Cultural
Activism On the Internet
-----Culture
Jamming-----
http://www.adbusters.org
Unfortunately, this is probably the most comprehensive site entirely devoted
to the active participation in Culture Jamming. Kalle Lasn and the Media
Foundation have more or less come to claim ownership over the term and all
its contents due to their visibility. This site provides subscription information
for the Adbusters magazine as well as an idea-creation portion which disperses
ideas about Culture Jamming. It also has a “Jammers’ Gallery” displaying
current projects by non-affiliated groups. The only other source for a wide
range of Culture Jamming issues in “The Culture Jammer’s Encyclopedia” (see
below)
http://www.transparencynow.com/cameron.htm
This critical Essay discusses Mike Cameron's “minor act of rebellion” in
wearing a Pepsi shirt to his school’s Coke day celebration, for which he
was suspended. Previously featured in No Logo
http://www.sniggle.net
“The Culture Jammer’s Encyclopedia" site provides the most information about
Culture Jamming as and object of study, discussing the history, theory, technique,
major figures, and has a large bank of links to the Culture Jamming community.
http://www.transparencynow.com/culture.htm
An essay dealing with “those who control the levers of communication
in this country” and the effect on culture. It is not that informative, really
kind of a polemic, but does introduce some of the themes with which cultural
activism must contend.
http://www.abrupt.org
This is another website which is engaged in Culture Jamming. They have an
anti-SUV campaign and a pamphlet series. Not a very interesting site but
a few interesting bits of information and art.
http://jam.media.org
This organization puts out high-end jams, like The Internet Multicasting
Service and the Internet Software Consortium. Curiously, they also produce
jams such as http://www.betterdogfood.com, selling people dogs and dog food.
They are a self-described as “collective of artists/architects, netizens
fueled by a passion for the potential of the Internet”
http://bioticbakingbrigade.org
The Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB) is the group featured in No Logo that
throws pies in faces of famous people. The "about us" page is another
instance of the importance of Zapatismo in relation to 21st century
resistance (Dominguez: http://www.thing.net/~rdom).
http://rts.gn.apc.org
“Reclaim The Streets” is a formerly London-based group which came out of the
90s rave scene and is now an international phenomenon. The groups stages street
parties which express the need to take back public social space which is now
reserved for cars. They create a party and sometimes even plant trees and generally
cause peaceful disorder in business centers and on streets and highways.
http://www.negativland.com
Negativland is a group that is integral to the study of Culture Jamming.
They produce music which relies on the shared signs of a corporate music
environment. By essentially stealing samples of famous performers, they highlight
the stupidity in current copyright laws which serve to concentrate power
of cultural signs in the hands of the wealthy, rather than for use by other
working artists. For an article on Negativland, see http://www.wired.com/wired
/archive/3.01/negativland.html?pg=1
http://www.critpath.org/illcompute/myfault.html
This is an anti-avert site "Advertisers Anonymous" with a few interesting
art displays.
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/headspace/
rn/bbing/trouble/default.htm
This is a site gathering ideas for social change, and "A-Z of subversion" it
has web-posting, even some by Kalle Lasn.
-----Selected Culture Jam projects-----
http://www.labelthis.org
As seen on Adbusters, labelthis.org centers on Genetic Modified ingredients
and attempts to enact jams in local supermarkets, re-labeling the truth about
the contents of the products people are buying. This is a good example of a
form of action which bypasses traditional activist strategies such as pamphleting
outside supermarkets . http://www.re-code.com (Disabled
4/17/03 R.I.P)
'color:windowtext'>This is another anti-consumerism jam, basically inserting
new retail codes (found on website) onto products. Their disclaimer reads: “We
in no way endorse the theft of products or services. Re-code.com was created
as satire. We intend only to make aware the prevalence of barcodes and begin
a critical discussion about what their pervasiveness means. This is not a product
designed to be used in any malicious or illegal manner. Any such use is strictly
prohibited. You should not use any of the barcodes available from this site
for any illegal activity. They are here for your amusement only.”
http://reamweaver.com/
Reamweaver is a program one can download that allows one to copy the html of
an organization's website and then modify the content.
http://www.sniggle.net/Hypno/index.php
A project based upon placing stickers over the eyes of models on “Billboards,
Magazines, Bus-stop ads, Newspaper racks, Posters.”
http://howandwhy.org
Self described as “the number-one clearinghouse for culture jamming” but it
really didn’t impress me much. They have a few projects, such as “propaganda” campaign
based upon real leaflets dropped by U.S. military in Afghanistan. Their mission
is “is a corporation dedicated to cashing in on the trend” of Culture Jamming.
