadActivist Media Tomorrow*
* BH: When I wrote this text five years ago, it really was not clear whether
the swarming tactics of the counter-globalization movement would get a
"second chance." But they have, and now the subtitle could be "activist
media today."
What happened at the turn of the millennium, when a myriad of recording
devices were hooked up to the Internet and the World Wide Web became an
electronic prism refracting all the colors of a single anti-capitalist
struggle? What kind of movement takes to the barricades with samba bands
and videocams, tracing an embodied map through a maze of virtual
hyperlinks and actual city streets? The organizational aesthetics of the
networked movements was called "tactical media," a concept that mixed
the quick-and-dirty appropriation of consumer electronics with the
subtle counter-cultural anthropology of Michel de Certeau. The idea was
to evoke a new kind of popular subjectivity, constitutionally "under the
radar," impossible to identify, constantly shifting with the inventions
of digital storytelling and the ruses of open-source practice. Too bad
so much of this subversive process was frozen into a single seductive
phrase.
What counts in the long run is the "use" one makes of a theory....We
must start from existing practices in order to retrace the fundamental
flaws.
--Felix Guattari, "Why Marx and Freud No Longer Disturb Anyone"
In 1994, when Critical Art Ensemble first introduced the idea and a
possible model of electronic civil disobedience (ECD) as another option
for digital resistance, the collective had no way of knowing what
elements would be the most practical, nor did it know what elements
would require additional explanation. After nearly five years of field
testing of ECD by various groups and individuals, its information gaps
have become a little more obvious and can finally be addressed.
Keywords: robots / contestation / public space / expression management
The Furtherfield community utilizes networked media to create, explore,
nurture and promote the art that happens when connections are made and
knowledge is shared - across the boundaries of established art-world
institutions and their markets, grass-roots artistic and activist
projects and communities of socially-engaged software developers. This
is a spectrum that engages from the maverick media-art-makers and small
collectives of cross-specialist practitioners, to projects that critique
and change dominant hierarchical structures as part of their art
process.
This text will provide a brief background as to how Furtherfield, a
non-profit organization and community, came about and how it extends the
DIY ethos of some early net art and tactical media, said to be
motivated by curiosity, activism and precision, [01] towards a more
collaborative approach that Furtherfield calls Do It With Others (DIWO).
In the past four years we have been accustomed to receive information on the extent of global signit work that has actually been going on without the knowledge of civil populations, communications infrastructure users and developers and in many cases even governments. A very quiet debate has started around issues arising from the knowledge about the ECHELON system, which has now spread also into mainstream politics, and we should be very careful observers of this processes. One should also be aware of the fact, that possible ?sister" systems exist in the EU countries, Russia, France and China, although not much is known about them, except what can be gathered from each countries encryption regulations, which in this respect can be taken as an information on each of the countries civil rights and signit polices. We can also assume that Israel possesses strong signit mideast oriented capabilities.
ReadIf the left has learned anything from resistance against capital driven technocracy, it is that the democratic process is only minimally useful for slowing the profit machine of pancapitalism. Since corporations and other capital-saturated institutions own the process, and tend to function outside national democratic imperatives, other methods of power appropriation have to be developed. In the case of biotechnology, the resistance is unfortunately in a position of reactivity. Corporations have already infiltrated most governments and markets at such a furious pace that all that can be done is attempt to slow them down, while cells and organizations regroup and decide on a way to address the many problems that have already arisen, and the many potential accidents that are in front of us.
Call to join the cybernetic edition of CompArte "Against Capital and its Walls, All the Arts"
July, 2017
Please join Not An Alternative, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, and
Upgrade NY! this Thursday, June 10 for the opening of Re:Group: Beyond
Models of Consensus, an exhibition which examines models of
participation and participation as a model in art and activism.
Re:Group proposes that with participation now a dominant paradigm,
structuring social interaction, art, activism, the architecture of the
city, the internet, and the economy, we are all integrated into
participatory structures whether we want to be or not. The exhibition
showcases work that subverts existing systems or envisions new
alternatives to the ways in which individuals can take part, or choose
not to take part, in social and cultural life.
Interventions in Engineering Cultures
The most significant underwriter of engineering research in the United
States is the Department of Defense, largely acting through the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA exists to channel funds
from the military to academic and corporate research labs in exchange
for technological innovations that serve the needs of its clients - the
Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. As DARPA public relations officers
are fond of pointing out, innovations funded by DARPA grants may also
find expression in civilian applications, particularly in the
communications and aerospace industries.
The idea for the Art of Campaigning topic originates from the works of
the McLibel group [www.mcspotlight.org]. Their type of net.campaign
questions previous forms of activism, which was focused on the mass
media and their ability to influence public opinion, by staging direct
action (targeted at known media makers). Big NGO's such as Greenpeace
have built up experiences with this model for decades. The scenarios
they use have not changed much since the seventies. There is the usual
PR material: official reports, books, folders, flyers, magazine and
original video footage, shot on location. Campaigns are being planned
long in advance. The way of working does not differ much from a
campaign to launch a new product. Professionalism has taken over the
task of volunteers. Their role is being reduced to that of a local
support group, doing the actual grass roots work with the population.
