ART, MEDIA, AND INTERVENTIONS AFTER THE INTERNETFALL 2011, LIT20S-01

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Art, Media, and Interventions After the Internet

Syllabus Instructor: Zach Blas Fall 2011

ABOUT In May 2004, artist and activist Steve Kurtz is wrongly arrested and charged with bioterrorism for using biological specimens in an artwork about genetically modified food. In November 2008, the art and activist group The Yes Men distributes 80,000 copies of a fake edition of The New York Times that features articles on a better future, including the Iraq War ending and free public education for all. In March 2009, hacker and artist Ricardo Dominguez leads an online protest against the University of California President’s website that crashes the site’s servers.

Today, in our era of globalization and the internet, artists and activists are blending together to create new methods for politically intervening in the world. Notably, they use a multitude of media--films, videos, websites, blogs, software, social media, and do-it-yourself electronics--to protest, resist, and re-imagine their current social and political situations. These artistic practices blur the distinction between art and activism in unique, shocking, and affective ways.

In this course, we will look at a variety of these approaches to artistic political intervention in the 21st century, such as tactical media, electronic civil disobedience, and hacktivism. We will pay particular attention to how artists and activists define and participate in political action as well as how different forms of media enable and require different forms of intervention.

We will read from a range of texts and disciplines to critically engage with these practices, including first-hand documents and manifestos by artists and political groups, as well as essays in art history, philosophy, media studies, and journalism.

Our focus on media will help us continually ask and attempt to answer: What happens to art when artists become activists? What happens to political action when activists become artists?

We will draw on these groups, works, and texts: The Facebook Suicide (Bomb) Manifesto, Critical Art Ensemble, The Yes Men, The Invisible Committee, Radical Software Group, Electronic Disturbance Theater, The Situationist International, The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Raqs Media Collective, Counter-Cartographies Collective, Edu-factory Collective, Tiqqun, Hakim Bey, and AAAAARG.

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SCHEDULE

1 Introduction

Meeting 1 The Yes Men, New York Times “Dream Edition” (2008), http://www.nytimes-se.com/ The Yes Men, The Yes Men Fix the World (2009), film clip to be screened in class Nick Hillel, Naked Protest (1999), video clip to be screened in class

Meeting 2 Nato Thompson, The Interventionists (2004), excerpts: “Trespassing Relevance” pp. 13 - 22, “Krzysztof Wodiczko” pp. 25 – 28, “The Surveillance Camera Players” pp. 83 - 88 The Surveillance Camera Players, 1984, video to be screened in class

2 History, Revolution, Influence

May 1968 and The Situationist International Meeting 3 Sylvère Lotringer, “The Great Refusal,” ArtForum (May 2008), pp. 302 – 305 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (1967), excerpts: “Separation Perfected” pp. 11 – 34, “The Commodity as Spectacle” pp. 43 - 44, and paragraph 67

Suggested: Situationist International and the Students of Strasbourg, “On the Poverty of Student Life: Considered in its Economic, Political, Psychological, Sexual, and Especially Intellectual Aspects, with a Modest Proposal for Doing Away With It” (1966) Greil Marcus, “The Long Walk of the Situationist International,” Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents (2004), pp. 1 – 20 McKenzie Wark, The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International (2011)

Meeting 4 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, (1973), film to be screened in class Situationist International, Internationale Situationniste #1 (1958), excerpts: “Definitions” and “Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation” Situationist International, “Questionnaire,” Internationale Situationniste #9 (1964)

Suggested: Guy Debord, “A User’s Guide to Détournement,” Situationist International Anthology (2006) Nato Thompson, “Détournement,” The Interventionists (2004), pp. 151 René Viénet, Can Dialectics Break Bricks? (1973)

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The Zapatista and 1994 Revolution Meeting 5 Zapatista (1999), film clips to be viewed in class The Zapatista Reader (2002), excerpts: Tom Hansen, “Historical Timeline” pp. 8 – 15, Andrew Kopkind, “Opening Shots” pp. 19 – 21, Zapatista Army of National Liberation, “First Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle” pp. 217 – 220, Zapatista Army of National Liberation, “EZLN Demands at the Dialogue Table” pp. 638 – 645

