Electronic Resistance

We are living in an electronic environment. Invisible networks are filling our landscapes and connecting us to one another. The shift into an electronic culture has caused changes in how we perceive, relate to, critically engage with, and retaliate against the structures of power. The Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), a collective of five artists of various specializations who are exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical theory, argue that:

“the communication and control functions of the elite are now fully cyberspatial, so cyberspace becomes the only effective site of resistance; and that the only potentially effective cyberspace resistance is ‘disturbance’ via the sabotage of information technologies and the potential panic created by the cutoff of information flow” (p.781, The Electronic Disturbance ).

These invisible power structures are difficult to point out, we can no longer point to the oppressor, since the oppressor, or the hegemonic power structure, is dissipated in the electronic environment. The invisibility of our current power structures is problematic when it comes to activism because “the retreat into the invisibility of non-location prevents those caught in the panoptic spatial lock-down from defining a site of resistance”(p.785, The Electronic Disturbance ).

How do we then begin to engage in an electronic resistance, using media to subvert political power systems? The CAE “has argued for direction confrontation, by using financial leverage obtained through blocking privatized information (since this form of information is the gold of late capital)” (Digital Resistance, p.17). They believe that the key to electronic resistance is to totally disrupt command and control in the electronic authority. However, many hackers follow the manifesto that “hackers should promote the free flow of information, and causing anything to disrupt, prevent, or retard that flow is improper” (The Electronic Disturbance, 782). If privatized information is such a vital commodity in the electronic sphere, then allowing free and open access to that information can serve as a form of activism. This form of activism does not engage in the disruption of information flow, but rather promotes the flow of information to all that wish to have access to it. It is vital to question what it means to have ownership of intellectual property, what kind of private information is being held by governments and corporations, and what control can be held over citizens due to this information.

The rest of this site provides pockets of information about some forms of resistance rooted in electronic media that take a stand against privatized information and restricted information flow. There is validity in all forms of resistance, whether it is working from outside the system to disrupt and expose unfair power structures, or working from within the system to create new ways of engaging with our environments.