Notes on Digital Resistance: Explorations in Tactical Media by Critical Art Ensemble
I bought this book at Blue Stockings on a night when Jovan asked me to tag along to an author's speech. We were terribly late and all the chairs were full so we mulled around looking at books while ease dropping on the speech.
Then we sat by the window and I bought two books, the one discussed here and Digitizing Race by Lisa Nakamura. While we were sitting a gal came over to talk to another gal that had been sitting next to Jovan. While I went out to smoke she nervously re-arranged my books. Then she got up and squeezed in next to Jovan and began holding the gal who had been sitting. In effect Jovan was forced into their foreplay because the seat wasn't big enough for three people to sit without significant bodily contact.
After the bookstore we went to the Sugar Cafe on 200 Allen Street. We each got a hot drink and a sweet treat. Then placed a second order for eggs and hash browns when we saw how good the French couple to my left side's meal looked. We half read and half eased dropped while we waited. Two Korean investment brokers sat on my right, discussing the inadequacies of their managers ('those who can't do manage'), forming a secret 'you help me I'll help you pact' and discussing church. They both wore beautiful striped shirts that fit their athletic physiques well. The man sitting across from me had pink strips in his shirt. Two brothers sat across from me behind Jovan, playing some type of air hockey game on the one brother's iphone. I remember deciding they were brothers because they were too different to be close friends and they had a similar look about them, though different builds. They were both wearing black, but the one brother was markedly punk/rock and the other dopey publisher lackey.
On to the book . . .
Chapter Two: The Mythology of Terrorism on the Net
"What we are witnessing at this point in time is the triumph of representation over being."
The chapter argues that the reason why there such strong socio-political objection to electronic forms of civil disobedience is because our digital selves, the representations of ourselves that exist in databases belonging to the state, governments and industry have become more important to us than our physical selves. That what a computer says about us is more important (to our survival? well being?) than what we say about ourselves in the physical world.
Though the chapter does not talk about this it reminds me of a point a speaker made at a NYU panel discussion on torture last winter. The speaker said that the problem with the proliferation of photo/video/audio documentation and activism is that the long history of a person reporting torture and being believed at their word is threatened. Now one must have proof to be taken seriously. The example of the man who was electrocuted to death by Canadian airport security guards was used as an example. It became a national news item only after an amateur video of the stun-gunning surfaced, three weeks after the man's death.
Because of authoritarian control of digital information, and the potential ramifications of civilly disobedient actions that might aim at erasing personal information:
"One could become a social "ghost" - so to speak sean and heard, but not recognized as real."
This is because:
"Now the perception exists that the absence of electronic information equals death."
"If the the virtual functions and is perceived as a superior form of being, it becomes a monstrous mechanism of control for the class that regulates access to it and mobility within it."
The chapter ends by discussing sovereignty (the right to self rule):
"If we lose the right to protest in cyberspace in an era of information capital, we have lost the greater part of our individual sovereignty."
Key Words:
Doppleganger from Wikipedia:
In the vernacular, "Doppelgänger" has come to refer (as in German) to any double or look-alike of a person. The word is also used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection. They are generally regarded as harbingers of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person's friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one's own doppelgänger is an omen of death. In Norse mythology, a vardøger is a ghostly double who precedes a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance.
Chapter Three: The Promissory of Biotechnology in the Public Shpere
"While the promises made about technology are many and appear in various permutations, they tend to fall into four main categories - democracy, liberty, efficiency, and progress." "Taken together, a working definition of progress emerges that means nothing more than the expansion of capital, but represents itself as advancement of the common good." Judith Butler: "Gender is a category of becoming rather than being." "Now that DNA can be replicated and spliced at will, the concept of the individual (or any living thing) as a temporary set of organic relations could become an operational norm."
Key Words
Fin de Siecle:
was a cultural movement between 1880 and the beginning of World War I. [1] The term commonly encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning. [2] Traditionally, “fin de siècle” is most commonly associated with French artists, especially the French symbolists, and was affected by the cultural awareness characteristic of France at that time. However, the expression is also used to refer to a European-wide cultural movement. [3] The ideas and concerns of the fin de siècle influenced the decades to follow and played an important role in the birth of modernism. [4]
Gadflies
is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or just being an irritant.
The term "gadfly" (Gk. muopa)[1] was used by Plato in the Apology[2] to describe Socrates' relationship of uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse. The Bible also references the gadfly in terms of political influence; The Book of Jeremiah (46:20, Darby Bible) states "Egypt is a very fair heifer; the gad-fly cometh, it cometh from the north." The term has been used to describe many politicians and social commentators; in modern Hebrew, which knows many more idioms than those used by Jeremiah, gadfly is "mekhapes pagam" literally "fault finder".
Arboreal (not sure why this word was used in the context it was)is a word meaning "related to or resembling trees". Its meaning comes from the Latin arbor, meaning tree.
Chapter Four: Observations on Collective Cultural Action
Step up, step back:
"CAE follows Foucault's principle that hierarchical power can be productive (it does not necessarily lead to domination), and hence uses a floating hierarchy to produce projects."
Cells are 3 to 8 people.
"Collective action requires total commitment to other members, and is a frightening thought for many individuals. Certainly, collective practice is not for everyone."
On the use of terms like 'the gay community' or the 'black community'
"The word community in this case is only meaningful as a euphemism for the word 'minority.'"
Chapter Six: Contestational Robotics
I hardly underlined anything in this chapter, but I think I may have lost my pen. It was an exciting chapter. It begins with:
"Since the modern notion of public space has been increasingly recognized as a bourgeois fantasy that was dead on arrival at its inception in the 19th century, an urgent need has emerged for continuous development of tactics to reestablish a means of expression and a space of temporary autonomy within the realm of the social." Esp. considering increased surveillance and pervasive police mechanisms.
Labels: class, critical art ensemble, digital identity, notes, race, representation, social justice, technology
posted by Matthew @ 9:58 AM
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