12-14 June 2020/ online
Affective politics
Politics, approached affectively, is an art of emitting the interruptive signs, triggering the cues, that attune bodies while activating their capacities differentially. Affective politics is inductive. Bodies can be inducted into, or attuned to, certain regions of tendency, futurity and potential, they can be induced into inhabiting the same affective environment, even if there is no assurance they will act alike in that environment. A good example is an alarm, a sign of threat or danger. Even if you conclude in the next instant that it's a false
alarm, you will have come to that conclusion in an environment that is effectively one of threat. Others who have heard the alarm may well respond differently, but they will be responding differently together, as inhabitants of the same affective environment. Everyone
registering the alarm will have been attuned to the same threat event, in one way or another. It is the sum total of the different ways of being interpellated by the same event that will define what it will have been politically. (Brian Massumi; 2001)
Politics, approached affectively, is an art of emitting the interruptive signs, triggering the cues, that attune bodies while activating their capacities differentially. Affective politics is inductive. Bodies can be inducted into, or attuned to, certain regions of tendency, futurity and potential, they can be induced into inhabiting the same affective environment, even if there is no assurance they will act alike in that environment. A good example is an alarm, a sign of threat or danger. Even if you conclude in the next instant that it's a false
alarm, you will have come to that conclusion in an environment that is effectively one of threat. Others who have heard the alarm may well respond differently, but they will be responding differently together, as inhabitants of the same affective environment. Everyone
registering the alarm will have been attuned to the same threat event, in one way or another. It is the sum total of the different ways of being interpellated by the same event that will define what it will have been politically. (Brian Massumi; 2001)
Algorithmic Agency
Digital computers exist for less than hundred years, algorithmic processes are around for much longer. The simplest algorithms, for instance cooking recipes, or scores of Fluxus artists from the 1960s, describe in processes that can be implemented by anyone (agent), who is capable to decode their language and have the means to realize the steps. Computers are programmable machines that can calculate, thus capable of executing algorithms, describing calculating processes. In other words: computers are programmed to act as agents of calculating processes.
Digital computers exist for less than hundred years, algorithmic processes are around for much longer. The simplest algorithms, for instance cooking recipes, or scores of Fluxus artists from the 1960s, describe in processes that can be implemented by anyone (agent), who is capable to decode their language and have the means to realize the steps. Computers are programmable machines that can calculate, thus capable of executing algorithms, describing calculating processes. In other words: computers are programmed to act as agents of calculating processes.
Citizen Situation Room
„The term Situation Room is normally used to designate a secret place used in times of crisis to assess and monitor data for decision making purposes. Its origins can be traced back to World War II with the invention of computers, digitalization, and the collaboration of architects and the military. These rooms are equipped with monitors and data boards used to control everything from flows crossing the strait of Gibraltar to nuclear fission processes in Nuclear Power plants and the life support mechanisms on board the International Space Station." (Pablo deSoto). A Citizen Situation Room gathers, visualizes, maps, and evaluates data and information: it is a temporary structure of shared knowledge, that accumulates thematically curated digital commons for citizens, who wish to engage with its content.
„The term Situation Room is normally used to designate a secret place used in times of crisis to assess and monitor data for decision making purposes. Its origins can be traced back to World War II with the invention of computers, digitalization, and the collaboration of architects and the military. These rooms are equipped with monitors and data boards used to control everything from flows crossing the strait of Gibraltar to nuclear fission processes in Nuclear Power plants and the life support mechanisms on board the International Space Station." (Pablo deSoto). A Citizen Situation Room gathers, visualizes, maps, and evaluates data and information: it is a temporary structure of shared knowledge, that accumulates thematically curated digital commons for citizens, who wish to engage with its content.
Cybernetics
Cybernetics, a transdisciplinary version of systems theory advocated by Norbert Wiener gained particular importance throughout the period of the Cold War. Its significance gradually decreased from the 1980s, although a revival can be observed in recent years.
Published in 1948, Norbert Wiener's book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine laid the theoretical foundation of this new transdisciplinary field that drew on numerous sciences, such as physics, mathematics, neurosciences, and biology.
