Re: Hackers can't solve Surveillance
Good points Dmytri & Morlockelloi--
The nature of "political challenges" has changed *due* to the technology, and
there is no way to enroll the unwashed into the action without understanding the
said technology.
It is clear that the feedback loops between what people do in life and what
comes back to them get longer and longer in terms of how technology taps off
their life-energies. And a 'big picture' that allows a sussing-out of the
connections is very much not available to the general population. But I'm not so
sure that a detailed understanding of a particular technological concept is any
solution -- I think more principled understandings that are not so difficult to
grasp, when presented in the right way, can address this problem. Given that the
tech is predicated on systems theory -- perhaps some critical systems thinking
could go a long way in allowing people to understand many of the power
relationships that are operational in the present situation.
Today, to get political traction on this issue, one needs to explain (a) long
term consequences of the loss of privacy by (b) complex technical means. It's
not going to happen unless you essentially teach the population to do crypto
themselves, without benevolent or malevolent elites. You will not get real
political traction on blind faith ("something elite hackers tell us to do".) You
cannot substitute real political engagement by religion, which this "trust us,
we're the good guys" approach boils down to.
Yet this is exactly the kind of traction that operates for those who get all
sorts of uneducated folks to follow them -- it is occurring 'where the rubber
hits the road' around the world -- the blindest of all faith -- from religious
imbecility to techno-utopianism that continues (remarkably) to fluorish. This
substitution is absolutely augmented by the technological. And it spawns 'real'
political engagement -- especially at the level of bodies being spent to control
territories.
So it is back to the technology, and deep understanding by pretty much everyone.
There are no shortcuts, and no amount of 20th century politics will solve this.
That's the real challenge - education, and it looks like a lost cause. The
unwashed are dumb, and the smart ones are well paid.
I do agree with this -- 19th&20th century political theory (or action) will not
solve these issues. I know of no such ideology yet that is predicated on the
concept "get rid of 90% of the species and we'll be fine." Maybe in the near
term such ideologies will arise with more force than anyone expects. Although I
rather guess that the 'ideology' of viral contagion, or lack of water and food
will trump any organized (and possibly altruistic) human response to what we
face in the moment. An ideology that skips altruistic blandishment and
intellectual pretension for "I've got the biggest gun" will be very attractive
to many. Oh, wait that's what's happening, never mind...
I don't see a good correlation between intelligence and pay. Maybe you are
talking about a certain kind of intelligence? Like, how to manipulate people or
something? I find that intelligence above a certain level is almost a handicap
in average socialization.
JH
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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The Death of the Artist -- and the Birth of th
Maybe its time to turn to the writings of a true art lover Someone who values in the possibility of radical singularity and autonomous expression. So let me recommend Art critic and theorist Thierry de Duves wonderful little book, Sewn in the Sweatshops of Marx, as a useful way to engage with the powerful contemporary myth of creativity. Although the books overt subject is the work of four legendary modern artists, Beuys, Warhol, Klein and Duchamp, what gives these essays relevance, is that he examines the work and lives of theses artists through the lens of the political economy. All four essays are of interest but from the perspective of this posting it is the first two chapters (juxtaposing the art and personalities of Beuys and Warhol) which generate the most important insights. From the friction between the two radically differing narratives we can extrapolate the key contradictions and paradoxes that constitute the core propositions of the Creative industries; universal creative participation through user generated content and the perpetual stimulation of desire and thus commerce. In Duve's writing we encounter Beuys, as the last truly great exponent of the romantic movement, an artist for whom creativity was the potential that resided in each and every one of us. It lead to his twin proposition that not only was everyone was an artist but also that art could no longer be seen as a profession. For Beuys capitalism remained the cultural horizon to leave behind...Beuys based his art is based on will and thus on the principal of production, Warhol based art on desire and thus the principle of consumption;This inescapable binary are like the two sides of the creative industries coin, universal creativity (or