China 'hacked Aussie computers‘By Patrick WaltersSeptember 12, 2007 07:15am

CHINA has allegedly tried to hack into highly classified government computer networks in Australia and New Zealand as part of a broader international operation to glean military secrets from Western nations.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22403224-2,00.html

Creative Resistance: New Media as Soft Arms

utopia – dystopia - myopia

THE PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY

•Sovereignty of the people.•Government based upon consent of the governed.•Majority rule.•Minority rights.•Guarantee of basic human rights.•Free and fair elections.•Equality before the law.•Due process of law.•Constitutional limits on government.•Social, economic, and political pluralism.•Values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise.

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/whatsdem/whatdm2.htm

Bertolt Brecht

"Today every invention is received with a cry of triumph which soon turns into a cry of fear".

• the death of privacy, whether at the hands of the state - often characterised as the panoptic or surveillance state - or private (usually transnational) organisations

• erosion of individual autonomy, in particular through adoption of automated decision systems and robot production technologies

• loss of physical integrity, including use of biotechnology and loss or manipulation of identity

• weakening of governments and local communities through globalisation and creeping takeover by international entities such as the United Nations or ICANN

• 'homogenisation' of culture, usually through the action of a handful of media conglomerates underpinned by new technologies and tools such as copyright

http://www.caslon.com.au/digitalguide3.htm

dystopian perspectives

• internet-related extinction of particular industries (eg Napster as the first barbarians at the gate) or civil society (the internet as the sewer from hell, sapping moral fibre in the absence of resolute censorship)

• disasters that range from collapse of the global financial system or destruction of nuclear power plants and water systems through attacks by cyberterrorists to updates of past end-of-the-world tales (flesh-eating viruses, flesh-eating zombies, global warming flooding New York ...)

• alienation from nature and erosion of relationships, eg as people communicate by mobile phones rather than face-to-face, play computer games rather than sniffing the flowers, read Matt Drudge rather than Wordsworth and lose their souls online in a virtual rather than real world

http://www.caslon.com.au/digitalguide3.htm

Lifeworld or civil society phenomena must have a communicative capacity. Yet this capacity must not be thought of as simply providing voice. For communicative action to be successful, there are a number of requisite conditions…That is whenever we act communicatively, we raise claims that the other party(s) in communication can question. In order for a speech act to be accepted, the hearer must be able to accept its truth, the corresponding normative basis, and the sincerity of the speaker. Salter, L. (2003). Democracy, New Social Movements, and the Internet: A Habermasian Analysis. In Ayers, M.D. & McCaughey, M. (Eds.), Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice (pp.117-139). New York & London: Routledge.

Avatars of the world, unite!Italian union's virtual demonstration against IBM launches new world of job actions.Dateline: Monday, September 03, 2007 by Derek Blackadder

The effective use of the Internet by unions has long been a subject for discussion inside the labour movement and amongst labour-friendly academics. The debate just took a big, fast, sharp left turn with an announcement last week from the union representing Italian IBM employees.

“A virtual job action allows participation from teleworkers and home workers around the globe.”

http://transition.turbulence.org/blog/In July 2004, Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington of Turbulence.org, and Michelle Riel, Assistant Professor of New Media at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB), originated the networked_performance blog. It was their intent to chronicle current network-enabled practice, to obtain a wide-range of perspectives on issues and to uncover commonalities in the work.Newer technologies have gained prominence – particularly social networking platforms that have made possible an enthusiastic return to the net, where users from all disciplines and fields of endeavor began to control the media they produce and consume. Further, virtual worlds, most notably Second Life, have seen an increase in creative practice as artists explore the technologies and social ramifications of synthetic, multiuser environments.

