WEBVTT
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preroll music
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Herald: And now, a warm welcome
for Vera Tollmann.
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She is from the research center
for proxy politics.
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For those ones from Berlin,
as far as I know,
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there is still a very exciting exhibition
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in the Museum of Photography.
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So a warm welcome for Vera Tollmann.
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(Vera) Thanks.
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applause
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Thank you very much for inviting me.
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First of all, it's just me.
Boaz Levin, my colleague,
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who is also the co-author of this text
that I'm going to present today,
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didn't make it in the end.
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It was also very kind of last minute
invitation, that we received a week ago.
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I am going to present a text,
which is entitled:
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“The Body of the Web” or
“Proud to relay flesh”
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It's a text where we want to
install the proxy as a figure of thought.
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And continue an argument,
that Hito Steyerl, the artist,
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started in her text
“Proxy Politics: Signal and Noise”
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which you can find online.
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In this co-authored text
we are going to pick up
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her trope of the proxy and test it in
relation to different cases of protest.
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So, from our understanding the
notion of proxy politics can be understood
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as both a symptom of crisis in current
representational political structures
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as well as a counter strategy aiming to
critically engage and challenge
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the existing mechanisms of
security and control,
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which leads to a series of questions.
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What forms of resistance might fit this vague
technopolitical economic condition?
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Mass protesters become image makers.
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Do resistance movements
need to employ PR consultants?
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How does one protest
in public space,
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if there is no public space left?
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And in what way does this
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virtuality and duplicity challenge
both public space and human bodies?
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Actually the latter is
the most important
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that we are trying to answer
or follow through with this text.
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Can you hear me well?
Yeah? Good!
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Ah, there’s … yes?
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No … okay …
I just thought there is a comment.
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Since July 2015,
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protesting in public space in Spain
has become an expensive affair.
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I don't know, if you remember from media
reports in July, there was a huge protest
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where they used the hologram as a medium.
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So protesters are now threatened
by hefty fines
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and authoritarian reaction to
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the anti-austerity protests
three years earlier.
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The citizen safety law,
otherwise known as the gag law,
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criminalises protests,
that interfere with public infrastructure.
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Under the new law which was passed by the
governing People’s Party in December 2014
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protesters are liable
to fines up to 600.000 EUR,
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for marching in front of congress,
blocking road, or occupying a square.
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The law, criticised as a severe attack
on Spaniards’ right of assembly and speech,
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is the most recent attempt by the government
to curb a wave of popular protests,
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that has swept the country since 2011.
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With the unemployment rate exceeding 25%
and one half of Spaniards under 25 jobless,
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hundreds of thousands of
outraged citizens took the streets,
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occupying squares and universities.
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In response to a discredited political class,
tarnished by years of political scandal
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and corruption, the Indigñados,
Spanish for “The outraged”,
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sought to mobilise citizens in a series of
grassroots demonstrations across the city
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by reclaiming their right to public space.
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Another flashback to 2011,
where protests using
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similar occupation strategies
were taking place across the world:
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in Tunesia, Egypt, Greece, Israel,
and the United States.
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Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, home to
the headquarters of Israel's largest banks,
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became a kilometre-long encampment,
dubbed “the Tent Republic”.
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I have some pictures here.
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Lasting for almost three months,
this protest called the tent republic.
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Syntagma Square in Athens too was filled
with tents and make shift dwelling places
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and became a site of
lasting popular assemblies
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and daily clashes with the local authorities.
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In Zuccotti Park, New York, activists
tapped into the electricity grid
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via lantern posts and set up
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semi-autonomous mesh networks
for the benefit of the protesters.
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Though numerous commentators pointed out
the role played by new technologies such as
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social networks and smart phones,
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in facilitating the protests it was
the city's square
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as old as political thought,
which was the true common denominator.
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Our understanding of the rights of free speech
and assembly as well as the concept of
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participatory democracy are deeply indebted
to the development of the Greek city state,
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the Polis, and later
the Roman public square.
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In nearly every protest occurring
around this time,
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the spatial dimension of political action
was once again affirmed.