This approach makes cybernetics an early contributor to the deconstruction of the distinction between the mechanical and the organic, which has been a decisive approach ever since, and has had a significant impact on rapidly developing technologies of the twenty-first century, such as robotics and information technologies. The transdisciplinary character of cybernetic theory makes it applicable for the study of various systems, whether they be informational, computational, biological, ecological, psychological, social, economic, or any combination of these.
John McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence" in 1956 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) partly to escape association with Wiener's cybernetic theory already shows how much the two fields have in common, even if the methods are genuinely, and the fields of study partially, different.
Cybernetics, a transdisciplinary version of systems theory advocated by Norbert Wiener gained particular importance throughout the period of the Cold War. Its significance gradually decreased from the 1980s, although a revival can be observed in recent years.
Published in 1948, Norbert Wiener's book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine laid the theoretical foundation of this new transdisciplinary field that drew on numerous sciences, such as physics, mathematics, neurosciences, and biology.
This approach makes cybernetics an early contributor to the deconstruction of the distinction between the mechanical and the organic, which has been a decisive approach ever since, and has had a significant impact on rapidly developing technologies of the twenty-first century, such as robotics and information technologies. The transdisciplinary character of cybernetic theory makes it applicable for the study of various systems, whether they be informational, computational, biological, ecological, psychological, social, economic, or any combination of these.
John McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence" in 1956 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) partly to escape association with Wiener's cybernetic theory already shows how much the two fields have in common, even if the methods are genuinely, and the fields of study partially, different.
Cybersyn
"Project Cybersyn was a bold technological project tied to a bold political project. It emerged in the context of Chile's peaceful road to socialism: Salvador Allende had won the Chilean presidency in 1970 with a promise to build a fundamentally different society. His political program would make Chile a democratic-socialist state, with respect for the country's constitution and individual freedoms." (Eden Medina)
Stafford Beer, the British cybernetician was advised Chile in the attempt to use computer technology in order to empower workers. The Project Cybersyn was never completely implemented, the realization was interrupted by a violent coup that ended Allende's governance. The experiment attempted to combine the political and the technological with the goal of creating a more just society.
"Project Cybersyn was a bold technological project tied to a bold political project. It emerged in the context of Chile's peaceful road to socialism: Salvador Allende had won the Chilean presidency in 1970 with a promise to build a fundamentally different society. His political program would make Chile a democratic-socialist state, with respect for the country's constitution and individual freedoms." (Eden Medina)
Stafford Beer, the British cybernetician was advised Chile in the attempt to use computer technology in order to empower workers. The Project Cybersyn was never completely implemented, the realization was interrupted by a violent coup that ended Allende's governance. The experiment attempted to combine the political and the technological with the goal of creating a more just society.
Machine learning
Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. The machine learning algorithms (e.g. neural networks) use statistics to find patterns in massive amounts of data (in most cases curated data sets). Machine learning can be used as a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building.
Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. The machine learning algorithms (e.g. neural networks) use statistics to find patterns in massive amounts of data (in most cases curated data sets). Machine learning can be used as a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building.
Leviathan
Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly referred to as Leviathan, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and published in 1651.
Hobbes proposed that the natural basic state of humankind is one of anarchy, with the strong dominating the weak. Only a social 'contract' can bring society in order, Hobbes suggests, with a protector as the sovereign. Under this social contract individuals give up certain rights, while those of the protector are absolute.
The frontispiece of the Leviathan depicts, and Hobbes in the book envisions the State as a giant that towers over the landscape, its body composed of humans, the members of society, whose rights are transferred to the sovereign, its head. If we continue to conceive of the state as a beast today, then the infrastructure of computation, too, must form part of its body, resulting in what can only be thought of as a cyborg of today's political theory.
Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly referred to as Leviathan, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and published in 1651.
Hobbes proposed that the natural basic state of humankind is one of anarchy, with the strong dominating the weak. Only a social 'contract' can bring society in order, Hobbes suggests, with a protector as the sovereign. Under this social contract individuals give up certain rights, while those of the protector are absolute.
The frontispiece of the Leviathan depicts, and Hobbes in the book envisions the State as a giant that towers over the landscape, its body composed of humans, the members of society, whose rights are transferred to the sovereign, its head. If we continue to conceive of the state as a beast today, then the infrastructure of computation, too, must form part of its body, resulting in what can only be thought of as a cyborg of today's political theory.
