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David garcia | 1 Sep 12:26
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Viva El Hema!


Viva El Hem !

If Keith Hart is correct and simple anti-capitalism is premature
because “capitalism has not yet fulfilled its historic task of
bringing cheap commodities to the masses and undermining the
insularity of traditional communities” then the Dutch retailing giant
the Hema, is as good an indication as any as to how fulfilment of
this pledge might look like from the perspective of the consumer. Yet
despite the enlightened (and enlightenment) mirror of itself that De
Hema likes to hold up to the Dutch public, an audacious and radical
cultural intervention last week succeeded in confronting both the
company and the Dutch public with the gulf between values espoused
and those actually practiced. De Hema was wrong footed by “El Hema”
an audacious and radical cultural intervention by two non- commercial
design foundations Mediamatic and the Khatt Foundation.

Put at its most basic El Hema was an installation in which the
Mediamatic’s exhibition space was transformed into an Arabic version
of this iconic Dutch retailing brand. The project was realised by an
international group of designers, with a strong Arabic contingent,
brought together and coordinated by Mediamatic who (bravely defying
of threatened legal action by the company) appropriated the Hema’s
carefully nurtured brand, brilliantly mimicking its design style and
values, to recreate a range of typical Hema products and graphic
design outputs the only twist was to substitute Arabic typography and
Arabic models.

We should be aware that the courage shown by Mediamatic was not simply
the classical David Goliath scenario (as we saw in the Mclibal case).
(Continue reading)

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peter zorn | 4 Sep 12:35
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art project vs internet censorship

Launch of the Art project picidae

Open Mind and Open Source -- how the Art project picidae circumvents
Chinese Internet censorship

Art project versus Golden Shield (Chinese Internet censorship)

Whoever is visiting the Olympic Games next year in Beijing, will
have to forego the information on Wikipedia or BBC. The Chinese
Internet censorship -- also called Golden Shield or Chinese Firewall
-- suppresses these sites among many other critical ones of the
government.

The Art project picidae started as an exploration of individual
perception, led to a new view on the Internet and allows us to
circumvent Censorship. picidae withstood the test of the strictly
controlled Chinese Internet Cafes.

picidae is not a hacker software. The concept of picidae is simple and
hard to encrypt by censorship.

The artists Christoph Wachter and Mathias Jud live in Berlin and     .
Zurich With their projects they explore grey zones of individual     .
perception                                                           .

In 2006 Wachter and Jud got the European Media Artists in Residence
Exchange (EMARE) residency at Werkleitz Media Art Center in Halle.
During their residency they developed picidae.

In the spring of 2007 Wachter and Jud started for an experiment
(Continue reading)

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Roberto Winter | 5 Sep 07:55
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Re: language virus


this discussion reminded me of George Orwell's "Politics and the English
Language" (written in 1946!!!)

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[full text inserted @ nettime]

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the
English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we
cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is
decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably
share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against
the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring
candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath
this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth
and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately
have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad
influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become
a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect
in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to
drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the
more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that
is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate
because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language
makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the
(Continue reading)

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Eva Moraga | 7 Sep 14:13

Urgent Action re Council of Europe Treaty on Access to Docs


Dear Nettimers, 

I know this list is dedicated to formulate an international, networked
discourse in art, politics, information and communication. That is
why I am sending to you information about a campaign that Access
Info Europe, Article 19 and the Open Society Justice Initiative have
launched to call for the future European Convention on Access to
Official Documents, currently in preparation by the Council of Europe,
to meet international standards and to ensure adequate protection of
the right to information. This right is extremely important for all
sectors in society in general. That is the reason why we are urging
organizations and individuals in all sectors in society, interested
in defending freedom of information around the world, to join the
campaign through a sign-up letter (attached) and other actions (listed
below).

The problem: If the current draft of the Convention is adopted it will
become the world’s first treaty to guarantee the right of access to
information but it will fall below prevailing European and international
standards, thereby flying in the face of the enormous progress made in the
past several years. The final drafting session will take place in Strasbourg
during 9-12 October 2007. 

The future Convention will establish a right to request “official
documents”, which are broadly defined as all information held by
public authorities, in any form. On the positive side, the Convention
will establish that the right to “official documents” can be exercised
by all persons with no need to demonstrate a particular interest in
the information requested, and at no charge for filing requests and
(Continue reading)

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Bruce Sterling | 7 Sep 17:02
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Dreaming the Left-Wing Spectacle


((("The first science fiction fanzines in the nineteen thirties were
run off from the same mimeograph as the Young Communist Flatbush Yell
Out in Brooklyn.")))

http://tinyurl.com/35ygps
The Indypendent
Dreaming that the Revolution Might Be Fun, An Interview with Stephen
Duncombe
By Sam Alcoff
 From the September 4, 2007 issue

Stephen Duncombe’s academic pedigree may have landed him a
professorship at NYU’s Gallatin school, but his activist credentials
burn deep through several decades of hell-raising across the Lower
East Side. His new book, Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in
an Age of Fantasy, taps both of those worlds to propose some new ways
for today’s activists to win some old battles. Duncombe sat down with
The Indypendent to talk about the make-believe aspects of building
a new world in the shell of the old, the politics of flash and
personality and why he likes Vegas.

SA: The first thing you say in Dream is that politics can be fun.

