It is claimed that bioart is led by a problematic moral perogative to contest a 'pancapitalist' bioeconomy (Zylinska 2009), what other ways are there?

This essay works on the thoughts of most influencing theoreticians such as Zylinska, Thacker and Munster, in relation to the claim that bioart is led by a problematic moral power to challenge a 'pancapitalist' bioeconomy (Zylinska, 2009: 156-157). It looks into some of the dominating theories surrounding the field of this specific art movement and presents various points of view on the ethics of such an interdisciplinary entity.

Bioart, as a deliberately new art movement has always been a controversial topic. As said by Thacker, “the term bioart is often used to refer to projects that deal with biology as an artistic medium” (Thacker, 2005: 307), but in many cases the artists’ work is much more complicated. According to Zylinska, “the so called “bioart,” which stands for art utilizing biomaterial such as tissue, blood, or genes as its medium, evokes a lot of controversy, both within and without the art community” (Zylinska 2009: 149). As the author carries on claiming that “typical responses to bioart reflect a wider public anxiety regarding the current transformation of human and nonhuman life and its mediation by technology” (Zylinska, 2009: 149). As the author finds out while analyzing the work of Critical Art Ensemble: “there is an ambivalent relationship between moralist pronouncements and ethical forcework can also be identified in the work of CAE” (Zylinska, 2009: 156). She then carries on to positioning CAE “as both artists and activists, whose task is to “resist (…) authoritarian structures” of the dominant biopolitical regime and envisage a new techno-apparatus which will counter the “obsessively rational” military and corporate drives of “pancapitalism” (Zylinska, 2009: 156-157). As Zylinska finds the artists’ words prophetic, they carry on to explaining the mechanics at work which surround the world of eugenics, bioart, and the financial issues involved in these processes:

If big science can ignore nuclear holocaust and species annihilation, it seems very safe to assume that concerns about eugenics or any of the other possible flesh catastrophes are not going to be very meaningful in its deliberations about flesh machinepolicy and practice. Without question, it is in the interest of pancapitalism to rationalize the flesh, and consequently it is in the financial interest of big science to see that this desire manifests itself in the world. (CAE in Zylinska, 2009: 156-157)

The above quote “highlights the deeply problematic role of the biotechnological industry in shaping the current political and social consensus about the “value” of life” (Zylinska, 2009: 157). According to these words the pancapitalist machine creates two major issues surrounding the debate on power relations within the bio-industry: firstly, attaching different values to flesh and life; and secondly, creating an extremely closed economy - a centered power layout where big science and military are the only ones to explore and benefit from the potential of the genetic code.

A more positive view on bio-economy is presented by Thacker, where she claims that bioart “(…) not only marginalizes (or niche markets) art, effectively separating it from the practices of technoscience, but the notion of a “bioart” also positions art practice as reactionary and, at best, reflective of the technosciences” (Thacker, 2005: 307). This positioning of bioart as opposing the dominant power structure within the industry via creating something new via an exploration of the uncovered and separation from the dominant schemes is followed by an even further reinforcement on the powers surrounding the discussed. According to Thacker, bioart has a unique political power of pointing “(…) real fissures in the social, cultural, and material effects of biotechnologies” (Thacker, 2005: 318) throughout the world around us.

One could say that the view of opening the biotech industry to the amateur might be an illuminating experience for both the arts and humanities, but nonetheless various complications may surely arise. One example can be found while analyzing the work of Adam Zaretsky - a self-declared “vivoartist”, who according to Zylinska “(…) is all for reinserting “fun for fun’s sake into the social” and for “things getting really weird”. He admits he would be keen to see some more “interesting mutations”: “iridescent humans, spotted and striped, with multiple limbs” (Zylinska, 2009: 160). According to the author, Zaretsky takes on a role of a Nietzschean philosopher, attacking the “established values around biotechnology and “life” with a double-edged hammer of serious play, in order to undertake their transvaluation” (Zylinska, 2009: 160).

Other authors such as Der Derian explore the topic further by contemplating future perspectives carried out by the expected release of biotech basic knowledge and cheap and accessible equipment to the public domain. He believes that “bioart project might come to be seen as the material evidence supporting practices of bioterrorism speaks not of ideological but instead of information warfare” (Der Derian, 2001; in Munster 2011: 6). Still, this clear link between bioart and bio-terror is brought down by Munster, where she purposes an example of how to deal with the arising problem while working on thoughts of Thacker:

The linking of life through the nodes of the network materializes information in such a way that it becomes the giant regulating principle of a properly organized, databased and policed info-sociality. Contestational biology must therefore also dispute this application of a generalized network as the fundamental and overriding design principle organizing social, cultural, economic and biological life. In Biomedia, Thacker has suggested that a critical approach to the materialization of information design through the theory and practice of contemporary biologies could begin to operate by deploying a rather different idea of 'metadesign' (Thacker, 2004: 191-193).

