[spectre] Fw: nettime-l-digest V1 #1484
Aliette Guibert
guibertc at criticalsecret.com
Mon Sep 27 23:16:23 CEST 2004
nettime-l-digest Monday, September 27 2004 Volume 01 : Number 1484
Table of Contents:
<nettime> A hacker manifesto 0
<nettime> Point of View Videos (6 samples enclosed) nettime-l
<nettime> a hacker manifesto 001-006
<nettime> Mickey Mao's alliance with China's communists
<nettime> A hacker manifesto 007-020
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:25:47 -0400
From: "McKenzie Wark" <mckenziewark at hotmail.com>
Subject: <nettime> A hacker manifesto 0
fellow nettimers,
writing is always more collaborative than anyone can ever imagine.
Now that A Hacker Manifesto is out in book form, i have to say that
it is really nothing more than my personal filtering of ideas from
nettime. So its only appropriate that it return here. But i don't want
to jam people's mail boxes, so i'll release it in bits. So first, some
info about the book, and then, as a first attempt to repay the gift,
the first chapter, as a separate posting.
thanks
Ken
Ours is once again an age of manifestos. Wark's book
challenges the new regime of property relations with all
the epigrammatic vitality, conceptual innovation, and
revolutionary enthusiasm of the great manifestos.
--Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire
Type hello to the nascent "hacker class," McKenzie Wark's loose
confederation of fixers, file sharers, inventors, shut-ins,
philosophers, programmers, and pirates... The Lang College
professor's ambitious A Hacker Manifesto Googles for signs of
hope in this cyber-global-corporate-brute world of ours, and he
fixes on the hackers, macro-savvy visionaries from all fields who
"hack" the relationships and meanings the rest of us take for
granted. If we hackers-of words, computers, sound, science,
etc.-organize into a working, sociopolitical class, Wark argues,
then the world can be ours.
--Hua Hsu, Village Voice
For more information on the book:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WARHAC.html
A Hacker Manifesto
McKenzie Wark
A double is haunting the world--the double of
abstraction, the virtual reality of information,
programming or poetry, math or music, curves or
colorings upon which the fortunes of states and armies,
companies and communities now depend. The bold aim
of this book is to make manifest the origins, purpose,
and interests of the emerging class responsible for
making this new world--for producing the new
concepts, new perceptions, and new sensations out of
the stuff of raw data.
A Hacker Manifesto deftly defines the fraught territory
between the ever more strident demands by drug and
media companies for protection of their patents and
copyrights and the pervasive popular culture of file
sharing and pirating. This vexed ground, the realm of
so-called "intellectual property," gives rise to a whole
new kind of class conflict, one that pits the creators of
information--the hacker class of researchers and
authors, artists and biologists, chemists and musicians,
philosophers and programmers--against a possessing
class who would monopolize what the hacker produces.
Drawing in equal measure on Guy Debord and Gilles
Deleuze, A Hacker Manifesto offers a systematic
restatement of Marxist thought for the age of
cyberspace and globalization. In the widespread revolt
against commodified information, McKenzie Wark sees
a utopian promise, beyond the property form, and a
new progressive class, the hacker class, who voice a
shared interest in a new information commons.
- -- and the book party:
Harvard University Press & McKenzie Wark invite you
to a party to celebrate McKenzie's new book, A Hacker
Manifesto.
6-8PM Thursday 21st October
The Orozco Room, New School University
66 w 12th st, 7th floor
with DJ Javier Feliu
DRINKS, EATS
BOOKS, BEATS
rsvp: mw35 (at) nyu.edu
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 05:57:09 +0000
From: "nettime's_spam_kr!k!t" <nettime at bbs.thing.net>
Subject: <nettime> Point of View Videos (6 samples enclosed) nettime-l
[orig From: Gonzo George <GonzoGeorge at _____.com>]
Legally nettime-l we can't show you real nudes in this email
so you are going to have to follow the link below
if you are over the age of 18:
http://_________.com/gen_ads/gen_mail.php?grid=209&ape=gt3602
There's also 6 Free Video Clips at the link you can download.
.,-:-,,.
.AMMMHMMHHMII,
.AMMHHMMMHHMMHMMMHHA.
