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Recent Books I'm In and Why They're GoodOk, this is a bad way to begin reviews/announcements of some recent booksthat discuss my work (in the midst of others of course); I'm not sure howto do this modestly, or whether modesty would even be an issue. For methese books have been important because much of what I've done, I thoughtlost; my career is one of constant falterings, restarts, occasionalmoments when it seems as if things are going to turn out well - then morefalterings, and so forth. I begin constantly; it's only a matter of timebefore I collapse.The truth is I also like these books for all sorts of reasons, so heregoes.The most recent is also the most expensive, Garry Neill Kennedy's The LastArt College: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1968-1978, MIT Press,2012, around $70. I taught there several times during this period, as avisiting artist or visiting faculty. The school was amazing; it had aworld-wide reputation with people like Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, andJoseph Beuys coming up. There's a lot on Dan Graham and Ian Murray, whowas a student and catalyst at the time. The book's over 450 pages long,large format, and includes a lot of work and statements by the people whocame through. NSCAD was a kind of paradise; students and faculty weregiven tremendous latitude in their projects, and everyone was treated asas valuable, and an artist. Simone Forti, Gerhard Richter, and MichaelSnow made books for the NSCAD Press. A lot of the energy and genius of theplace emanated from David Askevold, who headed the Projects class.Krzysztof Wodiczko and Emmett Williams and Charlemagne Palestine werethere. Dorit Cypris and Sharon Kulik were students, Martha Wilson andKasper Koenig were there. I'm not sure of Martha's affiliation. The schoolhad a conceptual bent, but this was translated into thinking about andthrough performance, painting, sculpture, and life. These were formativeyears for me; in particular, I owe a lot to David and Ian. I wouldn't getthe book for me, however (god, what hubris); the totality of the volumereally shows what's possible in art education, and why art schools - whichseem to be on the decline (as is art education in the US at least, anothermatter) - are really important in the world.Along with this, Peggy Gale edited Artist Talk, 1969-1977, NSCAD Press,2004 - transcriptions of talks given at the school. Artists includeAcconci, Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, James Lee Byars, Dan Graham, LawrenceWiener, Patterson Ewen, Daniel Buren, and so forth - all males, it shouldbe noted (which is one of its faults - Laurie for example also gave atalk). I'm in this as well with 43 pages of strangeness.Even more recently than Kennedy's book, Jason Weiss just edited Always inTrouble: An Oral History of ESP-DISK, The Most Outrageous Record Label inAmerica, Wesleyan University Press, 2012. Again, I'm part of the "oral."This book documents the company, which for all intents and purposesintroduced the free jazz of Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, and GuiseppiLogan; Michael Snow is in this as well. Ayler died years ago; the peopleinterviewed include Sunny Murray, Amiri Baraka, Gato Barbieri, WilliamParker, Burton Greene, Logan, Roswell Rudd, Marion Brown, Milford Graves,Ishmael Reed, John Tchicai, Gunter Hampel, and Sonny Simmons, amongothers. There's a large section on Bernard Stollman, who founded thecompany. If you're interested in free jazz, new music, experimental music,alternative-anything, this book, I think, is a must read, along withValerie Wilmer's As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz. Andthe music (forget me here) is unbelievable; both books serve as reasonablygood guides.Chris Funkhouser has published two books on electronic writing; the latestis New Directions in Digital Poetry, Continuum, 2012. There's a section onme, for which I'm grateful. This is the best book I've seen on the subject- it follows up on Funkhouser's Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeologyof Forms, 1959-1995, Alabama, 2007. I'm in this as well. What Chris hasdone, in both, is present the works of a great number of people, alongwith commentary/theory; the writers/poets/artists include David Daniels,Jim Andrews, Philippe Bootz, mIEKAL aND, Laurie Anderson, Brian KimStefans, Stephanie Strickland, John Cayley, Mez (Mary Anne Breeze), TalanMemmott, Caitlin Fisher, Sandy Baldwin, Deena Larsen, and many others. NewDirections is divided into case studies, Prehistoric focuses on history,but both volumes overlap past and present. I love Funkhouser's writing,which is clear, energetic, amazingly lucid, and really useful for anyonetrying to follow the roots and current landscape of an incredibly messyarea of contemporary - what? literature, programming, poetry, thought,culture, interactive work, new media? The books are exciting with numerousexamples.The intensity of Maria Damon's art and writing is phenomenal; herPostliterary America, From Bagel Shop Jazz to Micropoetics, Iowa, 2011,includes a section on my work under "Diaspora"; this is one of the mostdetailed critiques of it I've seen. I really like the book for its longerstudies - on Lenny Bruce, Bob Kaufman, Adeena Karasick, and GertrudeStein. Damon writes from the trenches; she's always in there with thepeople she discusses. There's a warmth to the work, as well as an urgencyin the midst of the academy - an urgency, that this kind of outre work_matters,_ that it matters as a kind of cultural force, that something ofvalue is happening on the outskirts (Benjamin comes to mind; he's alsoreferenced). I find when I'm reading, today, I'm reading so much of thetime in the margins (for example, George MacDonald's No End of No-Story inChristopher Rick's anthology of Victorian Verse, Oxford, 1987 - which Ihighly recommend), where the scaffolding of the world seems more at homeand oddly grounded, than it does in any canon or somewhat well-definedgenre. It's there, that the classical world trembles, dissolving not inthe usual classical-romantic pseudo-distinctions, but in the realm ofsomething utterly something else. And Damon, to be sure, brings thissubaltern to light.Three other mentions, all somewhat older - a book on Gazira Babeli ofSecond Life, edited by Domenico Quaranta, fpeditions 2008 - I have anessay in it (among several others, including one by Patrick Lichty), I Metmy Baby, Out Behind the Gaz-Works. Gaz was my favorite artist in thevirtual world, and it was his work that started me thinking philosophic-ally about its possibilities. If you don't know his work (or PatrickLichty's for that matter), you should! The second book is Wolf Lieser'sDigital Art, Art Pocket, h.f.ullmann, 2009; I'm only discussed briefly,but the volume is really excellent, with articles by Mark Tribe, TilmanBaumgartel, Domenico Quaranta, and others. Lots of illustrations andexcellent texts. People discussed include Marius Watz, Manfred Mohr, KenGoldberg, Harold Cohen, Vic Cosic, Jodi, Eva and Franco Mattes, and Gaz.Finally, going way back to 1994, Uncontrollable Bodies, Testimonies ofIdentity and Culture, edited by Rodney Sappington and Tyler Stallings, BayPress, Seattle - this is a great collection of disturbed and disturbingtexts (including a section of mine), by such writers as Lynne Tillman,Trinh T. Minha-ha, Leslie Dick, Dennis Cooper, Vivian Sobchack and ScarlotHarlot. My contribution was written when I was at a low point, and it'sall there in the text. Tyler's coming to visit this week, and I pulled outthe volume, remembering how good it is.I've not included any of my own books or chapbooks or magazine reviews orinterviews - see how modest I am! But I did want to briefly describe thebooks above, since A. I haven't really talked about them before, and B.I'm a part in all of them, although often a minor part, and C. for themost part, the editors or authors 'got it right' as far as I'm concerned,and D. it's comforting finally to be a part of something, to have somesort of acknowledgment. I can recommend all of them 'besides me' - they'revaluable, and good reading/looking. And thanks for reading, here, thisfar.- Alan

Last Saturday a momentous event occured in Milan: hundreds of youngpeople working with art, theater, video, cinema, design, publishing,education and the like took over the Galfa Tower, an abandoned33-floor skyscraper, strategically located close to Milano CentralStation, next to the Hilton and the Sheraton, symbolically positionedin between the Pirelli Tower, hq of regional government, and the newlybuilt Lombardy Palace, monument to the arrogance and corruption of theLombard governor, a reactionary catholic who has been ruling Italy'smost populous and wealthiest region since 1995, by privatizingmedicine and striking dubious real estate deals (most of his junta isnow behind bars or being investigated for embezzlement).As the night progressed, thousands of people of all ages and classesflocked to the skyscraper, which was soon alighted in blue, abeautiful spectacle you could see from far away - it was like alighthouse saying: come here o impoverished creative worker, oalienated youngster, o writer and musician in search of your people nomatter the kind of celebrity you have. Everybody who matters in Milanofelt compelled to come to MACAO, this the name of the new occupation,including the current city alderman for culture, the archistar StefanoBoeri, who expressed praise for what is after all an illegaloccupation of private property, while assorted popstars and novelistsmingled with the crowd. Everybody danced 'til the crack of dawn..What's noteworthy about MACAO is its magmatic creativity, itsmushrooming teams and committees, its crowded assemblies, and the manyconcerts and theater performances (e.g. Motus) that has managed tostage in its first four days of existence. Every day and night it'spacked with people (so far the first two floors have been colonized,while the third is a sleeping space). The skyscraper has beenabandoned since 1996 and its interiors were scrapped (to removeasbesto). It's property of Ligresti, a Sicilian real estate mogul whopretty much had his way in the 1980s and 1990s and reshaped the wholecity, before running into financial trouble when the asset bubbleburst in 2008. His financial holding is currently undergoingbankruptcy proceedings.Finally the spirit of the 99% is hovering over Milano, thanks to themobilization of the creative precariat impoverished and madeunemployed by the crisis. What didn't seem possible before the GreatRecession, i.e. the generational unity of all precarized workers, andespecially the radicalization of the creative class, is now apparentfor all to see. Consequently. MACAO has become the talk of the town.Bifo's cognitariat is finally coming into being in the spaghetti citythat hosts the country's most important universities and creativeindustries. Its activation depends only in small part on thecontribution of movement activists: most of the faces are new andpolitically inexperienced. ZAM, MilanoX, San Precario are among thoseactive, but the dynamic of the place is not determined by them, but byan Occupy-style mobilization of hitherto passive people, a horizontalchaos generating new radical democratic forms.As the good news from France and Greece are finally cracking the armorof Merkel's austerity, let's hope many of those who squatted theskyscraper will join next week's Blockupy ECB protests in Frankfurt.The epicenter of austerity and neoliberal policies is there. It's timeto show Europe and the world how unpopular the bank of bankers and itsgospel of cuts to services and jobs has become. They are gravediggersof society and enemies of European democracy. It's time to stop zombieneoliberalism and its financial oligarchy from inflicting yet moreharm. In Milano, the creative class has finally realized what is atstake.

