Activism Now
What does it mean to live a radical vision in this network society? There are a great number of different visions. For one, there is the Che Guevara mutiny rhetoric of radicality. Today, that has really nothing to do with the radical politics of the Argentinean medical doctor who took off into the Congo and later the Bolivian jungle. Come on. We need immutable contributions that force social change and contribute to crisis. But the raised fist, closed, is empty. Your fingers bent in toward the palm and held there tightly don't signal a blow anymore. At worse they may even stand for a type of self-contained, liberal "feelgoodiness" of the traditional artworld. Stencil aesthetics is instantly sucked into the event-culture of the spectacle. Culture jammers become special-interest communities. Often hand and hand with the rhetoric of radicality goes conceit. Revolution? Where, in the US, do you see the millions who are desperate enough to put their lives in jeopardy. Show me. You can't just cook up a revolution without the necessary ingredients. Vast numbers of people here are muted by consumption and disinformation. They still have glimpses of hope lulled by lies about class mobility and the "American Dream." The millions here work boundless hours and they 
are poor. But they are not impoverished enough. And they are not even loosely joined. How do we affect the fundamental nature of what surrounds us? How do we reflect meaningfully on the technologies that saturate our lives? Foucault's notion of biopower describes our bodies as being guided by political technologies. Therefore one form of resistance is about the insertion of the blip, like a high-pitched interruption, into the algorithm of societal software. I am writing this in New York on a snowy day. The situation here is different than in Munich or Chiang Mai, for instance, where the tentacles of the network have not sunk in their teeth as deeply. But in the US the always-on-lifestyle permeates our daily lives in full. How can deviance not be, at least partially, defined in relation to the cooperative technologies of the Internet? If you want to take protest to the centers of power then you will have to consider the geographically distributed network as much as the town hall. The corporate headquarters that ActUp attacked in the 80s dissolved like soap in the streams of the network. The centers of power are now distributed. Deviance is about hot bodies and the dark fiber of cold cables. Resistance is about the "streets," about demonstrations, door-to-door grassroots campaigns, in-flesh sit-ins, and other affective manifestations of contestational presence.
Pressing our hands tight against our eyes does not help us. The network still recognizes us even if our eyes are wide shut. People have good reason to be skeptical about the networked lifestyle. But there is both, the gray network clouds and the sun that sparkles through them. To reject network technologies altogether is unreasonable. There are the military-industrial roots of the Internet. But then there are also the cybercommunist uses of it with all the alternative economies of gifting and sharing and commons-based peer production that clearly make the original DARPA masterminds irk. Equally, claims that digital communication devices take away from warm face-to-face encounters are only partially correct. The stereotype of the white, obese, socially alienated teenager in the basement needs to be calibrated. The studies of University of Toronto cybersociologist Barry Wellman show that in-flesh social connectedness increases for those who are more frequent email users. Also in the realm of education horrible examples of misguided, corporate long-distance learning indeed show the dark side of the network force. And it does not stop there. Skeptics question the efficacy of online resistance in the face of the anywhere and nowhere of the Internet that supposedly does not speak to the class, race, or gender disparities in a particular locale. They may even argue that people try to hide behind the screen so that they don't have to smell the sweat of "real people" at a demonstration. But in actuality deviant practices are increasingly mixed. One foot is on the plaza and the other online. Activists still go from door to door. They do powerfully demonstrate as we saw on February 15, 2003. They use blogs and mailinglists and online artworks to further their objectives, organize, and document their urban interventions. Locative media projects and the notion of situated software (Shirkey) put Virillio's argument of a lack of place to the test. A thousand flowers will bloom for locative activism. The often-debated effectiveness of activist art is hard to put a finger on. There surely are countless artistic gestures online that have been consequential. They can hardly be discounted.
