SM2263 Subversive Computing

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SM2263 Subversive Computing Tactical Media
Bryan Chung smbryan_at_cityu.edu.hk http//www.bryanc
hung.net/ Class web http//sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2
263/
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SM2263 Subversive Computing Tactical Media
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SM2263 Subversive Computing Tactical Media
Class 1 Introduction Expectation and
requirements Terminology Video screening Short
notes on tactical media
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SM2263 Subversive Computing Tactical Media
Class 1 - introduction Workshop
approach Discussion and debates Controversial
issues Alternative use of technology Collective
actions Individual reflection
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SM2263 Subversive Computing Tactical Media
Class 1 technical knowledge Web
publishing Graphic visualization Network
tools Flash or Processing Year 1 computing
concepts
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SM2263 Subversive Computing Tactical Media
Class 1 social issues Human
rights Race Gender Environment Media
domination Globalization Monopoly Labour Neo-liber
alism and more
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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 states 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

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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)

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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 McLuhans global village the world
  becoming a single interconnected
• Society as a result of the new media of
  electronic communications.
• Immanuel Wallersteins world system theory core
  peripheral states

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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.

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SM2263 Subversive Computing Tactical Media
Terminology
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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 countrys security and stability might
come from illegal acts employing non-violent
means, such as electronic sabotage.
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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.
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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
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SM2263 Subversive Computing Tactical Media
Tactics Representation ? Uses of
representation
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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

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• Temporary reversal in the flow of power
• Consumer ? producer

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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.

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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.

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• 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)

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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

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Disney Hunter
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No stable ideology, agenda

• Temporary to community building
• Egoist to collectivist
• Tacticalist to strategist

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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.

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• 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

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

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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.
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Class 1 - screening Punk music Sex
Pistols Hexstatic, Coldcut - Environmental Surve
illance - part 1
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Class 1 - reference Stencil Art -
http//www.banksy.co.uk Graffiti Research Lab -
http//graffitiresearchlab.com/