http://peakoil.com/production/orlov-shale-gas-the-view-from-russia/(Somehow this seems relevent...Orlov: Shale gas the view from RussiaThe official shale gas story goes something like this: recent technologicalbreakthroughs by US energy companies have made it possible to tap anabundant but previously inaccessible source of clean, environmentallyfriendly natural gas. This has enabled the US to become the world leader innatural gas production, overtaking Russia, and getting ready to end ofRussia's gas monopoly in Europe. Moreover, this new shale gas is found inmany parts of the world, and will, in due course, enable the majority of theworld's countries to achieve independence from traditional gas producers.Consequently, the ability of those countries with the largest natural gasreserves-Russia and Iran-to control the market for natural gas will bereduced, along with their overall geopolitical influence.If this were the case, then we should expect the Kremlin, along withGazprom, to be quaking in their boots. But are they? Here is what Gazprom'schairman, Alexei Miller, recently told Süddeutsche Zeitung: "Shale gas is awell-organized global PR-campaign. There are many of them: global cooling,biofuels." He pointed out that the technology for producing gas from shaleis many decades old, and suggested the US turned to it out of desperation.He dismissed it as an energy alternative for Europe. Is this just theother's sides propaganda, or could Miller be simply stating the obvious?Let's explore. I will base my exploration on Russian sources, which is whyall the numbers are in metric units. If you want to convert to Imperial, 1m3 = 35 cubic feet, 1 km2 = .38 square miles, 1 tonne = 1.1 short tons).The best-developed shale gas basin is Barnett in Texas, responsible for 70%of all shale gas produced to date. By "developed" I mean drilled and drilledand drilled, and then drilled some more: just in 2006 there were about asmany wells drilled into Barnett shale as are currently producing in all ofRussia. This is because the average Barnett well yields only around 6.35million m3 of gas, over its entire lifetime, which corresponds to theaverage monthly yield of a typical Russian well that continues to produceover a 15-20 year period, meaning that the yield of a typical shale gas wellis at least 200 times smaller. This hectic activity cannot stop once a wellhas been drilled: in order to continue yielding even these meagerquantities, the wells have to be regularly subjected to hydraulicfracturing, or "fracked": to produce each thousand m3 of gas, 100 kg of sandand 2 tonnes of water, combined with a proprietary chemical cocktail, haveto be pumped into the well at high pressure. Half the water comes back upand has to be processed to remove the chemicals. Yearly frackingrequirements for the Barnett basin run around 7.1 million tonnes of sand and47.2 million tonnes of water, but the real numbers are probably lower, asmany wells spend much of the time standing idle.In spite of the frantic drilling/fracking activity, this is all smallpotatoes by Russian standards. Russia's proven reserves of natural gasamount to 43.3 trillion m3, which is about a third of the world's total. Atcurrent consumption rates, that's enough to last 72 years. Russian gasproduction is constrained by demand, not by supply; it is currently downsimply because Eurozone is in the midst of an economic crisis. Meanwhile, USproduction has surged ahead, for no adequately explored reason, crashing theprice and making much of it unprofitable.Let's compare: Gazprom's price at the wellhead runs from US$3 to $50 perthousand m3, depending on the region. Compare that to shale gas in the US,which runs from $80 to $320 per thousand m3. At this price, the US cannotafford to sell shale gas on the European market. Moreover, the overallvolume of shale gas being produced in the US, even given the feverishdrilling rate of the past couple of years, if cleaned up, liquified, andshipped to Europe in LNG tankers, would not be enough to book up just theLNG terminal in Gdańsk, Poland, which is currently standing idle. It seemsthat Gazprom has little to worry about.The US, on the other hand, does have plenty to worry about. There has beenmuch talk already about groundwater pollution and other forms ofenvironmental destruction that accompanies the production of shale gas, so Iwill not address these here. Instead, I will focus on two aspects that arejust as important but have received scarcely any attention.First, what is shale gas? Ask this question, and you will be told: "Shut up,it's methane." But is it really? The composition of shale gas is somethingof a state secret in the US, but information about the gas produced from thenine Polish shale gas test projects did leak out, and it's not pretty:Polish shale gas turned out to be so high in nitrogen that it does not evenburn. Technology exists to clean up gas that is, say, 6% nitrogen, butPolish shale gas is closer to 50% nitrogen, and, given high productioncosts, low yields, rapid depletion and low wellhead pressure, cleaning it upto bring it up to spec (which is 1% nitrogen) would most likely result in anet waste of energy.Even if shale gas is low enough in nitrogen to burn, the problems do not endthere. It may also contain hydrogen sulfide, which is toxic and corrosiveand has to be removed before the gas can be stored or injected into apipeline. It probably contains toluene and other organicsolvents-ingredients in the fracking cocktails-which are carcinogenic.Lastly, it may be radioactive. All clays are mildly radioactive, and shaleis a sort of heat-treated clay. While Barnett shale is not particularlyradioactive, Marcellus shale, which has recently been the focus of franticdrilling activity, is. Thanks to Marcellus shale gas, radioactive radon gasis being delivered directly to your kitchen, via the burners of your stove,or to a power plant smokestack upwind from where you live. This is expectedto result in increased lung cancer rates in the coming years.Second, why is shale gas being produced at all? Natural gas prices havefallen through the roof, and are currently around $2 per thousand cubicfeet. This works out to around $70 per thousand m3. If shale gas costs from$80 to $320 per thousand m3 to produce, it is unclear how one might make anymoney with it.But perhaps making money with it is not the point. What if shale gas is justa PR campaign (with horrific environmental side effects)? Going back to whatAlexei Miller said, what if the entire point of the exercise was to increasethe capitalization of shale gas exploration and production companies? Thenumber one company in shale gas is Chesapeake Energy, the owner of theBarnett basin and a major player in the Marcellus basin. This company almostwent bankrupt in 2009, but then managed to claw its way back toprofitability in 2010 and 2011 by drilling, and drilling, and drilling, andthen drilling some more. Sixty percent of their revenue is from drillingoperations. And now there is a scandal involving Chesapeake Energy's(former?) chairman, Aubrey K. McClendon, who apparently awarded himself astake in each well his company drilled, used them as collateral for billionsin loans, and used the loans to bet that natural gas prices will go up (theyhaven't). In the meantime, natural gas drilling rig count has dropped to aten-year low. Given that shale gas wells deplete very quickly, it looks likethe shale gas boom is over.But now that it's over, what was it, exactly? It appears to have beensomething like the dot-com bubble: companies with no conceivable way ofturning a profit using hype to attract investment and drive up theirvaluations. Since 2008, various kinds of hype-based market manipulationshave become the staple of economic life in the US, and so this is nothingnew or different.One interesting question is, What sort of bubble will the US attempt to blownext, if any? There is the Facebook IPO coming up. Facebook is a ridiculoustime-waster and, as such, seems a bit overpriced. Are we going to attemptblowing up another dot-com bubble? Another round of subprime mortgages doesnot seem to be in the works. What's a bubble boy to do? If there are no morebubbles to blow, then it's back to just plain printing money.So this whole shale gas thing didn't work out as planned, did it? But couldit have? Had it turned out to be much better in every way, could it haveswung geopolitical influence away from Russia and Iran and back toward theUS? Alas, no.You see, there is no such thing as a global natural gas market. Yes, thereare some LNG tankers sailing about, but that is very much a point-to-pointtrade. There is a closed North American market, a European market, andanother market in the Asia-Pacific region. These markets do not interact.The North American market and the European market could have potentiallyshared just one producer: Qatar. Qatar once wanted to export LNG to the US,but then decided to export it to Europe instead, generating less of a loss,because European gas prices are substantially higher. And the reason Qataris dumping natural gas in Europe is because it has gas to dump: its northerngas field is a very "wet" field, with a substantial percentage of naturalgas condensate. Qatar's OPEC quota is 36-37 million tonnes of oil per year,but natural gas condensate is not considered to be oil and is not covered byOPEC quotas. Exploiting the condensate loophole allows Qatar to export 65.7million tonnes: 77% over quota. The LNG is just concomitant production, andQatar can afford to export LNG to Europe at a loss. This is a juicy bit oftrivia, but really something of a footnote: an exception that proves thegeneral case: there is no global natural gas market.There is still, however, a global American disinformation and PR hypemarket, although this too is changing. The view from Russia is that it ispretty clear what this was all along: American propaganda and financialshenanigns. Nothing to see here, people, keep moving.ClubOrlov