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Might this significance be altered by the
emergence of new technologies of control
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and new modes of resistance?
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As Hannah Arendt pointed out,
the idea of Polis,
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which for her denoted the public realm
of a political community,
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does not necessarily designate
the physical location of the Greek city state,
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rather this form of public realm
as the organisation of the people, quote:
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"as it raises out of acting and
speaking together", end of quote.
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Thus it's all the more fitting that when
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the People’s Party of Spain passed
its draconic law,
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demonstrators were quick to
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seek an alternative to bodily presence
and physical space.
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Their solution was a hologram protest,
the first ever.
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The first ever, as media outlets
were quick to point out,
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skillfully choreographed and artfully projected
in front of the gates of congress in Madrid.
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The Independent, the newspaper reported:
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“Spanish activists have staged the world's
first ever virtual political demonstration.”
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The Daily Mails headline read:
“The world's first hologram protest.”
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And News India asked and answered:
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“Ghosts on Spain's street?
No it's world's first virtual protest.”
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In an interview, Cristina Flesher Fominaya,
spokeperson for the activist group,
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that organised the hologram intervention,
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"No somos delito" –
in English "We are not a crime"
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explained how it all came together.
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A group of creative professionals,
who decided to remain anonymous,
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provided the needed technical support
prior to the outdoor projection,
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which lasted for the course of an hour.
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The campaign was developed online.
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A webpage with the slightly lofty title
"Holograms for Freedom",
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in which anyone can leave their hologram,
a written message, or a shoutout,
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was where it started.
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Finally these composite images were screened
across a transparent screen and looped.
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By representing people as holograms,
which appear in a particular cool blueish tone
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reminiscent of surveillance camera footage,
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the protest organiser seem to elude to the
popular depiction of a dystopian totalitarian state.
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Spectors, for once quite literally,
haunted the sterile streets
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voicing the grievance
of those barred from assembling there
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The event had been rehearsed, performed, and
recorded in a nearby city and the equipment
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had been installed in Madrid by a
PR company in a clandestine operation.
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A tech savvy, [unwittingly] absurd way
to demonstrate without violating the new law.
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Instead of public space,
the demonstrators inhabited a new medium.
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After all, bodies in public space
pose a problem in contemporary politics.
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The natural corporal vulnerability of protesting
was now intensified by the threat
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of disproportionate financial penalisation.
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This was a proxy protest fit
for the age of proxy politics.
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So, what is a proxy then,
like the way we understand it?
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A proxy is a decoy or a surrogate.
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The word derives from the Latin procurator
(Prokurator), meaning someone responsible
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for representing someone else
in a court of law.
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These days, the word proxy is often used
to designate a computer server
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acting as an intermediary
for request from clients.
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These servers afford
indirect connections to a network,
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thus providing users with anonymity.
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However, proxy servers
are not distinct technology
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to hide users but can also be set up
for the opposite task: to monitor traffic.
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Proxy politics, as defined by Hito Steyerl,
as the politics of the stand-in and the decoy,
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is characterised by fraudulent contracts,
calmarical sovereignties, and void authorities.
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The concept of the proxy is emblematic
of our post representational,
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post democratic political age.
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Disembodyment and invisibility of politics
and its increasing subordination
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to economic interests.
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So, this political age is one
increasingly populated by bot militias,
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puppet states, ghostwriters,
and communication relays.
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So now one paragraph on post democracy,
or the post representational,
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what it actually means.
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There is a book by Colin Crouch.
It's entitled “Post Democracy”.
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And there he describes the
current political condition
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as one in which power is
increasingly relinquish to business lobbies
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and non-governmental organisations.
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As a result, he argues, quote:
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"There is little hope for an agenda
of strong egalitarian policies
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for the redistribution of power and wealth
or for the restraint of powerful interests."
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As a corollary to the rise of neo-liberalism,
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the vision of an autonomous potent
political subject is devastated
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by the growing power of privileged elites,
standing at the nexus of transnational
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corporations, extra juridical zones,
infrastructural authorities,
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non governmental organisations,
and covert rule.
