Shahidul Alam

Shahidul Alam is a photographer, internet pioneer and activist from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is also the founder and director of the Drik picture library and media-centre in Dhaka.

• majority world,
• photography

Oleg Kireev

Oleg Kireev (born 1975) - art- and mediacritic, editor and curator, writer, critic and activist, founder of the Ghetto collective, Moscow. Participated in a number of media-political campaigns ("Against all parties", 1999) and actions ("Barricade at Bolshaya Nikitskaya", May 1998). Author of articles on art and politics in the Russian and international press ("Novaya gazeta", "Nezavasimaya gazeta", "Flash art", "Siksi", "Mute"

• urban intervention,
• criticism

Indymedia: It's time to move on 

Indymedia is the name given to a particular network with a rather uneven global reach, to which many hundreds of local independent media projects, mostly web-based, have been affiliated at one time or another. It is also the name for a particular approach to news media - one that attempts to avoid hierarchal production and hence promote grassroots reports on events.

• grassroot journalism,
• diy media,
• independent media,
• media criticism,
• participatory media,
• news

ARTIVISM: The Art of Subverting Power - June 23-25, 2023, Berlin 

THE 30TH CONFERENCE OF THE DISRUPTION NETWORK LAB
KUNSTQUARTIER BETHANIEN - BERLIN & STREAMING

[ Archived streaming videos at: https://www.disruptionlab.org/artivism#video ]

How can art and activism be combined to tackle burning social issues, surveillance, unethical corporations and corrupt governments?
A programme of panels, workshops, and artistic productions curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli.

• art,
• media,
• activism,
• infopolitics,
• independent media,
• info-activism,
• art of campaigning,
• media criticism,
• surveillance

Distance versus Desire 

The desire to transcend distance and separation has accompanied the history of media technology for many centuries. Various attempts to realise the demand for a presence from a distance have produced beautiful imaginaries such as those of telepresence and ubiquity, the electronic cottage and the reinvigoration of  the oikos, and certainly not least among them the reduction of physical mobility in favour of an ecologically more sustainable connected life style.  As current systems of hypermobility are confronted with an unfolding energy crisis and collide with severe ecological limits - most prominently in the intense debate on global warming - citizens and organisations in advanced and emerging economies alike are forced to reconsider one of the most daring projects of the information age: that a radical reduction of physical mobility is possible through the use of advanced telepresence technologies.

• electrosmog,
• im/mobility,
• telepresence

Video Warriors 

In 1996, Adams Wood, Jeff Taylor, and A. Mark Liiv were working as activists on a forest defense campaign in Idaho. With a Hi-8 camera, they documented violations of timber sales agreements and confrontations between angry loggers and non-violent protesters as a way to keep people safe, as a tool in legal defense, and as an alternative to mainstream corporate media, which was biased in favor of the timber industry. The activists managed to pull off a 41-day road blockade, and the future founders of Whispered Media were shooting it. They cut their first video and called it ROAD USE RESTRICTED. The succinct but intense twelve-minute video was a great success, becoming part of several activist-run road shows and inspiring many a tree-hugger to haul it out to Idaho, which, says Liiv, "is not on the way to anywhere."

Dutch Protest Museum 

ARTPLAY, Small Hall, Moscow, Russia
Dates: October 23rd - November 6th, 2013

In the second half of the 20th century, anarchist artists from PROVO, feminist movement Dolle Mina, Amsterdam squatters and media activists influenced Dutch state politics and changed public opinion with their sensational actions. What were they fighting for and what has become of activist art today? The exhibition tells the story of creative protest movements in the Netherlands from 1960s till 1990s, when those movements flourished, and also includes pieces by contemporary artists working with political themes today.

• art,
• tactical media,
• activism

N5M3 South Asia Forum Presentation 

Working with new media in the part of South Asia that I come from is something like crossing a tightrope on a bicycle. The bicycle which could have helped me along were I on my way on flat ground makes the crossing that much more precarious. Consider the bicycle to be the single computer and the internet connection which I use along with at least seventeen other people, friends, colleagues, neighbours and complete strangers.