.AMHHMMMMHIMMMMMMHMHHHHHL
.AHHIHHMMHIMMMMMMMHMHHHMHLH:
,LHHIIHHHHIHMHMMMMMHMHHHLHHAIA
;IHHIHHMMH:IHMHMMMMMMHMHIHLIHHIA
.:IHHII:':'..:.:IHMHMMHHHHIHHLIHH.
,I:AVI::.'. .'.'.::IAHMHMHHIALVAIHA
,A:AVI::.'. . . '.:IAVMMHAVLVAIVHHA
.II:AHI:.'. . . ':IAVHMHMAHVHIHHH;
,A:H:HI::. . . .'.:IAIHHAMAIAHIHHLA
.AIH:AHI:'. .'.:IIAHHMMAHHIHHIH,
.AHI:AHI:.:.. .'.VIIHMHMMAIHIHIIA
;HHI:AHI:',,' . .,:AHVVL:IIHIHMMHHHIHIM;
;AII:HIPPT:TPHA. . .::''. . .VIHHMHMAHIHI:HM
;IAIV:HI::.,,,,:'. . .,:III::.:VIHHHMMHHHHIIHB
AIHI:HII:I:VCLTV;:. ..VK CVTPA::IHMHHMHHIHIHV
LHH::HIHI:IA.TL/::. ..'VPTTI:'':IIHHHIHMIIHH'
;IHHIHIHHI:. ' '..:. .. .'. ' .':HIHMHHMMHIH
IHMHIHIHHI:. . .:' . .. . .:IHHMMMMMHIV
IHHMIHIHHI:. ..:'. .. ':. . ..:HIHMMMMMHV'
HHMHIHIHHI::. ..::L..:-;. ':.. . .:IHMMHMMHIP
HHMHIIHIHHI:.:. .. :''. .':.. ..:IHMMMHMHV
HIHMMHHHIHI::. ..,.,, ,,,,,.,:.. .:IHMMHMMM'
IIHHIMHMHIHI::. 'LP:'''''''P/. . .:IHMMMHMV
:IIHHMMHMHHII:.. V:-,,,,-''. . ..:IMHMMMM'
'IHHMMHHMHHHA:.''::;;;::/' . . .::IMHMMMM
;IHMMMHHHMHMHA:...''''' . ..::':VHHMH:
:IHHMMHMHHMMMHA:.. . . ..::'.'.':VHV
;IHIHMHHIHMMHMMMA.. . . ...:::'.'. .. T,
:IIHMMHIHIHMMMMMMAAL::.::.::':. . . ,:.
;HIHHMHHIHHMHMMMMMHMHHIHI::.:.. : . . AHAA.
AHIHMMMHMHMHMMHMMMMHMHII::.:.. . . . ..:HMMH:
AHV':HHMHHMHMMMHMMMMMHHI::.:.. .. . .AOAVA/'-..
:I''VHHMMMHHMMMHMMMMHMHI::... :. . . ..AOOLV/.:.:.:''--...,.
' .AHIHHMHHMMMMHMMMMMMMI:.... :. . .AAVAV/.:. . .: . .''''-.
,:HIIHHMMHMMMMHMMMMHMHI: .:.:: . . .:ANOO/.: .: . . . .. .. ',,
,;P':IHIHHMMHMMMMMMMMHMI:. .:.. . ..AVAOV/' .. .:.. .. . . HA.