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Similarly, Jacques Rancière,
in his book entitled "Post Democracy",
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he refers to democratic action,
post-democracy in the government practice,
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and conceptual legitimisation
of a democracy after the demos,
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a democracy that has eliminated
the appearance, miscount,
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and dispute of the energies and interests.
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At the heart of this condition
lies an ontology of deception,
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where the public realm is conceived
as a series of smoke screens,
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false flags, and simulations.
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The democratic appearance of the people
is strictly opposed by its simulated reality.
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One, which is set up by the conjunction
of media proliferation of whatever is visible
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and the endless count of opinions polled
and votes simulated.
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With this concept of double government,
policital scientist Michael Glennen
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has introduced a vision of US political power,
split between elected government officials,
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and a network of institutions constituting a disguised republic.
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Glennan traces this phenomenon back to
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World War II and president Truman's signing
of the national security act of 1947,
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which established, among others,
the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA.
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Since then, he argues, the United Staates
has moved toward a double government,
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wherein even the president exercises
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little substantive over the overall direction
of US national security policy.
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Similarly, in Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, and Syria,
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political commentators have used
the notion of the deep state
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to describe the nexus of police,
intelligence services, politicians,
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and organised crime.
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Surely, secrecy, or discretion,
to use its diplomatic euphemism,
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is as old as politics itself.
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But its recent resurgence
under the guise of democratic rule
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reveals “arcana imperii”,
the secrets of governance,
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to be all but arcane.
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So the age of proxy politics is thus one
in which power is displaced
00:14:41.550 --> 00:14:45.110
into the hands of
extra juridical unchecked authorities.
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Whether by way of covered institutions
that it builds in classified budgets,
00:14:50.230 --> 00:14:54.640
organised crimes, and grey markets,
or no less disturbingly
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through gross privatisation
and the rise of transnational corporations.
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According to Sheldon Wallin,
the paradox of our current regime
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is that the more open to the
pressures of organised interests,
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the more opaque even
mysterious politics becomes.
00:15:15.370 --> 00:15:20.550
Consequently, responsibility becomes
virtually untraceable.
00:15:20.550 --> 00:15:25.460
In her “Lying in politics”,
a text published in 1972,
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written in response to the revelation
of the Pentagon Papers,
00:15:30.060 --> 00:15:35.860
Hannah Arendt lamented the beginning
of an age, in which image making has become
00:15:35.860 --> 00:15:39.890
the core value of American global policy.
00:15:39.890 --> 00:15:41.610
When image makers govern,
00:15:41.610 --> 00:15:48.240
the institutions of representational democracy
are destined to become a mere semblance.
00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:53.650
The recent example came as the house of
representatives voted in May 2015
00:15:53.650 --> 00:15:57.920
to end bulk surveillance by the NSA.
00:15:57.920 --> 00:16:01.750
Rather than bringing
all bulk surveillance to an end,
00:16:01.750 --> 00:16:06.530
the vote merely took the government
out of the collection business.
00:16:06.530 --> 00:16:13.420
It would not deny its access to the information,
it would be in the hands of the private sector.
00:16:13.420 --> 00:16:19.170
Almost certainly telecommunications companies
like ATT, Verizon, and Sprint.
00:16:19.170 --> 00:16:24.330
In other words, even after
seemingly successful governmental reform,
00:16:24.330 --> 00:16:30.390
it was revealed that the corridors of power
lay elsewhere between politics
00:16:30.390 --> 00:16:34.070
and the private sector.
00:16:34.070 --> 00:16:35.920
So popular protests in one country
00:16:35.920 --> 00:16:39.040
are often convicts for the
expansion of power in another.
00:16:39.040 --> 00:16:43.800
In the aftermath of a successful,
non violent-regime change in Belgrade,
00:16:43.800 --> 00:16:47.600
activits behind the Otpor movement
relayed their experiences into
00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:49.650
tutorials and training camps,
00:16:49.650 --> 00:16:55.590
teaching activists in numerous countries
how to ignite and lead a revolution.
