Tactical Media and Hacktivism

The inter-net was envisioned to be “technology for the people.”  It would provide a many to many broadcasting system that would have a democratizing effect on global communication.  It did not take long for big business to recognize the power of such a tool and invaded the people’s technology with corporations and e-commerce.  Tactical media has become the people’s reply to the overtaking.  Just as artistic protest takes place in the streets of cities, it also takes place in the streets of cyberspace.  Josh On’s project They Rule dose just that.

Users can run Web searches on CEOs by clicking on their briefcase and accessing information about them, the donations they have made, or their companies.  They can also add to a list of URLs relevant to that company or person and create their own map of connections. complete with annotations, for others to view. (Paul,206)

They Rule, Josh on

Josh On provides us with a way to understand the connections between big business.  As we add more companies to the list we can see that most high power executives share bored seat with multiple businesses and the number of people behind it all is fewer than we think, with more power than we realize. As we realize that most of them also sit on government committees, we see the map paint the picture of their power strangle hold.  Typically most people see the internet as a way for “the man” to snoop on us.  Using tactical media and the web, we snoop on them.  

Hacktivism is another form of tactical media.  Hacktivism is “a method of engagement that uses hacking-the breaking, reformatting, and re-engineering of data and systems-as a creative rather than merely destructive strategy.”(Paul, 207) Breaking computer code to steel bank account numbers is not hacktivism. Think of Hacktivism as a real life legal (sometimes on the edge of legality) sit in protest that takes place in cyberspace.  In protest of human rights abuses by the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas, Mexico; FloodNet was developed and is an excellent example of hacktivism. 

Participants in a FloodNet protest are asked to load the FloodNet web page,  which contains a Java applet that requests target websites every few seconds and is intended to creates a disruption of service by overwhelming the server. (Paul,20

FloodNet

By overwhelming the server the entire communications network for that specific entity shuts down.  In effect, FloodNet is very similar to a real life traffic jam or an isolated virtual power outage.  The out come of this can be temporarily devastating without causing and serious long term damage.  The brilliance behind this, and other forms of hacktivism, is that it remains faceless.  It can appear, strike, then dissapeare leaving no one individual to blame.

Sherry Turkle, Video Games and Computer Holding Power

Sherry Turkel uses video games to begin a discussion of the computer culture as a culture of rules and simulation.

The Myth of “Mindless” Addiction

Constantly we hear the claim that video games are addictive, and most of those who make this claim compare the games to TV.  That is more difficult to do than they may think.  TV is do-nothingness at its core. To watch and to listen is all that is required. Under most circumstances even the act interpretation is removed from the equation.  ”Video games are something that you do.”  They are “interactive computer microwords” and if appropriate analogies are to be drawn that that has to be considered.  Video games are now typically played on the TV however the two are vastly different.  Sherry Turkle stated that most gamers describe their experiences of playing video games to “sports, sex, or meditation.” Comparisons are also made with drugs which dose a great deal of harm to the image of video games and their players.  This comparison can be seen as simply inappropriate.

          There is nothing mindless about mastering a video game.  The games demand skills that are complex and differentiated. Some of them begin to constitute a socialization into the computer culture: you interact with a program, you learn how to learn what it can do, you get used to assimilating large amounts of information about structure and strategy by interacting with a dynamic screen display. And when one game is mastered, there is thinking about how to generalize strategies to other games.  There is learning how to learn.

Turkle dose an excellent job of revealing the skills that a gamer must acquire if they are to become successful.  These skill can be learned and develop with practice overtime.  Just as skills are viewed in every other competitive atmosphere.  As simple as a game may seem,  these skills are in use.  The problem is these skill are nearly invisible to the outside observer.  It is easy to say that the gamer is not doing anything if they can’t see what he is doing.  Many critics are fine with more traditional games like pinball being played hours on end, But an observer who has never seen a pinball game before can see and quickly understand what the player is doing.  