Meeting 6 Chiapas Media Project, Caracoles: New Paths of Resistance (2003) Subcomandante Marcos, “The Long Journey from Despair to Hope,” The Mexico Reader (2003), pp. 646 – 654 Subcomandante Marcos, “The Fourth World War Has Begun,” The Zapatista Reader (2002), pp. 270 – 285

Suggested: The Zapatista Reader (2002) excerpts, Subcomandante Marcos, “Do not Forget: Ideas are also Weapons” pp. 311 – 315, Octavio Paz, “The Media Spectacle Comes to Mexico” pp. 30 – 33 Nettie Wild, A Place Called Chiapas (1998)

Revolution, Art, and Analog Media Meeting 7 Susan Meiselas, Pictures from a Revolution (1991) Diana Taylor, “Past Performing Future: Susan Meiselas’s Reframing History,” Susan Meiselas: In History (2008), pp. 232 – 236

3 Shifts in Media

Digital Media and Control Meeting 8 Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on Control Societies,” Negotiations (1997), pp. 177 – 182 Alexander Galloway, “Introduction,” Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization (2006), pp. 2 – 17 Radical Software Group, Carnivore, http://r-s-g.org/carnivore/

Hacking Meeting 9 Anarchitexts: Voices from the Global Digital Resistance (2004), excerpts: Alexander Galloway, “Possibility” pp. 284 – 286, McKenzie Wark, “A Hacker Manifesto Version 4.0” pp 344 – 357 Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds (2002), http://www.coryarcangel.com/things-i-made/2002-001-super-mario-clouds Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Movie (2005), http://www.coryarcangel.com/things-i-made/2005-001-super-mario-movie

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4 Tactical Media: Subversion, Hacktivism, Disturbance

Meeting 10 David Garcia and Geert Lovink, “The ABC of Tactical Media,” Anarchitexts: Voices from the Global Digital Resistance (2004), pp. 107 – 110 Rita Raley, “Tactical Media as Virtuosic Performance,” Tactical Media (2009), pp. 1 – 30 Josh On, They Rule (2001-11), http://www.theyrule.net/ RTMark, Barbie Liberation Army (1991), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVT4T7OR3iQ

Suggested: Preemptive Media, Zapped! (2005), http://www.preemptivemedia.net/zapped/index.html Critical Art Ensemble, Halifax Begs Your Pardon! (2002), http://www.critical-art.net/TacticalMedia.html

Meeting 11 The Yes Men, The Yes Men Fix the World (2009) Mark Tribe and Reena Jana, “etoy.SHARE,” New Media Art (2006), pp. 42 – 43 etoy, TOYWAR.COM (1999), http://www.etoy.com/projects/toywar/ Critical Art Ensemble, “Electronic Civil Disobedience,” Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas (1997), pp. 7 – 32

Suggested: 0100101110101101.org, Biennale.py (2001), http://0100101110101101.org/biennale-py/ Experimental Interaction Unit, Dispersion (1999), http://www.eiu.org/orig/experiments/dispersion/index.htm

Meeting 12 The Hacktivists (2002), video clip “The Hacktivists Digital Zapatismo” to be viewed in class, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-U-he8LN3k Mark Tribe and Reena Jana, “Zapatista Tactical FloodNet,” New Media Art (2006), pp. 40 – 41 Brett Stalbaum, “The Zapatista Tactical FloodNet,” http://www.thing.net/~rdom//ecd/ZapTact.html Ricardo Dominguez and Coco Fusco, “Electronic Disturbance,” Anarchitexts: Voices from the Global Digital Resistance (2004), pp. 98 – 106 Jill Lane, “Digital Zapatistas,” The Drama Review 47, 2 (T178), Summer 2003, pp. 129 – 144

Suggested: Ricardo Dominguez, “Electronic Disturbance: An Interview,” Cultural Resistance Reader (2002), pp. 379 – 396

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5 Bioterrorism

Meeting 13 Lynn Hershman Leeson, Strange Culture (2007) Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund, http://critical-art.net/defense/ Critical Art Ensemble, Free Range Grain (2003-04), http://critical-art.net/Biotech.html Critical Art Ensemble, GenTerra (2001-03), http://critical-art.net/Biotech.html Critical Art Ensemble, Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public Health (2006) excerpts: “Acknowledgements” pp. 7 – 10, “Introduction: Bodies of Fear in a World of Threat” pp. 13 - 21, “When Thought Becomes Crime” pp. 117 – 121