On the occasion of the action by refugees-on-the-street who started a camp outside the Collective Center at Ter Apel in the north of the Netherlands on the 8th of May, Jo van der Spek of M2M wrote the following column. These migrants are supposed to return voluntarily to their country, because the Dutch government believes that they are not in danger there. However the governemnt in Iraq refuses to take them back if they are forced. So they have nowhere to go to, no right to be here and no way to go there. But they act together for a chance to live and live better than before. Why not?Welcoming the Iraqi Invasion ActFinally it is not the USA that invades The Hague, in order to prevent the application of international justice to American citizens- soldiers. No, it's Iraqi citizen-migrants occupying common ground in the north of the Netherlands in an effort to force a radical change in the application of human justice to migrants that are so far denied acces and basic rights. This act of occupation by a fast growing number of mainly Iraqi refugees-on-the-street is well timed and also well suited to create an uplifting experience amidst the general lethargy that still covers Holland like a blanket of mental smog.Like so many times before in history an external agent, through an unexpected and autonomous action, is now intervening in the Dutch political landscape, at a moment that everyday political life is in a highly unstable state: no government, a parliament trying to gain legitimacy and a queen dying to hand-over sovereignty to her son. The direct cause for this current limbo lies in the response to the economic recession and the European conditions forcing even a rich country like Holland to take extreme measures of austerity. However, the cornerstone of change, the hinge on which the minds and hearts of a significant section of youth and mindful adults may move, is the approach towards migrants and world affairs in general. Poverty is moving in and migrants are dying on the shores of Europe. Soon we will be drifting together if we don't take drastic action.Finally we see the face of globalization reflected in the mirror that Brussels and Ter Apel are holding up for us to see. We see Geert Wilders as just another make-over of Batman, unmasking himself as just another copy cat of Pim Fortuyn, only adding to the pitiful frustration of the merciless masses voting for him, provingonce again time for messiah is over. One man will not make the difference. Ask Obama.Finally the Joker hits back. After two exercises last winter led by Somali brothers and sisters camping in the cold outside the deportation complex of Ter Apel, now the weather is fine and time is ripe for the real thing. These poor asylum seekers, strangled by foreign police and immigration service IND, mentally broken by the thousands in administrative detention, suffocated by laws and lawyers, made dependant on charity and church, are finally showing who they really are: human! They can really move! They are not victims but actors!They can be tourists like you and me!So let us not help the occupiers in Ter Apel. Let us not support them, don't give them tents, blankets or telephone credit. Do not bring your redundant laptops, I-pads or even worn-out army boots and leather jackets to their field of honour. No, embrace their exemplary autonomous action, join Ali Aziz and Hadi Abu Sanad like in the 16th century we embraced the House of Orange, invading the Dutch swamps at nearby Heiligerlee.Temperature is rising, parliamentary politics is exhausted, corporate business is selling out to China's communists and Mexican coke dealers.We got to save ourselves.We are here, we the people, we make the difference, we have no borders to cross, we have no cross other than our own indulging in apathy. Let's throw it off and start the summer. Leave your squat and camp out. Send your children abroad after the exams and restore disorder at home.Forget your mortgage, bury your debts and love your neighbour.Let migrants invade this place and help us chase away the ghosts of Rawagade, Srebrenica, the Schiphol Fire and most of all the mist of mental misery hanging over us.Jo van der Spekm2m.streamtime.org

http://www.zfmedienwissenschaft.de/index.phpCall for Papers, ZfM Nr. 8 (1/2013)Special issue: Media aestheticsGuest Editors: Erich Hörl (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Mark B. N. Hansen (Duke University)“The aesthetic power of feeling”, wrote the late Félix Guattari, seems to be “on the verge of occupying a privileged position within the collective assemblages of enunciation of our era.” In discerning a “new aesthetic paradigm” he was not anticipating something along the lines of the primacy of the institutionalised arts within the social field, but rather a kind of “proto-aesthetic paradigm”, traversing all universes of value and existential territories, from the arenas of science and the ethico-political, to the modalities and practices of subjectivation. This general aestheticisation which Guattari had in mind at the end of the 1980s may be regarded as one of the first descriptions of a fundamental upheaval in the history of technology and sensation, a change taking place during the second half of the twentieth century, but especially since the 1990s, and one which potentially shifts the meaning of aesthetics as such: under the new media-technological conditions we observe a proto-aesthetic dressing of the present. This means a fundamental prioritising of the problem of perception and ultimately of all the sensations and affects which underpin the faculty of perception – such that media aesthetics may well become a fundamental problem of media studies. At the same time, the aesthetic question thereby proves increasingly to be a techno-ecological question of the networked and sensory environments in which sensation occurs.The possible sensorial and sensational facts which characterise the new aesthetic – or more precisely, media-aesthetic – regime, range from streams of time-objects, as they spread hyperindustrialised and technologised audiovisual objects on the basis of numerical transfer standards, to the rise of sensory milieus (e.g. RFID), to the algorithmic environments of the software agencies of ubiquitous media, ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence and calm technologies. We are witnessing the transformation of the “technological unconscious” (Nigel Thrift), and with it the transformation of the aesthetic conditions and means by which the world appears – the general backgrounds of existence and experience, and thus the meaning of the world.This special issue of ZfM sets out to clarify the historical-systematic contours as well as the political implications of the new aesthetic paradigm. This necessitates focusing on the key technical-medial scenes of the current sensorial caesura, outlining the associated conceptual challenges and issues of politics of terminology, in order thereby to contribute to the redescription of media-aesthetics under technological conditions, in particular those of the new era of social and mobile media in the network age.The following central questions are to be addressed: What are the core problems of media aesthetics that are associated with the technical-medial transformation of the present, and what are the corresponding media-aesthetic perspectives? What is the meaning of experience, perception, sensation, subjectivity under these new media-aesthetic conditions? Does the outline of an original media-aesthetic question emerge, on the ground of the new facts of perception emergent in digital, networked media systems and algorithmic milieus, which would contrast with the now traditional philosophical aesthetics? What scenes should be considered, and which semantic frames are required, in order to seize the media-aesthetic question in its specificity and its urgency? How does the new conceptual politics relate to traditional aesthetic conceptual regimes – where are the possible connections, and where do we find a need for other conceptual strategies? What genealogical scenes for the new media-aesthetic paradigm can be discerned in the twentieth century? What are the political challenges of the new aesthetic condition? How should we assess previous attempts to redefine aesthetics under these radical media-technological conditions?Text submissions (around 25,000 characters, notes and spaces included), by the end of August 2012, to: erich.hoerl< at >ruhr-uni-bochum.deThis special issue of ZfM will be published in April 2013.The language of publication is German. Papers are accepted in German, English and French; papers will be translated after peer-review and acceptance.# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission# <nettime> 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: nettime< at >kein.org

On the 8th of May 2012 refugees-on-the-street again started a camp outside the Collective Center at Ter Apel in the north of the Netherlands These migrants are supposed to return voluntarily to their country, because the Dutch government believes that they are not in danger there. However the government in Iraq refuses to take them back if they are forced. So they have nowhere to go to, no right to be here and no way to go there. But they act together for a chance to live and live better than before.Finally it is not the USA that invades The Hague, in order to prevent the application of international justice to American citizens- soldiers. No, it's Iraqi citizen-migrants occupying common ground in the north of the Netherlands in an effort to force a radical change in the application of human justice to migrants that are so far denied acces and basic rights.This act of occupation by a fast growing number of mainly Iraqi refugees-on-the-street is well timed and also well suited to create an uplifting experience amidst the general lethargy that still covers Holland like a blanket of mental smog.Like so many times before in history an external agent, through an unexpected and autonomous action, is now intervening in the Dutch political landscape, at a moment that everyday political life is in a highly unstable state: no government, a parliament trying to gain legitimacy and a queen dying to hand over sovereignty to her son. The direct cause for this current limbo lies in the response to the economic recession and the European conditions forcing even a rich country like Holland to take extreme measures of austerity. However, the cornerstone of change, the hinge on which the minds and hearts of a significant section of youth and mindful adults may move, is the approach towards migrants and world affairs in general. Poverty is moving in and migrants are dying on the shores of Europe. Soon we will be drifting together if we don't take drastic action.We now see the face of globalization reflected in the mirror that Brussels and Ter Apel are holding up for us to see. We see Geert Wilders as just another make-over of Batman, unmasking himself as just another copy cat of Pim Fortuyn, only adding to the pitiful frustration of the merciless masses voting for him, proving once again time for messiah is over. One man will not make the difference. Ask Obama.Finally the Joker hits back. After two exercises last winter led by Somali brothers and sisters camping in the cold outside the deportation complex of Ter Apel, now the weather is fine and time is ripe for the real thing. These poor asylum seekers, strangled by foreign police and immigration service IND, mentally broken by the thousands in administrative detention, suffocated by laws and lawyers, made dependant on charity and church, are finally showing who they really are: human! They can really move! They are not victims but actors!They can be tourists like you and me!So let us not help the occupiers in Ter Apel. Let us not support them, don't give them tents, blankets or telephone credit. Do not bring your redundant laptops, I-pads or even worn-out army boots and leather jackets to their field of honour. No, embrace their exemplary autonomous action, join Ali Aziz and Hadi Abu Sanad like in the 16th century we embraced the House of Orange, invading the Dutch swamps at nearby Heiligerlee. Temperature is rising, parliamentary politics is exhausted, corporate business is selling out to China's communists and Mexican coke dealers.We got to save ourselves.We are here, we the people, we make the difference, we have no borders to cross, we have no cross other than our own indulging in apathy. Let's throw it off and start the summer. Leave your squat and camp out. Send your children abroad after the exams and restore disorder at home.Forget your mortgage, bury your debts and love your neighbour.Let migrants invade this place and help us chase away the ghosts of Rawagade, Srebrenica, the Schiphol Fire and most of all the mist of mental misery hanging over us.Jo van der Spekhttp://m2m.streamtime.org