Computational Specificity

In this section Turkle separates the differences between the video game and a more other games such as pinball.  We interact with both but it is done two very different ways.  The pinball games is on more of a “give take” relationship with its player.  Video games are more immersive the games like pinball.  The pinball is used in the games as a middle man between us and the game.  We play with it.  With the video game we find it easier to inject ourself in the game.  We take on the roll and become it.  

Design plays another important role.  With pinball all elements or the game are dependent on real world rules such as gravity, the floor being level, and time being some of them.  But the design of a video game has no limitations,  it exists only as the designers write it.  If the designers do not want gravity in their game,  than there will be no gravity.  It dose not matter what the the existing real world laws work,  the subject madder of the video game dose no exist as anything other than code,  so it is bound by no physical law.  This also keeps the games constant. Not every pinball machine will respond the same,  not every ping-pong table or basket ball court will respond the same way.  Bounded by computational logic, every individual video game will respond the same.  Avid gamers find comfort in this consistency.

Jarish and the Computer within the Game

Jarish, who considered himself short for his age at as early as five years old, began playing games when he was young.  Around the age of twelve pinball gave way to video.  He feels that in spite of is height, his acquired skill in video games and the success in the games that followed has made him a popular kid, a cool kid, at the local arcade. This is due to the ability of the computer within the game to retain the high scores and initials of the players who achieved them.  He is proud that all the kids at the arcade know his initials.  This is a great achievement for video games and one more major leap beyond the more traditional games such as pinball which could not keep a personalized high score record.  In video games the players are nameless, faceless, and undiscriminated.  Age, sex, race, and physical attributes play a major role in most competitive activities, but they hold no bearing in video games.  This becomes a superior outlet for Jarish and other individuals like him who feel that their physical qualities can be a set back.

Jarish recognizes that behind the game there are rules that govern it; just as there are rules in the real world out side the arcade.  However, he said that he feels more in control in the game than in the real world.  Why?  

Jarish, like many other people, feel like he has no control in the outside world.  Because he understands that behind the game is a computer spiting out written code he understands that he can change it.  with a few keystrokes and some basic programing knowledge he can rewrite games to the way he sees fit.  Unlike the real world Jarish feels a since of control when he plays or writes a game.

 

 

 

 

Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media

On Chapter 5:

The Forms

He opens the chapter by drawing a mental image of Razorfish Studios,  which is one of the major success stories of silicon valley in the mid to late 90’s.   Their focus is computer based interactive design, although we are more concerned with the physical layout of the work environment. Typically the Graphical User Interface (GUI) is modeled after an office.  We have a briefcase and a trash can, and so dose the GUI. However, at Razorfish, their work environment is modeled after the “computer culture’s key themes-interactivity, lack of hierarchy,modularity.” The reception area is no longer a strict ”gateway,” and the employees are not organized on a grid based on their discipline. 

The origination of the GUI naturally was modeled after the familiar form of functionality typically found in the organization and productive environment, i.e. the work place, or a cubical.  Things have now flip flopped.  The use of computers, especially the web, has made a lasting impact on our culture, so much that the computer or digital experience is no longer a clone of our preexisting “familiar physical interfaces.”  It is clear that in Razorfish’s organization of their work environment they embrace the computer culture which allows for it to influence the physical instead of the physical forcing itself onto the computer culture.

He moved on to discus the two main types of GUI forms, “a collection of documents and a navigable space.” Traditionally the “collection of documents” method is used to store and retrieve informative files such as a spreadsheet or a word doc that is simply used to inform.  The “navigable space” method is very effective in giving the user a since of immersion such as in a 3D video game or an environment such as Second Life. 

Although, most of us who have experienced both GUI methods can piece together a few examples of when the practices crossed over.  When “information access” and “psychological engagement” show up at the same place and at the same time a new and different term is needed, “info-aesthetics–a theoretical analysis of the aesthetics of information access as well as the creation of new media objects that anesthetize information processing.”