,AH::AHIHHHMHMMMMMMMMMMHMA:. .::. ..:.OAVO/. '...::.::.. . . HHA
' :IIHIHHMHMMMMMMMMMHMHH:..:::.:..AOAVO/:.'..::.:..::.. . . HHH
.::IHHIHMMHMMMMMMMMHMMHII.:.::'.:AOOAV/..: .:.:..:. . . . . . . HHH
,IHIHHIHMHMMMMMMMHMMHMV:.::::'. .:AOOVV/:.: .:. ..:.. . . .. . . HHH
:IHHIHHHMHMMMMMMMMMHMV::....:. .:/AOAV/. .:.:.. .. . . . . .. . IHHH
:IHHHMHMMMHMMMMMMHMHHI::...:...:/AOAV/..: :. :. .. . . .. . AHHH
AIHMHHMMHMMMMMMMMHMHHII:.. .:. ./OAOV/:..:... . . . . .. .. HHHH
HIHIHHMMHHMHMMHMHHHIHI::.. . ./AO/A//...:.. . . . . .. . HHHH
HHV'AHHHMHMHHHHIOIHIIII::..../AO/AV/ ..:.:.. . . . .. . ..::VH
V'.:HHHMMHMMHHIHOIHHIII:::../VOAVV/.'...:. . . . . . ..::.::III
.:HHHHMMHMHHMHOOIIII:I:::./OAHVO/: ..:.. . . . . . .. .::::III
:HHIHHMHMMMHHIOOIHII:::..OO//AO/.. .::.. . . . . . .. .::::IIIH
HIHIIHHMMHMMMHHIOOIII:::.OOO/AO//..:..:.. . .. . . .. ..I:::IIIHH
IHHIIHHMHMMHHIHI:OOO;:.OO/A:AO//. ...:.. .. . . . .:IAI::IIIH
HHIHHHVVHMMHHIHI:::OOOO:O/.AO//. .. .... . .. . . ..:IIAI::IIH
VHHHV'.:HMHHIHHI::.:..A/A:AVO/:. . ... .. . . . . ..:.:IIHAHIIII
VHV VHHAIVHI:.'...A/A:AOOV/... . .. . . . . ..:.::IIHMHAIIH
'VHIHA'.'O:O:W:.:A/AO/.. .. . . . . .. .:..::IHMMHIII
:V:I:I:.:... ..:A:IOO:.:.. . . . .... . ..:.:::IHHHHHII
O:I:I::. .. . /A/:IOO::. .. . ..:::::. . ..:.::::IHMHHVII
O.I:.. . . .:AV.:.IO:::.. . ..:II::.. .. .:.::::IHMHHIII
O :I:. . . /A:...IOO::.. .. . . ..::.:. . ...:.::::IHMHVIII
O.:I. .AW'. ..IOI::.:.. .. . .:.:. . .:..:::::IMHHIIII
,::.I. ..AHW' ...IOII:I:.:.. .. .. . . . . ..:..:.:::IMMVIIII
B:I:.:I.AHW' . :IOII:I::.:... ... .. .. . . ....::.:.:::IMMHIIII
'VHHHHV:' . . :V.OO:I::.:... .:.. ... .. .. ..:::. .::.::AHMVIIII
V:. .V. . . :V:HOO:II::.::.:. :.... ..:...::I::. ...::::MHMIIIII
':.. .V.. . .:V:.A:OO:III::::::.::..:.:.:I.::::.. . .. .:::MMHIIIII
':....V:OOO;V..:W:OO::IIII:II::II:I:I:II:::::. .. ..:::MHHAIIII
'::.:..'.'. ..W:.OO.:II:::II::IIII:II:::.:.. . ...:::MMHMIIII
':I:.:.:....W:..OO:::II:::::I::::::..:.. .'. ..:::MMHVIIII
':III::.:.W/::OO:::.:I::I:::::.:.:.. .. .. .. ...:::MMHIIIII
OO'WII:::W:I:OO::..:I:::II::..:... .. ... . ..:::AMMMIIIHH
'O O'WI:W:II:OO.:..:.:II:::I:..:... ... . . ..::MHVIIIHHH
OO'OOOV::II:OO:.. .::.:II::.:.. .. .. . . .:..::AMMIIIIHHH
O II:.:::OO.:.. ...:.:II:.:.. ... . . . ...:.::HMMIIIIHHH
OO A:::.:OO:... . ...:.:I.::.:... . . . . ..:::AMHMIIIIHHH
OO AM::.::OO::... . ...:.:.:.:.:..:.. . .. ...::IMMMMIIIIHHH
O HHM.:.:OO::.. . . .:.:.:.:.:..:... .. . ..:AMHMMMIHIIHHI
OOMM..:.:OO.:... . ...:...:..:.:..:.. .. . ..:HHMMHMIHIIHHI
AMOOV..:.:OO:.:... . . ..:..:..:.::..:.. .. .:AHHMMMMIHIIHHH
AMMOO.:.:::OO::.:.:.. . .:..:....::..:.::..:.:IHHMMMHVIHHIHHH
AMMMOO.::.:OO::..:..:.. ...:..:..:..:..:.::.:::IHHMMMHAIHHIHHH
AMMMM'OO::::OO:::..:... .. ...:..:..:..:.:.:::.:IHHMMMHIHHHIHHH
MMMV..:OO::OO:::.::.::.... .:...:...:.:..::.::::IHHMMMHIHHHIHHH
AMM'... .:OOO::::.:::..:..:. ..:. .:..:..:.::::.:::HHMMMIHHIIHHH
AMM' . .. .:::::.:::.::...:.:. . .. . ..::.::.:::::IIVMMVIHHIIHHH
