Outer Spaces Conference Series 2017
An analysis of ISIS and its media strategy, the meaning of cyber jihad, and why people enrol as foreign fighters.
The 12th conference of the Disruption Network Lab
Directed by Tatiana Bazzichelli. Studio 1, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin.
In a statement issued to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the so-called "John Doe" behind the biggest information leak in history cites the need for better whistleblower protection and has hinted at even more revelations to come.
Titled "The Revolution Will Be Digitized" the 1800-word statement gives justification for the leak, saying that "income inequality is one of the defining issues of our time" and says that government authorities need to do more to address it.
What is Hollaback?
The real motive of street harassment is
intimidation. To make its target scared or uncomfortable, and to make
the harasser feel powerful. But what if there was a simple way to take
that power away by exposing it? You can now use your smartphone to do
just that by documenting, mapping, and sharing incidents of street
harassment. Join an entire community ready to Hollaback!
The CAE Defense Fund was created in 2005 as a mechanism to raise funds
for legal bills incurred by Dr. Steven Kurtz and Dr. Robert Ferrell in
what its members argued was a politically motivated attack by the
Department of Justice - one which threatened the constitutional and
fundamental rights not only of the two defendants, but also of
everyone, due to legal precedents that would have been set by an
unfavorable outcome.
In response, thousands of people worldwide organized demonstrations and
raised money for the two men's legal defense through fundraisers and a
variety of other grassroots efforts.
www.caedefensefund.org
The culture jammers tried to subvert the big brand names. But the smart
advertisers now use guerrilla tactics themselves, according to James Harkin
In a recent newspaper interview, Kalle Lasn was interrogated about
Adbusters, the Canadian anti-advertising magazine that he founded.
Camping can be so nice. Crawling out of dewy plastic in the early morning, with a pinch of sleep still in your eyes, braving the unbearably hot sun, yet invigorated and ready to take on the day with as much indifference as possible to the ongoing struggle with nature. Surely everybody knows that the secret of success is to fight the laws of petty bourgeois civilisation with minimal equipment and therefore gain a flexibility that is capable of suspending the otherwise ruling power relations for a clearly defined amount of time.
ReadHow does digital work differ from its analogue forms?
Although developed for military and corporate purposes, digital technologies also create oportunites for working people. With these amazing tools, we are not only able to invent new aesthetic forms, but also can work in more satisfying ways. Above all, digital technologies can allow us to rediscover the dignity of artisan labour without losing the material benefits delivered by the analogue working methods of Fordism. Over the past two centuries, industrialisation has slowly replaced skilled craft labour with repetitive factory and office work. In the Fordist factory, even the pace of working can be determined by the speed of the assembly lines. For most of this century, people have grudgingly accepted the boring nature of their jobs. In return, they have been given enough wages to buy large amounts of goods and services produced by Fordist industrialisation. However, once their living standards are sufficient, most people also want to enjoy satisfaction in their work. They don't just want money, but also respect.
In 1996, Adams Wood, Jeff Taylor, and A. Mark Liiv were working as activists on a forest defense campaign in Idaho. With a Hi-8 camera, they documented violations of timber sales agreements and confrontations between angry loggers and non-violent protesters as a way to keep people safe, as a tool in legal defense, and as an alternative to mainstream corporate media, which was biased in favor of the timber industry. The activists managed to pull off a 41-day road blockade, and the future founders of Whispered Media were shooting it. They cut their first video and called it ROAD USE RESTRICTED. The succinct but intense twelve-minute video was a great success, becoming part of several activist-run road shows and inspiring many a tree-hugger to haul it out to Idaho, which, says Liiv, "is not on the way to anywhere."
At the end of the third 'Next 5 Minutes' conference on tactical media (March 1999) in Amsterdam, an interesting discussion emerged around the question of how the minor media practices elaborated and highlighted in this vibrant event would ever reach a wider audience for lack of being covered by any mainstream outlet. At one point, some people from the back of the room (unfortunately I don't know anymore who exactly, I believe an Italian group), shouted: 'We don't want to be mediated - we mediate ourselves!'
ReadThat guerrilla video is now the subject of historical reflection is
probably a sign of its demise. There has been a recent flurry of
archival and publishing activity centering on experiments made in the
'70s. In 1997, the Chicago-based Video Data Bank released Surveying the
First Decade, a compilation of work from the early days of video, and
Oxford University Press published Deirdre Boyle's Subject to Change:
Guerrilla Television Revisited, the definitive study of the video
movements of the late 1960s and '70s. These reflections on the utopian
impulse in early video provide an opportunity to think about the
present state of media in this country, in particular those movements
that have attempted to create electronic space for non-commercial views
that run counter to the mainstream.
Germany 1998: 2 years before the New Millenium a new form of
Political Party came into existence: CHANCE 2000 - The Party of the
Last Chance. In the midst of an election that was one of the most
important in postfascist Germany an artist jumped into the political
arena to "make politics more aesthetic and aesthetics more political".
The film- and theatremaker and talk show host Christoph Schlingensief
started the Campagne: "VOTE YOURSELF!" In Berlin he started the project
with an "Election Circus". Together with a famous circus-family from
former East Germany and with his crew of actors and his family of
handicapped performers he founded "CHANCE 2000 - Party of the Last
Chance" in a circus tent in Berlin/ Prenzlauer Berg. The message for
the Republic was: "Vote Yourself, we know how to do it!" Every citizen
was asked to become an independent candidate for the new Bundestag.
Manuals were sent out how to become a direct candidate. And many
different people realized their chance to "prove that they exist" by
bringing their name on the ballot sheet: "Chance Meier", "Chance
Mueller", "Chance Schmidt". If you managed to collect 200 signatures of
support in your political region you were part of the game and you
could vote yourself. Why not voting somebody you know by heart, you
trust and love?
I.
We start with the current strategy debates of the so-called 'anti-globalisation movement', the biggest emerging political force for decades. In Part II we will look into strategies of critical new media culture in the post-speculative phase after dotcommania. Four phases of the global movement are becoming visible, all of which have distinct political, artistic and aesthetic qualities.
Nuit Debout is a French social movement that began on March 31, 2016, arising out of protests against proposed neoliberal labor reforms known as the "Loi Travail," or the "El Khomri Law".
The movement is centred at Paris's Place de la République, where protestors have held nightly assemblies following the March 31 protest. The movement has spread to dozens of other cities and towns in France and to neighbouring countries in Europe.
[From: Wikipedia.org ]
Ferguson is everywhere. From St. Louis to Ayotzinapa to Palestine, millions are rising together to resist discrimination and State terrorism.
Introduction
By Andrew Boyd & Dave Oswald Mitchell
"The clowns are organizing. They are organizing. Over and out."
-Overheard on UK police radio during action
by Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, July 2004
Tactical Media are what happens when the cheap 'do it yourself' media, made possible by the revolution in consumer electronics and expanded forms of distribution (from public access cable to the internet) are exploited by groups and individuals who feel aggrieved by or excluded from the wider culture. Tactical media do not just report events, as they are never impartial they always participate and it is this that more than anything separates them from mainstream media.
ACT UP, AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals, united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis, started in 1987. We meet with government officials, we distribute the latest medical information, we protest and demonstrate. We are not silent.
ReadThis 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.
ReadFelix Stalder explores the swarm politics of the 'endlessly fascinating Anonymous story' in an essay written for Le Monde Diplomatique, where it appeared in a slightly edited version and under a different title.
This version of the text was originally distributed via the international nettime mailing list.