00:16:55.590 --> 00:16:56.830
What's more,
00:16:56.830 --> 00:17:02.740
Srđa Popović and Slobodan Đinović,
both former Otpor activists,
00:17:02.740 --> 00:17:09.000
founded CANVAS, which is the Center for
Applied Non-Violent Actions and Strategies.
00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:13.030
With the aim of educating
pro-democracy activists around the world
00:17:13.030 --> 00:17:19.920
in what they regard as the “universal principles
for success in non violent struggle”.
00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:22.889
CANVAS has trained activists
in more than 50 countries,
00:17:22.889 --> 00:17:29.690
including Iran, Ukraine, Palestine, and recently
Tunisia and Egypt, to name but a few.
00:17:29.690 --> 00:17:33.860
By late November 2000, an article in the
New York Times had revealed
00:17:33.860 --> 00:17:37.990
that prior to the revolution,
Otpor had received funds
00:17:37.990 --> 00:17:47.270
from US government affiliated organisations,
such as the National Endowment for Democracy.
00:17:47.270 --> 00:17:52.600
In addition, their ties to the private
global intelligence company “Stratfor”,
00:17:52.600 --> 00:17:56.900
also know as the “shadow CIA”,
prompted questions concerning
00:17:56.900 --> 00:18:03.350
activists’ involvement in
global American covert foreign policy.
00:18:03.350 --> 00:18:07.760
So how might proxy politics be more
than just a condition,
00:18:07.760 --> 00:18:13.980
the name of a political regime that thrives
an obscurity, opaqueness, and decoys?
00:18:13.980 --> 00:18:19.400
How might it also designate
a corresponding mode of resistance?
00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:25.420
Ideally, proxy politics would encompass
myriad modes of withdrawal,
00:18:25.420 --> 00:18:28.410
both technical and metaphorical.
00:18:28.410 --> 00:18:36.970
Its tools could be a VPN, a holographic
surrogate, a stock image, or a double.
00:18:36.970 --> 00:18:44.760
Its outcome is always concealment,
evasion, subterfuge.
00:18:44.760 --> 00:18:48.280
The hope is that strategies
such as these
00:18:48.280 --> 00:18:51.630
might be effective during our
current interim phase,
00:18:51.630 --> 00:18:57.220
the period in which the difference between
real virtuality and virtual reality,
00:18:57.220 --> 00:19:02.380
the tangible and the digital is
increasingly difficult to discern.
00:19:02.380 --> 00:19:04.040
At the same time, it is becoming
00:19:04.040 --> 00:19:08.880
increasingly evident, how severely
controlled both spheres are.
00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:12.840
The world wide web, by
way of its architecture and protocols,
00:19:12.840 --> 00:19:18.480
and public space by
increasing privatisations.
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:23.690
As Alexander Galloway has observed,
instead of a [politicisation] of time or space,
00:19:23.690 --> 00:19:25.910
we are witnessing a rise in the
00:19:25.910 --> 00:19:34.350
[politicisation] of absence- and presence-oriented
themes, such as invisibility, opacity, and anonymity.
00:19:34.350 --> 00:19:38.450
Or the relationship between
identification and legibility,
00:19:38.450 --> 00:19:42.210
or the tactics of
non-existence and disappearance.
00:19:42.210 --> 00:19:49.480
New struggles around prevention,
therapeutics of the body, piracy on contagion,
00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:54.860
information capture and the
making present of data via data mining.
00:19:54.860 --> 00:19:59.030
According to Galloway,
recent protest movements' refusal
00:19:59.030 --> 00:20:03.670
to make clear demands is
a form of black boxing.
00:20:03.670 --> 00:20:09.260
A conscious withdrawal from political
representation and collective bargaining.
00:20:09.260 --> 00:20:16.280
The choice is for relations, relays and links,
in the words of Édouard Glissant.
00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:20.360
All qualities associated with the proxy.
00:20:20.360 --> 00:20:30.020
This politicisation upholds the right to opacity,
also a quote from Glissant.
