tom moody

Peter Ludlow, writing in The Nation:

WikiLeaks is not the one-off creation of a solitary genius; it is the product of decades of collaborative work by people engaged in applying computer hacking to political causes, in particular, to the principle that information-hoarding is evil—and, as Stewart Brand said in 1984, "Information wants to be free." Today there is a broad spectrum of people engaged in this cause, so that were Assange to be eliminated today, WikiLeaks would doubtless continue, and even if WikiLeaks were somehow to be eliminated, new sites would emerge to replace it.

"Doubtless" is a fudge word, possibly because strong differing opinions are out there. Geert Lovink, in his Ten Theses on Wikileaks, says:

Wikileaks is a typical SPO (Single Person Organization). This means that initiative-taking, decision making, and the execution process is largely centralized in the hands of one single person. Much like small and medium-size businesses the founder cannot be voted out and unlike many collectives leadership is not rotating.

Lovink also says this about Wikileaks, reminding us of the type of mentality a certain academic-style essay recently, oddly tried to pair with late-'90s "relational aesthetics":

Wikileaks is also an organization deeply shaped by 1980s hacker culture combined with the political values of techno-libertarianism which emerged in the 1990s. The fact that Wikileaks has been founded, and is still to a large extent run by hard core geeks, forms an essential frame of reference to understand its values and moves. This, unfortunately, comes together with a good dose of the somewhat less savory aspects of hacker culture. Not that idealism, the desire to contribute to making the world a better place, could be denied to Wikileaks, quite on the contrary. But this idealism is paired with a preference for conspiracies, an elitist attitude and a cult of secrecy (never mind condescending manners) which is not conducive to collaboration with like minded people and groups – reduced to the position of simple consumers of Wikileaks outcomes.

post by TheKraken on dump.fm

original version:

techno remix:

Have been looking around for some anti-Facebook resistance posts just to feel there is a purpose to the universe.

Facebook Suicide.
Geert Lovink.

The first one recommends flooding Facebook and clicking on every preference to regain some kind of anonymity. The Lovink post suggests Facebook alternatives.

From a visual essay in the form of a massive logo dump (meant in a good way): "[IMG MGMT] Squiggles, Trees, Ribbons and Spirals: My Collection of Women’s Health, Beauty and Support Group Logos as the Stages of Life in Semi-Particular Order." The collection of over 200 logos from all over the internet offers a double indictment: of lazy, mediocre web design (the two above are kind of good/bad--most are bland pastel shapes done in Adobe Illustrator) as well the problem stated by commenter Chelsed:

i actually worked as a designer for a women’s org and struggled with this. there really isnt a “hip” way to portray women. the bathroom women icon is patronizing; these abstract squiggles and spirals appeal to an audience of women i havent yet encountered; so i just used the general woman symbol–but even then i feel like it’s TOO gender segregated. the problem is men dont HAVE a gender. men’s football is football. men’s soccer is soccer, etc etc– they dont need distinction. what is the symbol for women NOW?

The guest essayist/artist is Shana Moulton, from Paddy Johnson's series [IMG MGMT], an ongoing, annual series of guest posts where gallery artists and/or new media artists present digital image files in a way that reflects on their nature as images, as image files or some interconnection between the two.

kyuubimon GIF (via jip2m3) enlarged, cropped, frames removed

GIF (via MSPasta) enlarged, cropped, frames removed

hat tips to mirrrroring, frankhats, others

Last Sunday a project by The Jogging (blog) that used Memegenerator.net to make "live" internet art went south fairly fast.

The way it worked was, The Jogging (aka Brad Troemel) called for artists to make internet art "memes" that would be projected live at Participant gallery's show about "collectives":

Jogging invites you to contribute to Participant Inc’s Collective Show. You can do so by logging on to http://memegenerator.net/theinternetartist and contributing to an as-of-yet uncreated meme. We have left this meme devoid of text, so it’s up to you as participants to define the semantic substance of it. An automatically reloading page of the latest 3 images posted will be shown at the exhibit. Begin posting whenever you feel like it. The opening will take place this evening from 7-9:00 PM (EST).

One participant posted his name over and over (assuming it was his name). The show became a troll referendum on certain, uh, presences in the "net art community." Thanks to all who wrote funny captions mentioning a particular popular athlete from Down Under.

How could it turn out otherwise? "As-yet-uncreated meme" is a contradiction: surely a meme doesn't occur until it is repeated. Likewise "Meme generator" is an empty premise - like a man saying "I had a baby" after donating a sperm sample. "Forced meme" has become a popular way to describe these ideas-in-search-of-completion. As for the "internet art" part, elevated claims for online expression almost guarantee non-repetition.

Into this cognitive vacuum comes hostility. As someone said on dump.fm: "thats what happens when u crowdsource to a crowd that resents ur art." It started with jokes about Troemel and then everyone else got piled on.