Crowd in Italy during a strike, 2008, from the book Sono Anna Adamolo (ed. 2009)

This conference-colloquium at the Humanistic Faculty, Aarhus University, will relate to the widespread use of the concepts event and/or affect in contemporary research of media, art, philosophy, politics and culture. It is the aim to qualify, explore and investigate the scope of the terms event and affect in different analytical fields. We assume that the renewed focus on event and affect is partly due to the impact of new (electronic and digital) media and the new forms of immediacy created by real-time control and transmission.
The conference will therefore investigate two key issues: 1) How can we describe event and affect on philosophical, artistic, political and cultural levels? 2) Has a new paradigm of the signal – related to the bypassing of representation in real-time transmissions – superseded the sign? What characterizes the signal?

By combining these questions the conference wants to initiate a broader discussion on a paradigmatic transformation from sign to signal in relation to the concepts of event and affect and their use and scope in art, politics and culture.

[The text above is an extract of the Conference's call. The arrangement team consists of: Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen, Britta Timm Knudsen, Dorthe Refslund Christensen, Carsten Stage, Camilla Møhring Reestorff, Mathias Bonde Korsgaard and Jonas Fritsch].

Download the program.

Keynotes:
Nigel Thrift, Brian Massumi and Erin Manning.
Speakers:
Niels Albertsen, Mads Anders Baggesgaard, Tatiana Bazzichelli, Christian Borch, Christoph Brunner, Merete Carlson, Dorthe Refslund Christensen, Leila Dawney, Carsten Friberg, Jonas Fritsch, Jan Ifversen, Britta Timm Knudsen, Mathias Bonde Korsgaard, Christoffer Kølvrå, Annette Svaneklink Jakobsen, Thomas Jellis, Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen, Thomas Markussen, Casper Høeg Radil, Carsten Stage, Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen, Anne Marit Waade.
Participants:
Lise Nygaard Christensen, Lise Dilling, Jette Geil, Lars Bo Løfgreen, Kirsten Marie Pedersen, Rebecca Parbo.

My paper is about networked events as political and social practices of criticism in grassroots communities. Title is: The Network Events. Networked art as a challenge for sociopolitical transformation. I will address some artistic and activist projects as an example of fertile zones of rewriting and experimentation of cultural and political codes. In particular, I will describe the Italian case of Anna Adamolo (2008-2009).

The Network Events
Networked art as a challenge for social transformation

by Tatiana Bazzichelli
In the artistic context of the past twenty years, networking art was referring to the ability of creating a map of connections in progress, and nets of relations among individuals. Since the 80s, platforms of networking have been an important tool for sharing knowledge and experience. Inspired by the early artistic practices and events of the Fluxus movement, the art of networking was based on the figure of the artist as networker: a creator of sharing platforms and of contexts for connecting and exchanging. It was not based on objects, nor solely on digital or analogical instruments, but on the relationships and processes in progress between individuals. Individuals who could in turn create other contexts of sharing.

The concept of Do-It-Yourself (self-production) was the starting point for the development of networked art, such as mail art, but also of punk culture and hacker ethic. The same Do It Yourself hands-on practice was used to describe subsequent phenomena of networking and hacktivism; from Neoism to Plagiarism, up until the 1990s, when the network dynamics were affirmed on a broader level through the use of computers and the Internet. The ‘hacktivist attitude’ referred to an acknowledgement of the net as a political space, with the possibility of decentralized, autonomous and grassroots participation. In these contexts of interaction and artistic experimentation, artists and activists worked in a critical space-in-between, a fluid territory in which to play with the structure of representation, hacking the codes of self-representation, and recombining them into something unpredictable.

In these free, active, experimental spaces, which anthropologist Victor Turner (1920-1983) dubbed liminal states, new cultural elements and new combined rules can be introduced. It is in these instances that technology is used with artistic, cultural and political goals, the joint action of different subjectivities which show how it is possible to create a first step in redefining powers and hierarchies, in terms of dismantling and opening social, cultural and artistic categories. In my talk I will present some artistic and activist projects in which the practice of creating “network events” might be seen as a challenge for cultural, political and social transformation. In particular, I will address the Italian case of Anna Adamolo.

Free Beers by Superflex

Last May 21st, I ran a seminar together with Geoff Cox on the intersections between art, business and activism, at Aarhus University.

The seminar, as part of the DARC, Digital Aesthetics Research Center meetings, addressed the new forms of business that emerge from the uses of social media and critical arts practices, models that offer new insights into exploitation and even new ways of creating value. Geoff and I opened  the discussion on how best to translate these topics  into future research projects (e.g. in collaboration with SNYK), while presenting a range of different concepts. The research seminar was scheduled for Friday the 21st of May, 10-12, Aarhus University.
The title “Disruptive Art of Business” derives from a paper I wrote for an upcoming book, as part of my PhD Research investigation on Networking 2.0.