00:20:30.020 --> 00:20:35.720
Rather than reverting once again
to the age-old demand for transparency.
00:20:35.720 --> 00:20:40.330
For Glissant, opacity is the force
that drives every community,
00:20:40.330 --> 00:20:48.420
the thing that would bring us together forever
and makes us permanently distinctive.
00:20:48.420 --> 00:20:53.060
Recently in Paris,
00:20:53.060 --> 00:20:58.100
where the state of emergency, declared in
the wake of recent terror attacks,
00:20:58.100 --> 00:21:02.680
prevented climate change activists from
assembling in public spaces
00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:08.550
during the climate change summit,
protesters installed over 10.000 pairs of shoes
00:21:08.550 --> 00:21:10.500
at Place de la République,
00:21:10.500 --> 00:21:14.900
theatrically standing in place
of the absent bodies.
00:21:14.900 --> 00:21:17.720
Images of the square circulated
widely in the media,
00:21:17.720 --> 00:21:22.280
emphasising the inherent mediatisation
of contemporary protest
00:21:22.280 --> 00:21:28.540
and the need for effective images,
not necessarily real bodies.
00:21:28.540 --> 00:21:33.620
Holograms and shoes function as
placeholders, making it all the more possible
00:21:33.620 --> 00:21:40.400
for images of absent bodies to
communicate large scale discontent.
00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:44.620
So in reference to the
wave of protest in 2011,
00:21:44.620 --> 00:21:49.260
Judith Butler has suggested that
protest in public space has, quote:
00:21:49.260 --> 00:21:53.500
"become politically potent only
when and if we have a visual and audible
00:21:53.500 --> 00:21:59.640
version of the scene communicated in
live time, so that the media
00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:04.950
does not merely report the scene,
but is part of the scene and the action;
00:22:04.950 --> 00:22:10.360
indeed, the media is the scene or the space
in its extended and replicable
00:22:10.360 --> 00:22:13.870
visual and audible dimension."
00:22:13.870 --> 00:22:18.740
In Madrid, the shadow-like figures
in the hologram embodied a double movement,
00:22:18.740 --> 00:22:24.080
a process of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation.
00:22:24.080 --> 00:22:27.410
Slogans and shouts were
crowdsourced online
00:22:27.410 --> 00:22:30.980
and synced with holographic images
filmed in a nearby city.
00:22:30.980 --> 00:22:37.230
Then, the resulting image was meticulously
reworked to match the
00:22:37.230 --> 00:22:41.260
distances and angles of the scene
in front of congress.
00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:51.110
So in recent years, there has been a
growing interest in the reterritorialisation
00:22:51.110 --> 00:22:52.950
of the internet.
00:22:52.950 --> 00:22:59.060
The artist Trevor Paglen and theoreticians,
such as Tung Hui Hu and Keller Easterling,
00:22:59.060 --> 00:23:02.730
have drawn attention to the
materiality of the Internet,
00:23:02.730 --> 00:23:06.910
data centres, undersea cables,
and routers, which in turn
00:23:06.910 --> 00:23:12.330
rely on hydro-electric power stations
and dams for electricity, as well as
00:23:12.330 --> 00:23:20.470
railway tracks and telegraph lines
for communication routes.
00:23:20.470 --> 00:23:26.620
The web, until recently associated with
immateriality, virtually and spacelessness
00:23:26.620 --> 00:23:30.970
as exemplified by the
popularity of the term “cyberspace”,
00:23:30.970 --> 00:23:34.520
clearly has a body,
a sprawling physical infrastructure
00:23:34.520 --> 00:23:38.190
and ever-growing ecological footprint.
00:23:38.190 --> 00:23:43.590
The benign-sounding “cloud” is nothing less
than a publicity ploy for a vast campaign
00:23:43.590 --> 00:23:49.250
to centralise digital data, and to turn
software and hardware into a black box.
00:23:49.250 --> 00:23:56.480
As our computers have become thinner and sleeker,
the weight of the cloud has only grown greater.