MM' . . .:.:.::I:.:.:.:::..::.. . .. ..::..::.::I:IIIVMIIHHIIHHH
AM' .. . . .::.:.::I:.::.:.:::..:. . . . ..:..::.:I:IIIIVIHHHIIHHH
AM' . ... . ..:::.::..::.:::..:..:.. . .. .:.:.:I:IIIHIIVIHHHIIHHH
AMV .. .. . .. .::.::..:.::::.:.:. .. . ... ..:I:IIIHIH:IIHHHHIIHII
AMV . .. ... . .:. :.:...:I:..:.:.:.. . .:. ..:.:.:IIHIHH:AHHHHIIHII
AMM' .. .. ... ..:::... . NV::..:..:.. .... ..:.:::IIHIHHI:HHHHIIIIII
AMMV . ... .:.. ..: ..:. . . . .:..:. . .. .:..::::IIIHIHHI:VHHHHIIIIH
AMMM' .. .:. .... .::..:.. . .. . .. .. . ..:...:::I:IHIHHHH:I:VHHHHIII
MMMV . ... ... ...::. ...:.. ... . ...:..:..:.:.::I:I:IHIHHVII::HHHHHHIH
MMM'. ... .:..:..:...:... ..:. .. ...:.....::.:.:::I:IHHIHHIII:AHHHHHI'H
MMV .. ....:.::.:..:... ... ..:.... .. ..:.. .:...I:IIHIHHVIII.HHHHHH' H
MMI ... ..::..::...::... . .:..:...:... ...:..:..:::IIIHIHIIIV.HHHHHH AH
MM'.. ... ..::.:::..::...:.:.:. .:...:..:..:.:..::::I:IIHIIII..HHHHHH HH
MM.. .....:.::..::.:.:.::..::.::..::... ...:.::.:::I:IIHIHIII..HHHHHVAHH
MV...: ..:.:::.::.:.:::..:.:.:::.:.:.:.:..:..:::.:::IIHIHIHHV.AHIHHH'AHH
MI.. ..:..::::I:.:.::.:::.:::.:.:::.:.:.:.:.:I:.:::I:IIHIHVHI.HHHHHH.HHH
MI.. . ..:..:::I::.::..:.:.:.:.:.::.::..:.:II::.::::I:IHIIVH:.HHHHHH.HIH
MI... . ..:..:::II::I::.:.I.:.:.:.::.::II:I:.:.:.::I:IIIIVHV:AHHHHHHA IH
MA.:..:. ..:. .::IIHHHI:I.IHI.::I:I:I:I::.::. ..:..::I:IIHHIIHHHHHHHH IH
http://_________.com/gen_ads/gen_mail.php?grid=209&ape=gt3602
Feel free to forward this onto a friend!
Don't want any more?
http://_________.com/nomoremail/
gvm1tmrsg1hyy0o®vnrggvm gvm1tmrsg1hyy0o®vnrggvm gvm1tmrsg1hyy0o®vnrggvm
________ Traffic. ___ College St. Suite 20. Toronto ON, ______ Canada.
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:26:17 -0400
From: "McKenzie Wark" <mckenziewark at hotmail.com>
Subject: <nettime> a hacker manifesto 001-006
- -- from the uncorrected page proofs.
For the book, see:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WARHAC.html
A Hacker Manifesto 001-006
McKenzie Wark
001. A double spooks the world, the
double of abstraction. The fortunes
of states and armies, companies and
communities depend on it. All
contending classes, be they ruling
or ruled, revere it -- yet fear it.
Ours is a world that ventures
blindly into the new with its
fingers crossed.
002. All classes fear this relentless
abstraction of the world, on which
their fortunes yet depend. All
classes but one: the hacker class.
We are the hackers of abstraction.
We produce new concepts, new
perceptions, new sensations, hacked
out of raw data. Whatever code we
hack, be it programming language,
poetic language, math or music,
curves or colourings, we are the
abstracters of new worlds. Whether
we come to represent ourselves as
researchers or authors, artists or
biologists, chemists or musicians,
philosophers or programmers, each of
these subjectivities is but a
fragment of a class still becoming,
bit by bit, aware of itself as such.