Rather than a principle of (linked) design accounting for the interactions and connections that constitute living systems, the living system might be reconceived as one that is structurally open to the variability and contingency of whatever interactions, nodes and links it sustains. (Munster, 2011: 8)

Still, this utopian solution does not seem to be convincing enough: It would create a situation influx of network over this unique biological practice will generate further surveillance issues. Furthermore, linking life-practice via a networked system will not stop nor oppress terrorism, as most likely future bio-rebels will surely find ways around it (keeping in mind the popularization and accessibility of home made eugenics labs.

A far more positive perspective can be found while looking at the words of Stelarc, a world famous new media and bioartist. According to Zylinska “Stelarc repeatedly tells us that he has no ambitions to be a philosopher or a political theorist. He refuses to be prescriptive in his work and so will not instruct us as to how we should treat our bodies or how we should coexist with technology” (Zylinska, 2009: 173). As the author believes, “listening to Stelarc will allow us to envisage a more effective politics and ethics. This will be a technopolitics of distributed agency and suspended command, informed by an ethics of infinite - and at times crazy, shocking, and excessive - hospitality toward the alterity of technology (that is always already part of us)” (Zylinska, 2009: 173).

Looking at the above thoughts devised by both artists and theoreticians, one could say that the best approach to consider the golden middle expressed by Zylinska while talking about Stelarc: sampling openness towards biotech from artists such as Zaretsky, but keeping in mind the politics surrounding this newly emerging art of life manipulation. This would create a situation described by Zylinska, where “it is not to say that “we are machines” or that “we are all Stelarcs now,” as the Krokers put it. If humans and machines are collapsed—as they tend to be in some current accounts of “the network society”—into a fluid epistemology in which difference is overcome for the sake of horizontal affective politics (Zylinska, 2009: 173).

Bibliography and Readings:

Critical Art Ensemble, 'Transgenic Production and Cultural Resistance: A Seven-Point Plan', in Molecular Invasion, New York: Autonomedia, 2002, pp. 58-75.

Rebecca Schneider, 'Nomadmedia: On Critical Art Ensemble', The Drama Review 44.4 (2000): 120-131.

Eugene Thacker, 'A Biotech Hobbyist Manifesto', in Natalie Jeremijenko and Eugene Thacker (eds) Creative Biotechnology: A User’s Manual, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Locus +, 2004, pp. 38-39.

Eugene Thacker, 'Conclusion: Tactical Media and Bioart', in The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005, pp. 305-320.

Anna Munster, 'Why is Bioart Not Terrorism?: Some Critical Nodes in the Networks of Informatice Life', Culture Machine 7 (2005), http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/31/38

Joanna Zylinska, 'Green Bunnies and Speaking Ears: The Ethics of Bioart', in Bioethics in the Age of New Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009, pp. 149-174.

Beatriz da Costa, 'Reaching the Limit: When Art Becomes Science', in Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008, pp. 365-385.

Michael Dieter, 'Issues, Process, AIR: Toward Reticular Politics', Australian Humanities Review 46 (2009), http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-May-2009/dieter.htm

It has been suggested that locative media is the “avant-garde of the ‘society of control’”

This essay focuses on the ideas explored by Tuters and Vernelis (originally devised partially by Broeckmann and Lovink) about the state of locative media technologies, and the true nature of their power in relation to contemporary new media art:

The reluctance of many locative-media practitioners to position their work as political has led some theorists, such as Andreas Broeckmann (director of the Transmediale Festival), to accuse locative media of being the “avant-garde of the ‘society of control’”, referring to Gilles Deleuze’s description of the contemporary regime of power. Broeckmann suggests that, since locative media is fundamentally based on the appropriation of technologies of surveillance and control, its practitioners have a duty to address that fact in their work. Geert Lovink has claimed that the movement instead has turned the media-art conference circuit into a “shopping-driven locative spectacle”. (Broeckmann and Lovink in Tuters and Vernelis, 2006: 360)

According to the above quote, this essay will focus on two presented characteristics embedded in modern mapping and visualization techniques. The firstly mentioned “avant-garde of the ‘society of control’” can be shortly described as all relations of the above to the military and surveillance procedures, and will be critically discussed according to the thoughts of most influencing theoreticians in the field. The second characteristic, as mentioned by Lovink, can be narrowed to all related commercial aspects, and will be judged upon based on a few examples found throughout the Internet.

To begin with, the most important thought about the introduced problem can be found while looking at the work of Bruno Latour. In the beginning of Visualization and Congnition the author mentions both the law enforcement and administration. As he keeps analyzing the “divide between prescientific and scientific culture”, calling it “merely a border”, he states that “It is enforced arbitrarily by police and bureaucrats, but it does not represent any natural boundary” (Latour, 1986: 2).

Other theoreticians such as Russell in his Headmap Manifesto claim even more connections of the recently evolved techniques of mapping to military practice. While discussing it in terms of conquest and control, he claims that “The military has always been actively involved in map making, the Ordinance Survey in the UK is the primary source of civilian mapping data and is the primary governmental mapping organization, until recently it was directly controlled and funded by the military” (Russel, 1999: 10). He also concludes the paragraph with an example from the gulf war: “(…) in former Yugoslavia, the commanders integrated a whole range of spatial mapping technologies, from 3d terrain models to GPS, to enhance their formidable command and control systems” (Russell, 1999:10).