aesthetics AI ARG architecture archive art + science augmented/mixed reality a/v avatar biotechnology body cinema city collaboration collective conversation copyright cyberreality distributed DIY eliterature emergence environmental theatre event exhibit festival generative gesture hacktivism hybrid hypermedia immersive interactive interface intermedia intervention interview links_commissions links_footer links_fyi live cinema livestage locative machinima mapping mobile nature net art networked audio film dance game installation live music narrative object performance radio sound text theater video platform news open source calls + opps tool play place presence public public/private pyschogeography reblog relational remix responsive robot second life simulation site-specific social networks software space surveillance synthaesthesia tactical tag telematic environment history identity participation social technology asynchronous wireless ubiquitous upgrade! urban virtual visualization voice wearable webcast workshop writings

FOLKSONOMY – SOCIAL BOOKMARKING - TAGGING

“Due to gendered constructions of households, the private sphere is often seen as detached from larger social institutions.”

http://transition.turbulence.org/AVAIR/

“This project recognizes synthetic space not for its faculties of communication, but rather for its potential as a representational, sensational medium.”

Wayfarer by Kate Richards and Martyn Coutts is a live game space, where teams of audience direct their player through a mysterious, hidden territory. The performer’s body-mounted computers send streamed video, audio and locative data to the Wayfarer software, which is projected back to the audience. Part exploration, part competition, part surreal thriller, Wayfarer is a truly hybrid event, where live and mediated performance, urban choreography, ubiquitous computing, gameplay and site specificity come together in a volatile mix.

http://www.performancespace.com.au/program_details.php?programid=143

What risks do we take in seeing a place from perspectives other than our own?

What risks do we take if we don’t?

What are the challenges for artists who address issues of race and class, or of personal identity and belonging, who use a dialogue-based public creative process to explore these issues?

What are the ethics of an art practice that tackles geography and difference and how do these ethics change when applied to micro or macro-political art?

Marie Cieri is an assistant professor of social geography and critical cartography at The Ohio State University. Her most recent book is Activists Speak Out: Reflections on the Pursuit of Change in America (2000, Palgrave/St. Martin’s Press, co-authored by Claire Peeps).

http://www.networkcultures.org/portal/

Its goal is to create an open organisational form with a strong focus on content, within which ideas (emanating from both individuals and institutions) can be given an institutional context at an early stage.

A spectre haunts the world’s intellectual elites: information overload. Ordinary people have hijacked strategic resources and are clogging up once carefully policed media channels. Before the Internet, the mandarin classes were able to strictly separate ‘idle talk’ from ‘knowledge’. With the rise of Internet search engines it is no longer possible to easily distinguish between patrician insights and plebeian gossip. The distinction between high and low, and the occasional mix during Carnival, are from all times and should not greatly worry us. What is causing alarm is another issue. Not only are popular noise levels up to unbearable levels, the chatter has entered the domain of science and philosophy itself–thanks to the indifferent Google. Search engines rank according to popularity, not Truth.

Geert Lovink

http://www.networkcultures.org/geert/

The same counts for the semantic Web school and similar artificial intelligence technologies.

Ever since the rise of search engines in the 1990s we seem to be stuck in the ‘Society of the Query’, which, as Weizenbaum indicates, isn’t that much different from Debord’s Society of the Spectacle.

Instead of Google’s algorithms that are based on keywords and an output based on ranking, soon we will be able to ask questions to the next generation of ‘natural language’ search engines such as Powerset.

However, we can already guess that these computational linguists will not question the problem-answering approach and will be wary to act as professional expert who will decide what is and what’s not crap on the Internet.

http://www.networkcultures.org/geert

During the same period, we witnessed a corresponding displacement of the public sphere to the immaterial nodes and networks of electronic media and information systems. “The public”, “publics” and “public opinion” are today formed more through cable and network news channels, Internet blogs and websites than on the sidewalks, streets, cafes, parks or shopping arcades of the contemporary city. Online social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have replaced the street or the mall as the preferred place to “see, be seen, and connect” for today’s youth. Sociable web media such as Flickr enable forms of media sharing and exchange previously unimaginable in physical space. We are witnessing today the devaluation of physically localized public space in favor of a globally networked public sphere.

