[-empyre-] pirates, pirating pirates

Fri Jul 15 19:20:44 EST 2011

On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 05:45:00PM +0700, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> only partly, since ' refusal to work' seems like a pure resistance strategy
> ?

I'll expand on this a little in the following list post.
> 
> (fyi: Magnus Lawrie on p2p foundation wiki:
> http://p2pfoundation.net/Special:RecentChanges?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=0&search=Lawrie&fulltext=Search&ns0=1
> )

Thanks, Michel. I am glad to contribute!

Best wishes,

Magnus

> 
> On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 5:11 PM, <magnus at ditch.org.uk> wrote:
> 
> > > what I'm suggesting is to do what we have to do, and to be informed of
> > > course by institutional realities and possible hostile reactions, but to
> > > start from our own realities and ethics first, and only secondarily as
> > > being
> > > guided by the system we oppose and the actions of its guardians,
> > >
> > > an argument could be that 'fighting against' as primary motivation
> > > actually
> > > 'feeds' the system, and that 'maximally ignoring it' through a
> > > reconstructive effort direct energy in the new realities that we want to
> > > see
> > > emerge,
> >
> > I'm wondering, would this link to the self-reduction and refusal to work
> > campaigns I mentioned in an earlier post?
> >
> > Magnus
> >
> > >
> > > Michel
> > >
> > > On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 2:01 PM, Parikka J. <J.Parikka at soton.ac.uk>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> Hi
> > >>
> > >> yes, we need pragmatics of sorts- that is what I think Michel was
> > >> flagging
> > >> and you Magnus were pointing towards; what works, what does not? Rosi
> > >> Braidotti (who like me thinks of pragmatics in a Deleuze-Guattari way)
> > >> has a
> > >> nice little phrase "whatever gets you through the day" to refer to
> > >> nomadic
> > >> ethics that steers clear from normative rigidity and takes contextual,
> > >> fluctuating milieus as its starting point - the fact that we need to
> > >> live in
> > >> a world, and somehow sustain our being in that. Pirating is already to a
> > >> large extent that; less about manifestos, politics in the explicit sense
> > >> of
> > >> consciousness and goals; it is just getting by, with whatever is at
> > >> hand:
> > >> your example of larvae. This is what so often characterises forms of
> > >> network
> > >> politics (http://www.networkpolitics.org/) - that they are not even
> > >> necessarily recognized as politics, but are so mundane, so...practical,
> > >> embedded in everyday practices (and at times even deemed outright
> > >> illegal)
> > >> that they are under the radar when talking of politics - except
> > >> economics.
> > >> Piracy is often hanging on to some of the last possibilities of what
> > >> you've
> > >> got. Even the Hargreaves report seems to understand this bit: copyright
> > >> law
> > >> (in the UK in this case) is not seen credible by the public. Just some
> > >> passages quoted from the report (we know this already, but just to
> > >> articulate it once more):
> > >>
> > >> 8.5. "Most also cannot understand, or do not accept, that they are doing
> > >> anything wrong by transferring a music file from a CD they have bought
> > >> to an
> > >> MP3 player, iPod or other device. A survey published by Consumer Focus
> > >> in
> > >> February 2010 found that 73 per cent of consumers do not know what they
> > >> are
> > >> allowed to copy or record.3 A Harris Interactive Poll for the BPI in
> > >> 2010
> > >> found that 44 per cent of all peer-to-peer (P2P) users stated that they
> > >> believed their actions to be lawful. "
> > >>
> > >> 8.6. "It is not surprising that consumers are confused. In a world where
> > >> it
> > >> is possible to listen to music free on the radio; free or by
> > >> subscription
> > >> through a computer or smartphone from a streaming service; or by
> > >> continuing
> > >> to put a purchased or borrowed CD in a player, the concept of
> > >> “ownership”
> > >> and “purchase” has itself been redefined. "
> > >>
> > >> The word confused, incidentally, is mentioned in the report a number of
> > >> times...
> > >>
> > >> The redefinition of ownership and purchase is interesting and of course
> > >> at
> > >> the core of this. Writing this while listening to Spotify and
> > >> interrupted
> > >> after every Tinariwen song with an idiotic and badly made advertising
> > >> spot,
> > >> I come to think of forms of piracy that have to do with those abstract
> > >> but
> > >> as real forms of world - time for instance; how my time is being
> > >> legitimately pirated by mechanisms of capture of something that I
> > >> mistake to
> > >> be so personal - my time. (Well, we sell our time anyway to whoever pays
> > >> our
> > >> salaries, but that is only one bit of the pirating of such "personals"
> > >> to
> > >> which extraction of value bases itself).
> > >>
> > >> So, Evil and Evil Media Studies (Goffey and Fuller in the Spam Book);
> > >>
> > >> what if evil practices is where we should start? Lets for a second
> > >> forget
> > >> that we should play the game according to the rules, the legalities, the
> > >> jointly (never) accepted frameworks, and start with what actually people
> > >> do:
> > >> we pirate, copy, plagiarize, imitate, adopt, adapt, repurpose, discard,
> > >> trash, deceive, trick and so forth. To quote them: "To put it another
> > >> way,
> > >> evil is a good name for the strategies of the object, for what things do
> > >> in