Kath O'Donnell <aliak77-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org> Re: <nettime> Skyscraper Squatted: the Precarized Cognitariat RisesRob Myers <rob-MHOfhu0kjIxg9hUCZPvPmw< at >public.gmane.org> Re: <nettime> Help Iraqi resistance in Ter Apel (NL)Rob Myers <rob-MHOfhu0kjIxg9hUCZPvPmw< at >public.gmane.org> Re: <nettime> Privacy, Moglen, < at >ioerror, #rp12 (Lascaux)- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 03:34:03 +1000Subject: Re: <nettime> Skyscraper Squatted: the Precarized Cognitariat RisesFrom: "Kath O'Donnell" <aliak77-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>this sounds wonderful. occupy! good luckOn Wednesday, 9 May 2012, Alex Foti wrote: <...>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 19:34:50 +0100From: Rob Myers <rob-MHOfhu0kjIxg9hUCZPvPmw< at >public.gmane.org>Subject: Re: <nettime> Help Iraqi resistance in Ter Apel (NL)On 05/10/2012 06:50 PM, Jo van der Spek M2M wrote:http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-dont-want-to-live-on-this-planet-anymore- Rob.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 19:39:37 +0100From: Rob Myers <rob-MHOfhu0kjIxg9hUCZPvPmw< at >public.gmane.org>Subject: Re: <nettime> Privacy, Moglen, < at >ioerror, #rp12 (Lascaux)On 05/10/2012 03:51 PM, John Young wrote:It's harder to lift a cathedral than a nuke with a B-52.http://xkcd.com/774/- Rob.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jon: Sure -- the inability of any of the "developed" economies to grow. For some "unexplained" reason -- which is not simply because people are "poor" or have no "disposable income" or "are worried about the future" -- *demand* just isn't there to re-energize the "treadmill" required to grow the GDP. Furthermore, the widely understood "mechanism" used to generate demand in excess of *needs* -- in particular, the psychological impact of mass-market advertising -- has dramatically faded in its effectiveness and the presumed "replacement" of *targeted* advertising has failed to live up to expectations (as widely understood by those in this business.) In addition, those who have been "polling" US consumers about their attitudes over the past 20+ years, such as DYG Inc., have noticed a change that has grown over the past decade -- across all "demographics" and "cohorts" -- that shows a significant shift away from "quantity" to "quality" of life. LESS-is-MORE began to be a very popular theme in these polls started around 2002 and increasing annually since then. The fact that many groups still consume beyond their baseline needs is obvious but the overall trend is unmistakable from the data I have seen. Exactly! Which is precisely what you *should* want them to do as they go through a very rapid industrialization! At the same time, they are on track to dominate the "clean" energy alternatives to coal and, when/if fusion energy becomes a reality, they will likely dominate that business as well. Roughly 300 MILLION Chinese will be added to the middle class over the next 10+ years -- which is only a part of the BILLION+ who will go through this transition globally. This is a *remarkable* achievement! What the Chinese have "figured out" is that the DEVELOPED economies have already stopped growing our "needless" consumption and that they have adjusted their own goals and strategies accordingly. Furthermore, some understand that digital technologies are driving this process. Meanwhile, *we* seem to pretend that nothing fundamental has happened. Any ideas about why we are so *stupid* about our own society and its culture? Mark StahlmanBrooklyn NY

Hello Nettimers.Below is an essay response to an installation/intervention artwork I madelast year as part of a series of commisions by Letting Space - anorganisation producing site-specific works in commercial spaces left vacantsince the 2008 market contractions.My project broke into the inner architecture of a 9 floor office block andtook over the building's lighting system to run it via a data feedreplaying that day's stock market activity.To some degree, this project was shaped by consumption of Nettime discourse.cheers,ColinLINK: http://www.lettingspace.org.nz/essay-market-testamentHOPE IS NOT ABOUT WHAT WE EXPECTMartin Patrick looks retrospectively at Colin Hodson?s April 2011 LettingSpace project The Market Testament"If art and politics meet at all, it?s in the obligation to work concretelyin the present toward an ideal that may never be fully attainable" - BarrySchwabsky, The Nation, 12 Jan 2012Cinematic DisastersI spent my otherwise uneventful small town pre-adolescence squarely in theshadow of disasters. That is to say, disaster films: Airport 75, ToweringInferno, Jaws (parts one, two, and three) and Poseidon Adventure. Ourcollective, nightmarish fears were projected back to us incessantly, as theprosperity of the post-war era diminished.Citizens sought comfort in the soothing delirium of the still-wide-screenAmerican movie palaces. These were becoming bifurcated into ?twin cinemas?,or screened dollar movies or pornography on their way to bankruptcy, justbefore the advent of sprawling new multiplexes.Cinematic disasters come in cycles, as we alternately covet or reject our(post) apocalyptic visions. We currently see a return of this phenomenon -The Road, Contagion, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Perhaps more tothe point here is the remarkable and straightforward documentary InsideJob, which painstakingly delineates the financial turmoil enveloping globalmarkets and local households since 2008 (and earlier).One could argue that ?real? devastation - whether economic, psychic, orphysical - bears no easy resemblance to fantastical obliteration in CGImode. Our fears now are palpable, very real, but conveyed in moreabstracted, oblique economic channels and forms. (And of course this is notto underestimate the long and difficult period of coping with the manifoldeffects of the recent earthquakes in Christchurch.)I fully realise I?m beginning to ramble and muse overly. My intention isn?tto detract from the manifest, novel singularity of Colin Hodson?sremarkable artwork The Market Testament. Nor, by contrast the fascinatingways in which Hodson?s authorial voice was radically diffused by thetechno-omniscience of the installation itself. Was the building?sinfrastructure itself perhaps personified in place of the author/artist? Wemight also remember the absolutely scarifying HAL the talking computer fromArthur C. Clarke?s 2001 A Space Odyssey more vividly than either Clarke orKubrick as its sci-fi creators.Regarding CyclesReports of the Occupy movement - spread virally, globally over the pastmonths - eerily recall much earlier reports of social protest asspectacularly conjured events. Take author Norman Mailer?s brilliant yetidiosyncratic account of the 1968 March on the Pentagon in Washington(later published as The Armies of the Night):?Now the Participant recognised that this was the beginning of the exorcismof the Pentagon, yes the papers had made much of the permit requested by ahippie leader named Abbie Hoffman to encircle the Pentagon with twelvehundred men in order to form a ring of exorcism sufficiently powerful toraise the Pentagon three hundred feet. In the air the Pentagon would then,went the presumption, turn orange and vibrate until all evil emissions hadfled this levitation. At that point the war in Vietnam would end.?[1]When reading journalistic reports of today?s out of work artists, artisans,and designers throwing their lot in to create responses to the currentclimate of extreme economic precariousness, I think of this proposedYippie[2] stunt, comprising an unequal mix of goofish mockery, creativeimagination, and deadly earnest utopianism.Journalists of every persuasion are digging out their arsenal of tools totry and sum up and categorise an unfinished historical period. Such as Timemagazine?s placement of ?The Protestor? as their nominated ?person of theyear? for 2011. In writer Kurt Anderson?s words:?2011 was unlike any year since 1989 ? but more extraordinary, more global,more democratic, since in '89 the regime disintegrations were all theresult of a single disintegration at headquarters, one big switch pulled inMoscow that cut off the power throughout the system. So 2011 was unlike anyyear since 1968 ? but more consequential because more protesters have moreskin in the game. Their protests weren't part of a countercultural pageant,as in '68, and rapidly morphed into full-fledged rebellions, bringing downregimes and immediately changing the course of history.?[3]Anderson?s slightly purple prose leans more toward the so-called ArabSpring than any perceived success or failure of the Occupy (Wall Street)Movement, which some have said has succeeded mostly ? and ironically ? bybecoming a ?brand name? itself. Anderson?s mainstream user-friendlyrhetoric contrasts markedly with the fervent manifesto-style approach ofwriters Franco Berardi and Geert Lovink in their ?A call to the Army ofLove and to the Army of Software?, a posted bulletin dated October 2011:?There is only a way to awake the lover that is hidden in our paralysed,frightened and frail virtualised bodies. There is only a way to awake thehuman being that is hidden in the miserable daily life of the softwarist:take to the streets and fight. Burning banks is useless, as real power isnot in the physical buildings, but in the abstract connection betweennumbers, algorithms and information. But occupying banks is good as astarting point for the long-lasting process of dismantling and rewritingthe techno-linguistic automatons enslaving all of us. This is the onlypolitics that counts.?[4]Haunted ShellsTraces from all of the above have raced through my mind retrospectivelyafter observing and reflecting upon The Market Testament.A bunch of bland, boxy structures, arbitrarily generic, punctuated bylittle decorative flourishes: the colour of modernist glass and steel, thesignage announcing their functions, or corporate sponsors. I don?t knowmuch about these edifices of the Wellington Central Business District. Itend to avoid them assiduously. I can count on the fingers of one hand thememorable times I?ve spent in their midst: health exam, bank visit,solicitor consultation. Perhaps the strangest though was when graciouslyinvited to facilitate a discussion on?or I should say inside ?ColinHodson?s work.At 139 The Terrace I was ushered into the building after hours, up a liftand into a partially-emptied floor of office cubicles. The remainingcontents included some dismal grey desks, formica tables, metallic filingcabinets, along with a few bits of stray, printed ephemera: Post-it notesfeaturing once urgent, but now discarded information. It was a hauntedshell of a workplace.The artist, curator, curatorial assistant and myself as advance partyexchanged jokes, but for me spooky uneasiness prevailed. Then, after thetypical swollen handful of attendees as at any Wellington art event hadarrived, we chatted about the surrounding context, the work, and theartist?s intentions. But most of what I remember were the slowly changinglights, staggering and stuttering in that typical way of antiseptic,fluorescent ceiling fixtures, being taken for a virtual test drive,flickering according to Hodson?s computerised collision course while wetalked.One collision so to speak had already been had with the local media andrespondents to the Dominion Post website, offering uninformed and surlyrants that the work didn?t ?seem very artistic at all? and against ?wastingpower this way?, accusations that The Market Testament was not art, etc..In short, a typically unproductive verbal impasse.Hodson?s project took ongoing data reports from the New Zealand stockmarket, and converted them into visual signals over the course of afortnight. The activity of lights flickering on and off on the differentfloors of the building onsite was relayed via a streaming webcam video ontoan accompanying website, and it was of course visible throughout certainareas of Wellington city. Thus the project involved an actual materialsite, which was simultaneously mediated, dispersed, and disseminated.The ReadymadeHodson?s piece brings to mind two notions originated by the artist MarcelDuchamp: the ?readymade? and the ?infrathin? (or, inframince). In terms ofThe Market Testament, the site becomes a readymade, an existing object towhich new ideas are then applied and associated.The readymade in Duchamp?s view devolved or branched off into severalsub-categories, such as the altered readymade (moustache painted onto areproduction of the Mona Lisa), or the reciprocal readymade (use aRembrandt as an ironing board, treat an ironing table as a masterwork). Andthe readymade was chosen by Duchamp, ostensibly, in an ?indifferent? mannersuch that the readymade object itself would be unlikely to be seen asaestheticised.Nonetheless readymades have been treated as visually elegantrepresentations (Alfred Stieglitz?s haunting photograph of the urinalDuchamp entitled Fountain), or as mere rubbish (the bicycle wheel readymadewas once stolen from Museum of Modern art and found partly trashed nearby).But the readymade seems to maintain such force and latent energy as aconceptual apparatus by the way it serves to deflect and resist meanings.It?s a shell that cannot be pried open; a sort of armoured exterior, inwhich the interior is left as an empty, conjectural cipher.Moreover, the notion of infrathin (far more obscure in terms of anycomparable art historical fame or ubiquity) was exemplified by a series ofglancing blows at philosophical meaning, literary phrases rather thanvisual figures: ?the difference between a shirt when it has been ironed andafter being worn?; ?the gap between two sides of a piece of paper?.Duchamp?s compelling maneuver was to describe that which is almostimperceptible, but actually wields a deceptively large significance. Thisis echoed in the ways by which The Market Testament addresses the seemingarbitrariness of the ascending and descending stock tallies, a steady humunderneath our daily activities. Here this is represented by flashingpatterns of lights drawing from algorithmic signals pulsing through thehidden recesses of an existing office block - itself a time capsule,symbolic of the 1980s ?Greed is good? mantra.A ConjuringUltimately what?s both fascinating and frustrating about The MarketTestament is its very elusive quality, as if turning itself inside out fromtime to time, transforming the flows of unseen numerical data into thevisible flickering of lights, but also by asking in a sense, where, when,how is the piece? Even if its logistics were completely revealed to me,could I or would I comprehend them? This very opacity rejects a totalisingunderstanding or awareness. This aspect is also quite different from a modeof activism. It instead operates as a conjuring, a sleight of handpresented only partially to the viewer, whose full comprehension isunlikely to aid the work, rather even to spoil its peculiar merits.Its resistance to totality recalls both Postmodern fragmentation but alsosomething very of the moment ? historical commentary on the spot ? thesplitting apart of forms, meanings, hopes that have failed to cohere. Whocould have prognosticated the turbulence of the last few years of this newcentury?This is not to undercut the political awareness of the artist and thecogent research done which serves as background to its quirky fa?ade. It issignificant to note that Hodson is a film director and actor as well as avisual artist, well versed in setting a scene, dealing with performance,and thinking through the durational aspect of a work.A number of years ago Hodson resided in New York and during that periodworked closely with the renowned experimental theatre company, The WoosterGroup, then comprised of members Elizabeth LeCompte, Willem Dafoe, KateValk, Ron Vawter among others. The group?s specialty was restaging,rewriting and utterly reconfiguring classics of the American theatre suchas works by Eugene O?Neill, incorporating video, choreography, music, andvarious Post-modern style ruptures and interventions into the mix.As in the case of many engaging temporal projects created recently,Hodson?s work presents the intention of taking a snapshot that not onlybecomes a glimpse of one particular moment, but allows for the flow ofevents occurring prior to and after the event to prevent that glimpse fromfreezing totally.In fact I?m learning more in retrospect from The Market Testament -continuing to consider its reading of mid-2011, created just as theaforementioned protest movements were on the verge of commencing. In themaelstrom of events that continue to occur in these unpredictable times,and which can take a decisive toll on one?s own capacity for optimism andfortitude, I would return to the following statement by writer RebeccaSolnit:?hope is not about what we expect. It is an embrace of the essentialunknowability of the world, of the breaks with the present, the surprises.Or perhaps studying the record more carefully leads us to expectmiracles?not when and where we expect them, but to expect to be astonished,to expect that we don?t know. And this is grounds to act. I believe in hopeas an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series ofacts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hopefor while we live by principle in the meantime. There is no alternative,except surrender. And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandonsthe soul.?[5]I would assert that such an emphasis on ?breaks with the present, thesurprises,? becomes a very apt credo when considering artworks like TheMarket Testament. Colin Hodson?s welcome creative surprise simultaneouslyresponded to the global and invigorated the local cultural context.[1] Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/The Novel asHistory (New York: New American Library, 1968) 120[2] A group of politically active hippies in which Abbie Hoffman was a keyfigure.[3] Kurt Anderson, ?The Protester,? TIME, Wednesday Dec. 14, 2011, Coverstory.[4] Franco Berardi and Geert Lovink, ?A call to the Army of Love and to theArmy of Software?, InterActivtist Info Exchange (http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/32852), October 12 2011[5] Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power(Melbourne: Canongate, 2005) 163

