sm2263 subversive computing & tactical media bryan chung [email protected] class web

SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media

Bryan [email protected]

http://www.bryanchung.net/

Class webhttp://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2263/

mailto:[email protected]




http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2263/


Week Date Topics Works

1 Jan 19 Class introduction and terminology

2 Jan 26 Social considerations in computing

3 Feb 02 Accidents and errors in computing

4 Feb 09 Networking and communication

5 Feb 23 Net art and tactical media

6 Mar 02 Hacktivism


7 Mar 09 Screening

8 Mar 16 Open source culture

9 Mar 23 Intellectual properties

10 Mar 30 Peer to peer network

11 Apr 13 Computer virus

12 Apr 20 Spyware and surveillance


Class 1

Introduction

Expectation and requirements

Terminology

Video screening

Short notes on tactical media


Class 1 - introduction

Workshop approach

Discussion and debates

Controversial issues

Alternative use of technology

Collective actions

Individual reflection


Class 1 – technical knowledge

Web publishing

Graphic visualization

Network tools

Flash or Processing

Year 1 computing concepts


Class 1 – social issues

Human rights

Race

Gender

Environment

Media domination

Globalization

Monopoly

Labour

Neo-liberalism and more …


Neo-liberalism

• Liberalism: stresses the supreme value of the individual, assumes human

common desires and capacities. As beings who are capable of self-

determination and know their interests best, they demand liberty and

freedom to shape their lives.• The state’s main task is to maximize individual liberty and establish a

regime of rights to life, liberty & property.• To protect, the state has the monopoly of right to use force.• Liberalism connect with bourgeoisie laissez-faire & market


Neo-liberalism

• 19C liberals were divided because of economic inequalities:

neo-liberalism – laissez-faire, deregulation (oppose trade union, minimum

wages), privatization, equality threatened individual liberty…

social liberalism or new liberalism – brought liberalism closer to social

democracy

liberal democracy – liberal & democractic components regulate each other.

(Bhikhu Parekh)


Globalization

• comes with modernization and industralization• “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the

Bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere,

settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere … In place of the old

local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every

direction, universal interdependence of nations. And in material, so in

intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become

common property.• Marshall McLuhan’s global village: the world becoming a single interconnected

Society as a result of the new media of electronic communications.• Immanuel Wallerstein’s world system theory: core & peripheral states


Globalization

• 80s, Ronald Reagan & Margarget Thatcher pushed to renegotiate regional &

Global trade agreements:

e.g. the North American Free Trade Area, the General Agreement on Tariffs &

Trade, European Economic CommunityInternational regulatory agencies: World Trade Organization, World Bank,

International Monetary Fund• Corporate operations no longer under rigid control of national governments Shift in labor market, manufacturing jobs to developing world, replace with

Minimum-wage, service-sector jobs• global economic market encompass all domains of social life.


Terminology


Subversion

Action designed to undermine the military, economic, psychological or political strength of a

regime.

Article 23 of Basic Law consultation paper

Moreover, we are keenly aware that acts of subversion are not confined to acts involving the use

of force. Indeed, with the rapid development of technology, a serious threat to the country’s

security and stability might come from illegal acts employing non-violent means, such as

electronic sabotage.


Class 1 – Article 23 of Basic Law consultation paper

“Serious criminal means” means any act which –

endangers the life of person other than the person who does the act;

causes serious injury to a person other than the person who does the act;

seriously endangers the health or safety of the public or a section of the public;

causes serious damage to property; or

seriously interferes with or disrupts an electronic system or an essential service, facility or system (whether

public or private), and –

is done in Hong Kong and is an offence under the law of Hong Kong; or

is done in any place outside Hong Kong;

is an offence under the law of that place; and

would, if done in Hong Kong, be an offence under the law of Hong Kong.


Tactics

De Certeau analyzed popular culture not as a “domain of texts or artifacts but rather a set of

practices or operations performed on textual or text like structures.”

Representation Uses of representation


Tactics Representation Uses of representation

Tactics

• Consumption is seen as a set of tactics by which the weak (user) make use of the strong

(producer).

• Poaching, shopping, tricking as aesthetics

• Indigenous Indians under Spanish colonization; Hello Kitty in Japan…

Temporary reversal in the flow of power

Consumer producer

Tactical Media (TM)

• TM abandons instead of pays homage to de Certeau; production can be tactical!

• A group of people aware the value of the temporary reversals of the flow of power, they

amplify them by creating spaces, channels and platforms, making these reversals of power

central to their practices.

Defining TM

• Tactical media are what happens when the cheap “do it yourself media” made possible by

the revolution in consumer electronics and the expanded forms of distribution (cable, satellite

and internet) are exploited by groups and individuals who feel aggrieved or excluded by the

wider culture. It is their refusal of the position of "objectivity" which more than anything

separates the tactical from mainstream media culture.

• As with other cultures of exile and migration, practitioners of tactical media have studied the

techniques by which the weak become stronger than their oppressors by scattering, by

becoming centreless, by moving fast across the physical and virtual landscapes. “The hunted

must discover the ways become the hunter.” (David Garcia)

Defining TM

• “Anarchy is the Key, Do-It-Yourself is the Melody.”

The Medium is the Message

• Intervene “popular culture” without compromise with the “system”

Disney Hunter

No stable ideology, agenda

• Temporary to community building…

• Egoist to collectivist…

• Tacticalist to strategist…

Reclaim the Streets1997 Anti-Election Campaign

• Deceptive Detournement: Spoof the London newspaper The Evening Standard, Reclaim the

Streets self-produced 20,000 copies of Evading Standards, complete with a banner headline

announcing “General Election Cancelled.”

• Pirate radio station Tree FM and Interference FM, and RTS radio

• They rode the bicycle-powered sound system, to show up at British Critical Mass events.

• Democracy Xerocracy

• Virtual & Real space

• Tactical media practitioners take possessions of both the streets and media spaces for

constructing new social formation.


Class 1 – simple assignment

Collect a number of your encounter of error situations with technology. Use photography or

screen capture or scanning to record them and present to us in the 3rd week. Document also

how you or others respond to the situations.


Class 1 - screening

Punk music – Sex Pistols

Hexstatic, Coldcut - Environmental

Surveillance - part 1


Class 1 - reference

Stencil Art - http://www.banksy.co.uk

Graffiti Research Lab - http://graffitiresearchlab.com/

http://www.banksy.co.uk/

http://graffitiresearchlab.com/



sm2263 subversive computing & tactical media bryan chung [email protected] class web

Documents

tactical media6mar

new liberalism

liberalism closer

neoliberalism laissezfaire

liberty property

social considerations

intellectual properties10mar

intellectual production