Moreover, Russell while discussing the politics in software, points out two extremely important specifications of mapping: firstly, no guarantee of liberatory use via a direct link to both the military and business corporations, which is followed by the scary idea of social control through information via never-ending ethereal display of ads. As looking at the first aspect, the author claims that “new technology, before it arrives, heralds destruction or liberation depending on whose account you happen to be reading” (Russell, 1999: 15). He follows with explaining that “the internet has been (all at once) an anarchists tool, a military tool, a tool for salesmen and businesses, and in general a communications medium for everyone able to use it for whatever purpose they intend” (Russell, 1999: 15). This sad vision that we have to keep in mind while using mobile aware devices is further explored under the issue of constantly raising corporate domination via social control. His contemplation starts with idea that “LAPD will continiue to win political support for ambitious capital investment programs in new technology” and this will, according to the author, lead to “both criminal and non criminal” being “monitored by both cellular and centralized survaillances” (Russell, 1999: 15). Analogously “If this technology impacts without privacy built-in, all kinds of organisations could not only know your internet browsing habits, but where and when you go (in real time - i.e. where are you now), what you buy and who you see, and from that establish the patterns in your spatial behaviour” (Russell 1999: 16). This domination over technology-mediated experience raises questions of “how do we stop salesmen getting access to our every waking moment irrespective of place and time?” (Russell, 1999: 16).

Brian Holmes presents a very similar perspective on the potential of locative projects while analyzing “swarm cartography” by a Spanish activist group, where in Network Maps, one could state, that he stresses the claims the prime aim of mapping in general. According to the author, this technology’s one side is “(…) a map of power: on a Mercator projection turned upside-down, it shows sea-going migration routes, refugee camps, destination zones, electronic surveillance systems, military installations, internment centers, etc. But the other side traces a complex meshwork of activist groups on both sides of the Straits, showing their interrelations, their meetings, their evolution over time. The aim is not only to represent, but above all to catalyze a future range of possible interventions by autonomous agents (…)” (Holmes, 2007: 5). Even though this example, no matter how noble, the same technology is used by governmental, corporate and law enforcement agencies, filtering even bigger data bases and providing with more accurate outcomes.

Nonetheless, some theoreticians believe that “there are many artists’ projects that map corporate and military power relationships” (A. and M. Kroker, in Diamond, 2010: 224), one should always keep in mind the power carried by mapping technologies, and watch out for hands wielding them. There are some, who try to oppose the dominant corporation, but in many cases they lack resources or get entangles within its concept. Artists’ visualizations in many cases fail to inform, phone applications such as Flook turn out to guide users to expensive shops and restaurants, hardware and software providers gathering intel about the users are all things we should be constantly aware of.

According to the above links of locative media, mapping and visualization technologies in contemporary media art can and should be critically approached as discussed by Tuters and Varnelis, where the unwillingness of most contemporary media practicioneers to strongly bias their work with correct political positioning has led to a situation where the described is driven by both the military and the corporate. This is mainly visible in the analyzed models of contemporary surveillence methods and the ways they are employed, but also by the tracking technology used by the police and military. This breaching of the private sphere may be also found while focusing on the information flow which is directly linked to location aware devices, which one has to keep in mind not to end up in a world covered with mind-molding corporate information.

Bibliography and Readings:

Bruno Latour, 'Visualisation and Cognition: Drawing Things Together', in Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar (eds) Representation in Scientific Practice, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986, pp. 19-68.

Ben Russell, Headmap Manifesto (1999).

Marc Tuters and Kazys Varnelis. ‘Beyond Locative Media: Giving Shape to the Internet of Things’, Leonardo 39.4 (2006): 357-363.

Brian Holmes, 'Network Maps, Energy Diagrams: Structure and Agency in the Global System', Continental Drift (2007), http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/network-maps-energy-diagrams/

Teodor Mitew, 'Repopulating the Map: Why Subjects and Things are Never Alone', Fibreculture 13 (2008), http://thirteen.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-089-repopulating-the-map-why-subjects-and-things-are-never-alone/

Lev Manovich, 'Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-Sublime', in Bryon Hawk et al (eds) Small Tech: The Culture of Digital Tools, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008, pp. 3-9.

Sara Diamond, 'Lenticular Galaxies: The Polyvalent Aesthetics of Data Visualization', in Arthur Kroker and Marilouise Kroker (eds) Code Drift: Essays in Critical Digital Studies, Victoria, CA: New World Perspectives / CTheory Books, 2010, pp. 192-243.

"To study media is often if not always to study the political economy of an open secret"

This essay focuses on a broad topic of new media archives, archival technologies, the concept of database, its aesthetics, hypertext, as well as media archeology. Via analysis of some of the ideas claimed by the most influencing theoreticians in the field, it explores the idea of an ‘open secret’ (Foucault in Krapp 2006: 369) and it’s relationship to the above branches of new media inquiry.