Suggested: Claire Pentecost, “Reflections on the Case by the U.S. Justice Department Against Steve Kurtz and Robert Ferrell,” Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public Health (2006), pp. 123 – 148

6 Globalization and Neoliberalism

Hardt & Negri Meeting 14 Okwui Enwezor, “Reckoning with Empire,” ArtForum (October 2009), pp. 175 – 177 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, “Part 1: The Political Constitution of the Present,” Empire (2000), pp. 3 – 66

Suggested: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, “Commonwealth,” ArtForum (October 2009) Rick Rowley, The Fourth World War (2003)

Raqs Media Collective Meeting 15 Mark Tribe and Reena Jana, “Raqs Media Collective,” New Media Art (2006), pp. 76 – 77 Pamela M. Lee, “How to Be a Collective in the Age of the Consumer Sovereign,” ArtForum (October 2009), pp. 185 – 189 Raqs Media Collective, “A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons,” Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader (2007), pp. 340 – 349 Raqs Media Collective, various works: On the Other Hand, Time Book, Fragments from a Communist Latento, There has been a Change of Plan, Preface to a Ghost Story, Lost New Shoes, The Impostor in the Waiting Room, A/S/L, and OPUS, http://www.raqsmediacollective.net/

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GeoAction and Mapping Meeting 16 Brian Holmes, “Do-It-Yourself Geopolitics: Global Protest and Artistic Process,” Escape the Overcode: Activist Art in the Control Society (2009), https://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/do-it-yourself-geopolitics/ Brian Holmes, “Drifting Through the Grid: Psychogeography and Imperial Infrastructure,” Unleashing the Collective Phantoms: Essays in Reverse Imagineering (2008), pp. 29 – 34 Counter-Cartographies Collective, disOrientation Guide (2006), http://www.countercartographies.org/disorientation-dg1-2006/ Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat, eds., An Atlas of Radical Cartography (2007) excerpts: Introduction, Trevor Paglen & John Emerson, “Rendition Flights 2001 – 2006,” Pedro Lasch, “Guias de Ruta / Route Guides”

Suggested: Brian Holmes, “Cartography of Excess: Bureau D’Études & Multiplicity,” Unleashing the Collective Phantoms: Essays in Reverse Imagineering (2008), pp. 7 – 14 Brian Holmes, “The Revenge of the Concept: Artistic Exchanges, Networked Resistance,” Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader (2007), pp. 350 – 368 Bureau d’Études, http://bureaudetudes.org/

7 Borders

Transboder Immigrant Tool Meeting 17 Electronic Disturbance Theater, The Transborder Immigrant Tool (2007-09) Alex Dunbar, “Follow the GPS, Ése,” Vice Magazine (2009), http://www.vice.com/read/follow-the-gps-225-v16n11 Micha Cárdenas, “No Borders Struggles: The Electronic Disturbance Theatre 2.0,” DigiMag 62 (2011), http://www.digicult.it/hacktivism/no-borders-struggles-the-electronic-disturbance-theatre-2-0/ “Ricardo Dominguez and the Question of Academic Freedom at UCSD” (2010), http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=2624 b.a.n.g.lab, Transborder Immigrant Tool various videos, https://vimeo.com/banglab

8 Identity

Cyberfeminism and Queer Desire Meeting 18 Alexander R. Galloway, “Cyberfeminism,” Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization (2006), pp. 184 – 196 VNS Matrix, A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century (1991) Maria Fernandez and Faith Wilding, “Situating Cyberfeminisms,” Domain Errors! Cyberfeminist Practices (2002), pp. 17 – 27 Micha Cárdenas, Becoming Dragon (2008), https://secondloop.wordpress.com/

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Race Meeting 19 Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gómez -Peña, The Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey (1993), video to be screened in class Mendi and Keith Obadike, Blackness for Sale (2001), http://obadike.tripod.com/ebay.html Mongrel, Colour Separation (1997) Wafaa Bilal, Domestic Tension (2007), http://wafaabilal.com/html/domesticTension.html Wafaa Bilal, …and Counting (2010), http://wafaabilal.com/html/andCounting.php Nancy Burson & David Kramlich, The Human Race Machine (2000), http://www.humanracemachine.com/