Key concepts: crisis of value, debt economies, alternative models (eg. music industry), donations based models, open source business, P2P (see Peer to Peer Foundation for instance), non-monetarised exchange and the gift, free software development, waged and unwaged labour, transformation of the institution, new forms of organization that take cue from networks culture (Organized Networks), buzz words, like sustainability, recuperation and tactical media strategies, disruptive art.

References:
Fred Turner, ‘Burning Man at Google: A Cultural Infrastructure for New Media Production’. New Media & Society, Vol.11, No.1-2 (April, 2009), 145-66.
PDF: http://www.stanford.edu/~fturner/Turner%20Burning%20Man%20at%20Google%20NMS.pdf

Christian Marazzi, Capital and Language: From the New Economy to the War Economy, Semiotext(e) 2008.

Hardt & Negri’s Common-wealth
http://angeleconomics.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-of-hardt-and-negris-commonwealth.html

Davenport and Beck’s The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Economy of Business (2001)

Pine and Gilmore’s  The Experience Economy (1999).

Share festival ‘Market Forces’, 2009
http://www.toshare.it/?page_id=1641&lang=en

viralcommunication.nl
http://pzwart.wdka.nl/communication-in-a-digital-age/2010/01/26/conference-announcement-viral-communication/

Other typical sources include: Tapscott & Williams’s Wikinomics (2006); Floridi’s The Rise of the Creative Class; Eric S. Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar; all those key texts that explore the new immaterial economy enthusiastically.

After the previous common experience in Peenemünde (Germany), and in Bergen (Norway), I met again Martin Howse and Gordan Savicic in Aarhus for the Interweaving Technologies Conference (April, 22, 2010), promoted by DARC and DUL, Aarhus.

In 2008 Martin Howse organized the Peenemünde_xxxxx Workshop in the historical location of Peenemünde (where the Luftwaffe tested the V2 rocket during World War II), and with Gordan and some other people, I was part of “an intense, conspiratorial two day long working group/workshop”, following the traces of Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1972). During that time I was working on the topic of pornographic coding (inspired by the paper of Stewart Home and Florian Cramer, 2005), which I also analyzed with Stewart Home and Paolo Cirio in the previous 24h-speculative-coding-workshop organized by Martin in Bergen at the Piksel Festival (November 2007), where we created a prank on MySpace.

I was involved in the Peenemünde xxxxx workshop reflecting on the subject of pornographic coding with Gaia Novati and Federico Bucalossi from Italy. What we realized during those intense days was a video, which we called Orgasmatic Implosion. Martin and Gordan worked instead on the EM practice, ‘a landscape and the exposure of its hidden (EM – electromagnetic) double’. It was a very fulfilling experience, which we presented some days after at Transmediale 2008 in Berlin, as part of the Salon’s program (read more here).

On April 22, Martin and Gordan came to Aarhus to run two workshops: Psychogeographics Aarhus by Martin Howse and Wi-Fi cracking workshop by Gordan Savicic as part of the Interweaving Conference. You can look at some photos here.

Martin introduced us the concept of psychogeophysics, which we already experimented in Peenemuende, but this time we made an intervention in the Aarhus landscape, walking around the site of the Interweaving Conference, searching for hidden signs and electromagnetic feedback. At the end we built a psychogeophysic map of the hidden waves, sounds and skin emotions we collected during our walk.

Gordan made us understand how the WEP/WPA wireless network encryptions work, and we managed to visualize the hidden networks surrounding the infosphere, analyzing network packets and the security risks of our wireless data. We worked with Linux/Ubuntu exploring what is beyond the user graphic interface, and getting to know better the hidden levels of networking.

Yesterday was the opening night of Hack Århus, the new hacker space in the city of Århus. A lot of people came despite the snow storm and we had fun with some talks, hack-presentations and circuit bending. I gave a short speech about the roots of hacker ethics and the background of hackerspaces, with examples from Italy, Germany and California.

There were some people from Labitat, the hackerspace in Copenhagen, who shared their experience with us, and some projects presentations followed – like the very interesting one about the coding-wooden-sculpture machine from Jacob Pedersen, who is one of the initiators of the Hackerspace.

Some more info about Hack Aarhus:

Hack Århus is an informal meeting place for everyone interested in the creative use of technology in the broadest sense. Hack Århus is trying to build an open space where people of diverse backgrounds come together to share resources and knowledge to build things, create digital art or hack in general.

The kick-off event introduced the Hack Århus hackerspace as well as the ideas and projects behind it to everyone interested: a couple short talks and a hands-on workshop afterward.

With guests from the Labitat, the hackerspace in Copenhagen, as well as from Aarhus University.

Program:

• 17.00 – 17.20 :: What the Hack? – A Short Trip into the Roots of Hackerspaces and Hacker Ethics
• 17.20 – 17.40 :: Labitat – Experiences from a Hackerspace in Copenhagen
• 17.40 – 17.50 :: Hack Århus – State of Affairs
• 17.50 – 18.00 :: short break
• 18.00 – 18.15 :: Projects I – A CNC Machine for Every Home
• 18.15 – 18.30 :: Projects II – Arduino for Fun and Profit
• 18.30 – 19.00 :: Workshop – Circuit bending (bring fun stuff!)