Christiane Paul, in her piece on digital art believes that the term “database aesthetics” is often used to describe the “aesthetic principles applied in imposing the logic of the database to any type of information, filtering data collections, and visualizing data (Paul, 2007: 95). She believes that database aesthetics often becomes a conceptual potential and cultural form — a way of revealing (visual) patterns of knowledge, beliefs, and social behavior (Paul, 2007: 95). She also believes that the aesthetics of the database are a structure itself, although it certainly implies that meaning and the structure of a database is inherently connected to the results produced by the filtering of the data contained in it and the nature of its visualization. (Paul, 2007: 95).

According to the author “(…) visualization and “dynamic mapping” of real-time data streams has become a broad area of inquiry in digital art” (2007: 99). Following this notion, applying the keyword database to visual arts, gaming, music, and culture in general, produces an enormous field of inquiry for both the arts, humanities and mathematics. Finally, the author claims that “database structure in the broadest sense lies at the root of digital media, it is only natural that database aesthetics play a major role in digital art and culture” (2007: 108).

She also believes that the common theme for “database aesthetics” seems to be more focused on the operations happening on the “front end” — the concept of the algorithms, its visual manifestations, and cultural implications — rather than the “back end” of the data container and its structure (Paul, 2007: 97). This is where one can notice that the way in which the author approaches database aesthetics is strongly linked to the artist, his visual expression and the incredibly vast amounts of information carried by the manifested data visualization.

Soon after, Paul notices one of the main points of Krapp’s claim: the potential of data for being infinite or unbound – open. She claims that: “one of the inherent characteristics of digital art is the tension between the mostly linear and hierarchical structure of databases (or the Internet’s territory as a multitude of servers with hierarchical directories) and instructions, on the one hand, and, on the other, the seemingly infinite possibilities for reproducing and reconfiguring the information contained within these structures” (Paul, 2007: 97).

The author focuses further on the idea of aesthetics of a database as intrinsically relational, either on the level of its potential or the actual relationships established by the software element (2007: 98). Shortly explaining this claim, one should keep in mind that the aesthetics of databases are an even more expansive concept than the database field itself. This leads the author to her next claim about “the possibilities of tracing process individual, cultural, communicative—in its various forms” (2007: 98). Following the words of Paul, “the understanding of a database as the underlying principle and structure of any new media object delineates a broad field that includes anything from a network such as the Internet to a particular data set (2007: 98-99), providing the artist or scientist in charge of the set with constantly expanding material for practice as well as a rapidly growing diverse field of analysis.

Christiane Paul believes that database aesthetics became somewhat of a characteristic of our times of rapid information flow, reaching beyond the digital and transcending the traditional archives of the library and museum. Most importantly, she claims “the notion of relational databases as an organizational model seems increasingly to infiltrate culture” (2007: 108), presenting this phenomenon on a global scale.

Relating the concept of relational database and its aesthetics to the idea of “openness” touched by Krapp, I find most important to cite Paul’s grand statement where she claims the notions of data, collection and network as tied together within a fresh term of relational database aesthetics:

Largely brought about by digital technologies, database aesthetics itself has become an important cultural narrative of our time, constituting a shift toward a relational, networked approach to gathering and creating knowledge about cultural specifics.
(Paul, 2007: 108)

Sven Spieker, the second of the analyzed authors, in his critical analysis of the archive presents a far more grave stance towards a similar topic. While focusing on the archive’s content, the author notices that conventionally “the records stored in archives fulfilled a legal function”. Nonetheless, over time archives changed from being “legal depositories” into “institutions of historical research”. According to Spieker the archive shifted into a hybrid institution based in public administration and historical research (Spieker, 2008: xii).

Following, he presents some obstacles related to the topic, previously left behind by Paul. Spieker believes that when an archive has an objective to collect everything, because any object may become useful in the future, the archive itself will drop into chaos, a state of entropy and irrational change. As he notices, “there are cases when feedback does not produce a higher degree of stability but, on contrary, leads to chaos. In such cases the system begins to swing back and forth so violently that it finally collapses. This (…) is a state of entropy that symbolizes, more generally, the archive’s precarious position between order and chaos, between organization and disorder, between the presence of the voice and the muteness of object (Spieker, 2008: xiii). The above quote may be seen as a relation to the openness aspect analyzed by Paul, but this particular thought also carries the logics or what Krapp referred to as “open secret”. Even though entering a state of chaotic consuming of its subjects or any other kind of absorbing vast amounts of information, the previously described openness is followed by the unpredictable; the mentioned chaos of surrounding data – the overload of positions carrying a thought of secrecy.

Developing the topic further while analyzing the work of Bouvard and Pecuchet , Spieker exposes the idea of chaos – multiple archives within archives – a direct relation to the questioned oxymoron of an “open secret”:

There is, then, no position from which data collected by the two characters could be referred to tht is not that of the archive. Whenever such a position – a position outside of their endeavor, outside of the collection they have established – comes within reach, they quickly discover that it is itelf yet part of another archive, another discipline or field of knowledge that has to be studied, inventoried, and mastered. The maddening conundrum faced by Bouvard and Pecuchet is that everything that can be known is already archival. (Bouvard and Pecuchet in Spieker, 2008: 33)

This grand conclusion is followed by a final definition of an archive as a storehouse for knowledge. So called by the author “the modern archive” (as a mirror image to the previously described relational databases) denotes a place outside of itself. “But this beyond-the-archive is not a transcendent outside or an empty space waiting to be filled; it is yet in fact another archive” (Spieker, 2008: 33).