> > >> themselves without bothering to pass through the subjective demand for
> > >> meaning." (A short summary of the stratagems of evil media here:
> > >> http://jussiparikka.net/2011/06/14/do-some-evil/)
> > >>
> > >> They map what already is taking place in "evil" places of communication
> > >> from psy-ops to capitalist marketing, and suggest such as
> > >> theory/practice
> > >> entry points to evil media studies. Such would be the work of piracy as
> > >> well
> > >> - no need to sublimate it as a revolutionary artistic practice perhaps
> > >> as we
> > >> have millions of examples around the world of it in action already but
> > >> still: why not. One of the most natural things in the world -- because
> > >> it
> > >> has a connection to production in a very fundamental sense, that
> > >> McKenzie
> > >> Wark flags in Hacker Manifesto: versus packing creativity into a
> > >> commodity,
> > >> bootlegs and piracy are themselves forms of distribution.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> j
> > >>
> > >> ______
> > >> Dr Jussi Parikka
> > >> Reader in Media & Design
> > >> Winchester School of Art
> > >> University of Southampton, UK
> > >> Http://jussiparikka.net
> > >>
> > >> Adjunct Professor of Digital Culture Theory, University of Turku
> > >> Visiting Fellow at Institute of Media Studies, Humboldt University,
> > >> Berlin
> > >> - Spring and Summer 2011
> > >> ________________________________________
> > >> From: empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au [
> > >> empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of
> > magnus at ditch.org.uk
> > >> [
> > >> magnus at ditch.org.uk]
> > >> Sent: 13 July 2011 21:42
> > >> To: empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > >> Subject: [-empyre-] pirates, pirating pirates
> > >>
> > >> Reflecting on the interrelation between business and government, the
> > >> background of activity in emerging economic circuits and the rise of
> > >> cyberwarfare, I start to wonder to what degree the piracy is above all a
> > >> relation between the bigger entities in capitalism which Jussi says,
> > >> “...already, is rotten, anomalous and deviant itself”. Perhaps I am a
> > >> little caught in circular relations, loops and entropy, but these
> > >> notions
> > >> seem to be quite fundamental to an understanding of conditions of the
> > >> present moment, especially considering the imprint of political economy
> > >> on
> > >> spaces both virtual and physical. Technical, systems ecology, as I read
> > >> in
> > >> 'Digital Contagions' is one more paradigm which has been absorbed into
> > >> the
> > >> body of capital. But, as Michel suggested, the relationship is not
> > >> necessarily one way. In this dynamic interplay of forces I am
> > >> continually
> > >> searching (like many others) for new spaces and opportunities. There is
> > >> a
> > >> kind of inadvertent mapping involved in that process, the kind of
> > >> activity, I think, which the Keith Bunting work which Marc mentioned,
> > >> makes explicit.
> > >>
> > >> I am also seeking analogies for my own and others' circumstances. The
> > >> discussion has recast the role of pirate to locate it within the centre
> > >> of
> > >> business and government. It has also questioned the certainties of
> > >> self-identification with fringe and underground community. Instead of
> > >> locating ourselves at the borders, perhaps denied agency, I suggest an
> > >> alternative, less anomalous, identity, as larvae consuming the rotten
> > >> hull
> > >> of capital - Pirate vessels of the 1600s, unable to put in to port for
> > >> repairs, were dogged by millions of these creatures, voraciously
> > >> burrowing
> > >> into their wooden hulls. Invariably there was nothing for it but to
> > >> abandon these ships to the tide. So, this kind of instinctual and
> > >> destructive (vandal) behaviour may be one way to envisage the sharers of
> > >> today – possibly acting without any kind of political awareness, doing
> > >> the
> > >> most natural thing in the world.
> > >>
> > >> Further on the larvae trope, I visited the Free Hetherington in Glasgow
> > >> this week. This is the former Graduates' Club Building, occupied by
> > >> students in defiance of cuts and restructuring being effected within
> > >> Glasgow University: http://freehetherington.wordpress.com/
> > >> The Free Hetherington has become a centre for numerous educational and
> > >> cultural events and activities over the past 160 days and declares
> > >> itself
> > >> to be operating a gift economy. So, I propose such spaces as a flip-side
> > >> to the embodied messages Jussi has described. Around such places, it
> > >> seems
> > >> to me, there is a whole cacophony of noise (of protest and
> > >> participation)
> > >> and intermingled use and quiet and reflection that distinguishes it from
> > >> the social dynamics of Dubitinsider's co-ordinated marketing campaign.
> > >> But
> > >> I wonder if I am coming on like an old moralist too?!
> > >>
> > >> Jussi, perhaps you could say some more about evil and Evil Media
> > >> Studies?
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> empyre forum
> > >> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> empyre forum
> > >> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
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> > >
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> > > _______________________________________________
> > > empyre forum
> > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> 
> 
> 
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