Commercialization makes your online rights irrelevant, more thoughts from my talk with < at >ioerror at #rp12Last week I wrote about one of the topics Jacob Appelbaum and I discussed at our talk at Re:publica 2012 {1}; that as a result of the commercialization of the Internet, we have moved from free and open social platform, to the centralized social media monopolies we know today. Today I want to mention another issue that we covered, how commercialization is putting an end to the Internet as a public space.It's import to understand that it's not that capital does not want to fund free and open platforms, or that capitalists choose not to: capital simply can not do so.Capital can not fund free and open platforms because capitalists must capture profit or lose their capital, and thus for-profit platforms that can not capture profit must eventually vanish.In order to capture profit, capitalist funded platforms must introduce choke-points and/or toll-gates into there platforms, because their business models depends on the control of user data and interaction, and therefore these platforms can not be free and open.Thus, the prospects for free and open platforms returning in any mainstream form seem slim without alternatives to the profit motive to finance them.Free and open communication platforms that don't surveil, control or exclude can only be provided socially, as a public good.However, in the current era of unchallenged neoliberal ideology imposing public austerity and community precariousness everywhere, building the social capacity to create alternative platforms at a scale that can displace Facebook and the others seems unlikely.As these are commercial platforms, which are operated for profit, you only have the privilege of using the private platforms so long as you use them in ways that benefit the platform operator.The result of this, is that using these platforms becomes the only popularly accessible way to communicate with the masses, whether your an activist, an artist, a journalist or anybody who has something to say, privately run social media platforms are the only way you have to reach the majority of people.Activists, artists and journalists often have things to say that upset people, sometimes powerful people, who can create problems for the platform operators.As nobody has any explicit right to use a private social platform, these platforms have a strong incentive to remove users and content that may may create controversy.The early internet was conceived as a sort of virtual public space. In his 1996 "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" John Perry Barlow writes "We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity."Barlow's colleague John Gilmore famously claimed "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."The critical feature of the Net that gave rise to such freedom was the mesh topology of the network and the distributed and peer-to-peer architecture of the applications that ran on it.The early Internet was a social platform that allowed groups and individuals to interact directly with each other, and thus, such communications where unmediated by any public or private third party. As a result, it was difficult to monitor and control such communications.To preserve this freedom Barlow and Gilmore became two of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, with Barlow's declaration becoming something of a manifesto for the group.The immediate threat was Government legislation intended to make the net more suitable for the purposes of commerce and law enforcement.Barlow's declaration warns how legislation such as the "Telecommunications Reform Act" (Telecommunications Act of 1996) are threatening to destroy the freedom of cyberspace. Barlow was so offended he claimed that the US 1996 act is one "which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis."The 1996 act was followed by many more in the US, as well as other countries. Some of these are well known. DMCA, SOPA, ACTA, The Digital Economy act 2010, the list goes on an on, all with the usual concerns: piracy and cybercrime. All part of the effort to make the Net safe for business and under the control of law enforcement.Yet, none of these laws where ever able to totally take away the freedom Gilmore and Barlow saught to protect.Since legislation is a public sphere, there is public contestation.These laws where opposed by the EFF, along with other groups such as Le Quadrature du Net, along with large social mobilizations, and even by the emergence of a political wing in the form of the Pirate Party phenomenon.Even if much of the opposition failed, some succeed. Certain laws where delayed, a few totally defeated, and many modified to include concessions.Opposition did not only take political form, the laws where also flaunted and simply shown-up by inspiring renegade sites such as the Pirate Bay.Legislating the public internet was no easy task when the people where willing to fight for their online rights.Laws such as the DMCA where conceived in the days of a peer-to-peer internet. When groups and individuals controlled their own means of communications, by, for instance, running their own mail and news servers, their own web servers, etc.If somebody was hosting content somebody else objected to, coercive laws where required to force the person to remove the content from their own server.While these laws where written in such ways so as to favour the interests of intellectual property holders and law enforcers, they where none-the-less regulating the internet as a public sphere. They recognize some rights and liberties for both sides, and, though with unequal capacity, both sides had the chance to fight for these rights and liberties.However, starved of sufficient financing, the original distributed and peer to peer applications that where the communications tools of the public internet began to be abandoned.As capital can not fund such platforms, online communications has largely moved to privately controlled social media platforms. Being private, they are not subject to the contestation of the public sphere.Our social space online has moved from the public square to the shopping mall. From the public sphere where we can fight for our rights and influence the laws and bylaws that govern our conduct, where we can engage in civil disobedience when we oppose the rules, to the private sphere, where we have no rights, and can be expelled and excluded at the pleasure of the private owners of the platforms.Today, if somebody is hosting content that somebody else objects to, that content is not likely to be hosted by a server they control, but rather by a commercial social platform. Such content can be removed with no due process, with no recognition of the rights and liberties of both parties, simply the unilaterally imposed rules of the platform operator.In the case that the content is controversial, and the objecting party is powerful, the operator has strong incentive to remove it, and very little incentive to put themselves at risk to keep the content online.The powerful interest that wish to control content on line no longer need coersive laws to do so, they simply need co-operation from from the platform owners. Such co-operation is happily provided by most operators, and is often even a precondition of the financing.Commercialization has made online rights irrelevantThe world where "anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity" can not exist on Facebook, and can not be built by capital.A sharable version can be found online here: http://wp.me/p24fqL-xKI'll be at Cafe Buchhandlung at 9pm as usual tonight. Please join us.{1} http://www.dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/{2} http://bit.ly/buchhandung