003. And yet we don't quite know who
we are. That is why this text seeks
to make manifest our origins, our
purpose and our interests. A hacker
manifesto: Not the only manifesto,
as it is in the nature of the hacker
to differ from others, to differ
even from oneself, over time. To
hack is to differ. A hacker
manifesto cannot claim to represent
what refuses representation.
004. Hackers create the
possibility of new things entering
the world. Not always great things,
or even good things, but new things.
In art, in science, in philosophy
and culture, in any production of
knowledge where data can be
gathered, where information can be
extracted from it, and where in that
information new possibilities for
the world produced, there are
hackers hacking the new out of the
old. Hackers create these new
worlds, yet we do not possess them.
That which we create is mortgaged to
others, and to the interests of
others, to states and corporations
who monopolise the means for making
worlds we alone discover. We do not
own what we produce -- it owns us.
005. Hackers use their knowledge and
their wits to maintain their
autonomy. Some take the money and
run. (But one cannot run far.) We
must live with our compromises.
(Some refuse to compromise.) We live
as best we can. All too often those
of us who take one of these paths
resent those who take the other. One
lot resents the prosperity it lacks,
the other resents the liberty it
lacks to hack away at the world
freely. What eludes the hacker class
is a more abstract expression of our
interests as a class, and of how
this interest may meet those of
others in the world.
006. Hackers are not joiners. We're
not often willing to submerge our
singularity in any collective. What
the times call for is a collective
hack that realises a class interest
based on an alignment of differences
rather than a coercive unity.
Hackers are a class, but an abstract
class. A class that makes
abstractions, and a class made
abstract. To abstract hackers as a
class is to abstract the very
concept of class itself. The slogan
of the hacker class is not the
workers of the world united, but the
workings of the world untied.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WARHAC.html
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 09:06:11 -0400
From: Felix Stalder <felix at openflows.org>
Subject: <nettime> Mickey Mao's alliance with China's communists
[And this after Nikita Krutchev could not go to Disneyland in 1959.
http://www.snopes.com/disney/parks/nikita.htm]
By MARINA JIMC9NEZ
With a report from Reuters
http://xrl.us/c7cr
UPDATED AT 3:06 AM EDT Friday, Sep 24, 2004
Forty-five years ago, during the Maoist era, Chinese people were ordered
to kill rats as part of a hygiene campaign.
This week, Walt Disney Co. announced it had entered into a partnership
with China's Communist Youth League to promote Mi Laoshu, or Mickey Mouse,
whose Chinese name means rat as well as mouse.
The California-based entertainment giant is organizing "outreach programs"
through the Youth Palaces run by the Communist Youth League to teach
Chines e children about the travails of Daffy Duck and Goofy, how to draw
Mickey, an d the many other delights of North American consumerism.
The marketing ploy, in advance of the opening of a $1.8-billion (U.S.)
Hong Kong Disneyland, is a telling sign of the extent to which China has
become more corporate than Communist.
Mi Laoshu is already known in some Chinese cities, his image on countless
knockoff T-shirts, computers, schoolbags and toys in flagrant violation of
copyright laws.
He is even used as a mascot for an English-language school for children.
But few Chinese associate Mickey with Walt Disney, which will make it
difficult to market Hong Kong Disneyland, slated to open in late 2005 or
early 2006, observes Mike Szonyi, a professor at the University of
Toronto.
Walt Disney's partnership with China's Youth Palaces "is one part of an
overall brand-building process," Jay Rasulo, president of Walt Disney
Parks and Resorts, told Reuters in Hong Kong yesterday.
Such grassroots brand-building was not needed when Disney opened its Paris
and Tokyo theme parks, said Mr. Rasulo, who was in town to view the mock
turret being put in place atop Sleeping Beauty's castle at Hong Kong
Disneyland on rural Lantau Island.
"We've had to be innovative. If you look at Europe and Tokyo, the brand
was far better understood," he said.
In July, Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters visited 500 children at
t wo youth centres in Guangzhou, in southern China, and the company plans
other
interactive games and storytelling visits. Other efforts to build the
Disne y brand include storytelling in public libraries, tours of shopping
malls by the famous mouse and other characters such as Goofy and Donald
Duck, and programs on Hong Kong television, which can be viewed in
southern China.
"In one session, we teach [children] to draw Mickey Mouse; they're all
amazed by that," said Irene Chan, vice-president for public affairs at
Hong Kong Disneyland. "We hope we can expand to more cities and
provinces."
