[-empyre-] Hacktivism and Critical Dromology

[rrdominguez at ucsd.edu]

Hola toda/os,

It is a pleasure to be a part of the list this turn of time. I was asked
to diagram some thoughts on Virilio’s influence on the work that we/I
as the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) have done in developing
the practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience (we are now celebrating
10 years of electronic disturbances).

I thought I would post the statement that introduced my presentation
at the gathering in S.F. and then a statement made during phone
interview in 1999 on EDT’s framing of Demos and Dromos in relation
to the Agora-on-line.

I look forward to your gestures and responses.

Yours in speed,
Ricardo


>>>S.F. Statement:

Hacktivism and Critical Dromology
(Ricardo Dominguez)

Paul Virilio's deep vision of the 'politics of speed’ and THE 'aesthetics
of disappearance' is full of anxieties about the nature of
post-contemporary art's relationship to the "body" and the "virtual". His
fear of dromology-as-art has created a blind spot, an inability to see the
potential of current art practices over the course of the last ten years.
Hacktivism and Digital Zapatismo have been about creating visibility for
mute body/bodies around the planet. The work of the Electronic Disturbance
Theater [EDT] has created possibilities for constituting presence in
digital space that is both collective and politicized - performance art as
critical dromology. By extracting the core ideas from the canon of
Virilian thought and mixing them with new modalities in art and
performance, a new paradigm emerges- a radical dromology for our time.

>>>Phone Interview

Performance Art in a Digital Age: A Live Phone Conversation with Ricardo
Dominguez

Took place on Thursday 25 November 1999, Institute of International Visual
Arts, London.
By Coco Fusco

I was in NYC and Coco Fusco was in London with an audience:

CF: When you theorize EDT's practice you often mention connections with
Ancient Greek concepts of the Agora and Demos. How do you envision
virtual performance as a kind of metaphorical speech in light of this
genealogy?


RD: The idea of a virtual republic in Western Civilization can be traced
back to Plato, and is connected to the functions of public space. The
Republic incorporated the central concept of the Agora. The Agora
was the area for those who were entitled to engage in rational
discourse of Logos, and to articulate social policy as the Law (Nomos),
and thus contribute to the evolution of Athenian democracy. Of course
those who did speak were, for the most part, male, slave-owning and
ship owning merchants, those that represented the base of Athenian
power. We can call them Dromos: those that belong the societies of
speed. Speed and the Virtual Republic are the primary nodes of Athenian
democracy – not much different than today. The Agora was constantly
being disturbed by Demos, what we would call those who demonstrate
or who move into the Agora and make gestures. Later on, with the rise
of Catholicism – Demos would be transposed into Demons, those
representatives of the lower depths. Demos did not necessarily use
the rational speech of the Agora, they did not have access to it;
instead, they used symbolic speech or a somatic poesis - towards
defining Nomos. The Demos gesture towards Nomos, with a language
of gaps that points to invisibility, that points to the lacks in the Agora.
The Agora is thus disturbed; the rational processes of its codes  are
disrupted, the power of speed was blocked. EDT alludes to this history
of Demos as it intervenes with Nomos. The Zapatista FloodNet injects
bodies as  Nomos into digital space, a critical mass of gestures as blockage.
What we also add to the equation is the power of speed is now leveraged
by Demos via the networks. Thus Demos_qua_Dromos create the space
for a new type of social drama to take place. Remember in Ancient
Greece, those who were in power and who had slaves and commerce,
were the ones who had the fastest ships. EDT utilizes these elements
to create drama and movement by empowering contemporary groups
of Demos with the speed of Dromos – without asking societies of
command and control for the right to do so. We enter the Agora
with the metaphorical gestures towards Nomos and squat on high-speed
lanes of the new Virtual Republic – this creates a digital platform or
situation for a techno-political drama that reflects the real condition
of the world beyond code. This disturbs the Virtual Republic that
is accustomed to the properties  of Logos, the ownership of property,
copyright, and all the different strategies in which they are attempting
enclosure of the Internet.


-- 
Ricardo Dominguez
Assistant Professor
Hellman Fellow

Visual Arts Department, UCSD
http://visarts.ucsd.edu/
Principal Investigator, CALIT2
http://calit2.net
Co-Chair gallery at calit2
http://gallery.calit2.net
CRCA Researcher
http://crca.ucsd.edu/
Ethnic Studies Affiliate
http://www.ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/

Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics,
Board Member
http://hemi.nyu.edu

University of California, San Diego,
9500 Gilman Drive Drive,
La Jolla, CA 92093-0436
Phone: (619) 322-7571
e-mail: rrdominguez at ucsd.edu

Project sites:
site: http://gallery.calit2.net
site: http://pitmm.net
site: http://bang.calit2.net
site: http://www.thing.net/~rdom
blog:http://post.thing.net/blog/rdom