[17-meetings] 17/10

[Lonneke van der Velden]

Hi all,

Does anyone plan on coming to the 17th meeting? And does it have a 
location already? (I remember someone suggested LAG but I'm not sure if 
they were asked?)

If so, I was wondering whether we could dedicate (a part of) the evening 
to the digital civil disobedience question posed by Marleen in one of 
our meetings earlier in the year, and about which she presented at MCH 
(https://program.mch2022.org/mch2022/talk/J9PRJK/) and in the Waag 
(https://waag.org/nl/event/waag-open-digitaal-actievoeren-hoe-moet-dat/).

After one of the follow up events at the Greenpeace office I landed into 
a discussion with a couple of people on this list about what would be 
actionable infrastructures today and/or what would be the grey areas? As 
in, what are technologies or data infrastructures that are not strictly 
regulated, not fully understood, or not in use as a site of politics or 
protest.

The point of departure of our late-evening discussion was that the Yes 
Men at the time were outsmarting companies because they understood the 
politics of search engines better than corporate or governmental actors. 
On a different level, the Critical Art Ensemble did virtual sit-ins 
before DDOS-attacks became a criminal act, hence, they were engaging in 
a technological practice that wasn't yet understood or banned. There is 
no use in replicating those actions, but it might be interesting to ask 
what are good inspirational cases of today (or else speculative ideas).

My sense is that we had a related discussion on art/hacktivism during 
our meeting in the Fabriek Volkskamer and that it would be nice to 
continue along those lines.

Best,

Lonneke