This is a good example of social satire but it is a little difficult to see
were the joke ends and their "real" mission begins. They are also
involved in the “Stop Shopping” tour going on in the spring of 2003.
http://howandwhy.org/retag.html
This is a project on the howandwhy.org website called “Retroactive Logo Distribution” seeks
to “retag” corporate locations, those who’s logo “has reached full market saturation” ,
such as The Gap and Tower Records, spray-painting the company’s own logo onto
its place of business.
http://www.appliedautonomy.com
The Institute for Applied Autonomy designs projects to promote cultural insurrection.
They say in their mission statement, that “IAA has identified the already emerging
market of cultural insurrection as the most stable market in the years to come.” Their
projects include a propaganda distributing robot, a “street writer” which spray-paints
messages from the back of a vehicle, and “ a web-based application charting
the locations of closed-circuit television (CCTV-surveillance cameras) in urban
environments.
http://www.rtmark.com
This is an idea-generating site, designed to facilitate communication between
individuals interested in Culture Jamming, at whatever level, to groups and
individuals who are creating projects. Submission of projects is free and they
provide a message board for anyone to join. For the projects that seem promising,
rtmark hosts their website. They have been well documented due to their recent
projects like vote.org, a vote selling site and etoy.org, a replica of etoy.com.
-----Site Spoofs----
http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Education/Instructional_
Technology/Evaluation/Web_Site_Evaluation/Hoax_Sites/
I list this Google directory just to highlight that there are many website
spoofs on the internet, the majority of which are not political in nature and
are not forms of Cultural Activism. Culture Jamming spoof sites are, in the
words of the Situationalists, a detournement which provides the unwilling participant
a different way of viewing the world. These sites are either exact in their
replication of the original sites, with the content changed, or they mock the
professional, glossy websites of major corporations to put forth their anti-corporate
message.
http://www.whirledbank.org
http://www.gatt.org
These websites target the world financial organizations which in a direct way
control the economic situations of third-world countries. Rather than poking
light-hearted fun at these institutions, they seek to convey the underlying
message contained in the policies they pursue. http://www.deportation-class.com
http://www.rtmark.com/shell
http://www.fuckmicrosoft.com/
http://www.childslaves.com
http://gwbush.com
http://www.enronownsthegop.com
The institutions spoofed here are either industries like airlines practicing
horrible deportation policies, concepts like child labor or direct attack on
corporations or political figures.
vaticano.org
This site is unavailable, but here is the story.
The Cleansing of the Internet:
0100101110101101.ORG loses "vaticano.org"
For a whole year " http://www.0100101110101101.ORG/vaticano.org" vaticano.org" was
one of the (un)official organs of information of the Holy See. A huge site,
aesthetically identical to the "real" one but with slightly modified
contents, it was the result of a collaboration between '0100101110101101.org
and Luther Blissett . The detournement of the holy texts involved tens of Blissett
from the whole country, who were about to add German, Spanish and English language
sections to the main, Italian one. For twelve months thousands of people visited "vaticano.org",
and nobody realised that the contents of the site had been "retouched." There
were dozens of texts, in which one could find everything: "heretical" proclamations,
invented words, unpardonable errors and songs by 883 [an Italian teeny-bopper
band], put into perfectly plausible contexts. From the site it was possible
to address letters directly to the Pope. Strange instructions "hijacked" pilgrims
into the most remote places. All in all, it was a "Free Spirit Jubilee." 'http://www.rtmark.com/vaticano.html#release
---Billboard
Alteration-----
http://www.billboardliberation.com/
Billboard Liberation Front is really the most prominent group associated with
billboard jamming. They more or less began the movement and there are many
of their jams represented on the site.