Digital Panopticon
The accumulation of data, hand in hand with statistical algorithms accelerating the increasing power of computation are the basis of a new paradigm in which policies, norms, and values, such as personal privacy and digital sovereignty, find themselves in hostile surroundings. The conditions are set not only to monitor human behaviour, but also to subject it to psycho-political steering. In the digital Panopticon there are no blind spots, and one might well feel powerless against Big Brother, whether it is an Internet Corporation or a state agency: "All that is solid melts into air," and all that data slips away up into the cloud.
The accumulation of data, hand in hand with statistical algorithms accelerating the increasing power of computation are the basis of a new paradigm in which policies, norms, and values, such as personal privacy and digital sovereignty, find themselves in hostile surroundings. The conditions are set not only to monitor human behaviour, but also to subject it to psycho-political steering. In the digital Panopticon there are no blind spots, and one might well feel powerless against Big Brother, whether it is an Internet Corporation or a state agency: "All that is solid melts into air," and all that data slips away up into the cloud.
Machinic Assemblage
Assemblage theory is an ontological framework developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, originally presented in their book A Thousand Plateaus (1980). Assemblage theory provides a method for analyzing social complexities, with the emphasis on the postulate that, within a body, the components are not in a fixed position and function, but can be exchanged and varied within and in between bodies.
"a technical element remains abstract, entirely undetermined, as long as one does not relate it to an assemblage it presupposes. It is the machine that is primary in relation to the technical element: not the technical machine, itself a collection of elements, but the social or collective machine, the machinic assemblage that determines what is a technical element at a given moment, what is its usage, extension, comprehension, etc. It is through the intermediary of assemblages that the phylum selects, qualifies, and even invents the technical elements. " (A Thousand Plateaus, pp. 397-8)
Assemblage theory is an ontological framework developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, originally presented in their book A Thousand Plateaus (1980). Assemblage theory provides a method for analyzing social complexities, with the emphasis on the postulate that, within a body, the components are not in a fixed position and function, but can be exchanged and varied within and in between bodies.
"a technical element remains abstract, entirely undetermined, as long as one does not relate it to an assemblage it presupposes. It is the machine that is primary in relation to the technical element: not the technical machine, itself a collection of elements, but the social or collective machine, the machinic assemblage that determines what is a technical element at a given moment, what is its usage, extension, comprehension, etc. It is through the intermediary of assemblages that the phylum selects, qualifies, and even invents the technical elements. " (A Thousand Plateaus, pp. 397-8)
OGAS (Общегосударственная автоматизированная система учёта и обработки информации, ОГАС, "National Automated System for Computation and Information Processing"). A new impetus to the idea of a nationwide computer network came in the late 1960s, when the Soviet leadership learned about the development of the ARPANET in the USA. The director of the Institute of Cybernetics in Kiev, Viktor Glushkov, became one of the central figures of a wide-ranging economic management reform on the basis of computerization. Glushkov aimed at building an automated system for economic planning and management based on a nationwide computer network, with which Soviet bureaucracy could have been completely reorganized. This ambitious plan faced stiff opposition from bureaucrats, who feared that sweeping reorganization might eliminate their roles. Others saw it as a tyrannous attempt to centralize the economy even further, leaving even less autonomy to each actor in the economic system. The plan was never realized, and Glushkov moved on to work on another large-scale proposal.
Really Useful Knowledge
The concept of "really useful knowledge" originates in radical educational movements of the early nineteenth-century England, when it signified a curriculum required for working class emancipation, and when education provided a model for collective "self-help".
The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK) was founded in 1826 and was relatively short-lived (wound up in 1845) but 'useful knowledge' became a significant social movement. A common reaction to the movement was ridicule, with 'useful knowledge' parodied by advocacy of the 'really useful knowledge' required for working class emancipation. (based on a paper of Richard Clarke; 2014)
The concept of "really useful knowledge" originates in radical educational movements of the early nineteenth-century England, when it signified a curriculum required for working class emancipation, and when education provided a model for collective "self-help".