9 The University

Student Activism Today Meeting 20 “Chronology of Occupations & Struggles in California,” Occupy California (2009), https://occupyca.wordpress.com/timeline/ “Anti-Capitalist Projects: Questions and Answers,” Anti-Capitalist Projects (2009), https://anticapitalprojects.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/anti-capital-projects/ “Communiqué from an Absent Future,” we want everything (2009), https://wewanteverything.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/communique-from-an-absent-future/ “The Necrosocial,” Anti-Capitalist Projects (2009), https://anticapitalprojects.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/the-necrosocial/ “Statement by the occupiers of Campbell Hall” (2009) “Occupied Berkeley: The Taking of Wheeler Hall” (2009), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8hSA1CP2Sc “UCSC Occupation – Friday Night” (2009), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k-jsBlZmpo “UCSC Occupation #4 – Kerr Hall – Fri” (2009), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMw54zCLdRk

Education Outside of the University Meeting 21 Nicholas Mirzoeff, “Anarchy in the Ruins: Dreaming the Experimental University,” The Interventionists (2004), pp. 143 – 146 16 beaver group, http://16beavergroup.org/ “16 beaver,” The Interventionists (2004), pp. 111 – 112 The Public School, http://thepublicschool.org/ AAAAARG, http://aaaaarg.fail/ “Looking at Los Angeles: The Public School,” art:21 (2009), http://blog.art21.org/2009/11/12/looking-at-los-angeles-the-public-school/ “Small is Beautiful: a discussion with AAAARG architect Sean Dockray,” Masters of Media (2010), http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2010/01/05/small-is-beautiful-a-discussion-with-aaaarg-architect-sean-dockray/

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Suggested: “Scanners, collectors and aggregators. On the ‘underground movement’ of (pirated) theory text sharing,” Open Reflections (2009), https://openreflections.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/scanners-collectors-and-aggregators-on-the-%E2%80%98underground-movement%E2%80%99-of-pirated-theory-text-sharing/ Edu-factory Collective, “All Power to Self-Education!” Toward a Global Autonomous University: Cognitive Labor, The Production of Knowledge, and Exodus from the Education Factory (2009), pp. 0 – 17

10 Escape

Tiqqun and The Invisible Committee Meeting 22 “FOX NEWS reviews The Coming Insurrection” (2009), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyi2qNskJc Aaron Lake Smith, “Vive Le Tarnac Nine!,” Vice Magazine (2010), https://www.vice.com/read/vive-le-tarnac-nine-407-v17n4 The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection (2008)

Suggested: Tiqqun, “How To?” Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader (2007), pp. 297 – 312 The Invisible Committee, And the War has only just yet Begun (2001), https://vimeo.com/54313688

Tactics Meeting 23 Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker, “Tactics of Nonexistence,” The Exploit: A Theory of Networks (2007), pp. 135 – 137 Sean Dockray, Facebook Suicide (Bomb) Manifesto (2010), http://e-rat.org/FBSBM/ Hakim Bey, “From TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone,” Cultural Resistance Reader (2002), pp. 113 – 118

Suggested: Bernadette Corporation, Get Rid of Yourself (2003)

11 Protest & Affect

Meeting 24 Chto Delat, Museum Songspiel: The Netherlands 20xx (2011), video to be screened in class Chto Delat, “A Declaration on Politics, Knowledge, and Art,” http://chtodelat.org/category/b5-announcements/a-6/

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Meeting 25 Mark Tribe, Port Huron Project (2006-08), http://www.marktribe.net/port-huron-project/ Brian Holmes, “Affectivist Manifesto,” Escape the Overcode: Activist Art in the Control Society (2009), https://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/the-affectivist-manifesto/

Suggested: Brian Holmes, “Swarmachine: Activist Media Tomorrow,” Escape the Overcode: Activist Art in the Control Society (2009), https://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2007/07/21/swarmachine/ Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, A User’s Guide to Demanding the Impossible (2010), https://demandingimpossible.wordpress.com/