I don't want to suggest that everything is business as usual, but my understanding is that this is pretty normal in financial crises in capitalism, when there is a shortage in the money supply, and governments abandon the 'keysian solution'. Certainly where i live banks seem to be refusing to loan to anyone who cannot immediately pay them off - which basically means small business and normal people cannot borrow. So, to a certain extent the 'bottom' end of the economy, (which has never been provided for first) is finding it hard to get credit, and given that credit seems to have been the main source of spending then spending will decline. Whether this will eventually fix itself or not i don't know.But i have no idea what this has to do with 'new media', the decline of mass media, or indeed conspicuous consumption. My point was that conspicuous consumption still seems to flourish in the new media field, where status spending fits in with market drives and status claims.I'm also not sure that the mass media is declining for more or less the same kind of reasons that Dmytri Kleiner discusses in his mail on 'Commercialization makes your online rights irrelevant'; namely that profit and effect determines the value of information in capitalism.So i still see no evidence for your statement that "The *effect* of digital media is to directly undermine "conspicuous consumption" which REQUIRED mass-media to prop it up"Whether advertising is generating needs as much as it ever has done but that people simply lack the cash, is another issue. People may simply react with depression, not with joy that they are no longer consuming, or feel they are simply working to pay off debt.My understanding is that in my part of the world, despite the depression, overt conspicuous consumption, like spending on weddings, expensive rock concerts, for example is increasing.My understanding of targeted advertising us that it is still cheaper and more generally effective - the main thing is to link it into spur of the moment purchasing.... but i'm just recalling some mails i've seen recently, so i'm not standing by that.Even if this is true what is the connection with 'new media'? and how do we know that people are not just 'saying' the latest thing, to show their status. as in 'I have enough money to not worry about quantity, just quality'? or 'I'm outside the system, i'm an independent entepreneurial type'.i guess i come from a field where it is recognised that what people say they do/want, is often different from what they do.... but again even if they say this, what has this to do with new media?What is a baseline need? How is that socially defined, or defined by networks etc? 'Real' baseline needs are pretty low.... possibly only a very few societies have volutarily had everyone on baseline needs ever.... Religion automatically complicates whatever is a baseline need, and that is pretty common.... and again even with a trend, what has this to do with digital media?Assuming the earth survives :)true but their, and India's, contribution to coal burning will be enormous - and how much of that is driven by the desire to show the West they have 'arrived' and are major world powers through conspicuous consumption? That they deserve this....Absolutely, and what evidence is there that they will cease consuming, and just stay with 'base line needs'? Improbable, given the apparent spending patterns of the 'new elites'. And even if everyone in China decided to live at Mao type levels, what does this have to do with digital media?Still don't know why digital tech is driving this process....Perhaps they have figured out the developed economies have stopped growing, because of the crisis in capitalism, or because they are in moral and physical decline generally and this is a great opportunity to take the lead?Something is happening, balance of power in the world is changing, military success eludes the US removing the fear factor, the US is becoming totally corporated dominated, and that domination is destroying its power and living standards, current energy sources are becoming problematic, Islam is growing as a political system all through the world, but i'm still not sure this has much to do with the effects of digital media in the west (except perhaps the growth of Islam).If you will pardon me, perhaps it is being stupid to think that everything is driven by digital media? i'd suggest that digital media's main effect is to contribute to the mess of information, and thus leave us all more and more deluded or uncertain, or wedded to absolute certainties so as to make sense of it all....jonUTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099FDISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information.If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message orattachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and deletethis message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where thesender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney.Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects.Think. Green. Do.Please consider the environment before printing this email.

Sotheby's: offer your art handlers a fair contractSign the petition at =http://www.change.org/petitions/sotheby-s-offer-your-art-handlers-a-fair-c=ontractMay 1, 2011For the past eight months, Sotheby's has locked its 43 unionized art =handlers out of work. Rather than negotiating a fair contract with its =employees, the company has issued a set of demands: the gutting of the =art handlers' union, the elimination of health insurance and other =benefits, and the replacement of full-time skilled workers with =temporary unskilled laborers.Sotheby's has decided that the handling of priceless artworks is an easy =job; that low-paid temporary workers with little training or incentive =can manage the constant stream of artifacts into and out of the world's =largest auction house. The 43 locked-out workers who have made art =handling their career know this is not true.There have been no negotiations. In meeting after meeting, Sotheby's has =stalled, preferring instead to extend the lockout in the hopes that =their workers might eventually capitulate to demands designed to exploit =them. To make certain, the company has hired Jackson Lewis, a =notoriously anti-employee law firm that the AFL-CIO has called the ="number one union buster in America."The message from Sotheby's is clear: art handlers do not deserve the =same benefits as the rest of their staff. If art handlers expect the =privileges of their betters, like health insurance or collective =bargaining rights, it is acceptable to make them suffer.Sotheby's has no financial incentive. Last year, the company saw its =highest profits ever, increasing revenue by 7% year-on-year. They =remain the largest and most successful business in the art world, and =they know it: in 2010, CEO William Ruprecht more than doubled his own =salary, to 6 million USD.The entire union contract totals 3.2 million USD.It is the sheer obviousness of this abuse of power that makes action =necessary.=20We are asking artists, collectors, and institutions to sign this =petition and stand in solidarity with the Sotheby's art handlers until =they receive a fair contract. This is not about hurting the company =financially; unlike Sotheby's, we have no taste for the suffering of =others. This is about displaying a commitment to the moral principle of =fair pay for fair labor, and to the possibility of ethical practices in =the arts. This is about declaring, as an industry, that people should be =treated well. This is about standing up and saying, in one voice: "This =is wrong."=20We must be the conscience that Sotheby's lacks.=20If you?re an artist you can tell Sotheby's you don?t support their sale =of your work.=20If you're a collector, you can buy and sell from other auction houses =whenever possible.If represent an institution you can refuse sponsorships from Sotheby's.If you're in the media, you can use your platform to assure that all =voices get heard.Whoever you are, you can sign this petition, and show Sotheby's where =you stand. Then forward it to everyone you know. You can make the art =world you want to participate in; a place where people matter, and no =one can be casually cast aside.=http://www.change.org/petitions/sotheby-s-offer-your-art-handlers-a-fair-contractPaddy Johnson, Editorial Director, Art Fag CityWill Brand, Editor-in-Chief, Art Fag CityAnton Vidokle, Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, e-fluxHrag Vartanian, Veken Gueyikian, HyperallergicHaim Steinbach, artistDeborah Kass, artistMarilyn Minter, artistAA Bronson, artistShepard Fairey, artistWilliam Powhida, artistW.A.G.E., artist collective

