Re: [-empyre-] disrupting the right-right

["Boat People" <io@boat-people.org>]

hallo again. 

I just wanted to say here that I think rtmark do something more 
than provide free content for big media, something that can 
approach having a coffee with a neighbour, maybe. 

Several of the boat-people crew were involved (as props, dressed 
in our best approximations of accountants, and scared out of our 
wits*) in the yesmen prank in Sydney in 2002, when the Chartered 
& Practicing Accountants of Australia invited them (in their guise as 
gatt.org) to present an 
international-lecture-followed-by-lush-luncheon.

Their presentation, widely documented by now, was about the 
advance news of WTO's  forthcoming closure & reinvention as a 
world trade regulation body with the UN human rights charter as 
its guiding principal. They bored us bloody RIGID with pie charts 
and endless stats to back up how the WTO had realised it had 
become the determiner of enforced inequality and resource 
stripping (etc), and this language was well received by the real 
accountants in the audience. 

Later, at lunch, as the pretend accountants struggled with our 
wigs, suits and general embarrassment, various of our 
companions there, real accountants, talked to us about how the 
arguments against the WTO finally made sense to them and how 
it was so different to what ratbag protesters were so shrill about. 

it WAS ethically confusing, because it seemed so mean to play a 
trick on people. But listening to talk about the lecture afterwards 
made at least me think that it had transformed into a positive 
moment. and it was delightful that the canadian consul, who was 
there, alerted his government to the news, and that it was debated 
on the floor of parliament in ottawa before the gig was up.

I don't know what happened after that, so I can't pretend to have a 
long view of the outcomes. just in that moment, on that day, it 
seemed honestly moving.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on a whole other point, i want to ask sam about this bit he wrote:
"on the way the net geeks and artists and activists have worked 
together on a subject without actually attempting to collaborate."

just because I don't understand how to tell that apart from 
collaboration (& sorry if that's a dumb question.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
& i also want to ask kipper what she objects to about CAE's 
practice? 

thankyou

*also, about why we were so frightened, i'm not sure. but that was 
the prevailing feeling. chicken, i guess.