compulsory innovation) and endless commerce. But Warhol was perhaps more prescient anticipating the core shift in power relations that was taking place where the figure of the consumer takes center stage alongside (or even instead of) the worker, or better where these two figures are merged. Hardt and Negri thus speak of affective labor, Duve claims that Beuys believed in creativity and Warhol did notfor Beuys art was labor while for Warhol it was commerce. But despite the apparent gulf between these two artists something separates these two artists from the Creative Industries and it is not simply capitalism. After all the very essence of Warhol's work is to ignore use value and exclusively instantiate exchange value. What separates Warhol and Beuys from the denizens of the Creative Industries to come was that they both (in radically different ways) inhabited what Duve describes as a 19th century invention, the mythical country of bohemia. Duve describes a country peopled where flaneurs and dandies cross paths with peddlers and rag pickers; and the only one radically denied a visa is the bourgoeois..Dickens and Zola have described this dark fringe of industrialization, these shady interstices of urbanization. ..(also Baudelaire and Hugo) they drew inspiration from this marginal society but also contributed to the fabrication of its image. .. Daumier, Degas, Toulouse Lautrec the Picasso of the Blue and Rose period To this gallery of portraits Beuys adds his own..." And so does Warhol But the inhabitants of Warhols version of bohemia, the inhabitants of the Factory have no access to the 19th centurie's most powerful invention, the weapon of solidarity. encapsulated by Marxs conception of the prolatarian class "as united through their labor power as individuals both belonging to the exploited alienated class and carrying the emancipated destiny of species." Duve points out Warhol's superstars are all isolated individuals. "Their were no social types in Warhols bohemia, no acrobats or ragpickers, but rather proper names: Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, Ron Tavel, Brigid Polk, Candy Darling, Viva, Ondine, Billy Name each with his or her quirks, neurosis, sexual speciality, and idiom.". In the end they are victims, victims of Warhol's exploitative regime, and the means by which this was achieved points to the future described. A creative economy based on mass self-exploitation and affective labor. d a v i d g a r c i a new-tactical-research.co.uk # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Launch of Project on Online Tracking: Trackography
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi and happy new year! Hope you are well and that 2015 is an amazing year for all. Tactical Tech is excited to inform you that we recently launched our new project on online tracking, "Trackography", at the 31st Chaos Communication Congress (31c3): http://events.ccc.de/congress/2014/Fahrplan/events/6299.html Trackography is part of our MyShadow project (https://myshadow.org) and aims to increase global transparency about the data collection industry. Please learn more about the project here: https://myshadow.org/trackography and explore Trackography through the following link: https://trackography.org/ Our open source project illustrates which companies track us when we read the news online, where our data travels to and how our data is handled everytime we access a media website within a period of time. In particular, when we access media websites Trackography shows: 1. the companies that track us 2. the countries which host the servers of these media websites 3. the countries which host the servers of tracking companies 4. the countries which own the network infrastructure required to access the servers of media websites and tracking companies 5. information about how some of the prevailing tracking companies handle our data The global data industry has been very opaque until now. We have developed Trackography to not only increase transparency about the data collection industry, but to also start a discussion on unseen and unconsented data collection and on the politics of data. Learn how to help us track the trackers here: https://myshadow.org/trackography-help-us-track-trackers You can also view our updates on all new results we collect on Twitter @trackography_ Please pass this on to your networks and do not hesitate to contact us with any questions at track...@tacticaltech.org. Feedback is also always welcome! :) Thanks. All the best, - -K - -- Kaustubh Srikanth kaust...@houndbee.com pgp: 0x3B93943537F74F9C pgp fingerprint = 181C BF27 2D81 91ED 3A93 1C35 3B93 9435 37F7 4F9C jabber: kaust...@houndbee.com twitter: @houndbee A digital signature may be attached to this e-mail, you need openPGP software to verify it. See: http://tinyurl.com/openpgp-manual -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1 iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJUqpqaAAoJEDtE2Ik2TfV77OEH/RZkdHKysumwB/S4D1aKDN6r Nds9VY3ZRfq/7AdlB8Y/ZFQoWhUKSgtFs2eTRt0S+G/KAj/RO86RnoHn6nHiPeJE 2bzHengNVhsml0nv9lmthpV8CBUEqFb6RXTTdRWNlL8QSMIG1AcCJ8luvJ0i7Dp2 bKtbVRLwYT9DF3cHRGA7vwvVCuCmGQVLnCV17TMVuos3CcN/gnt4Tld6ly+BA9rK BdF2yZE0DT6suuCK5k73t9wintoFOz0l/rZsZJ3hq7pyHwHzkRKCUx2Ak7h8zYMR 7jzaRMbl9lfdDfNINiXQ5gaR0TYL1tD/Vm5oV27sVbmcsylKzgfmQBOIeT5sAjg= =2Awu -END PGP SIGNATURE- # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of th
