Re: [-empyre-] transgression anyway
> Hi Marc,
I mentioned the good hackers in my post, but very briefly,and I realize
now, in haste, very narrowly. I should have mentioned more examples to
make it seem more even. I thank you for the urban explorer as hack
examples, I have done that myself and never thought of it in this context.
I was just reacting to the older hacker manifesto from 2000 that is
loved by the bad hacker world and is written (new media , but also english
prof here) in a way that is very cleverly obtuse and yet direct; it speaks
of an "I" that is singular, and yet, very importantly, legion. That is
what worries me. I know good hackers, but I also teach a class in the
power of semiotics and signifiers.
The artists that alter billboards have been around for a long time, this
is a hacking in a sense, and I have always been impressed by the work that
really makes commentary out of commodity.
The appeal in advertising has always been what is sexy, alluring,
mysterious yet somehow possible. The same is true of subcultures and this
can be good or bad. The "black" hacking, or malignant hacking however
small a sub-sub culture does not need to be glorified in discourse as a
reaction and empowerment against capitalism. The kids that have
repeatedly caused problems and hurt the larger protests of the current war
in irag and on globaliztion have been the young , overly reactionary, not
fully informed teens in ski masks breaking windows and looking for a
direct and strong attack on the larger systems. Anarchy seemed very sexy
to me and a million other punks when we were teens in the 80's; when we
grew up we realized just how impossible and bleak anarchy by definition
really would be and has been in history. The signifier changed into more
subtle and broader needs for action and voice, but the music still sounds
great.
jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
>
> I half agree with your notion regarding the spectacle related notions of
> hackers. Yet, there are actually many positive things in respect of
> hacker sensibilties and much more than the singular over-promoted hacker
> 'sensationalism' mode. Hacking of course, has been filtered and
> mediated, packaged to a mainstream adience culture (like movies) in a
> usually non creative way. Not delving or thinking about the more fluid
> and creative ways that artists have used such (flexible) methods in
> order to create engagement with the world, as material for art and
> diversion.
>
> > Hell, I was one myself; I tested highly gifted and still did the
> answers
> >in my head, was anooyed and tuned out for a while as i still wasn't
> >challenged. I think the academic community really needs to be careful
> >about what seems sexy in discourse. I have had several major virus
> >attacks over the years ruin files, require complete re-installation of
> >the hard drive etc....
>
> Yes, a complete pain in the never regions. Yet, even though we have been
> hacked at Furtherfield (last October 04) we are open to the wider gamut
> of hacking and its many different, fluent and imaginative strategies. It
> is a way out of conforming to imposed ideologies from top down, ruling
> organizations. Much important work has come out of such actions that do
> offer creative minds alternative ways in presenting their ideas and
> work, beyond institutionalized remits and limited, historicized canons.
>
> If one views (activist/creative) hacking by its behaviour rather than by
> its physical tools alone, and the extremely limited propogations and
> many misrepesentations labeling it. Hacking can be and is to many a
> transgressive way of playing and finding ways around systems. Hackers
> are usually mistaken to be Evil, and Crackers are the ones who screw
> things over as far as creating virus, cracks, spyware, and destroying
> data.
>
> It was Hakim Bey, who put forward the idea of 'poetic terrorism'. Of
> course to use such a term these days would get many people's alarm bells
> ringing. But once, poetic terrorism was seen as a positive form of
> protest using a kind of hacker sensibilty.
>
> "Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it
> does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty."
>
> "Grafitti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public
> momuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled
> in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks &
> restaurants, xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big
> Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed
> to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions,
> wet cement..." Hakim Bey.
>
> Urban hacking is a less discussed mode of activity worth ex0plring as
> well...
> "UEM is a small group of urban explorers based in Montreal, Canada. Our
> particular characteristics such as name or age are not important: the
> cynosure of our group is a passion for the exploration of urban
> locations. See the Group section for more information on us."
> http://uem.minimanga.com/index.php?section=about_us
>
> "Urban exploring is the art of going places off limits to most and
> unseen by many. Explorers are brave souls who often dredge through great
> dangers for their art. Often they research and document historic
> abandoned places to accompany pictures and video taken on the locations
> of sites with enormous history. Otherwise they are simply in search of a
> beautiful view." The Hacking Quaterly.
>
> Hacking possesses many different levels of acting and not all of it is
> directly digitally connected. Art and activism, has worked well with
> creative hacking ands transcends structural conformity. And perhaps
> discussing the more imaginative and variant functions and its
> transgrssive forms of hacking is more likely to touch upon what hacking
> really is.
>
> Definition of Hacktivism: A person who enjoys exploring the details of
> programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities" and one who
> is capable of "creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations".