To sum up the thoughts of the most influencing theoreticians covering the fields of archives, technologies, databases, its aesthetics, hypertext, and media archeology; the discussed oxymoron of an “open secret” can be explained either as a single concept or as two distinct characteristics of aesthetics or functioning of hypertext within modern archives or databases. The idea of openness can be seen in the collective gathering of knowledge, tendency for a universal language, and constantly expanding growth and interconnectivity. This is interrelated with the notion of secrecy, a chaotic trap of archives within archives, and a misleading entropy of data flows. The above ideas tied together create a notion where new media studies and media art aesthetics based on the concept of archive in general, are caught in a dangerous trap of constant growth of information and production of meaning.

Bibliography and Readings:

Lev Manovich, ‘The Database as Symbolic Form’, in The Language of New Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 218-243.

Christiane Paul, ‘The Database as System and Cultural Form: Anatomies of Cultural Narratives’, in Victoria Vesna (ed.) Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp. 95-109.

Peter Krapp, ‘Hypertext Avant La Lettre’, in Wendy Chun and Thomas Keenan (eds) New Media/Old Media: A History and Theory Reader, London: Routledge, 2006, pp. 359-373.

Sven Spieker, The Big Archive: Art From Bureaucracy, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008, pp. ix-34.

Geert Lovink, 'Archival Rumblings: Interview with German Media Archaeologist Wolfgang Ernst', Nettime (2003), http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0302/msg00132.html

Siegfried Zielinski, Deep Time of the Media: Toward a Media Archaeology of Seeing and Hearing by Technical Means, trans. Gloria Custance, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006, pp. 1-38.

Garnet Hertz and Jussi Parikka, 'Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an Art Method', Leonardo [forthcoming]

Tactics

Abstract

According to Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter in their article ‘Dawn of Organized Networks’, “it is retrograde that tactical media in a post-Fordist era continue to operate in terms of ephemerality and the logic of ‘tactics’” (Lovink and Rossiter, 2005: 2-3). This essay focuses on the above quote in various ways: It approaches the concept of tactical media and provides a brief description of the entity, as well as explains the rooted aspect of short-terminism and concentrates on its logics. All this is related to the thoughts of most influencing theoreticians and my own experience within this specific field.

Tactical Media characteristics

There have been numoerous studies of ‚wired‘ political engagement in all its diverse forms, network-based activism and political organization (e.g., clicktivism, smart mobs) and hacktivism chief among them. While I do cross paths with some of these studies in my treatment of electronic civil disobedience and other hacktivist tactics, my interests lie in articulating the aesthetic strategies of artist-activists producing persuasive games, information visualizations, and hybrid (we might even say ‚new‘) forms of academic criticism. (Raley, 2009: 5)

According to the above author, as well as other influencing theoreticians, a new form of art expression emerges from the digital culture. Named tactical media, the entity got refined during the last few years of academic study and cyber-artistic activism; finally morphing into an extraordinarily extremist movement underlined with strong ideological background and guerilla tactics.

There is no simple way to describe this radical interest group. According to Raley:

Tactical media are what happens when cheap do it yourself media made possible by the revolution in consumer electronics are exploited by those who are outside of the normal hierarchies of power and knowledge. (…) It is not simply about reappropriating the instrument but also about reengineering semiotic systems and reflecting critically on institutions of power and control. (Lovink in Raley, 2009: 16)

As presented by the author, the concept of tactical media puts the pressure on the creative process via two important aspects: the idea of reapplying a new media item and the deeply rooted thought of opposing the current power structure. The author describes the second aspect more precisely:

In its most expensive articulation, tactical media signifies the intervention and disruption of a dominant semiotic regime, the temporary creation of a situation in which signs, messages, and narratives are set into play and critical thinking becomes possible. Tactical media operates in the field of the symbolic, the site of power in the postindustrial society. (...) [Tactical Media’s] critical object is the substitution of one message for another, the imposition of an alternative set of signs in the place of the dominant. (Raley, 2009: 6-7)

Following the explanation of the term one may think of this artivist media practice as balancing on the edge of extreme power; planting the idea in the minds of people, disappearing from the scene and waiting for it to grow. This fast pace of action working in ‘new’ fields of communication, omitting strategy and approaching the system with a viral attack, as well as the loose structure and ephemerality of bodies and actions create a situation where tactical media may be seen as problematic. As addressed by Lovink and Rossiter:

Tactical media too often assume to reproduce the curious spatio-temporal dynamic and structural logic of the modern state and industrial capital: difference and renewal from the peripheries. But there’s a paradox at work here. Disruptive as their actions may often be, tactical media corroborate the temporal mode of post-Fordist capital: short-termism. It is retrograde that tactical media in a post-Fordist era continue to operate in terms of ephemerality and the logic of “tactics”. Since the punctuated attack model is the dominant condition, tactical media has an affinity with that which it seeks to oppose. This is why tactical media are treated with a kind of benign tolerance. There is a neurotic tendency to disappear. Anything that solidifies is lost in the system. (Lovink and Rossiter, 2005: 2-3)