00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:00.140
So the body politic is now
intertwined with the body of the web,
00:24:00.140 --> 00:24:04.380
and the web, the world wide,
is constrained by
00:24:04.380 --> 00:24:08.360
national policies and geographical realities.
00:24:08.360 --> 00:24:10.070
In October 2015,
00:24:10.070 --> 00:24:14.630
citizens in Thailand protested against
their military government's plan to
00:24:14.630 --> 00:24:21.410
channel Internet traffic to international
servers through a single network gateway,
00:24:21.410 --> 00:24:25.859
with the intention of perfecting
state surveillance and censorship.
00:24:26.280 --> 00:24:31.080
This political move was dubbed
“The Great Firewall of Thailand”.
00:24:31.080 --> 00:24:36.510
As in Madrid, the choice of protest space
corresponded with the space,
00:24:36.510 --> 00:24:39.320
the new law was tailored for.
00:24:39.320 --> 00:24:43.420
The military government's websites were
targeted and downed for several hours by
00:24:43.420 --> 00:24:45.990
denial of service attacks.
00:24:45.990 --> 00:24:50.620
The online action was reported beyond
activist platforms and international media,
00:24:50.620 --> 00:24:55.609
however, it lacked images that could
represent the bodies of those who would
00:24:55.609 --> 00:24:57.900
literally be barred from leaving Thailand
00:24:57.900 --> 00:25:01.500
where the government was
following through on its plans
00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:04.370
for greater surveillance and censorship.
00:25:04.370 --> 00:25:06.560
In the meantime, the
hacker collective “Anonymous”
00:25:06.560 --> 00:25:10.640
declared cyberwar on the Thai government.
00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:14.780
Operation “Single Gateway” targeted
Thai police servers in an effort to
00:25:14.780 --> 00:25:20.840
demonstrate the actual vulnerability
of virtual state institutions.
00:25:22.250 --> 00:25:28.290
So, how can one possibly grasp the current
relation between the digital and its outside,
00:25:28.800 --> 00:25:34.820
back when the Internet was still thought of
as synonymous with cyberspace?
00:25:34.820 --> 00:25:38.490
Both were clearly defined as separate.
00:25:38.490 --> 00:25:40.110
A quote from Wendy Chun:
00:25:40.110 --> 00:25:44.020
"Cyberspace as a virtual non-place made
the Internet so much more
00:25:44.020 --> 00:25:45.930
than a network of networks:
00:25:45.930 --> 00:25:51.570
It became a place in which things happened,
in which users’ actions separated from their bodies,
00:25:51.570 --> 00:25:56.520
and in which local standards became
impossible to determine.
00:25:56.520 --> 00:26:01.040
It thus freed users from their locations."
00:26:01.040 --> 00:26:05.580
So in the 1990s, the Internet was
imagined to be a perfect frontier
00:26:05.580 --> 00:26:07.870
science fiction dream come true,
00:26:07.870 --> 00:26:14.010
where users could navigate as powerful agents,
invisible and free of physical constraints.
00:26:14.010 --> 00:26:19.750
Yet, as Wendy Chun in her book
“Control and Freedom”, published in 2006,
00:26:19.750 --> 00:26:23.280
as she has demonstrated,
the world wide web was designed
00:26:23.280 --> 00:26:27.020
as a technology of control from the start,
00:26:27.020 --> 00:26:34.170
geographically rooted and constantly
monitoring its users via protocols such as TCP/IP.
00:26:34.170 --> 00:26:38.630
So in what way does virtuality challenge
our conception of public space
00:26:38.630 --> 00:26:42.059
and the mobilisation of human bodies?
00:26:42.059 --> 00:26:48.630
As we have seen, the digital and the real
coalesce in ever new forms and devices.
00:26:48.630 --> 00:26:51.330
And despite the gaming industry's
recent success in
00:26:51.330 --> 00:26:55.290
bringing early visions of virtual reality
to technical perfection,
00:26:55.290 --> 00:27:00.900
think of Oculus Rift, or something
like the body snap app,
00:27:00.900 --> 00:27:05.510
prior myth of virtual reality are slowly,
but certainly eroding.