http://www.spatialturn.de/conference.htm

Locative Media as Critical Urbanism by Mark Shepard

http://www.manchesterurbanscreens.org.uk/

In theory access to public spaces is unrestricted. In reality control and restriction of public spaces is increasing. Can urban screens take up the role of a public communication medium enabling one-to-many or many-to-many communication? How much freedom of expression is acceptable to the public, or is censorship unavoidable even in a democratic society? How far could urban screens grow into an alternative broadcast medium, taking account of societal heterogeneity and also giving a voice to fringe groups?

http://www.manchesterurbanscreens.org.uk/

Who really benefits from television in public space? Are we being over stimulated and what is the effect of this on our society? Can corporate controlled ‘out of home media’ ever allow free speech? Is culture being appropriated as a means of selling unsustainable consumer culture? In a post-carbon world, shouldn’t we be reducing the need for more screens?

Jai Redman (UK): Turn Off

http://www.manchesterurbanscreens.org.uk/

Adam Hyde (NL): Realities of User Generated Content

User generated content is the darling of the new web 2.0 generation. Its attractive proposition is that you can seduce tens, hundreds, or thousands of online users to populate your project with interesting content for free. It sounds great! A great idea for urban screen content strategies for example. However the world of digital content has had a history of fashionable memes that never quite work.

http://www.manchesterurbanscreens.org.uk/

Jason Lewis (CA): The Threat of Text

The Cityspeak public SMS messaging project has been installed in a dozen locations over the last two years.

It has led us to consider the idea that text is seen as a threat in ways that image is not.

We will use our experience not only mounting the installations but also in attempting to find large-scale public screens willing to host the project as a basis of a discussion concerning the tension between the explosion in the means by which individuals can communicate via the private space in front of their computer screens and the ever-more tightly controlled means for communicating in the public square.

One must surely be justified in making the

argument that in strengthening the lifeworld, the

Internet can be seen as a foundational

medium for civil society and the informal

public sphere. In particular the Internet could

be said to be of value to social movements. The

Internet enables social-movement groups

and organizations to communicate, to

generate information, and to distribute this

information cheaply and effectively, allowing

response and feedback.

Salter, L. (2003). Democracy, New Social Movements, and the Internet: AHabermasian Analysis. In Ayers, M.D. & McCaughey, M. (Eds.), Cyberactivism:Online Activism in Theory and Practice (pp.117-139). New York & London:Routledge.

APC ActionApps is a free software content management system initiated by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)APC - Internet and ICTs for social justice and development

See how ActionApps can help your group publish better and faster online.

Learn about—or join—the free software project behind ActionApps.

Online organisations such as the APC (Association for Progressive Communications)

http://www.apc.org/english/about/index.shtml have a central aim:

The APC Vision:

"A world in which all people have easy,equal and affordable access to the creative potential of ICTs to improve their lives and create more democratic and egalitarian societies"

The APC Mission:

"The Association for Progressive Communications is a global network of civil society organisations whose mission is to empower and support organisations, social movements and individuals in and through the use of information and communication technologies to build strategic communities and initiatives for the purpose of making meaningful contributions to equitable human development, social justice, participatory political processes and environmental sustainability."

This mission statement was approved at the 1997 APC Council meeting in South Africa.

APCNews:

Civil society's monthly e-bulletin on strategic uses of the Internet to promote social justice and equality.

The Internet as a tool to empower civic,social, and political movements:

“The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is concerned with…using the Internet to empower civic, social, and political movements; it is concerned with regulation; and it takes an interest in the actual structure and governance of the Internet. The work of the APC illustrates both the extent and the limits of radical action in using and shaping a technology”. (p.130) APC’s Mission Statement: The Association for Progressive Communications is a global network of non-governmental organizations whose mission is to empower and support organizations, social movements and individuals in and through the use of information and communication technologies to build strategic communities and initiatives for the purpose of making meaningful contributions to equitable human development, social justice, participatory political processes and environmental sustainability.

Why civil societyshould lobby andprotect our rightto use the internet.

In the virtual world, establishing clearly

demarcated public space can enhance

privacy by increasing people's

knowledge of what information is private

and what is known to all.