The Becoming Environmental of Power: Tactical Media After Control - Part I 

There is a last enterprise that might be undertaken. It would be to seek experience at its source, or rather, above that decisive turn where, taking a bias in the direction of our utility, it becomes properly human experience. (Bergson, 1991: 184).

• tactical media,
• media theory

Is there a Social-Media Fueled Protest Style? 

An Analysis From #jan25 to #geziparki

• diy media,
• infopolitics,
• media theory,
• info-activism,
• media criticism

Dictionary of War - Munich Edition 

The second edition of DICTIONARY OF WAR, July 22 and 23 in Muffathalle Munich

• war,
• theory,
• dictionary of war

Post-media Operators 

1.
The record industry is in the process of being outflanked by means of the very processes that it has come to rely upon. Since the 60's its continual efforts to create new needs has meant that it nurtured an everchanging musical soundscape that is now mutating at such a pace that it cannot keep track long enough to harness these musical evolutions in the direction of profit. That fact that it doesn't achieve this harnessing has the remarkable effect of making the 'new' last longer! A longevity that comes from our always being able to place ourselves amidst a continual re-definition of these sounds. Even in terms of format, the profit-orientated shift to a CD market which may have meant that back-catalogues could be re-sold has also worked to deliver an on-line tap of musical history at the same time that vinyl pressing has become cheaper. These and other factors feed into the accelerating mutation that in turn creates a dissatisfaction with what the industry can offer.

• media theory,
• media criticism

World-Information Paris 

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.

• environment,
• cartography,
• infopolitics,
• world-information

World-Information Bangalore 

World-Information City is a one-week programme of events addressing global issues of intellectual property and technology in conjunction with changing urban landscapes.

• infopolitics,
• public domain,
• world-information

bak.ma 

bak.ma is the digital media archive of social movements in Turkey. From Gezi to Tekel workers resistance, from 19 January to Hewsel, it aims to reveal the near history of Turkey with audio-visual recordings, documentations and testimonies.

• archive,
• activism,
• theory,
• video activism,
• street protest,
• tactical research

NEURO networking Europe 

From February 27th to 29th young artists, filmmak- ers, musicians, theorists and activists from all over Europe and many other parts of the world meet at the Muffathalle in Munich for NEURO; a number of events, speeches, discussions, presentations, performances, concerts and actions reflecting the pulse of the age. About two years after the first make-world festival, NEURO will again interface with current debates around migration and mobility, racism and nationalism, civil society and global mobilisation, networking and new technologies, informatisation and precarious labour, education and control society, common organising, and digital culture.

• network cultures,
• infopolitics,
• net.activism,
• net criticism

The 'art' of disappearing 

Thereis no place in the Netherlands for the odd one out. Strangers can beassimilated or deported and sick people can be cured or euthanised, butthe dreamer and the bohemian will not fit in a straight-jacket. Thereare only paved roads to follow in this country and those who cannot orwill not follow these roads are doomed. Sooner or later that odd oneout will be given a choice: either he will lay hands on himself or hewill be lend a hand with his choice. After that he can rot in his graveuntil after long the time is ripe to memorise his peculiarity at astrictly limited occasion.

Erik Hobijn over techno-parasieten 

Techno-parasieten zijn volgens de definitie van Hobijn 'apparaatjes die gebruikmaken van gedeeltes van onze verworvenheden, speeltjes behept met opmerkzaamheid die technische storingen tot gevolg hebben.' Technoparasiet 00020004C leeft van de lantaarnpaal. Het is een soort bloemkelk dat het regenwater opvangt en het licht van de lantaarn omzet in energie, met als doel het creëren van een potentiaal verschil. Het regenwater wordt gebru ikt om het proces te versnellen. Hiermee wordt eerst de zinklaag aangetast en op den duur ook de ijzerlaag aangevroten zodat de lantaarnpaal wordt doorgezaagd en omvalt. Een andere parariet klimt in een spiraalachtige beweging langs de lantaarnpaal omhoog. Het motortje loopt op lichtenergie, heel langzaam. Boven aangekomen slaat hij ineens het glas en lamp kapot, vermoord zo zijn voedingsbron en valt dan naar beneden.