January/February 2015 The Death of the Artist -- and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional -- the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? William Deresiewicz Dec 28 2014 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birth-of-the-creative-entrepreneur/383497 Pronounce the word artist, to conjure up the image of a solitary genius. A sacred aura still attaches to the word, a sense of one in contact with the numinous. "He's an artist," we'll say in tones of reverence about an actor or musician or director. "A true artist," we'll solemnly proclaim our favorite singer or photographer, meaning someone who appears to dwell upon a higher plane. Vision, inspiration, mysterious gifts as from above: such are some of the associations that continue to adorn the word. Yet the notion of the artist as a solitary genius -- so potent a cultural force, so determinative, still, of the way we think of creativity in general -- is decades out of date. So out of date, in fact, that the model that replaced it is itself already out of date. A new paradigm is emerging, and has been since about the turn of the millennium, one that's in the process of reshaping what artists are: how they work, train, trade, collaborate, think of themselves and are thought of -- even what art is -- just as the solitary-genius model did two centuries ago. The new paradigm may finally destroy the very notion of "art" as such -- that sacred spiritual substance -- which the older one created. Before we thought of artists as geniuses, we thought of them as artisans. The words, by no coincidence, are virtually the same. Art itself derives from a root that means to "join" or "fit together" -- that is, to make or craft, a sense that survives in phrases like the art of cooking and words like artful, in the sense of "crafty." We may think of Bach as a genius, but he thought of himself as an artisan, a maker. Shakespeare wasn't an artist, he was a poet, a denotation that is rooted in another word for make. He was also a playwright, a term worth pausing over. A playwright isn't someone who writes plays; he is someone who fashions them, like a wheelwright or shipwright. A whole constellation of ideas and practices accompanied this conception. Artists served apprenticeships, like other craftsmen, to learn the customary methods (hence the attributions one sees in museums: "workshop of Bellini" or "studio of Rembrandt"). Creativity was prized, but credibility and value derived, above all, from tradition. In a world still governed by a fairly rigid social structure, artists were grouped with the other artisans, somewhere in the middle or lower middle, below the merchants, let alone the aristocracy. Individual practitioners could come to be esteemed -- think of the Dutch masters -- but they were, precisely, masters, as in master craftsmen. The distinction between art and craft, in short, was weak at best. Indeed, the very concept of art as it was later understood -- of Art -- did not exist. All of this began to change in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the period associated with Romanticism: the age of Rousseau, Goethe, Blake, and Beethoven, the age that taught itself to value not only individualism and originality but also rebellion and youth. Now it was desirable and even glamorous to break the rules and overthrow tradition -- to reject society and blaze your own path. The age of revolution, it was also the age of secularization. As traditional belief became discredited, at least among the educated class, the arts emerged as the basis of a new creed, the place where people turned to put themselves in touch with higher truths. Art rose to its zenith of spiritual prestige, and the artist rose along with it. The artisan became the genius: solitary, like a holy man; inspired, like a prophet; in touch with the unseen, his consciousness bulging into the future. "The priest departs," said Whitman, "the divine literatus comes." Art disentangled itself from craft; the term fine arts, "those which appeal to the mind and the imagination," was first recorded in 1767. "Art" became a unitary concept, incorporating music, theater, and literature as well as the visual arts, but also, in a sense, distinct from each, a kind of higher essence available for philosophical speculation and cultural veneration. "Art for art's sake," the aestheticist slogan, dates from the early 19th century. So does Gesamtkunstwerk, the dream or ideal, so precious to Wagner, of the "total work of art." By the modernist moment, a century later, the age of Picasso, Joyce, and Stravinsky, the artist stood at the pinnacle of status, too, a cultural aristocrat with whom the old aristocrats -- or at any rate the most advanced among them -- wanted nothing more than to associate. It is hardly any w