> > hi,
> >
> >> The question seems to me today to
> >> be "How do activists disrupt two lovers (the western militarist 
right
> >> wing and the Islamist militarist right wing), who are so 
mutually
> >> committed and supportive of one another?"
> >
> > mmm - this is a question - but not the question. in fact, there's 
really
> > no
> > 'the' question in my opinion. what would be best for 
media-activists to do
> > is
> > create images of a new ;coallition of the willing; - put the 
images of
> > bush,
> > rumsy, howard, blair, sharon with saddam, bin ladan, and the 
masked
> > executioners... and maybe throw in the image of che in to the 
mix as well
> > ;-)
> >
> > 'jumping on the bandwagon' is an interesting idea. there was a 
time when
> > the
> > denial of service attacks were all the rage. i am sure many of 
us have
> > received those emails from ricardo dominguez and others 
(perhaps me
> > even!).
> >
> > the problem i have with much of art/net/activism is that these 
tactics are
> > often effective in getting 'media' attention but that's about all. 
rtmark
> > do
> > this very well. stunts are their business. cnn reports them. so 
what? at
> > the
> > end of the day, they are providers of entertainment or cheap 
content for
> > the
> > big media channels.
> >
> > we know that media attention doesn't necessarily raise 
awareness and cause
> > change. where's the weapons of mass destruction? why no 
follow-up? what
> > about
> > howard's lies? etc... media attention can definitely help - but it 
is not
> > an
> > automatic given that it will have a positive impact in raising 
awareness
> > and
> > causing some kind of change.
> >
> > often the problems are much more complex and cannot be 
dealt within the
> > 1minute and 30seconds allocated to the story.
> >
> > there are interesting projects, and maybe some others on the 
list can
> > comment,
> > on the way the the net geeks and artists and activists have 
worked
> > together
> > on a subject without actually attempting to collaborate.
> >
> > some times, when space is created where 'anything is 
possible' and
> > 'everyone
> > is (genuinely) welcome' - that seems to be when interesting 
stuff happens.
> > when you reflect back - you can see there was an interesting 
connection
> > going
> > on between people who come from different backgrounds and 
interests but
> > have
> > a passion about a specific issue.
> >
> > i think it often doesn't work as well when you create a 'lab' 
where you
> > bring
> > an activist, an artist and a geek together to do something or 
make
> > something
> > happen.
> >
> > in terms of 'the question' - i reckon its more about disrupting 
our
> > relationships with sitting in cafes, sipping lattes or disrupting 
the
> > comfort
> > of experiencing the world through a networked computer :-)
> >
> > someone once said to me that the best form of tactical media 
was knocking
> > on
> > your neighbours door and having a conversation with them 
about the issue
> > you
> > are passionate about. it may even involve a coffee!
> >
> > see ya, sam :-)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Friday 04 June 2004 08:09, you wrote:
> >> I feel a bit apprehensive about this post, but that is normally a 
good
> >> sign so I will cry/hype between clicking and releasing.
> >>
> >> Sam-de-silva's critique of the art world politics of tactical 
media-
> >> "tactical media gets you invited to conferences around world", 
"tactical
> >> media gets you guest lecturer spots", " tactical media helps 
sell books"
> >> - is true enough - of course those are systems that are 
implicated in
> >> public culture and so on... but I'm not going there now. The 
work of
> >> activist/artists is embedded in two worlds, the former of the 
pairing
> >> where the really important work is performed and the later 
(the
> >> artworld), a very different embedding and one that has always 
left me
> >> feeling a little ambivalent re activist work I have been involved 
in.
> >>
> >> Earlier this year I dropped out of the Yale CyberCrime 
conference... a
> >> decision which frankly I still feel horrible and conflicted about. 
I am
> >> looking back now at my squirming letter to Eddan Katz. It was 
half
> >> apology/half me trying to figure out what happened since my 
country
> >> decided that the best response to a terrible terrorist act was 
to fully
> >> embrace (and more recently coming to celebrate) the terrible 
death
> >> embrace that we were already to some degree involved in 
before 9/11. I
> >> still feel that tactical media is in a morass not of its own 
making, and
> >> I am still trying to see around the corner, but can't. It is better 
said
> >> probably in the boat-people opening post:
> >>
> >> "The boat-people crew rack our collective brains for ways to 
talk
> >> back to the miasma of mendacity characterising public life 
here in
> >> australia; how to be antidotes to amnesia, how to illuminate 
the
> >> lies & what they obscure, how to mobilise wit, passion & 
creativity
> >> to undermine the empires' rule over us... and everything we 
come
> >> up with is gestural, symbolic, frail at best.  It blows away."
> >>
> >> I did not say it any better below... The question seems to me 
today to
> >> be "How do activists disrupt two lovers (the western militarist 
right
> >> wing and the Islamist militarist right wing), who are so 
mutually
> >> committed and supportive of one another?"
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Brett Stalbaum [mailto:stalbaum@ucsd.edu]
> >> Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 2:56 PM
> >> To: 'Eddan Katz'
> >> Cc: 'bnoveck@nyls.edu'