Keith: Fine question!Because technology defines the *environment* in which we live -- soregardless of what "we" bring to the situation, the *ground* of ourexperience is the SAME! ECONOMY means (etymologically) "how we manage our household" and whether its Pretoria or Mumbai or Jakarta or Berlin, in crucial respects we have all been living in the "same" house for quite awhile now. This of course is the theme of GLOBALIZATION -- which was already in place in the 1950s, pre-saged with the Arthur C. Clarke's initial article on geo-stationary satellites intended to "beam" the same television shows to everyone on earth. That is, of course, exactly what happened. Furthermore, following WW II, one group of elites "managed" the world economy -- since they were the "winners." They set up the UN, the IMF/World Back, the CIA and directly ran the "re-invention" of the German and Japanese economies. They defined the Cold War down to the level of "hiring" virtually every intellectual and social scientist, as well as the basis of "engagement" on both "sides." While there had been many EMPIRES before this, finally it had become one Big Blue Marble -- as symbolized by the cover of the Whole Earth Catalog (and the subsequent practices of its expansion into the Global Business Network and its spinoff WIRED magazine -- which, btw, under the name "Californian Ideology" was a key basis for the formation of nettime!) Your question also reflects the enormous difficulties social science has had dealing with the effects of new technologies -- particularly in economics but also in anthropology and sociology. Economics has become largely a field of "modeling," in which the requirement for "quantification" has forced the abstraction away from real humans, also reflected in the "micro" demands of CIA-funded "area studies" in which the BIG PICTURE has been largely sacrificed as the people in these fields became the "specialists" who never put together an overview. I work with the people in the area of "evolutionary economics." Never heard of it? Well, that's because it is decidedly NOT mainstream for the reason that it a) doesn't produce models and b) deals with technology -- which most economists consider an "externality" (even though there is general consensus that technology is the primary source of economic growth and change) and c) tries to understand how the MACRO features of the economy *evolve* under the impact of changing technology. In particular, Carlota Perez is on my company's advisory board and her 2002 Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital (which continues the work of her recently deceased husband Chris Freeman and the group at SPRU) is where we all need to *start* in this MACRO economic analysis. _http://www.amazon.com/Technological-Revolutions-Financial-Capital-Dynamics/dp/1843763311/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337258077&sr=1-1_ (http://www.amazon.com/Technological-Revolutions-Financial-Capital-Dynamics/dp/1843763311/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337258077&sr=1-1) _http://www.carlotaperez.org/_ (http://www.carlotaperez.org/) In addition, I work with the tools supplied by Marshall McLuhan -- who as perhaps the most important "renaissance(S)" scholar of the 20th century, dealt with the social and psychological effects of new technologies from a deeply researched understanding of Western history, as reflected early in his 1943 PhD thesis The Classical Trivium. _http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Trivium-Place-Thomas-Learning/dp/1584232358/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337259099&sr=1-1_ (http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Trivium-Place-Thomas-Learning/dp/1584232358/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337259099&sr=1-1) As one nettime stalwart "shyly" put it to me in a private email yesterday, "Nice one! I disagree with your McLuhanist reasoning but agree with your conclusions..." If you don't approach these problems from the standpoint of how TECHNOLOGY changes *us* by CAUSING changes in our behaviors and attitudes (since it is the "medium" in which we live, like yeast in a vat <g>) -- which, in turn, *drives* the changes in our economies and societies -- then it seems to me that you will have few CLUES about what is going on. Here, McLuhan's (posthumous) 1988 The Laws of Media: The New Science is a *foundational* text for understanding our present situation(s). _http://www.amazon.com/Laws-Media-Science-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0802077153/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337259136&sr=1-1_ (http://www.amazon.com/Laws-Media-Science-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0802077153/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337259136&sr=1-1) The FUTURE has already arrived and we all live in it. Understanding the *present* is always a very difficult task. Many opinions are expressed on this list but rarely do they seem to take the opportunity to step back and provide a broad enough historic context. Let's all see if we can "up" our game, okay? If anyone reading this message knows of others who have successfully elaborated a body-of-work that provides significant insights into the *historical* interaction of new technologies and society over time -- where McLuhan's work traces back to the origin of the alphabet and Perez's to the first Industrial Revolution -- please tell us about them! What we need is some BIG HISTORY here (and not the Big-Bang-to-Global-Warming type <g>.) Mark StahlmanBrooklyn NY

European Sociological Association (ESA): Research Network 18 – Sociology of Communications and Media ResearchConference “Communication, Crisis, and Critique in Contemporary Capitalism“October 18-20, 2012. University of the Basque Country, BilbaoAbstract submission deadline: May 31stKeynote talk: Peter Golding "Why a Sociologist should take Communications and Media Seriously”Submission information: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/ESA_RN18_CfP2012.pdfDear colleagues,In my role as chair of the European Sociological Association’s (ESA) Research Network 18 – Sociology of Communications and Media Research, I want to invite you to submit abstracts for presentations at the RN18 conference “Communication, Crisis, and Critique in Contemporary Capitalism“. The deadline for submission is approaching – May 31st.The conference will provide opportunities for presenting ideas in the field of the critical study of media, communication & society, for networking, and for meeting people working in this research area. It will feature the keynote talk “Why a Sociologist should take Communications and Media Seriously” by Peter Golding, who is not only a leading scholar in the political economy of media and communication, but also founded RN18 and is its honorary chair. The conference will take place in Bilbao, which is a great city to visit in autumn.Membership in the ESA and RN18 provides reduced participation fees both for the bi-annual ESA conference and the bi-annual RN18 conference and furthermore gives you access to a great community of scholars interested in critical studies of media, communication & society.http://www.europeansociology.org/member/RN18 also has a mailing list, to which you can subscribe here:http://lists.jacobs-university.de/mailman/listinfo/esa-rn18Best,Christian Fuchs--Chair of ESA RN18 – Sociology of Communications and Media Researchhttp://www.europeansociology.org/research-networks/rn18-sociology-of-communications-and-media-research.html# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission# <nettime> 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: nettime< at >kein.org

Dear nettimers,I am not very often participating in signature campaigns but this one =20=is really impressive. There is a real momentum here to put pressure on =20=Elsevier and other academic publishers who continue their ridicuous IP =20=policies concerning publicly funded academic research.Yours, Geert---11619 Researchers Taking a Stand. See the listAcademics have protested against Elsevier's business practices for =20years with little effect. These are some of their objections:=95 They charge exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions to individual ==20journals.=95 In the light of these high prices, the only realistic option for =20many libraries is to agree to buy very large "bundles", which will =20include many journals that those libraries do not actually want. =20Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting the fact that some of =20their journals are essential.=95 They support measures such as SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, ==20that aim to restrict the free exchange of information.The key to all these issues is the right of authors to achieve easily-=20=accessible distribution of their work. If you would like to declare =20publicly that you will not support any Elsevier journal unless they =20radically change how they operate, then you can do so by filling in =20your details on this page:http://thecostofknowledge.com/

marc Lafia <marclafia2-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org> our world is teeming with empires: on networks, histories and{ brad brace } <bbrace-qx95VtOkOx/QT0dZR+AlfA< at >public.gmane.org> kickstart- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Date: Wed, 9 May 2012 15:04:08 -0400Subject: our world is teeming with empires: on networks, histories andFrom: marc Lafia <marclafia2-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>greetings- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Date: Fri, 18 May 2012 10:06:30 -0700 (PDT)From: { brad brace } <bbrace-qx95VtOkOx/QT0dZR+AlfA< at >public.gmane.org>Subject: kickstarthttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bbrace/global-islands-projectGlobal Islands Project -- ongoing series of multi-mediapdf-ebooks/field-recordings -- a pastoral, pictorial and phonicelicitation of island parameters. An intensive examination of smallislands and their paradigmatic solutions to globalism... Ethnographicallya shared world of historical experience -- not the romanticized anddivided universe of them and us.Your feudal-world is based on mutual relief at your common corruption.Maybe some cultures are based on even worse. But that wouldn't change thebad faith of it and as years go by, you wake at night in terror of yourwhole life being an act of bad faith, where everything is self-interestand nothing more, where every human interaction is driven by a silent,even subconscious calculation of some ulterior motive, to the point that asea of bad faith has taken over your whole life, there's no small islandleft from which you can even try to build a bridge of good faith, becauseeven that effort becomes suspect, even good faith is nothing butself-interested, even altruism is nothing but solipsistic, even yourprofessed agonizing right here right now is nothing but a gesture, made tothe conscience in order to assure it that it exists.http://bradbrace.net/id.htmlhttp://bbrace.net/id.htmlIsland 1.0 is Ambergris Caye, BelizeIsland 2.0 is Koh Si Chang, ThailandIsland 3.0 is Lamu, KenyaIsland 4.0 is Narikel Jingira, BangladeshIsland 5.0 is Isla Mais, NicaraguaIsland 6.0 are The Grenadines, West IndiesIsland 7.0 is Hateruma (Yaeyama), JapanIsland 8.0 is Waya (Yasawa), Fijihttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bbrace/global-islands-project- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Re: <nettime> Capitalism is FINISHED -- As a Result of the Internet! Newmedia-YDxpq3io04c< at >public.gmane.org Jonathan Marshall <Jonathan.Marshall-1dnWGznF1N8QrrorzV6ljw< at >public.gmane.org>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -From: Newmedia-YDxpq3io04c< at >public.gmane.orgDate: Sun, 20 May 2012 17:20:49 -0400 (EDT)Subject: Re: <nettime> Capitalism is FINISHED -- As a Result of the Internet![conclusion of previous message that got truncated . . . ] McLuhan's *own* primary point about "software" is that it leads to PATTERN RECOGNITION -- not magic and not stupidity. Popular phrases like "get a clue" and "too much information" seem to support his insight. While he is mostly remembered for "the medium is the message" and "global village" -- both of which were phrases that were used by *advertisers* to promote their McLuhan wares -- in his *hey-day* the phrase he used most often when asked to "sum up" his work was about the effects of the "electric media environment" was . . . *pattern recognition.* He apparently got it from IBM and meant it as a very deliberate "re-purposing" of a term from Artificial Intelligence. No, he didn't believe that "computers" can THINK. And, as the subsequent 50 years have shown us, they can't! <g> You might be amused by this clip from a 60s television documentary about McLuhan, it which he sums things up regarding whether CHAOS is all we have to look forward to -- _http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/electric-age/1968-pattern-recognition.php_ (http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/electric-age/1968-pattern-recognition.php) Unlike so many social scientists who have been paid to figure out to "regulate" a society that tends towards "disruption and disorder," McLuhan was deeply committed to the HUMANS and hopeful that our technological environments could help us all to figure out what is happening on our own. After all, why else should we bother to . . . UNDERSTAND MEDIA? Mark StahlmanBrooklyn NY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Jonathan Marshall <Jonathan.Marshall-1dnWGznF1N8QrrorzV6ljw< at >public.gmane.org>Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 09:10:41 +1000Subject: RE: <nettime> Capitalism is FINISHED -- As a Result of the Internet!Hi MarkI'm talking about the more recent products, when apple have become far more succesful in saturating a market, and getting repeat (and largely unnecessary buys). This during a time when the 'new media' had actually taken off - wheras these examples seem pre mass usage of new media, or when digital marginal was marginal. 1997 for 'think different' (abandoned 2002). The 1984 add was even older.I'm not sure how they marketed the newer stuff, but it seemed to be through all kinds of adds in differnt places, and through social media. the new stuff seemed to be thought really cool, by the 'younger people' demographic that i talked with. Certainly nobody thought their image and their advertising was outmoded, which you would think if they were perceived as a stuffy old media company.But the real point is that Apples' products are, nowadays, all classifiable as new media and saturated in new media - where would they be without wireless, and without the internet?Perhaps mass media is not dead? perhaps new media is embedded in old media, old economics and so on? I suspect that this unsustainable and incoherent, but that is a slightly different issue...Finally, apple seems to be generating conspicuous consumption quite succesfully. Seems to me that they are currently trying to corner (monopolise) the market in, and distribution of, digital music, digital books, and possibly film. Hardly the attitude of a modest company.If that is the case, then it would seem that they are not being undermined by the 'talk back' new media, or by people discoursing about apple in a medium currently more important than mass media. So we could say this is an argument for the ineffectiveness of current digital media in producing change.Possibly, but this could always have been the case, mass media or new media.If you read me, i am not asserting that your comments are just your opinons. I'm quite sure that people are saying what you have reported.I'm just replying, along with some others here, that at the moment, despite these comments by people in the industry, i'm not sure that advertising is never going to work again. Submliminal web advertising seems a real possibility, and is helped by the medium. Impulse buying could well be encouraged by the medium. The medium might even help you raise credit to continue to purchase after you have blown your bank account. But that requires investigation of online loans as a business form.So, basically to return to the begining of all this, i'm not sure conspicuous consumption or excess consumption, or impulse buying is dead, and have given some casual evidence and arguments which point in that direction. sure but as you know that is difficult for outsiders.A major prediction of Mcluhan's seemed to me to be that we were heading away from 'rationalist' media, into immersive 'tribalising' media. And given the amount of 'magical' comments about the internet i've read over the years, this would seem to be born out :)That is interesting. Any procedings or publications from the conference i can look at?Perhaps. Perhaps, i'm just remembering that TV and other mass mediums are not dead yet and arguing that consumerism may not have died either.... jonUTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099FDISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information.If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message orattachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and deletethis message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where thesender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney.Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects.Think. Green. Do.Please consider the environment before printing this email.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thinking about the weakness of the US president, the weakness of the Democratic Party andthe present weakness of the Occupy-Movement and its lacking of a real goal I propose toconcentrate on President Obama.Since having red this ??. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-engelhardt/the-obama-contradiction_b_1464721.html (in short: with a little help from 9/11 bush and cheney deregulated american law and put more and more power in the hands of one man, the president and commander in chief. while not really scoring with his domestic plans (health care..etc) Obama tried to gain respect by increasingly showing up as some kind of warlord, having his own private <more militarized CIA army> and growing hordes of special fordes, 60'000 of them. now imagine all this power in Mitt Romney's hands?..?.I sincerely propose this:OCCUPY OBAMA(think of t-shirts, banners, stickers?.)The Occupy-Movement should try to force/invite the president to de- bush and de-cheney the USA.Therefore: OCCUPY OBAMA.Hm - Losers from Hell? Or a last possibility of another USA? Could Occupy set Obama on liberal fireagain, with a little big help from Occupy? Maybe In the face of general madness? If not, what else?Best wishesAlbert / Zurich

