Search results for 'politics'

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Wikileaks and Freedom, Autonomy and Sovereignty in the cloud 

"We have to be very attentive and united at a state level to fight against what is a threat to democratic authority and sovereignty,"
- French government spokesman Francois Baroin speaking out against wikileaks releasing US diplomatic cables.

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."
- A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, John Perry Barlow

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Notes on Culture Jamming 

"Culture-jamming," a term I have popularized by articles in The New York Times and Adbusters, might best be defined as media hacking, information warfare, terror-art, and guerrilla semiotics, all in one. Billboard bandits, pirate TV and radio broadcasters, media hoaxers, and other vernacular media wrenchers who intrude on the intruders, investing ads, newscasts, and other media artifacts with subversive meanings are all culture- jammers." Mark Dery

Damn the Networks! Victory to the Imagination!
Yogi in Craig Baldwin's "Spectres of the Spectrum"

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Art and the Human 

The punk band Pussy Riot, which I belong to, is a musical group that conducts unexpected performances in different urban spaces. Pussy Riot's songs address topical political issues. The interests of the group members are: political activism, ecology, and the elimination of authoritarian tendencies in the Russian state system through the creation of the civil society.

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Strategies for Tactical Media 

Conscious of the growing involvement of artists in political protest through their art and the utilisation of conventional and digital media technologies, RealTime's editors approached media theorist McKenzie Wark to comment on where he sees Tactical Media fitting in the bigger picture of power and media.

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Viridian Note 00029: The Interfund 

From: Bruce Sterling <bruces {AT} well.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 22:59:27 -0600 (CST)
Sender: owner-nettime-l {AT} basis.Desk.nl

Key concepts:  art movements, Internet, reputation economics, arts grants, Europe, Interfund


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Using the Media: the Clean Clothes Campaign 

The existing use of media so far has been determined by the local, decentralized nature of the campaign. Local groups are adapting, editing and redesigning existing material like research results, lines of argumentation and logos, photos and slogans. The educational material, used by trade unions, schools and churches is very specific and "customized", and therefore cannot be used in campaigns which target the general public.

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Fuzzy Biological Sabotage 

If 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.

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    The Internet Freedom Fallacy and Arab Digital Activism 

    This article focuses on grassroots digital activism in the Arab world and the risks of what seems to be an inevitable collusion with U.S foreign policy and interests. It sums up the most important elements of the conversation I have been having for the last two years with many actors involved in defending online free speech and the use of technology for social and political change. While the main focus is Arab digital activism, I have made sure to include similar concerns raised by activists and online free speech advocates from other parts of the world, such as China, Thailand, and Iran.

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    Borders: Walking Across, as opposed to Flying Above 

    This text was written in July 2003, at the height of the tension on the border between India and Pakistan. Following elections in Pakistan, and in the Indian administered part of Kashmir, the two countries have agreed to de-escalate and troops on both sides are now on their way back to "peace time" positions. Relations between the two governments however, continue to be tense.

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    Vectorial Empires 

    01. These are precarious times. These are eventful times. Let us note some of the symptoms of this instability. There is September 11,and the prospect of a new form of American empire that uses September11 as its pretext. There is the global stock market slide, triggered by the collapse of American tech stocks, which altered the lives of chip-makers in Korea and Coltan miners in the Congo. These are instances of what I call weird global media events. They are events because they are singular. They are media events because they happen in a vectoral space of communication. They are global media events because they call a world into being. They are weird global media events because they defy explanation. They subsume every explanation as mere ripples and eddies in their wake.

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