SD: If you want people to become activists, you have to give them
something. You can give them a sense of purpose. You can give them a
sense of being a better person. And those are important, but I also
think that you can’t neglect fun. Our society is about pleasure; even
if you look at counter culture, it’s about pleasure, and to separate
politics out from that makes no sense. I’ve been an activist since I
(Continue reading)

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lotu5 | 7 Sep 20:43
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Re: Dreaming the Left-Wing Spectacle

For some seriously fun dreaming, check out the Boredom Patrol of the
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army! You can see our videos here:

http://circasd.org/clown-media.html

We are dreaming of a world without borders, and a lot of other people
are working to create that world, and one small part of that process is
the No Borders Camp in November near San Diego, http://noborderscamp.org

Bruce Sterling wrote:

> ((("The first science fiction fanzines in the nineteen thirties were
> run off from the same mimeograph as the Young Communist Flatbush Yell
> Out in Brooklyn.")))
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/35ygps
> The Indypendent
> Dreaming that the Revolution Might Be Fun, An Interview with Stephen
> Duncombe
 <...>

--

-- 

blog: http://deletetheborder.org/lotu5
gpg:  0x5B459C11 // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred
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carl guderian | 9 Sep 16:35

Re: Dreaming the Left-Wing Spectacle

There is (was?) a cartoonist named Steve Stiles who'd been
investigated while he was in the army because of something like this.
Stiles was a science fiction fan in a group whose chairman was an old
Wobbly. The investigator was some old creep who tried to get Stiles to
admit to something, anything, so the investigator could score another
scratched Commie. Stiles didn't, and eventually the investigator got
bored.

The story is detailed in Anarchy Comix (1980: Jay Kinney, Paul
Mavrides and others) and also includes a capsule history of the IWW.

Carl

On 7-sep-2007, at 17:02, Bruce Sterling wrote:

>
> ((("The first science fiction fanzines in the nineteen thirties were
> run off from the same mimeograph as the Young Communist Flatbush Yell
> Out in Brooklyn.")))
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mail | 9 Sep 16:55

"For some, technology and mental illness have long been thought to exist in a kind of dark symbiosis."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20516610/site/newsweek/

Art, Technology and Death: A Love Story

Theresa Duncan created acclaimed videogames. Jeremy Blake was a
digital-art pioneer. They were talented, successful and in love. And
then they committed suicide. How the technology that infused their
work helped destroy them.

A NEWSWEEK EXCLUSIVE
By Tony Dokoupil
Newsweek
Updated: 12:51 p.m. ET Sept. 1, 2007

Aug. 30, 2007 - On July 10, Jeremy Blake returned to his downtown
Manhattan apartment from a day of meetings with plans to relax with
a bottle of Scotch. The 35-year-old digital artist, whose work is
already enshrined in the permanent collection of the Museum of
Modern Art, lived in a converted Episcopal church rectory with his
girlfriend of a dozen years, Theresa Duncan, a 40-year-old writer and
former computer-game designer. Before going upstairs to meet her, he
stopped by the office of the church’s assistant pastor, Father Frank
Morales, and invited him up later for a drink. But when Blake got to
his place and opened the door, he found Duncan lying dead in their
bedroom, with a bottle of bourbon, Tylenol PM pills and a suicide
note next to her body. When the police arrived, Morales followed them
upstairs and found Blake kicking the walls and sobbing before settling
into a living-room chair. After the coroner took his lover’s body
away, Blake spent the next three hours with Morales, silently drinking
glasses of Glenlivet until the bottle was empty.
(Continue reading)

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Christie | 9 Sep 20:17

Gladio and The Strategy of Tension


Those of you who have read 'Stefano delle Chiaie. Portrait of a Black
Terrorist', 1983 (a key player in the Strategy of Tension which led to
the Piazza Fontana bombing of 1969 and the police murder of Milan's
Anarchist Black Cross secretary, Giuseppe Pinelli) may be interested
in the following three 1992 Timewatch documentaries on 'Operation
Gladio' on the ChristieBooks Brightcove site

Gladio - 1 (The Ringmasters)

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=1172088330

Gladio - 2 (The Puppeteers)

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=1173350822

Gladio - 3 (The Foot Soldiers)

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=1171884872
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onto | 10 Sep 06:59
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"Mommy, What Was a Border?"

-en español abajo-

For a PDF version of the callout visit /
Para una versión en PDF de la llamada visite a:

http://www.sonoranstyle.net/nbc/NBC%20Tucson%20Callout.pdf

__________________________________________________________________________

“Mommy, What Was a Border?”

A call to resistance against the border regime
An invitation to the 2007 No Borders Camp in Calexico/Mexicali

There is a regime of terror spreading across the land. Racist laws,
arbitrary detention, unwarranted prosecution and the deportation
of thousands are dividing families and driving a wedge through
our communities. An emboldened Department of Homeland Security is
attacking people in their homes, workplaces, on the highways, at
grocery stores. Police agencies nationwide are collaborating in the
attack on immigrants, one of the most visible targets in America’s
war against the “other”.

In southern Arizona, we are on the front lines of this war. Every
morning more than 2,000 Border Patrol agents report for duty through
Tucson out into the Altar Valley and Tohono O’odham nation to the
west. Remote camera towers monitor every activity of the civilian
population. Walls, roads and other enforcement infrastructure have
ravaged the fragile landscape. Racist vigilantes have operated for
years with virtual impunity. And every year hundreds upon hundreds of
(Continue reading)

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Gmane