SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media

1. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Bryan Chung smbryan@cityu.edu.hk http://www.bryanchung.net/ Class web http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2263/

2. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media

3. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media

4. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media

5. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Class 1 Introduction Expectation and requirements Terminology Video screening Short notes on tactical media

6. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Class 1 - introduction Workshop approach Discussion and debates Controversial issues Alternative use of technology Collective actions Individual reflection

7. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Class 1 – technical knowledge Web publishing Graphic visualization Network tools Flash or Processing Year 1 computing concepts

8. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Class 1 – social issues Human rights Race Gender Environment Media domination Globalization Monopoly Labour Neo-liberalism and more …

9. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media • Neo-liberalism • Liberalism: stresses the supreme value of the individual, assumes human • common desires and capacities. As beings who are capable of self- • determination and know their interests best, they demand liberty and • freedom to shape their lives. • The state’s main task is to maximize individual liberty and establish a • regime of rights to life, liberty & property. • To protect, the state has the monopoly of right to use force. • Liberalism connect with bourgeoisie  laissez-faire & market

10. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media • Neo-liberalism • 19C liberals were divided because of economic inequalities: • neo-liberalism – laissez-faire, deregulation (oppose trade union, minimum • wages), privatization, equality threatened individual liberty… • social liberalism or new liberalism – brought liberalism closer to social • democracy • liberal democracy – liberal & democractic components regulate each other. • (Bhikhu Parekh)

11. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media • Globalization • comes with modernization and industralization • “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the • Bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, • settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere … In place of the old • local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every • direction, universal interdependence of nations. And in material, so in • intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become • common property. • Marshall McLuhan’s global village: the world becoming a single interconnected • Society as a result of the new media of electronic communications. • Immanuel Wallerstein’s world system theory: core & peripheral states

12. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media • Globalization • 80s, Ronald Reagan & Margarget Thatcher pushed to renegotiate regional & • Global trade agreements: • e.g. the North American Free Trade Area, the General Agreement on Tariffs & • Trade, European Economic Community • International regulatory agencies: World Trade Organization, World Bank, • International Monetary Fund • Corporate operations no longer under rigid control of national governments • Shift in labor market, manufacturing jobs to developing world, replace with Minimum-wage, service-sector jobs • global economic market encompass all domains of social life.

13. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Terminology

14. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Subversion Action designed to undermine the military, economic, psychological or political strength of a regime. Article 23 of Basic Law consultation paper Moreover, we are keenly aware that acts of subversion are not confined to acts involving the use of force. Indeed, with the rapid development of technology, a serious threat to the country’s security and stability might come from illegal acts employing non-violent means, such aselectronic sabotage.

15. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Class 1 – Article 23 of Basic Law consultation paper “Serious criminal means” means any act which – endangers the life of person other than the person who does the act; causes serious injury to a person other than the person who does the act; seriously endangers the health or safety of the public or a section of the public; causes serious damage to property; or seriously interferes with or disrupts an electronic system or an essential service, facility or system (whether public or private), and – is done in Hong Kong and is an offence under the law of Hong Kong; or is done in any place outside Hong Kong; is an offence under the law of that place; and would, if done in Hong Kong, be an offence under the law of Hong Kong.

16. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Tactics De Certeau analyzed popular culture not as a “domain of texts or artifacts but rather a set of practices or operations performed on textual or text like structures.” Representation  Uses of representation

17. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Tactics Representation  Uses of representation

18. Tactics • Consumption is seen as a set of tactics by which the weak (user) make use of the strong (producer). • Poaching, shopping, tricking as aesthetics • Indigenous Indians under Spanish colonization; Hello Kitty in Japan…

19. Temporary reversal in the flow of power • Consumer  producer

23. Tactical Media (TM) • TM abandons instead of pays homage to de Certeau; production can be tactical! • A group of people aware the value of the temporary reversals of the flow of power, they amplify them by creating spaces, channels and platforms, making these reversals of power central to their practices.

24. Defining TM • Tactical media are what happens when the cheap “do it yourself media” made possible by the revolution in consumer electronics and the expanded forms of distribution (cable, satellite and internet) are exploited by groups and individuals who feel aggrieved or excluded by the wider culture. It is their refusal of the position of "objectivity" which more than anything separates the tactical from mainstream media culture.

25. As with other cultures of exile and migration, practitioners of tactical media have studied the techniques by which the weak become stronger than their oppressors by scattering, by becoming centreless, by moving fast across the physical and virtual landscapes. “The hunted must discover the ways become the hunter.” (David Garcia)

26. Defining TM • “Anarchy is the Key, Do-It-Yourself is the Melody.”  The Medium is the Message • Intervene “popular culture” without compromise with the “system”

27. Disney Hunter

28. No stable ideology, agenda • Temporary to community building… • Egoist to collectivist… • Tacticalist to strategist…

29. Reclaim the Streets1997 Anti-Election Campaign • Deceptive Detournement: Spoof the London newspaper The Evening Standard, Reclaim the Streets self-produced 20,000 copies of Evading Standards, complete with a banner headline announcing “General Election Cancelled.”

30. Pirate radio station Tree FM and Interference FM, and RTS radio • They rode the bicycle-powered sound system, to show up at British Critical Mass events. • Democracy  Xerocracy

31. Virtual & Real space • Tactical media practitioners take possessions of both the streets and media spaces for constructing new social formation.

32. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Class 1 – simple assignment Collect a number of your encounter of error situations with technology. Use photography or screen capture or scanning to record them and present to us in the 3rd week. Document also how you or others respond to the situations.

33. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Class 1 - screening Punk music – Sex Pistols Hexstatic, Coldcut - Environmental Surveillance - part 1

34. SM2263 Subversive Computing & Tactical Media Class 1 - reference Stencil Art - http://www.banksy.co.uk Graffiti Research Lab - http://graffitiresearchlab.com/