> Metac0m (December 2003).
>
> "HACK (1) to change a program so that is does something the original
> programmer either didn't want it to do or didn't plan for it. Hacking a
> program is not neccessarily cracking, and vise versa.
> http://www.irational.org/APD/HE/html/H.htm
>
> Perhaps others can offer examples, for I just wanted to put across the
> point that hacking can be a positive and creative action...
>
> marc
>
> some links below:
>
> http://shop.store.yahoo.com/2600hacker/urexhacphysw.html
> http://www.v2.nl/FreeZone/ZoneText/Diversions/Broadsheets/PoeticTerrorismBS.html
> http://www.hackaday.com/
> http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/oecd.html
>
> >>What is the line between tech fetish and intellectual rebel fetish and
> >
> >the discussion of this "new" voice? The good hacker works with
> >security systems and tests bugs and holes but is benign. The bad
> >hacker......well, i'd be a fool to even bother to redundantly define
> >this. Isn't it really dangerous to glamourize this outlaw stance and
> >shadow mythology? This is what creates the malignant hacker ( the
> >manifesto even says so). The dangerous rebel is exciting to analyze at
> a
> >distance, but that distant voice if reiterated in publication seems very
> >dangerously equivalent to just making this invisible netherworld and
> >impotent virulence seem that much sexier to more awkward 15 year olds
> >bored in school.
> >
> > Hell, I was one myself; I tested highly gifted and still did the
> answers
> >in my head, was anooyed and tuned out for a while as i still wasn't
> >challenged. I think the academic community really needs to be careful
> >about what seems sexy in discourse. I have had several major virus
> >attacks over the years ruin files, require complete re-installation of
> >the hard drive etc....
> >
> >This manifesto is a call to arms, nothing more.
> >
> >jeremy
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > We have to reinvent; if we went out of the era of the production (of
> the
> >
> >>criticism of the political economy) then let us take place beyond the
> >>question of the technique as resource of class: which possesses it, who
> >>produces thanks it, who fires his resource from it, etc...?
> >>
> >>But ubiquity of hypermedia and the recent laws of control which
> accompany
> >>it: what do you think of? What transgression (malpractice) is possible
> >>which
> >>can be otherwise watched or only of the mist expert hackers? (thus far
> >>from
> >>the common social practice shared in the every day life?)
> >>
> >>We are far from situtationnists in that case.
> >>
> >>I know well that there is a position at the same moment new, poetic,
> but
> >>ambiguous
> >>at the same time -traditionally political- of McKenzie Wark in A to
> hacker
> >>manifesto (of which personally I get ready to publish the long version
> to
> >>French-speaking territories with his agreement; because I followed the
> >>development of this text since the first version in subsol - that we
> have
> >>translated to our symposium in 2002- until the publication by Harvard
> >>Press -in any case) and moreover: what do you think of it concerning
> the
> >>theme of this debate?
> >>
> >>http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WARHAC.html
> >>
> >>http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=a+hacker+manifesto&btnG=Recherche+Google&meta=
> >>(but I am sure that you know of Ken -ever you feel good ever you feel
> bad
> >>of
> >>him - personally he sis a friend of me but I can hear any criticisms
> - and
> >>I
> >>make so for any one by myself)
> >>http://www.criticalsecret.com/n10/A%20HACKER%20MANIFESTO/index.php
> (short
> >>version and translation)
> >>
> >>http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html
> >>
> >>His conference during our symposium
> >>http://www.criticalsecret.com/n10/McKENZIE%20WARK/ (bi-lingual) "
> Escape
> >>from the dual empire "
> >>
> >>http://www.criticalsecret.com/n10/index.php#sommaire
> >>
> >>
> >>Frankly what you do think?
> >>
> >>""You will go at the church and say of your voice: "God is dead" " of
> the
> >>Stasbourg manifesto is far from us... Or say: hypermedia -that of the
> >>early
> >>time of Free media- is dead and say it online. Could you imagine
> that? -or
> >>not possible.
> >>
> >>We are addict with the hypermedia, addict with the transitive
> >>communication
> >>in real time and all that... But for another part it is our peculiar
> >>knowledge, this way to invent of a part of us, this way to meet
> together
> >>with this part and to meet all anyway from East to West and from North
> to
> >>South of the planet and much more: so what right now?
> >>
> >>And this another vision of the hacker as the mentor?
> >>http://cybercrimes.net/Property/Hacking/Hacker%20Manifesto/HackerManifesto.html
> >>where transgression is the subject.
> >>
> >>(all the contrary of the situationnism: so what? which changes and
> >>differences of our times is it designed in such texts?)
> >>
> >>A.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>empyre forum
> >>empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >>http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >>
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >empyre forum
> >empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
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