Ephemerality and Tactics

While analyzing tactical media in general as a search for ephemerality and the logics of tactics, one should first direct his attention to the words of most influencing theoreticians covering the field. Looking back at the examples and characteristics of this specific media field, one may notice that the concepts of short-terminism/ephemerality and the preference of tactics over strategy are strongly linked to each other. As presented by Raley:

Choosing tactics over strategy might seem to suggest a certain temporal structure: the temporary rather than the protracted, the unguarded and unexpected moment rather than the long-range plan. (Raley, 2009: 9)

The author while quoting Martin further explores this idea of invisible, infected substitutes carrying out the unexpected and unrevealed plan:

Incident based parasitic media response takes place in a very specific time and space. There is no need for the parasite to live longer than a few days or even a few seconds. The more complex system is generative parasitic media response. Generative parasites must adapt and grow with their host system. This growth creates an allowance for greater sustainability of backdoors or hijacks. A parasite need not take advantage of its host’s vulnerability to hijack. It is in the best interest of the parasite to live and feed alongside its host. (Martin in Raley, 2009: 9)

Similarly as the described parasite attacks a body, tactical media feed on the minds of its viewers by planting memories and ideas, spreading the ideology hidden within the transmitting medium. Following, the nature of tactical media (in its viral tactics) promotes information exchange between the viewer and performer. According to Holmes “there are two factors that help explain the consistency of self-organized actions” (Holmes, 2008: 527). The first one is called ‘capacity for temporal coordination at a distance’ and is strongly linked with a constant evolution of a shared environment. The second one is called by him the ‘existence of a common horizon’ and is based on a link between the scattered performers. The concept of audience is therefore a constantly changing one:

To concieve of tactical media in terms of performence is to point to a fluidity of its actants, to emphasize its ephemerality, and to shift the weight of emphasis slightly to the audience, which does not simply complete the signifying field of work but records of a memory of the performance. And here we must once again place tactical media in context of Bourriaud’s commentary on contemporary relational art, to stress that the audience is an analytic category, an experimental rather than ontological entity. (…) The audience concept is thus as flexible and ephemeral as the artistic activity itself. (Raley, 2009: 12-13)

While focusing on the question why is tactical media still keeping this specific structure, I find important to recall the Critical Art Ensemble’s comparison to Scythians (CAE, 1994: 14-15). As the authors keep investigating traces of power-flow in transition between nomadic dynamics and sedentary structures, they pinpoint the very true nature of the analyzed entity. They bring a story of an ethnic group of nomadic warriors whose land was too hostile to inhabit. Due to the conditions they kept pillaging the neighboring territories. Due to the lack of value for the land itself the warriors were in constant move – being unable to localize as well as with unstable and shifting leadership. This created “an invisible empire that dominated ‘Asia’ for twenty-seven years, and extended as far south as Egypt” (CAE, 1994: 14).

Driven by the same mechanism as the Scythian empire, tactical media does not want to be centralized. Similarly as the ancient warriors, tactical media projects prefer the ‘hit and run’ tactic as well as the phantom nature, as this may seem to be the only way of avoiding getting eaten by itself or the power they are meant to oppose.

Experience

During the last few months I had a chance to get closer to tactical media than I ever imagined. Recently I saw a movie on YouTube presenting the freshly growing technique of dead-dropping – a hybrid form of art combining digital data exchange and graffiti. Due to the fact I always was interested in street-art, wallpainting, urban activism and I always could declare myself as a fully armed urban-pirate, I watched the movie and got infected with the ideology of free culture, file exchange without Internet connection, and the viral unconventional approach to embedding data within a material urban landscape. The thought of installing USB flash drives within the city walls in places that are not covered by cameras grew in my head rapidly. I prepared my driller, stencil, glue and a stripped pendrive. I infected another person with my plan and went out to the city during night (as I used to with spray-paint). After the flash drive was glued into a building wall we vanished from the scene leaving no trace behind. In this particular example, the ephemerality of dead-drops is not found in the idea that sooner or later the drive will stop working due to the usage of material. As for my experience with this technique, ephemerality could be found the other day when we went to check if there was any additional data on the spot – the hole in the wall was even bigger than we drilled - both the stencil and the pendrive were gone.

Now as I think about this specific experience with a freshly emerged art practice, I am glad the USB vanished from the wall. Even though it is not there, someone who took it off got infected by the described ideas, and hopefully, one more ghost in Warsaw will try to spread the message under the banner of Jolly Roger.

Summary

While answering the problem stated by Lovink and Rossiter, one should bare in mind that the concepts of tactics over strategy and the preference of ephemerality over still structure are closely bound together. This is even more visible while looking at the participation of audience, transmission of ideology, viral structure of planting memories and ideas, artistic expression, and liquid structure. I believe tactical media, even though the common guerilla connotations and ‘borrowings’ of other artistic techniques, is best described by Raley in terms of its never-ending pressure on ephemerality of body and idea – its temporal nature:

Tactical media is performance for which a consumable product is not a primary endgame; it foregrounds the experiential over the physical. It leaves few material traces. As the action comes to an end, what is left is primarily living memory. (Raley, 2009: 13)

Bibliography and Readings:

Rita Raley, ‘Introduction: Tactical Media as Virtuosic Performance’c e , in Tactical Media, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009, pp. 1-30.