Dear nettimers,as many of you probably know the Quebec's provincial government has recently passed an emergency law whose goal is to quash the massive student strike and demonstrations against tuition hike in public universities:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/19/quebec-passes-student-protest-law http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/massive-police-repression-victovillequebec-4th-may-protests/http://www.mediacoop.ca/blog/bernans/10930http://cutvmontreal.ca/broadcasts/2012/5/18-3Below is the press release for a day of action organized by Free University NYC in solidarity in New York on May 22.cheers,snafu*****ANNOUNCING THE FREE UNIVERSITY IN SOLIDARITY WITH QUEBEC STRIKE!!Pop-Up Free University in Solidarity with the Quebec Student MovementLIST OF EVENTS FOR TUESDAY, MAY 22ndThe Free University is hosting a pop-up occupation Tuesday, May 22nd in Washington Square Park at 5PM on the 100th day of the Quebec students? unlimited strike, already one of the largest student mobilizations in recent history.During 100 days of strike, contempt, and resistance, students have mobilized against steep tuition increases, austerity and debt, and the criminalization of the right to education. In order to break the growing strike and destroy the power of the student union, the Quebec Government enacted a special emergency law (Bill 78) this past Friday. Popularly known as ?Loi Fuck,?the lawis a blunt and draconian tool that outlaws public assembly, imposes harsh fines for strike activity (even tacit support), and effectively makes organizing an arrestable offense.On Tuesday in New York City, we stand in solidarity with Quebec students who will be marching in record numbers, in defense of our right to protest, and for our right to education as we determine it.The Free University is hosting a pop-up university open to all students, educators, and community members.We call on all who want to come and TEACH a class/ FACILITATE a discussion/ HOST a skill-share as part of the Free University. Come to Washington Square Park on Tuesday at 5pm and join us!We call on everyone who heard about the how great the Free University was on Mayday, everyone who came to the Free University on Mayday and everyone who is interested in how we can organize education as a free and accessible commons to COME to Washington Square Park on Tuesday. We call on all to COME to defend our right to assembly?everywhere and anywhere.As part of the afternoon?s activities, The Free University will host discussions about the state of the student unlimited strike in Quebec, the criminalization of dissent, and what this means for our movements.If you want to teach a class or host a discussion just come to the park with a sign announcing your class and check in at our table on the North side of the fountain at 5PM. We?ll be announcing all the classes on a board at 6PM.Together we will stand in solidarity, determined to make our universities places of free education, inquiry, and access to knowledge for all.2PM?Demonstrate, 1 Rockefeller PlazaDemonstration in solidarity with the Quebec Student StrikeOutside the Quebec Government Offices at1 Rockefeller Plaza5PM?Gather, Check-in, Washington Square Park, North Side of FountainGather to paint banners, make ?book bloc? shields, and cut red squares for the evening march.Check-in for those who want to facilitate lectures, workshops, skill-shares, and discussions. Please bring all the materials you may need to make banners and host classes.6PM?Free University, Washington Square Park, various locations-- check board on North Side of FountainTeach in/Speak out assembly about the Quebec student strike, the emergency laws, and the criminalization of dissent; followed by self-organized lectures, workshops, skill-shares, and discussions of the Free University.8PM?Assembly and March, Washington Square ParkGeneral Assembly and March against Repressive anti-protest laws worldwideWEAR RED?Students in Quebec use the symbol of the ?red square? to signify being financially ?in the red? amid tuition hikes, cuts in social entitlements, and the spectre of spiraling student and consumer debt. We are all ?in the red? as long as the 1% imposes upon us austerity, debt, and repression. An increase in the powers of the police and the state anywhere is an attack on us everywhere.We reject the politics of austerity and the policing of our right to assemble. We stand in solidarity with the Quebec student mobilizations. Join us! Wear Red! Long live the unlimited student strike!For more information, please contact maydayfreeu-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org <mailto:maydayfreeu-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>Useful websites:Facebook page for the May 22 national demonstration in Montreal, QC:https://www.facebook.com/events/232620616844146/<https://www.facebook.com/events/232620616844146/>The poster (PDF)http://www.bloquonslahausse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/100jours.pdf<http://www.bloquonslahausse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/100jours.pdf>The call for solidarity donations (includes an excellent summary of Bill 78):https://www.facebook.com/notes/max-silverman/urgent-appeal-to-the-rest-of-canada/10150913592787996Stop the Hike!http://www.stopthehike.ca/Edu-Factoryhttp://www.edu-factory.org/wp/To better coordinate information between our demonstrations, these hash tags are in use in Quebec and would help student strikers learn of our tweets, etc.Hashtags to use:#GGI (Greve generale illimitee/Quebec student strike/movement)#Loi78 (Bill 78)#manifencours (Demonstrations in progress, all actions)_FREE UNIVERSITY NYC _twitter: < at >FreeUnivNYCphone: 347-670-FREU (3738)e-mail: maydayfreeu-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org <mailto:maydayfreeu-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>facebook: on.fb.me/maydayfreeu <http://on.fb.me/maydayfreeu>trailer: http://bit.ly/freeutrailervideo:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id8FaDf3OMI

for all who are interested in this debate and participation -looking forward to see youmy bestDmitry*Berlin, Sunday, June 3rd, 19:00h, Flutgraben**Address:*Am Flutgraben 312435 Berlin+49 30 5321 9658ArtLeaks invites you to a public working assembly around the issues thatare at the core of the group?s mission ? exposing instances of abuse,corruption and exploitation in the art world. This is the official publiclaunch of our platform, which began to operate in September 2011, and willbe followed by a series of debates and workshops in the near future. Thesepresent a unique opportunity to engage more directly with conditions ofcultural work that affect not only artists but creative workers in general:those from the traditionally creative fields as well as those generallyinvolved in cultural production. - see full text athttp://art-leaks.org/2012/05/21/1st-artleaks-working-assembly-2012/event at FB pagehttp://www.facebook.com/events/176353445826756/