00:27:05.510 --> 00:27:09.290
The old demarcations between
the human body in physical space
00:27:09.290 --> 00:27:15.420
and the so called “immateriality of the
digital sphere” are superseded.
00:27:15.420 --> 00:27:21.580
Attempts to conceptualise the
effect of the synthetic face-to-screen situation
00:27:21.580 --> 00:27:26.310
either one that this is downfall
of the sovereign subject or
00:27:26.310 --> 00:27:32.560
extricate emancipatory potential from
the entanglement of humans and technology.
00:27:32.680 --> 00:27:38.070
How then might a proxy give way to
different bodily modes and morphologies
00:27:38.070 --> 00:27:41.360
a body both present and absent?
00:27:41.360 --> 00:27:46.300
Whereas Donna Haraway and Rosi Braidotti
have attempted to destabilise the subject
00:27:46.300 --> 00:27:52.070
as it was conceived during the 20th century,
exploring notions as the cyborg
00:27:52.070 --> 00:27:55.760
in conceptualising a feminist post humanism.
00:27:55.760 --> 00:28:03.820
Might the proxy antagonistically restabilise
a very concrete subject in a synthetic situation,
00:28:03.820 --> 00:28:07.890
is a proxy a techno body,
does it have flesh after all?
00:28:07.890 --> 00:28:12.470
Might it serve as the object other of the
high tech clean and efficient bodies
00:28:12.470 --> 00:28:16.720
endorsed by contemporary culture
as Haraway envisions?
00:28:17.060 --> 00:28:21.060
Or rather as a nomadic device
that enables people to become
00:28:21.060 --> 00:28:25.030
post human subjects in Braidotti's
line of thought?
00:28:25.030 --> 00:28:32.820
Braidotti warns of a fatal nostalgia for
either, humanist past or the cold war cyborg.
00:28:32.820 --> 00:28:39.640
And instead proposes that we embraced
vulnerability, take pride in being flesh.
00:28:40.350 --> 00:28:44.869
Her post-human theory aims at
shaping and shifting new subjectivities
00:28:44.869 --> 00:28:48.989
against modern humanism,
a school of thought she criticises
00:28:48.989 --> 00:28:54.170
for its wide male supremacy,
eurocentric normativity, imperial past,
00:28:54.450 --> 00:28:58.790
and inhuman consequences.
00:28:58.790 --> 00:29:03.279
So proxies permit human bodies
to step out of the line of fire
00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:08.540
to evade forensics,
the lack of a human silhouette,
00:29:08.540 --> 00:29:13.610
face, or fixed physiognomy
and can be associated with numerous
00:29:13.610 --> 00:29:16.460
individuals wherever they are.
00:29:16.460 --> 00:29:22.420
Rather than the avatar, a creatively designed
porn in the network gaming environment,
00:29:22.420 --> 00:29:27.910
they assume either a transformative
shape and form, or none at all.
00:29:27.910 --> 00:29:30.100
Last two sentences. chuckles
00:29:30.100 --> 00:29:36.640
Proxies are necessary in
contemporary political struggle,
00:29:36.640 --> 00:29:40.510
they're counter figures to
capitalist self improvement
00:29:40.510 --> 00:29:43.980
or a [???] opaque other.
00:29:43.980 --> 00:29:48.650
So proxies provide an escape route
from a schizophrenic situation,
00:29:48.650 --> 00:29:56.320
which denies or limits bodies to being
mere vessels of biotechnological information.
00:29:56.320 --> 00:30:03.740
Proxies offer a path toward a new,
a fleeting relation as sovereign bodies.
00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:06.900
Thank you.
00:30:06.900 --> 00:30:11.199
applause
00:30:11.919 --> 00:30:14.850
Herald: Thank you very much for the
spontaneity and the talk
00:30:14.850 --> 00:30:17.640
and I think there might be time
for questions outside.
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:19.840
Thank you.
00:30:19.840 --> 00:30:24.520
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00:30:24.520 --> 00:30:31.000
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