The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK) was founded in 1826 and was relatively short-lived (wound up in 1845) but 'useful knowledge' became a significant social movement. A common reaction to the movement was ridicule, with 'useful knowledge' parodied by advocacy of the 'really useful knowledge' required for working class emancipation. (based on a paper of Richard Clarke; 2014)
Reciprocal Retrofuturism
'The way future has been viewed in the past' – would be a short definition of retrofuturism. It's a diverse aesthetic, a genre of science fiction and -fantasy and a general subject of interest. Reciprocated retrofuturist narratives concentrate on and critically examine the present, viewed from speculative futures.
'The way future has been viewed in the past' – would be a short definition of retrofuturism. It's a diverse aesthetic, a genre of science fiction and -fantasy and a general subject of interest. Reciprocated retrofuturist narratives concentrate on and critically examine the present, viewed from speculative futures.
Technological sovereignty
Technological sovereignty is a political term signifying that information, communications, and computational infrastructure and technology is determined by the laws and interests of the country in which the users of these technologies located.
The impact of technological sovereignty is not limited to citizens, however, and, at present, neither the material infrastructure of computation, including that employed in the accumulation of any kind of data, nor the natural resources needed to sustain it seems to interfere with the integrity of nation states. However, the eventuality of the computational ecosystem's having a significant impact on the power relations between states looms ever on the horizon. The concepts of data, information and network sovereignty are covering partially overlapping fields.
Technological sovereignty is a political term signifying that information, communications, and computational infrastructure and technology is determined by the laws and interests of the country in which the users of these technologies located.
The impact of technological sovereignty is not limited to citizens, however, and, at present, neither the material infrastructure of computation, including that employed in the accumulation of any kind of data, nor the natural resources needed to sustain it seems to interfere with the integrity of nation states. However, the eventuality of the computational ecosystem's having a significant impact on the power relations between states looms ever on the horizon. The concepts of data, information and network sovereignty are covering partially overlapping fields.
Situation Awareness (SA) signifies the awareness of one's surroundings. SA is an important constituent in human information processing and essential in decision-making processes. Acquiring and maintaining appropriate levels of SA has been describes as critical mainly in relation to aviation environments as it affects all decisions and actions taking place in flights and air traffic control.
In the late 1980s, psychologist Mica Endsley developed a model of situational awareness with three primary components: the perception of the elements in an environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future after some variable has changed.
In the late 1980s, psychologist Mica Endsley developed a model of situational awareness with three primary components: the perception of the elements in an environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future after some variable has changed.
Surveillance Capitalism
Surveillance is smoother, stealthier, and more effective than before the use of automated computational systems and powerful data mining applications, the results of almost a century's development of the infrastructure, which culminates, for example, in the intelligence alliance of Five, later Nine, and recently Fourteen Eyes that includes most of the Western European and English-speaking countries. While these countries see their sovereignty secured via this intelligence alliance, China pushed its heavily censored Internet behind an invisible Great Fire Wall in 2014.
The vast amount of data, proper applications to analyse it, a well-developed surveillance infrastructure, and the state's management and mismanagement of data and its protection, the hegemony of online businesses, and the popularity of social media platforms, the often careless netizens' approach to data privacy due to lack of awareness — all these lead to the system of surveillance capitalism: "A new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction, and sales. A parasitic economic logic in which the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new global architecture of behavioural modification. […] An expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above: an overthrow of the people's sovereignty". (Shoshana Zuboff; 2019)
Surveillance is smoother, stealthier, and more effective than before the use of automated computational systems and powerful data mining applications, the results of almost a century's development of the infrastructure, which culminates, for example, in the intelligence alliance of Five, later Nine, and recently Fourteen Eyes that includes most of the Western European and English-speaking countries. While these countries see their sovereignty secured via this intelligence alliance, China pushed its heavily censored Internet behind an invisible Great Fire Wall in 2014.
