Nascita del populismo digitale. Masse, potere e postdemocrazia nel XXI secolo @Obsolete Capitalism

 Nascita del populismo digitale è leggibile e scaricabile in formato PDF.

Il non-partito M5S guidato da Beppe Grillo e Gianroberto Casaleggio ha ottenuto alle elezioni nazionali del 24—25 Febbraio 2013 un clamoroso successo elettorale: il panorama della politica italiana ne è uscito profondamente sconvolto. Questo libro cerca di indagare le novità che caratterizzano la nascita di un nuovo fenomeno politico: il populismo digitale. Siamo all’inizio di un cambio epocale della politica governamentale e della democrazia rappresentativa come l’abbiamo conosciuta fino da oggi? Lontano dall’essere un’anomalia italiana, il populismo è un fenomeno saldamente occidentale, sia nella sua versione analogica, sia nella sua versione digitale, con una english version, l’UKIP, estremamente seducente e, per questo motivo, non meno pericolosa di altre formazioni anti-establishment di destra.

Abbiamo formulato a intellettuali italiani e anglosassoni - di varia estrazione politica e differenti competenze disciplinari - sei domande riguardanti alcuni punti fondanti della nascita del populismo digitale e delle relazioni esistenti tra masse, potere e post-democrazia agli albori del XXI secolo. Ciò che leggerete in questo libro è il risultato delle nove interviste rilasciate tra maggio 2013 e febbraio 2014 da Luciana Parisi, Tiziana Terranova, Lapo Berti, Simon Choat, Paolo Godani, Saul Newman, Jussi Parikka, Tony D. Sampson e Alberto Toscano.

A cura di Obsolete Capitalism.

Against the Black Box: Strategies of control & Tactics of resistance

A thesis presented to the Royal College of Art in October 2014 by Oliver Smith.

The Black Box is explored as a tool of power and control. Originating as a problem solving tool in electrical engineering it is shown to have developed through its military and cybernetic use into an inherent part of technologies and knowledge, obscuring their origins and complexities. Although this process is accepted as often necessary, its hidden and unquestioned existence is shown to be problematic through a number of examples from networked consumer technologies to the governmental surveillance techniques.

The power of the Black Box is shown, with reference to De Certau’s notion of the Strategy, to come from its ability to isolate its own place, giving it an advantageous sight and allowing it to stockpile and make use of collections of knowledge. This is related back to the examples given in terms of the collection and algorithmic mining of large amounts of data.

Tactical Media is explored as a possible method of resistance. Utilising De Certau’s Tactics, the art of the weak, its speed and adaptability is praised. However, the Black Box is ascribed a further advantage, beyond those of the Strategy. Obfuscation, the ability to conceal parts of itself and capabilities at will, is shown to allow the Black Box to infiltrate the tools relied on by Tactical Media, twisting them to its own ends.

The work of the Critical Engineers is looked at and is shown to begin to build on and realign Tactical Media to critique and recreate its tools, to root out the Black Box. Finally, following Benjamin’s thoughts on the political act of production, the case for the creation of an improved apparatus is put forth, whereby consumers can become producers an, and the Black Box can be seen, and therefore tackled.

 Read more on Oliver's website…

Along it. Around it. Against it. For an algorithmic counter-design

A dissertation presented to the Royal College of Art in October 2014 by Francesco Tacchini. It exerts a cultural critique of the central role of computation in visual culture by conducting an enquiry into the notion of the algorithm and its emergence as a medium, and to further advance a design methodology which critically approaches it. Tacchini proposes that algorithms are today the fundamental unit for the production of art or design, whether consciously used or not. Their ubiquitous appearance and ambivalent use in the visual arts pose new questions: how does computation assists the proliferation and transmission of visual culture? What does it mean to accept the algorithm as both medium and end product, having acknowledged the techno-political implications of its ambivalent role? In other words, how can the designer critically approach the algorithm?

Paolo Vignola : Cerveaux dans un (archi)cinéma @ Ars Industrialis, 2014