Critical Art Ensemble, ‘Nomadic Power and Cultural Resistance’, in The Electronic Disturbance, New York: Autonomedia, 1994, pp. 10-43.

Geert Lovink, ‘An Insider’s Guide to Tactical Media’, in Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002, pp. 267-287.

Michel de Certeau, ‘On the Oppositional Practices of Everyday Life', trans. By Fredric Jameson and Carl Lovitt, Social Text 3 (1980): 3-43.

Brian Holmes, ‘Swarmachine: Activist Media Tomorrow’, Third Text 22.5 (2008): 525-534.

Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter, 'The Dawn of Organized Networks', Fibreculture 5 (2005), http://five.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-029-dawn-of-the-organised-networks/

Lev Manovich, ‘The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life: From Mass Production to Mass Cultural Production?’, Critical Inquiry 35 (Winter 2009): 319-331.

Jacques Rancière, ‘The Paradoxes of Political Art’, in Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, London: Continuum, 2010, pp. 134-151.

World of Tweetcraft?

Introduction

Since the development of Internet, humankind has been exposed to various new ways of communication: Starting from peer to peer chat, shifting into electronic mailing and blogging, enabling of large chat rooms hosting hundreds of people, and finally reforming into social networking sites. In time, each of the forms of social expression drastically evolved, advancing both in quality of use and in quantity of accesses – making those easy to handle and affecting still more and more users.

The emergence of MMO gaming and virtual reality, especially the largest artificial worlds such as Azeroth in World of Warcraft, gave us a new way of socializing with people from around the globe. Twitter is one of the most popular microblogging websites, and as a social networking system it covers most users in its domain, but this aspect is not the only one that links Massively Multiplayer Online games to social networking platforms.

This short entry will aim to answer the question: Why should we think of communication in virtual reality worlds not in terms of chatting, but perceive it rather as a social networking entity? I will do it by analyzing Twitter and World of Warcraft ingame communication mechanism, exposing similarities in structure and social usage.

Structure of Communication

The way in which both communication platforms are built is one of the main important aspects by which this comparison should be analyzed. The following part will therefore cover similarities between the game’s communication mechanism and Twitter by the terms of structure.

One of the most important points when it comes to the structuring of an online conversation is real time chatting within a large ecosystem. Enabled in both examples, this issue provides some points to the discussion on how to perceive WoW chat system. Similarly as in Twitter, a user of World of Warcraft is notoriously exposed to chat channels that include either familiar/nonfamiliar or friend gamers. The user is always placed in the environment in which he is exposed to both spam and chat with various amounts of other users having diverse relations with the player. Following this notion, chatting in various artificial spaces with various people from different social groups will be first and most obvious point linking MMO chat system to social media sites.

The large number of channels in the game carries the same notion as social media portals. It enables the flow of information such as real time reporting on specific events, collective knowledge, feeling of belonging to particular groups, and other multiple social aspects of such a constant information stream. Similarly as described by Scott, Twitter and WoW users tend to rely on real-time information flow, reporting on events as they are happening:

“Smart editors and reporters update blogs and media web sites in seconds. Consumers post videos and photos on the web anytime where the media can see them. Reporters now rely on Twitter for instantaneous leads from citizen journalists – who are often reporting from the scene as the events unfold.” (Scott, 2010: 52)

WoW gamers that update the channels on events that are happening ‘now’ use a very similar tactic. The events may occur either in the virtual world, such as sieges and raids on allied locations, forcing the spam of Local Defense channel, or real-world happenings such as various world news either game related or IRL oriented.

Other important fact that makes these two examples similar is that people are connected to multiple chat rooms at a time. Similarly as for Twitter, WoW chat system reveals to you vast amounts of short text messages, approaching the user from various channels and evoking the necessity of multitasking. The game channels allow you to communicate with people on various levels. Similarly as on Twitter, a user can send a message either from the personal level of whispering to someone, or approach an entire virtual city with his message. The channels vary on the location of the gamer, which can be matched to the tweeting sites having an option of talking to someone within a certain range. Furthermore, some of the channels may be embedded onto the gamers character, such as the officer chat, which narrows down the amount of chatting people to a few particular players.

More similarities can be easily found, such as the creation of Friends lists, or Block List in both of the platforms. Focusing on the first of them, WoW communicating system enables sending messages to Friends no matter if they are in this particular game. This gives the user the power to contact both his in-game and real friends, even if they are playing a different game of the battle.net platform.

Similar tactic can be found while analyzing the social networking example, and can be compared to the availability of Twitter for mobile phones, where the user can still access his friends in cases of being not in front of the computer screen. All this is followed by the release of World of Warcraft Mobile Armory that gives the user certain features such as communicating in the Guildchat channel via a cellphone.