> >> Subject: RE: Yale Cybercrime Conference
> >>
> >> Dear Eddan,
> >>
> >> I have been hard at work on the formulation of a paper that I 
feel
> >> confident would function as a positive and sufficiently critical
> >> contribution to the Cybercrime and digital Law Enforcement 
conference,
> >> both in terms of the Hactivism panel and the conference at 
large.
> >> However enthused I am about the conference, what I am 
discovering about
> >> the state of my current expertise is that it is out of date. 
Though I
> >> was intimately involved in theory and practice of hacktivism 
between
> >> 1998 and 2000, my research and production as an artist 
during the past
> >> three years has been on a significantly different trajectory. In 
my
> >> attempts to reconnect with the relevant current issues - 
particularly
> >> the post 911 legal context, and examine how artists might 
evaluate
> >> tactical and strategic opportunities for constructive political
> >> engagement in that context, I am finding that I have nothing of
> >> significance to offer. At best, I could characterize early 
hacktivism as
> >> a brief moment of hope inspired in part by a somewhat 
utopian surge of
> >> interest by artists in the internet as a specific medium 
(roughly 1995
> >> to 2000, sometimes identified as the net art movement in 
new media arts
> >> discourses), and remain silent about the present situation. 
Not terribly
> >> exciting, nor a particularly interesting contribution to a 
conference of
> >> such significance.
> >>
> >> I characterize the hacktivist environment now as one muddled 
both by
> >> post-911 paranoia and the mostly non-political exploits of
> >> script-kiddies and virus writers, which in combination have 
resulted in
> >> a mutually self-supporting context of criminalization, and the
> >> maintenance of an alternatively libertarian fringed
> >> cyberpunk/hacker/phreaker identity complex often used by 
script-kiddies
> >> in their identity play. (Not to mention the
> >> wrestle-for-the-most-radical-activist identity complex, often 
used by
> >> activists/artists in their identity play.) In a domain 
contextualized by
> >> this mutually self-supporting monster of cybercops and 
post-Gibson
> >> identity play, the natural result is that anyone who might be 
interested
> >> in exploring alternatives to meaning generation using the 
internet as a
> >> public-space in any way beyond communications based 
issue advocacy or
> >> interactive contexts for facilitating communication, (such as in
> >> art-conceptual, aesthetic, provocative or activist strategies 
dealing
> >> with lower level network protocols and recognition that the 
internet is
> >> a social environment connecting machines to machines and 
data to data as
> >> much as people to people), is working in a completely chilling 
domain
> >> today in which neither radical transparency (Electronic 
Disturbance
> >> Theater) or electronic anonymity can now successfully 
function as either
> >> tactical or strategic models for political gain. The window, at 
least
> >> from an artist/hacktivist perspective is closed for now. The 
system can
> >> be provoked and disturbed, but only in a manner that is dull 
and counter
> >> productive (because it either assists in an ecology of 
hardening the
> >> system technically or encourages criminalization of 
experimental forms
> >> of speech). 2K4 is not 1998. Perhaps conditions will change 
in the
> >> future, but in the mean time I have nothing interesting to add 
to
> >> hacktivism.
> >>
> >> I think of artists as people who have the cultural mandate to 
play with
> >> systems in order to emerge new models (or functions of 
systems that were
> >> unintended by their designers) that may be politically useful 
for the
> >> broader and more equitable distribution of knowledge, power, 
experience
> >> and (in my own somewhat naïve, idealistic American way), 
the rights
> >> guaranteed by our Constitution. I think that this holds true 
even if the
> >> models and techniques happen to be only of ephemeral or 
tactical value -
> >> of which hacktivism may be an example. As an artist, I don't 
have new
> >> ideas at this time as specifically go to hacktivism in light of 
the
> >> dramatic shift in history (both 911 and script-kiddies), and as 
such I
> >> am uncertain if I am able to bring to the table anything of 
significance
> >> to your conference. I'm simply playing with systems in 
different ways
> >> now. !--clip a little bit of practical business --
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> [mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf 
Of sam-de-silva
> >> Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 11:49 PM
> >> To: soft_skinned_space
> >> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] opening statement from 
boat-people.org
> >>
> >> hi also,
> >>
> >> i too am honoured to be invited :-) though i am not sure what
> >> contribution i
> >> can make here.
> >>
> >> maybe the following:
> >>
> >> * tactical media is the cry/hype that occurs between the 
clicking and
> >> releasing of a mouse click
> >>
> >> * tactical media gets you invited to conferences around world
> >>
> >> * tactical media gets you guest lecturer spots
> >>
> >> * tactical media helps your career path
> >>
> >> * tactical media helps sell books
> >>
> >> * clap for tactical media. cluck for activism. clop for boredom.
> >>
> >> see ya, sam :-)
> >>
> >> ps. i started up and continue to run the myspinach server 
(which is very
> >> very
> >> different to the spinach7 magazine) ... click for background:
> >> http://www.myspinach.org/sam/spinhistory.html
> >
> > --
> >
> >

http://www.boat-people.org/