Initiated in March 2011, Tahrir Documents is an ongoing effort to archive and translate activist papers from the 2011 Egyptian uprising and its aftermath. Materials are collected from demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square and published in complete English translation alongside scans of the original documents. The project is not affiliated with any political organization, Egyptian or otherwise.
ReadResidents of Istanbul started a peaceful sit-in as a reaction to the city governments plans to demolish Taksim Square's Gezi Park on the May 29th 2013. The demolition was part of the plan to replace the park and construct a shopping mall on one of the only green areas left in the central cross road of Istanbul. The reaction was sparked by a decision making process that lacked any consultation with citizens. Inhabitants of the city initiated this on-site protest to raise their voices against the demolition plans, but also to exercise their right to freedom of speech and to freedom of assembly in a democratic society.
ReadA brief history of "The Journal of the Mental Environment."
The
core idea behind Adbusters, the essential critique that motivates our
struggle against consumer society, is mental environmentalism. And for
seventeen years, since the seventh issue of Adbusters was published in
1993, the subtitle of the magazine has been "The Journal of the Mental
Environment". But, what exactly is mental environmentalism?
In the period between the end of the cold war in 1989 and the events of September 11, 2001, human rights became the dominant moral narrative by which world politics was organized. Inspired by the momentous political and cultural transformations taking place at the time, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the spread of global communications technologies, promoters of human rights discourse optimistically predicted that a transnational public sphere dedicated to democratic values would emerge (We now know, of course, that such predictions were wrong, as early post cold war hopes gave way to the harsh realities of contemporary globalization).
This short essay for Cahiers Costech explores the complicated relationship of activist and experimental / artistic practices around digital and online media to the problem of time.
ReadDr. Shahidul Alam, internationally renowned photographer, activist, founder and Managing Director of the Bangladesh multimedia company, Drik, founder of Chobi Mela International Photography Festival and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, was forcibly abducted from his home on the night of 5 August.
Shahidul Alam was granted bail on November 15, 2018 and released from jail, but still faces a maximum of 14 years in prison if convicted.
News and updates #freeshahidulalam
PRESS RELEASE
Chobi Mela VI to Open a Portal to a Restive World of Dreams
"All that we value, that we strive to uphold, all that gives us strength, has been made of dreams"
World-Information.Org is an trans-national cultural intelligence provider, a collaborative effort of artists, scientists and technicians. It is a practical example for a technical and contextual environment for cultural production and an independent platform of critical media intelligence.
ReadDue to the impact of the cloud of volcanic ashes that lead to the cancellation of flights across Europe the 10th edition of the Dictionary of War will not take place on April 17th, 2010 in Trondheim (Norway). It will be postponed to a later date in the course of the exhibition "Manufacturing Today".
ReadDICTIONARY OF WAR is a collaborative platform for creating 100 concepts
on the issue of war, to be invented, arranged and presented by
scientists, artists, theorists and activists at four public, two-day
events in Frankfurt, Munich, Graz and Berlin. The aim is to create key
concepts that either play a significant role in current discussions of
war, have so far been neglected, or have yet to be created.
A biography on Christoph Schlingensief.
By Till Briegleb.
Amsterdam & Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 12-14 March, 1999
The third Next 5 Minutes, an Amsterdam based conference on tactical communications culture, featuring do-it-yourself media, dissident art and electronic media activists from around the world, took place on the 12th, 13th and 14th of March 1999.
N5M3 archived festival website
ReadNext 5 Minutes is a festival that brings together media, art and politics. Next 5 Minutes revolves around the notion of tactical media, the fusion of art, politics and media. The festival is organised irregularly, when the urgency is felt to bring a new edition of the festival together.
Read
Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison! Show Him He Still Has Our Support!
Jeremy Hammond is a 28-year-old political activist sentenced to 120 months in prison, with an additional 3 years probation upon his release,
after pleading guilty to the Anonymous conspiracy to hack the private
intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor). A longtime proponent
of "hactivism," his actions are a form of electronic civil
disobedience. He believes that "people have a right to know what
governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors."
What counts in the long run is the "use" one makes of a theory....We
must start from existing practices in order to retrace the fundamental
flaws.
--Felix Guattari, "Why Marx and Freud No Longer Disturb Anyone"
In 1994, when Critical Art Ensemble first introduced the idea and a
possible model of electronic civil disobedience (ECD) as another option
for digital resistance, the collective had no way of knowing what
elements would be the most practical, nor did it know what elements
would require additional explanation. After nearly five years of field
testing of ECD by various groups and individuals, its information gaps
have become a little more obvious and can finally be addressed.
An interview with a Syrian activist in exile, code-named Sami, published by Occupy.com draws attenton once more to the radical experiment in real-life bottom-up matriarchal democratic design unfolding against all odds in the autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava in Northern Syria. We are republishing two short texts here on this subject matter to speculate about the question if 'Rojava' could offer a repeatable model for post-governmental political design?
Tactical Media Connections public program, Amsterdam January 20 - 22, 2017.
As part of the Tactical Media Connections public research trajectory tracing the legacies of Tactical Media and its connections to the present, a series of public events take place in Amsterdam between January 20 and 22, 2017. The public program includes an exhibition at Framer Framed in the Tolhuistuin cultural centre, opening on Friday January 20; a Meme Wars Lab workshop on Friday January 20; a public debate at Eye Filmmuseum on Saturday January 21, and a one day conference (‘The Society of Post-Control’) again at the Tolhuistuin on Sunday January 22.
Please find below a brief program overview, followed by a detailed description of the different parts of the public program.
The McLibel media strategy arose from a simple premise: this story has
to be told. Most people have been affected by McDonald's in one way or
another - working in a store, being nagged by children, stumbling
through litter, suffering ill-health or enjoying their burgers - and
the corporation's influence continues to increase as they relentlessly
pursue their "global domination strategy" (to use their own words). Two
people investing their lives to stand up to such a force has got to be
a great story in anybody's book.
Restore the Fourth to hold protests on July 4th for Fourth Amendment Rights. We're protesting to restore the Fourth Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
Next 5 Minutes: tactical media was a conference and exhibition that took
place at Amsterdam's Balie and Paradiso and at Rotterdam's
V2_Organisation from January 18th till January 21st 1996. The
conference was officially opened Thursday evening in Rotterdam with a
performance of the Critical Art Ensemble from Chicago about the matter
of media.