In the same breath I need to address the perception of the online flaneur as "user" or "consumer" or "customizer." This reduction is only part of the story. I don't argue with the fact that the amazons and eBays of this world dream of calling their online sirens to lure the swarms of online wanderers into their commodifiable web of content production. The heads at IBM and trendwatching.com surely steam thinking about ways in which to commodify the word-of-mouse economy. They want to turn the enthusiastic web-drifting "crowds" into corporate workhorses. Recent studies by the Pew Institute have shown that 51 million Americans are involved in content production (e.g. blog entries, Wikipedia entries, file swaps etc). Network talk is frequently, and often exclusively, revolving around business and the future. We are better off if we look at the clumsy heap of technology in front of us instead of concerning ourselves with the future promises of technologies (that always sell). Don't believe in the gibberish of network salvation. However, there are refreshing reasons to use these technologies to improve our lives. Wikipedia is a potent example of cooperative technologies that benefit the public. We can form groups online that help us live more engaged lives. Fibreculture, Nettime, Institute for Network Cultures and Sarai are but a few examples. We can get inspired! We can have intellectual community! We can create open, living cultural archives! We can warden ourselves from collaboration burnout and bitterness (the worse of all). Such social networks I call extreme sharing networks (derived from the concept of extreme programming). They allow access to a distributed talent pool and associated resources. Just in the spirit Peter Kropotkin people provide mutual aid to each other. They can create visibility for discourses and artworks that would otherwise be overlooked. They can inspire younger generations of artists by exposing them to ideas and art projects. They have the ability to respond to issues in a fast, and flexible way. They shape expectations. But such extreme sharing networks are not alternatives or heads on opposition to institutions. Such alternative social networks can't claim snow-white innocence. They are fluid. They are inside and out of brick and mortar institutions. They can route around them.
It's hard to keep up with evolving technologies. Network luddites and the tech-fatigued can't bear the work that it takes to stay on track with technological developments. Fair enough. It's Ok to unplug. Unlink. Throw out technology that comes between you and the other. Data speed through network cables like cockroaches. New hardware and software radically change the information landscape constantly. For some people, online communication just brings out the worse of their character. For them there is no need to keep on rolling in the virtual world. But they should not label social technologies as inherently inadequate on their way out of the door. We are shaped by technologies while at the same time our uses defines them. We can reverse-imagineer technologies. (Ani DiFranco: "every tool can be a weapon if you hold it right"). We can use the throw-away video camera as tactical media device.
We dance to the iTunes beats that are remotely fed into our living room. How can we bring the (issues of the) network clash home? I first think of self-direction. How can I really govern my own life? How can I be in charge? So much of the day-to-day is merely uploaded just like an rss feed into our brain. Living like a hermit, out-of-touch, sounds appealing at times. Leaving the cellphone at home is tempting. Who does not know such moments? The "always-on" condition is demanding. Filtering takes up too much time. What does a politically radical life style mean for me? We live in challenging times that demand engagement. The last that is needed are people who are soft on the edges. Radical leftist positions are needed now. But where do we start? What does it mean to be an activist? There is the politics of time. An 8-hour work day sounds radical. To introduce the habit of getting rest sounds pretty far-reaching in a society that blends casualized work and play. In 1978 Mladen Stilinovic, for example, created a photo series that shows him sleeping in his Lubljana apartment. Title: "The Artist at Work." Don't let labor drool over your leisure time! Time for reflection and thinking is rarified. Instead of thinking we remix the content of others. Maybe the "Power of Now"-slogan that Vodaphone advocates is best interpreted by going for a swim. Perhaps T-Mobile's "Upgrading Downtime" should be understood as an invitation to read a book. "Downtime-Download" could mean that I close my eyes and recall a meaningful, moving encounter. Having actual friends (not business associates, or people who fit into a career plan) sounds pretty unusual today as well.
There is the moment when we close down on the possibility to meet, and get inspired by, the stranger because we went off into "Treo land." It's that obsessive email syndrome. It has little to do with a need for communication and lots to do with a cry for attention. Radicality could mean to not (immediately) respond. It could mean not to react. We can disappoint the competition and efficiency-enhancing aspects of these social technologies! It was historically the job of artists to disappoint social expectations. Having a meaningful, concentrated long-term life vision is highly unconventional and radical. How can we live our life in an engaged and fulfilled way? Not arbitrarily drifting from one opportunity to the next is profound. Getting less efficient is rebellious. Taking care of your body is uncommon.
In addition, I teach at a research university. Here I have personal encounters with students. This surely is an arena that makes personal transformation and conflict possible. In that context the question of rhetoric becomes important. What gets heard? Which argument allows the young other to remain open, listen, and consider? From my experience, a "radical" language does not get through to students. Maoist frontier language may make you feel all so radical but in most young American minds such references just call up associations of baby-eating Soviets. This may be hard to understand for Europeans who perhaps assume a leftist in every person. A Leninist rethoric effectively shuts down the doors of thinking almost right away. Each context requires a different language. The question of activism is obviously not new. Cooperation enhancing technologies have somewhat shifted the debate recently. Camps now also divide in pro-or-con technology, which is unuseful. We should support extreme sharing networks wherever we come to encounter them.