http://www.sniggle.net/Billboard/index.php
This is a group of links to the billboard alteration world from The Culture
Jammers Encyclopedia. http://www.targetmarket.org/page64.htm
This is a billboard site which seeks to make a comment on the ruin of California
social space by billboards.
http://www.popaganda.com
http://www.graffiti.org/ron_english/billbord.html
Ron English is a self-constructed cultural phenomenon. His themes are subvertizing,
agit-prop, and “fun and art.” His new work seems to have lead him away from
billboard alteration into traditional painting, but with popular culture written
into his designs.
Techniques/ how-to guides
http://www.eco-action.org/dt/smashing.html
This is from an Earth First! Website. It includes not only billboard
alteration but “Sign Cutting,” that is, sawing billboards down. http://www.billboardliberation.com/resources/manual.html
These two websites give the most comprehensive examination of how to alter
billboards.
-----Hactivism-----
http://www.critical-art.net
Critical Art Ensemble are group of artists that design projects such as “Tactical
Media” which “will engage a particular socio-political contest…that contribute
to the negation of the rising intensity of authoritarian culture” This is also
one of the homes of The Electronic Disturbance Theater of Stefan Wray
and Ricardo Dominguez http://www.carbondefense.org/cdl_mission.html
Much like the Critical Art Ensemble, the Carbon Defense League produces tactical
media projects, one including “ '-:7.5pt;letter-spacing: .75pt'>Super Kid Fighter” a
reverse engineering of a Nintendo Gameboy, which in their words would “subvert
the medium of the Nintendo GameBoy,” offering a different storyline based on
youth oppression.
http://www.2600.com
a hacker ‘zine
http://www.h2k2.net
Hacktivists On Planet Earth (HOPE) 2002 conference site, presented by 2600.com
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-522233.html?legacy=zdnn
An article describing the last conference, H2K, 2000 http://www.hactivist.com
A collection of projects, some have been described here, like Institute for
Applied Autonomy, Re-code, Demons of the Dammed.
http://hacktivismo.com
http://cultdeadcow.com
These are a higher-end hacktivism sites which creates sustainable softwear,
like that which would allow groups oppressed by use of this software to bring
a legal case against the governments or corporations who have put it into use.
ABOUT HACKTIVISMO
Hacktivismo is a group of international hackers, human rights workers, artists
and others who seek to further the goals of human rights through technology.
They operate under the aegis of the CULT OF THE DEAD COW (cDc). Hacktivismo
is committed to developing technologies in support of the highest standards
of human rights. For more information, please visit http://hacktivismo.com
ABOUT THE CULT OF THE DEAD COW
Based in Lubbock, Texas, the CULT OF THE DEAD COW (cDc) is the most influential
hacking group in the world. The cDc alumni reads like a Who’s Who of hacking
and includes a former Presidential advisor on Internet security, among others.
The group is further distinguished by publishing the longest running e-zine
on the Internet [est. 1984], stretching the limits of the First Amendment,
and fighting anyone or any government that aspires to limit free speech. For
more information, please visit http://cultdeadcow.com
http://www.attrition.org
a computer security Web site with a catalog of “security advisories, text files,
and humorous image galleries.” As well as being a hacking for hackers website,
they have a collection of mirrors of Web site defacements
http://www.undergroundnews.com
A news service for hackers with a forum for gaining entry into the world of
hacking, there is a section “newbies” for the uninitiated.