The vast amount of data, proper applications to analyse it, a well-developed surveillance infrastructure, and the state's management and mismanagement of data and its protection, the hegemony of online businesses, and the popularity of social media platforms, the often careless netizens' approach to data privacy due to lack of awareness — all these lead to the system of surveillance capitalism: "A new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction, and sales. A parasitic economic logic in which the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new global architecture of behavioural modification. […] An expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above: an overthrow of the people's sovereignty". (Shoshana Zuboff; 2019)
Potential history
According to Ariella Azoulay, potential history "is a form of being with others, both living and dead, across time, against the separation of the past from the present, colonized peoples from their worlds and possessions, and history from politics." The imperial apparatus presumes that such struggles exist only in the past, only as dusty records in the archive. In this space wherein violence ought to be reversed, different options that were once eliminated are reactivated as a way of slowing the imperial movement of progress. Potential history is not the account of radical thinking, of explicit ideological struggles against imperialism, but a rejection of imperialism's conceptual apparatus altogether. Azoulay formulates civil practices which she calls an "onto-epistemological political imaginary" of refusal. These practices activate the presence of history in us "to retrieve, reconstruct, and give an account of diverse worlds that persist despite… forces that suffocate them, outlaw their different modes of organization, cut their energies and sources of livelihood, and represent them as obstructions…" Potential history unfolds out of this conflict between people's worldly active life and the imperially conditioned record of operative actions pursued in the service of progress. Rehearsals of disengagement from the frenetic pursuit of the new are necessary if one seeks to see beyond the slicing of time into past, present, and future and to relate to actions classified as outdated and impracticable as concrete, common options. "The arrow of history can be reversed, and a wistful recovery of the past is not nostalgia but justice."
According to Ariella Azoulay, potential history "is a form of being with others, both living and dead, across time, against the separation of the past from the present, colonized peoples from their worlds and possessions, and history from politics." The imperial apparatus presumes that such struggles exist only in the past, only as dusty records in the archive. In this space wherein violence ought to be reversed, different options that were once eliminated are reactivated as a way of slowing the imperial movement of progress. Potential history is not the account of radical thinking, of explicit ideological struggles against imperialism, but a rejection of imperialism's conceptual apparatus altogether. Azoulay formulates civil practices which she calls an "onto-epistemological political imaginary" of refusal. These practices activate the presence of history in us "to retrieve, reconstruct, and give an account of diverse worlds that persist despite… forces that suffocate them, outlaw their different modes of organization, cut their energies and sources of livelihood, and represent them as obstructions…" Potential history unfolds out of this conflict between people's worldly active life and the imperially conditioned record of operative actions pursued in the service of progress. Rehearsals of disengagement from the frenetic pursuit of the new are necessary if one seeks to see beyond the slicing of time into past, present, and future and to relate to actions classified as outdated and impracticable as concrete, common options. "The arrow of history can be reversed, and a wistful recovery of the past is not nostalgia but justice."
The Big Bang Theory
is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos that we know today. Because current instruments don't allow astronomers to peer back at the universe's birth, much of what we understand about the Big Bang Theory comes from mathematical formulas and models.
is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos that we know today. Because current instruments don't allow astronomers to peer back at the universe's birth, much of what we understand about the Big Bang Theory comes from mathematical formulas and models.
CyberPsychoGeography
"Online, one may drift endlessly. The hypertextual surfing across multimodal transmedia narratives across the transcultural location of the Internet. Cartography in the web 2.0. " – Mark Amerika, Meta/Data: A Digital Poetics, (MIT Press, Cambridge, 2007)
"Online, one may drift endlessly. The hypertextual surfing across multimodal transmedia narratives across the transcultural location of the Internet. Cartography in the web 2.0. " – Mark Amerika, Meta/Data: A Digital Poetics, (MIT Press, Cambridge, 2007)
Techno-Flâneur: They are the equivalent of the cyber-flâneur to an augmented space. Virtual networks constitute their desire and practices, but do not detach them from physicality. Rather, teach to perceive an increasing physicality of digital data. If connectivity and nowness are the technical standard, the techno-flâneur is the user of Hito Steyerl's poor image, in a contra-digital manner. Digital artefacts find liberty to be appropriated by new technical means and technographic impressions. Such practices extend to any experimental medium that amplifies logic and systemic concerns of an internet in ruins and a space without a better referent:
digital maximalism; screenshots as ready-made; bots propaganda; intermedia; scanning; geolocation noise; code visuals; life-stream; voxel sorting; glitch/hardware sonification; meme philosophy; counter-fake news; gambiarra; re-information shitposting; GUI exploration; ASCII rendering; live coding; text drift.
digital maximalism; screenshots as ready-made; bots propaganda; intermedia; scanning; geolocation noise; code visuals; life-stream; voxel sorting; glitch/hardware sonification; meme philosophy; counter-fake news; gambiarra; re-information shitposting; GUI exploration; ASCII rendering; live coding; text drift.