Prof. Szonyi notes there is a disconnect between Mi Laoshu and Walt Disney:
"The Chinese have had Mickey Mouse for decades, but he's a copyright
rip-of f version," he said. "The company has to repair this."
Some 70 million young Chinese are members of the Communist Youth League.
Disney expects that about one-third of visitors to its Hong Kong park, the
second in Asia after Tokyo, will come from mainland China.
Some in Hong Kong worry the park will suffer from competition if Disney
bui lds another park in Shanghai, which the company says it will not do
before 2010.
"There's very little doubt in my mind that there will be a market further
north in China for a second Disneyland," Mr. Rasulo said.
- ----+-------+---------+---
http://felix.openflows.org
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 20:40:04 -0400
From: "McKenzie Wark" <mckenziewark at hotmail.com>
Subject: <nettime> A hacker manifesto 007-020
Schmoo writes:
>in ref to the Hua Hsu quote:
>if the World was 'ours', what would we do with it?
That's one of two questions that the book tries to
answer. The other question is: why is this world
not ours? What is the new ruling class that seeks
to concentrate the onwership and control of all
information in its hands? In the extract below, i
try to develop a way of grappling with this
- --k
A Hacker Manifesto
McKenzie Wark
Harvard University Press
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WARHAC.html
007. Everywhere abstraction reigns,
abstraction made concrete.
Everywhere abstraction's straight
lines and pure curves order matters
along complex but efficient
vectors. But where education
teaches what one may produce with
an abstraction, the knowledge most
useful for the hacker class is of
how abstractions are themselves
produced. Deleuze: "Abstractions
explain nothing, they themselves
have to be explained."
008. Abstraction may be
discovered or produced, may be
material or immaterial, but
abstraction is what every hack
produces and affirms. To abstract
is to construct a plane upon which
otherwise different and unrelated
matters may be brought into many
possible relations. To abstract is
to express the virtuality of
nature, to make known some instance
of its manifold possibilities, to
actualise a relation out of
infinite relationality, to manifest
the manifold.
009. History is the production
of abstraction and the abstraction
of production. What makes life
differ in one age after the next is
the application of new modes of
abstraction to the task of wresting
freedom from necessity. History is
the virtual made actual, one hack
after another. History is the
cumulative qualitative
differentiation of nature as it is
hacked.
010. Out of the abstraction of
nature comes its productivity, and
the production of a surplus over
and above the necessities of
survival. Out of this expanding
surplus over necessity comes an
expanding capacity to hack, again
and again, producing further
abstractions, further productivity,
further release from necessity --
at least in potential. But in
actuality the hacking of nature,
the production of surplus, does not
make us free. Again and again, a
ruling class arises that controls
the surplus over bare necessity and
enforces new necessities on those
peoples who produce this very means
of escaping necessity.
011. What makes our times different
is the appearance of the horizon of
possibility of a new world, long
imagined -- a world free from
necessity. The production of
abstraction has reached the
threshold where it can break the
shackles holding hacking fast to
outdated and regressive class
interests, once and for all.
Debord: "The world already
possesses the dream of a time whose
consciousness it must now possess
in order to actually live it."
012. Invention is the mother of
necessity. While all states depend
on abstraction for the production
of their wealth and power, the
ruling class of any given state has
an uneasy relationship to the
production of abstraction in new
forms. The ruling class seeks
always to control innovation and
turn it to its own ends, depriving
the hacker of control of her or his
creation, and thereby denying the
world as a whole the right to
manage its own development.
013. The production of new
abstraction always takes place
among those set apart by the act of
hacking. We others who have hacked
new worlds out of old, in the
process become not merely strangers
apart but a class apart. While we
recognise our distinctive existence
as a group, as programmers or
artists or writers or scientists or
musicians, we rarely see these ways
of representing ourselves as mere
fragments of a class experience.
Geeks and freaks become what they
are negatively, through the
exclusion by others. Together we
form a class, a class as yet to
hack itself into existence as
itself -- and for itself.
014. It is through the abstract that
the virtual is identified, produced
and released. The virtual is not
just the potential latent in
matter, it is the potential of
potential. To hack is to produce or
apply the abstract to information
and express the possibility of new
worlds, beyond necessity.
015. All abstractions are
abstractions of nature.