-----articles
on hacktivism-----
http://www.zmag.org/Bulletins/e_guerrilas.htm
Ottawa Citizen article about hacktivism “Guerrillas in the Mist,” discusses
Electronic Civil Disobedience, presenting the ethical problems which arise
in hacktivism.
http://www.artzine-journal.com/site_en/interview_more1_en.html
An article about the difference between hacking vs. hacktivism
-----Online activism-----
http://www.urban75.com/index.html
'“UK ezine featuring bulletin boards, games, photos, protest, rave, drugs & more." It
is a good point of departure to learn about what is going on in British activist
circles and beyond.
http://www.nologo.org
http://www.ratm.com
http://www.guerrillanews.com
w .disinfo.org
These
are sites that are representative of groups that came out against corporate-led
globalization within the main channels of cultural production and their websites
have gone on to become popular sites of activist organization. http://www.protest.net
A complete archive of upcoming events and event-building forums and listserves.
http://www.ainfos.org
http://www.infoshop.org
ainfos.org and infoshop.org are two sites designed for the Anarchist community.
Infoshop is a complete and comprehensive website with a huge amount of information.
Their forum is a great place to begin learning about activist strategies and
their theoretical complications.
News Services
http://www.indymedia.org
http://www.zmag.org
http://www.oneworld.org
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.informationguerrilla.org
http://www.theexperiment.org/
---Sites
of Cultural Production----http://www.theexperiment.org/
http://www.dod.net/
Demon of the Damned is a website mainly for the hardcore music scene, but it
hosts (for free) other oppositional projects as well.
http://unixpunx.org
Unixpunx.org is a punk community site, mixing hacking and punk.
http://smog.net
One submits their portfolio to this art group for consideration. They provide
you with a page where you can display your artistry.
http://www.urbanize.org
Urbanize offers interesting perspective on the urban experience with a nice
display of urban scenes.I believe this site and the "Andre the Giant" (see
below) have some sort of rivalry going.
http://www.kband.com
A graphics intensive website, kband has a lot of new material in avant-guard
art.
-----Traditional Adbusting (i.e. subvert-ads)-----
http://www.subvertise.org
http://www.parodies.organique.com
These images are representative of traditional Adbusting, taking an advertisement
and forcing it, manipulating it, contradicting it, to contain new, subversive
meaning. For more on anti-Bush subverts, see http://www.cultdeadcohttp://www.com/large_image.php3?image_id=3
http://www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/posters/index.asp
-----Experiments in Phenomology-----
In this category the medium is the message, which means the objects that these
groups produce exist only for themselves, or for the experience of watching
a social phenomenon grow and multiply.
Luther
Blissett
http:// http://0100101110101101.ORG Luther
Blissett is a soccer player. But the cultural practice of using the name Luther
Blissett began when police arrested a group of anarchists and when asked for
their names, they all responded with this name. There is a group in Bologna
which enacts culture jams like the vatican.org represented above.
http://www.altx.com/manifestos/blisset.html
http://www.lutherblissett.net
Andre
The Giant Has A Posse
http://www.obeygiant.com
(explanation) http://www.obeygiant.com/articles.html
'Andre The Giant Has A Posse usually is a picture of the famous wrestler, sometimes with the statement “OBEY”. This has multiplied into a range of posters and copies shown on the website.
Bl4ck H4m
http://www.bl4ckh4m.com
The pictures speak for themselves.
-----Theory new and old-----
http://occs.cs.oberlin.edu/~pjaques/etext/debgsociespec/index.html
Guy Debord is a very important social critic in Culture Jamming circles for
his social critique of late capitalism in general and the "society of
the spectacle" theory in particular.
http://www.levity.com/markdery/culturjam.html
The home of the famous essay, this essay was described by Lisa Prothers: “Dery's
essay gets cited as an endpoint. No one has substantially built on it.” more
of an false start to Culture Jamming rather than a new beginning.
http://www.bopsecrets.org
Situationalist writings database
http://www.sniggle.net/bey.php
Hakim Bey is one of the big names in theory and advocacy of Culture Jamming.
He is the originator of the concept called TAZ, Temporary Autonomous Zones.
http://www.syntac.net/hoax
Almost anything relevant can be found here in the Encyclopedia's section on
Theory.
http://www.thing.net/~rdom
Founder of the Electronic Disturbance Theater, Ricardo Dominguez has many articles
on the emergence of Hactivism and its potential.