are poor. But they are not impoverished enough. And they are not even loosely joined. How do we affect the fundamental nature of what surrounds us? How do we reflect meaningfully on the technologies that saturate our lives? Foucault's notion of biopower describes our bodies as being guided by political technologies. Therefore one form of resistance is about the insertion of the blip, like a high-pitched interruption, into the algorithm of societal software. I am writing this in New York on a snowy day. The situation here is different than in Munich or Chiang Mai, for instance, where the tentacles of the network have not sunk in their teeth as deeply. But in the US the always-on-lifestyle permeates our daily lives in full. How can deviance not be, at least partially, defined in relation to the cooperative technologies of the Internet? If you want to take protest to the centers of power then you will have to consider the geographically distributed network as much as the town hall. The corporate headquarters that ActUp attacked in the 80s dissolved like soap in the streams of the network. The centers of power are now distributed. Deviance is about hot bodies and the dark fiber of cold cables. Resistance is about the "streets," about demonstrations, door-to-door grassroots campaigns, in-flesh sit-ins, and other affective manifestations of contestational presence. Pressing our hands tight against our eyes does not help us. The network still recognizes us even if our eyes are wide shut. People have good reason to be skeptical about the networked lifestyle. But there is both, the gray network clouds and the sun that sparkles through them. To reject network technologies altogether is unreasonable. There are the military-industrial roots of the Internet. But then there are also the cybercommunist uses of it with all the alternative economies of gifting and sharing and commons-based peer production that clearly make the original DARPA masterminds irk. Equally, claims that digital communication devices take away from warm face-to-face encounters are only partially correct. The stereotype of the white, obese, socially alienated teenager in the basement needs to be calibrated. The studies of University of Toronto cybersociologist Barry Wellman show that in-flesh social connectedness increases for those who are more frequent email users. Also in the realm of education horrible examples of misguided, corporate long-distance learning indeed show the dark side of the network force. And it does not stop there. Skeptics question the efficacy of online resistance in the face of the anywhere and nowhere of the Internet that supposedly does not speak to the class, race, or gender disparities in a particular locale. They may even argue that people try to hide behind the screen so that they don't have to smell the sweat of "real people" at a demonstration. But in actuality deviant practices are increasingly mixed. One foot is on the plaza and the other online. Activists still go from door to door. They do powerfully demonstrate as we saw on February 15, 2003. They use blogs and mailinglists and online artworks to further their objectives, organize, and document their urban interventions. Locative media projects and the notion of situated software (Shirkey) put Virillio's argument of a lack of place to the test. A thousand flowers will bloom for locative activism. The often-debated effectiveness of activist art is hard to put a finger on. There surely are countless artistic gestures online that have been consequential. They can hardly be discounted. In the same breath I need to address the perception of the online flaneur as "user" or "consumer" or "customizer." This reduction is only part of the story. I don't argue with the fact that the amazons and eBays of this world dream of calling their online sirens to lure the swarms of online wanderers into their commodifiable web of content production. The heads at IBM and trendwatching.com surely steam thinking about ways in which to commodify the word-of-mouse economy. They want to turn the enthusiastic web-drifting "crowds" into corporate workhorses. Recent studies by the Pew Institute have shown that 51 million Americans are involved in content production (e.g. blog entries, Wikipedia entries, file swaps etc). Network talk is frequently, and often exclusively, revolving around business and the future. We are better off if we look at the clumsy heap of technology in front of us instead of concerning ourselves with the future promises of technologies (that always sell). Don't believe in the gibberish of network salvation. However, there are refreshing reasons to use these technologies to improve our lives. Wikipedia is a potent example of cooperative technologies that benefit the public. We can form groups online that help us live more engaged lives. Fibreculture, Nettime, Institute for Network Cultures and Sarai are but a few examples. We can get inspired! We can have intellectual community! We can create open, living cultural archives! We can warden ourselves from collaboration burnout and bitterness (the worse of all). Such social networks I call extreme sharing networks (derived from the concept of extreme programming). They allow access to a distributed talent pool and associated resources. Just in the spirit Peter Kropotkin people provide mutual aid to each other. They can create visibility for discourses and artworks that would otherwise be overlooked. They can inspire younger generations of artists by exposing them to ideas and art projects. They have the ability to respond to issues in a fast, and flexible way. They shape expectations. But such extreme sharing networks are not alternatives or heads on opposition to institutions. Such alternative social networks can't claim snow-white innocence. They are fluid. They are inside and out of brick and mortar institutions. They can route around them.