Both the in-game communication system and Twitter allow creating groups to discuss certain topics. This gives the users power of microblogging on topics of choice. In both examples it can be done by creating/joining a channel or by making another account.

Idea and the Social Level

The second aspect that I find most important to analyze while comparing Twitter and the in-game chat mechanism is the idea that lies behind the actual usage of the platforms. In this part of the essay I will try to compare certain patterns of user behavior, focusing on similarities between the two examples. Cheong and Lee, while discussing Twitter, explain a few of the most common concepts of tweeting:

“Comm wrote about the concept of “mission accomplished” tweets to inform followers of accomplishments or milestones achieved (extending the findings extending the findings on online presence), and picture distribution tweets (extending the concept of URL sharing). O’Reilly and Milstein discussed the need of ambient intimacy with friends and family as a result of presence maintenance on Twitter by answering the “what are you doing?” question. Lastly, McFedries and Comm also highlight a current trend of Twitter usage – ‘live tweeting’ – which is to tweet about events live as they unfold, e.g. conferences, trade shows and exhibitions.” (Cheong, Lee in Alhajj, Memon, 2010: 356)

Similarly as in Twitter, the ‚Milestone‘ aspect can be found in WoW chat system: either as an automatic message telling your friends and guild that you reached a certain level. It can also appear automatically when a player scores an achievement as a similar message appears. Additionally users tend to tell about what they achieved to other players. When it comes to online activity sharing of knowledge and URL, the game communication system is also very active in those fields. This is enabled by the linking system, which makes possible sharing of knowledge about the virtual environment in which the gamer is placed. It covers both URL as well as ingame knowledge such as quests, items, achievements etc. The „what are you doing?“ question is probably one of the major spamming problems in World of Warcraft. Both the general and trade channel are filled with messages such as LFM Onyxia25 1Tank 2Healer 3DPS link gs and achi which are telling what a person is about to do and informing other players observing this particular channel what perspectives do they have in case if they want to join in a group. According to Java, Finin, Song and Tseng, all this is extremely similar to what Twitter users tend to write about:

„From our analysis, we find that the main types of user intentions are: daily chatter, conversations, sharing information and reporting news. Furthermore, users play different roles of information source, friends or information seeker in different communities“ (Java, Finin, Song, Tseng; 2007: 2)

But there are also other similarities between Twitter’ers and MMO Gamers. One of the most important point connecting the two groups is the development of shortcuts, both on the interface level, as well as in the language of use. While taking a look at the interface, both platforms have some similarities, such as hitting the ‚r‘ key for replying. The raising simplicity can be also found in the language that users of both platforms tend to develop. Shortcuts such as ‚imo‘ and ‚brb‘ are a pretty common theme of expression.

Another point linking the game communication platform to the social networking system is the idea of having a socio-virtual self. Either by having a specific nickname, or in a wider context, creating your virtual self or a virtual image of a group/brand/team. Basically what differs a social network from a chat is that it is based and built around user profiles. While looking at your profile people may assume what your interests and actions are, and what follows: you are not anonymous. Each user has his name, he stands for various ideals, and he has a voice in a community and is willing to share his thoughts with other within the environment.

The point that links Twitter and WoW is the way in which people tend to gather around various environments. Examples can be found in following someone on Twitter and listening to his messages, or even getting to know that person/institution and having a conversation or debate. All this is described by Comm (2010), where the author gives various uses of Twitter, such as creating specific groups:

“Twitter can help us to keep together a team that’s already been established. It can do that by helping scattered members to understand that they are working alongside each other and that thay are not alone. And it can do it by providing an online clubhouse where thay can get together to keep everyone informed.” (Comm, 2010: 155)

Similar mechanism can be found in World of Warcraft, where users tend to gather around various, more powerful, more experienced players. Examples of such a behavior can be seen best in the forming of guilds, where people gather around powerful players to lead them through various game content. Similarly as in the diversity of people being followed on Twitter, WoW groups can also be based on various interests: player vs. player gaming, arena matches, player vs. environment guilds, trading guilds, leveling guilds, achiever guilds, specific raids etc. The list is practically never-ending and dependent on the size of the game itself, so groups of people that are linked with a common interest are nearly as diverse, as the ones formed in the real world.

Summary

Even though Twitter is meant to work within the real world, and WoW communication programme is supposed to enhance the gameplay in a virtual environment, both of the samples tend to reveal similar ways of construction both in terms of the way they are built, as well as in terms of social communication usage. I believe that while analyzing Virtual Worlds we should refer to chatting systems as to in-built social networking platforms, where real time strategies, large ecosystem and the dynamics of an internet conversation have power over the actions of the user. To what extent are we going to be overloaded with spam, news, messages and requests during our daily activities such as work or play?

References:

Reda Alhajj, Nasrullah Memon (2010); “From Sociology to Computing in Social Networks: Theory, Foundations and Applications”; Springer;

Joel Comm (2010); “Twitter Power 2.0: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time”, John Wiley and Sons;

Akshay Java, Tim Finin, Xiaodan Song, Belle Tseng (2007); “Why we Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities”, University of Maryland;

David Meerman Scott (2010); “Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now”; John Wiley and Sons;