More info at: http://www.hackaarhus.dk/

The meeting with Jake Appelbaum was a very nice opportunity of gathering students, researchers and interesting ‘geeks’. The discussion was quite alive and based on sharing of experience and knowledge about hacking, technology and development of hacker communities. We reflected on the technological and political meaning of hacking, on gender issues related to the creation of hackerspaces, and Jake inspired us through his experience within NoiseBridge, the hackerspace in San Francisco which he contributed to found, and through an interesting overview of the hacker scene in the Bay area. This meeting was also an occasion to compare different strategies and visions of hacking between Europe and USA.

Among the public were people from Computer Science and IMV at Aarhus University, Hack-Aarhus, the recently founded hackerspace in Aarhus and Labitat, the new hackerspace in Copenhagen. With the hope of having many other interesting occasions of sharing knowledge about interdisciplinary subjects (and people!), I suggest the readers to get involved in the discussion following the Hack-Aarhus mailing-list: http://groups.google.com/group/hack-arhus

Here are some photos of the event.

Jacob Appelbaum lives in San Francisco and is an independent computer security hacker currently employed by the Tor Project.. He is the executive director and a founder of the hackerspace Noisebridge in San Francisco (www.noisebridge.net).

NoiseBridge is a space for sharing, creation, collaboration, research, development, mentoring, and learning. Noisebridge is also more than a physical space, it’s a community with roots extending around the world. The hackerspace provides infrastructure and collaboration opportunities for people interested in programming, hardware hacking, physics, chemistry, mathematics, photography, security, robotics, all kinds of art, and, of course, technology. Through talks, workshops, and projects, it encourages knowledge exchange, learning, and mentoring. As a space for artistic collaboration and experimentation, is open to all types of art – with a special emphasis on the crossover of art and technology. From hardware labs to electronics, cooking, photography, and sound labs, anything that’s creative is welcome.

The tor project is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.

The meeting with Jacob Appelbaum is organized by the Digital Aesthetics Research Centre. Presented by Tatiana Bazzichelli.

Thursday January 7, 2010.
14.30-16.00, Helsingforsgade 14, Aarhus University, Turing building, 8200 Århus N, room T014.

AHAcktitude 2009, Milan

The community of aha@lists.ecn.org, the Italian mailing list on art and hacktivism is organizing a 3 day event in Milan at the Cantiere Social Centre. They called it AHAcktitude, as a collective development of the AHA: Activism-Hacking-Artivism project which I founded in 2001. I will contribute via Skype from San Francisco with a presentation on the topics I am researching during my visiting scholarship at Stanford University (starting August 2009).
The name of my presentation is: From Silicon Valley with Love, and it will connect art, tech and grassroots projects in the Bay Area (Saturday November 28, 9.30pm).

Here is the AHAcktitude press announcement:

In Milan on the 27, 28, and 29th of November the artivists of the AHA mailing list will meet at the “Il Cantiere” social centre.
Activist-artists, artistic hackers, social-artistic activists, call them  whatever you like. The 600 subscribers to the AHA mailing list are just a small part of all those people who, in Italy and in the world, know that the medium is not just the message, but the massage and the ‘mixage’. They know that it is not enough to complain about TV (be it mainstream, communitarian or niche), or blabber on about alternative communication, because the experience must be developed, and because communication without bodies only communicates stereotypes, and the body without intelligence only produces manipulation.

For this reason from last year the subscribers of aha@list.ecn.org meet face to face periodically, each time in a different city, to open the black boxes, to get their hands inside the technological devices for communication and imagination, to deconstruct the official knowledge and share new knowledge, to work at collective intelligence of bodies and not at capital intelligence, to broaden the resistance to globalization of multinationals.

AHAcktitude will be three days of activity and activism, of enjoyment and sharing, of study and fun. Technology, music, Internet, literature, telecommunications, marketing and social networks: everything will be targeted at open sourcing and open sharing. Methods, approaches, attitudes that are different but that communicate in order to explore, understand, and act in our condition of technologically modified beings.
Because human beings are worth more than merchandise, and we will not be satisfied while the life of someone who has more is worth more than the life of someone who has nothing.

aha@lists.ecn.org is an Italian mailing list created in 2002 within the AHA: Activism-Hacking-Artivism project, founded by Tatiana Bazzichelli,
aka T_Bazz. AHA wants to promote networking and critical thinking, connecting artistic practices to political and social activism. We define these practices as artivism.

(Txt from the AHAcktitude community website)

More info:

AHAcktitude 2009:
http://www.ahacktitude.org/event/2009/
Social Network:
www.ahacktitude.org

AHA mailing list:
http://lists.ecn.org/mailman/listinfo/aha

AHA – Activism-Hacking-Artivism:
www.ecn.org/aha