It's hard to keep up with evolving technologies. Network luddites and the tech-fatigued can't bear the work that it takes to stay on track with technological developments. Fair enough. It's Ok to unplug. Unlink. Throw out technology that comes between you and the other. Data speed through network cables like cockroaches. New hardware and software radically change the information landscape constantly. For some people, online communication just brings out the worse of their character. For them there is no need to keep on rolling in the virtual world. But they should not label social technologies as inherently inadequate on their way out of the door. We are shaped by technologies while at the same time our uses defines them. We can reverse-imagineer technologies. (Ani DiFranco: "every tool can be a weapon if you hold it right"). We can use the throw-away video camera as tactical media device.
We dance to the iTunes beats that are remotely fed into our living room. How can we bring the (issues of the) network clash home? I first think of self-direction. How can I really govern my own life? How can I be in charge? So much of the day-to-day is merely uploaded just like an rss feed into our brain. Living like a hermit, out-of-touch, sounds appealing at times. Leaving the cellphone at home is tempting. Who does not know such moments? The "always-on" condition is demanding. Filtering takes up too much time. What does a politically radical life style mean for me? We live in challenging times that demand engagement. The last that is needed are people who are soft on the edges. Radical leftist positions are needed now. But where do we start? What does it mean to be an activist? There is the politics of time. An 8-hour work day sounds radical. To introduce the habit of getting rest sounds pretty far-reaching in a society that blends casualized work and play. In 1978 Mladen Stilinovic, for example, created a photo series that shows him sleeping in his Lubljana apartment. Title: "The Artist at Work." Don't let labor drool over your leisure time! Time for reflection and thinking is rarified. Instead of thinking we remix the content of others. Maybe the "Power of Now"-slogan that Vodaphone advocates is best interpreted by going for a swim. Perhaps T-Mobile's "Upgrading Downtime" should be understood as an invitation to read a book. "Downtime-Download" could mean that I close my eyes and recall a meaningful, moving encounter. Having actual friends (not business associates, or people who fit into a career plan) sounds pretty unusual today as well. There is the moment when we close down on the possibility to meet, and get inspired by, the stranger because we went off into "Treo land." It's that obsessive email syndrome. It has little to do with a need for communication and lots to do with a cry for attention. Radicality could mean to not (immediately) respond. It could mean not to react. We can disappoint the competition and efficiency-enhancing aspects of these social technologies! It was historically the job of artists to disappoint social expectations. Having a meaningful, concentrated long-term life vision is highly unconventional and radical. How can we live our life in an engaged and fulfilled way? Not arbitrarily drifting from one opportunity to the next is profound. Getting less efficient is rebellious. Taking care of your body is uncommon.In addition, I teach at a research university. Here I have personal encounters with students. This surely is an arena that makes personal transformation and conflict possible. In that context the question of rhetoric becomes important. What gets heard? Which argument allows the young other to remain open, listen, and consider? From my experience, a "radical" language does not get through to students. Maoist frontier language may make you feel all so radical but in most young American minds such references just call up associations of baby-eating Soviets. This may be hard to understand for Europeans who perhaps assume a leftist in every person. A Leninist rethoric effectively shuts down the doors of thinking almost right away. Each context requires a different language. The question of activism is obviously not new. Cooperation enhancing technologies have somewhat shifted the debate recently. Camps now also divide in pro-or-con technology, which is unuseful. We should support extreme sharing networks wherever we come to encounter them.
Update on December 9, 2005 at 01:24 by
[Trebor]
[Trebor]
I posted this also to the iDC mailinglist. You can follow the discussion that unfolded there.
http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2005-December/thread.html
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Reader Comments (1)
"The centers of power are
now distributed. Deviance is about hot bodies and the dark fiber of cold
cables. Resistance is about the "streets," about demonstrations,
door-to-door grassroots campaigns, in-flesh sit-ins, and other affective
manifestations of contestational presence." say more about hot bodies and dark fiber and what this really means or how it plays out and which bodies.
On the other hand this i clearly understand as a praxis and applaud:"Each context requires a different
language. The question of activism is obviously not new. Cooperation
enhancing technologies have somewhat shifted the debate recently. Camps now
also divide in pro-or-con technology, which is unuseful. We should support
extreme sharing networks wherever we come to encounter them.
Such social
networks I call extreme sharing networks (derived from the concept of
extreme programming). They allow access to a distributed talent pool and
associated resources. Just in the spirit Peter Kropotkin people provide
mutual aid to each other. They can create visibility for discourses and
artworks that would otherwise be overlooked. They can inspire younger
generations of artists by exposing them to ideas and art projects. They have
the ability to respond to issues in a fast, and flexible way. They shape
expectations. But such extreme sharing networks are not alternatives or
heads on opposition to institutions. Such alternative social networks can't
claim snow-white innocence. They are fluid. They are inside and out of brick
and mortar institutions." well said! megan boler