Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class 

Arthur Kroker, Canadian media theorist and is the author of 'ThePossessed Individual', 'Spasm' and 'Hacking the Future'. Over the pastyears he, together with Marilouise Kroker, were often in Europe andmade appearances at Virtual Futures, V-2, Eldorado/Antwerpen, etc.Recently, they have also been discovered in German-speaking countries.Both are noted for their somewhat compact jargon, which made theirmessage appear to drown somewhat in overcomplex code. But "DataTrash"`(1994) changed all that. The long treck through the squashydiscourses had not been in vain. Firmly rooted in European philosophy,yet not submerged, Arthur Kroker has found his topic: the virtual class.

• theory,
• media theory

International #GlobalDebout meeting, May 7-8, Paris 

International meeting for #GlobalDebout programme May 7th-8th – Paris, Place de la République
Location: Paris, Place de la République

This meeting is intended for activists and citizens all over the world.
International Call by #NuitDebout

• precarity,
• art of campaigning,
• labour,
• street protest

Binary Dispatches 

net.radio days 98 was this year's manifestation of the annual Radio Days forum, exploring the innovation and experimentation of radio art.  This year's conference was hosted in Berlin in June of this year. It was a symposium focused on a new generation of streaming media practitioners, utilising software such as Real Audio to broadcast audio content live on the internet.  This phenomena is being dubbed, net.radio.

• radio,
• streaming media

The Revenge of Print 

In the wireless era, is the paper medium simply passé for the work of activists? Are zamizdat, fanzines and political magazines just good for historians? After the mid-nineties zine crisis due to a sudden rise of the cost of paper and the advent of the Internet, the actual role of magazines seems to be re-defined and still strategical for the circulation of ideas.

In Brazil, Mídia NINJA's indie journalists are gaining attention and sparking controversy 

Providing journalism from within Brazil's protest movement has led the 'ninjas' to find an audience that wants to be represented in media.

• tactical media,
• community media,
• grassroot journalism,
• diy media,
• media criticism,
• self-mediation

A Pirate Utopia for Tactical Television 

In recent years Amsterdam has become known for its free-net the Digital City. Less well known but in some ways equally remarkable has been the emergence of Amsterdam's radical movement for public access television. This text is just a beginning, a highly selective historical snap shot.

• tactical media,
• community media,
• network cultures,
• next 5 minutes,
• amsterdam,
• tactical television

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

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

Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere 

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.

• civil disobedience

The Brazilian Context 

Many are the social, political or economic problems in Brazil. Socially, there's an extremely unequal distribution of wealth. Such a big social unequality is reflected, for example, in the extreme differences between the center and the periphery in the big cities, regional unequalities, criminality, racism. Besides that, we live in an unnoficial police state that acts in defense of the elites, murdering and arresting poorer citzens, because of the color of their skin or social condition.

• tactical media,
• Brazil

Launch: Open 21 (Im)Mobility - Exploring the Boundaries of Hypermobility 

Tuesday evening May 24  the theme issue (Im)Mobility of Open, Journal for Art and the Public Domain was presented at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, in combination with a screening of The Forgotten Space, a film by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch, and a Q & A with filmmaker Noël Burch.

• public space,
• public domain,
• borders,
• im/mobility

Ten Theses on WikiLeaks 

These 0.

"What do I think of WikiLeaks? I think it would be a good idea!"
(after Mahatma Gandhi's famous quip on 'Western Civilisation')

• wikileaks

Do It With Others (DIWO): Participatory Media in the Furtherfield Neighbourhood 

The Furtherfield community utilizes networked media to create, explore, nurture and promote the art that happens when connections are made and knowledge is shared - across the boundaries of established art-world institutions and their markets, grass-roots artistic and activist projects and communities of socially-engaged software developers. This is a spectrum that engages from the maverick media-art-makers and small collectives of cross-specialist practitioners, to projects that critique and change dominant hierarchical structures as part of their art process.

This text will provide a brief background as to how Furtherfield, a non-profit organization and community, came about and how it extends the DIY ethos of some early net art and tactical media, said to be motivated by curiosity, activism and precision, [01] towards a more collaborative approach that Furtherfield calls Do It With Others (DIWO).

• art,
• community media,
• participatory media

Vectorial Empires 

01. These are precarious times. These are eventful times. Let us note some of the symptoms of this instability. There is September 11,and the prospect of a new form of American empire that uses September11 as its pretext. There is the global stock market slide, triggered by the collapse of American tech stocks, which altered the lives of chip-makers in Korea and Coltan miners in the Congo. These are instances of what I call weird global media events. They are events because they are singular. They are media events because they happen in a vectoral space of communication. They are global media events because they call a world into being. They are weird global media events because they defy explanation. They subsume every explanation as mere ripples and eddies in their wake.

• politics,
• tactical media,
• infopolitics

 VakuumTV

VakuumTV was founded in February 1994 on the initiative of László Kistamás. Its members presented weekly broadcasts on Monday nights at the most popular cultural club in Budapest, Tilos az Á.

• tactical media,
• tactical television

Tactical Media in Brazil - Submidialogia conference report 

The four-day conference on the campus of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) brought together many key persons from the tactical media movement of Brazil and some of their counterparts in the Brasilian government.
The movement is converging from roots in free radio, free software, hardware hacking, art and social movements. It is currently focussed around a large-scale project master-minded by Claudio Prado and supported by the Ministry of Culture: ?Pontos de Cultura? (Culture Spots) which is aiming to empower up to 600 cultural projects with free software-based multimedia production and publication facilities.

• tactical media,
• Brazil

Dictionary of War - New York Edition 

On Saturday, September 26th 2009, 11 am, the "Cities and the New Wars" conference organized by Saskia Sassen will host the 9th edition of the Dictionary of War.

• war,
• theory,
• dictionary of war

World-Information Serbia 

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.

• infopolitics,
• world-information

Dr. Shahidul Alam Detained and Released on Bail - Demand to Drop all Charges: #FreeShahidulAlam 

Dr. 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

• art,
• activism,
• majority world,
• photography,
• Bangladesh

World-Information Vienna 

In winter 2000 the World-Information Exhibition took place in Vienna's Technical Museum.

• infopolitics,
• world-information