Abstractions release the potential
of the material world. And yet
abstraction relies on the material
world's most curious quality --
information. Information can exist
independently of a given material
form, but cannot exist without any
material form. It is at once
material and immaterial. The hack
depends on the material qualities
of nature, and yet discovers
something independent of a given
material form. It is at once
material and immaterial. It
discovers the immaterial virtuality
of the material, its qualities of
information.
016. Abstraction is always an
abstraction of nature, a process
that creates nature's double, a
second nature, a collective space
of human existence in which
collective life dwells among its
own products and comes to take the
environment it produces to be
natural.
017. Land is the detachment of a
resource from nature, an aspect of
the productive potential of nature
rendered abstract, in the form of
property. Capital is the detachment
of a resource from land, an aspect
of the productive potential of land
rendered abstract, in the form of
property. Information is the
detachment of a resource from
capital already detached from land.
It is the double of a double. It is
a further process of abstraction
beyond capital, but one that yet
again produces its separate
existence in the form of property.
018. Just as the development of land
as a productive resource creates
the historical advances for its
abstraction in the form of capital,
so too does the development of
capital provide the historical
advances for the further
abstraction of information, in the
form of 'intellectual property'. In
traditional societies, land,
capital and information were bound
to particular social or regional
powers by customary or hereditary
ties. What abstraction hacked out
of the old feudal carcass was a
liberation of these resources based
on a more productive form of
property, a universal right to
private property. This universal
abstract form encompassed first
land, then capital, now
information.
019. While the abstraction of
property unleashed productive
resources, it did so at the same
time as it instituted class
division. Private property
established a pastoralist class
that owns the land, and a farmer
class dispossessed of it. Out of
the people the abstraction of
private property expelled from its
traditional communal right to land,
it created a dispossessed class who
became the working class, as they
were set to work by a rising class
of owners of the material means of
manufacturing, the capitalist
class. This working class became
the first class to seriously
entertain the notion of
overthrowing class rule, but failed
in this historic task. The property
form was not yet abstract enough to
release the virtuality of
classlessness that is latent in the
productive energies of abstraction
itself.
020. It is always the hack that
creates a new abstraction. With the
emergence of a hacker class, the
rate at which new abstractions are
produced accelerates. The
recognition of intellectual
property as a form of property --
itself an abstraction, a legal hack
- -- creates a class of intellectual
property creators. But this class
still labours for the benefit of
another class, to whose interests
its own interests are subordinated.
As the abstraction of private
property was extended to
information, it produced the hacker
class as a class, as a class able
to make of its innovations in
abstraction a form of property.
Unlike farmers and workers, hackers
have not -- yet -- been
dispossessed of their property
rights entirely, but still must
sell their capacity for abstraction
to a class that owns the means of
production, the vectoralist class -
- - the emergent ruling class of our
time.
021. The vectoralist class wages an
intensive struggle to dispossess
hackers of their intellectual
property. Patents and copyrights
all end up in the hands, not of
their creators, but of a
vectoralist class that owns the
means of realising the value of
these abstractions. The vectoralist
class struggles to monopolise
abstraction. For the vectoral
class, "politics is about absolute
control over intellectual property
by means of war-like strategies of
communication, control, and
command." Hackers find themselves
dispossessed both individually, and
as a class.
022. As the vectoralist class
consolidates its monopoly on the
means of realising the value of
intellectual property, it confronts
the hacker class more and more as a
class antagonist. Hackers come to
struggle against the usurious
charges the vectoralists extort for
access to the information that
hackers collectively produce, but
that vectoralists come to own.
Hackers come to struggle against
the particular forms in which
abstraction is commodified and
turned into the private property of
the vectoralist class. Hackers come
as a class to recognise their class
interest is best expressed through
the struggle to free the production
of abstraction, not just from the
particular fetters of this or that
form of property, but to abstract
the form of property itself.
023. The time is past due when
hackers must come together with
workers and farmers -- with all of
the producing classes of the world
- -- to liberate productive and
inventive resources from the myth
of scarcity. The time is past due
for new forms of association to be
created that can steer the world
away from its destruction through
commodified exploitation. The
greatest hacks of our time may turn
out to be forms of organising free
collective expression, so that from
this time on, abstraction serves
the people, rather than the people
serving the ruling class.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WARHAC.html
- ----- End forwarded message -----
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net
------------------------------
End of nettime-l-digest V1 #1484
********************************
More information about the SPECTRE
mailing list