From:Fhacklablist
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%20Italian_Hacktivism_and_Art [21.08.2004 15:35:24]
From Hacking to Art in Italy
This project, realized for Read_me Software Art
Festival, is a
plagiarism of jodi's map,
http://map.jodi.org, which I
have customized,
showing the different connections beetween art and
hacking in Italy.
The address is:
http://www.ecn.org/aha/map.htm
In Italy there is a large complex of activities which,
since the 1970s,
have set up and grown alternative networks to the
traditional art
system. While these activities may not always be
identified as art,
they could more easily be called practices or
activism.
In Italy, technological, artistic and political
activism is closely
interconnected, in a common network spread over the
whole country
consisting of collectives, activists and artists
alike. Their common
denominator is to give life to an alternative and
independent way of
producing information, cultural consciousness and
communication. In a
specific way, the correct meaning for this network of
practices, is the
word "hacktivism".
"Hacktivism" is the fusion of hacking and activism,
technology and
political action. To quote the web-site
www.thehacktivist.com
"hacktivism is the use of one's collective or
individual ingenuity to
circumvent limitation; Hacktivism is root. It is to
hack clever
solutions to complex problems using computer and
Internet technology;
Hacktivism is a continually evolving and open process;
its tactics and
methodology are not static. In this sense no one owns
hacktivism - it
has no prophet and no canonized literature; Hacktivism
is a rhizomic,
open-source phenomenon".
According this point of view, hackers are not just
those who
destructively intrude into computer systems (and who
should be more
correctly called crackers), but those who share the
good of
knowledge,
who fight for free communication and access for all,
aiming to create
and spread knowledge for the public domain.
In Italy, some activities of the Italian independent
and
countercultural
media movement are strictly releated to the concept of
"hacktivism".
The map I have realized is called
"%20Italian_Hacktivism_and_Art
[21.08.2004 15:35:24]", from the name of the jodi's
map: "%20Network
[4.10.2000 17:04:36]". In this case, the network is
the on of Italian
net culture. I would like to show in wich way the
hacktivism network in
Italy is related to other experiences (from hacking to
art). For this
purpose, what I show through the map are not only the
collectives that
are doing hacktivism in Italy, but also other groups
which have a less
political approach and other groups which are more
based in the
artistic
scene.
The center of the map (group number 1), is the focus
of my project
which
describes the hacktivism area: in this group there are
the hackmeeting
and the hacklabs. If you read the source code (which
itself contains
commentary and explanation of the map), you can better
understand which
are the different categories I have created,
Naturally, this project
shows a subjective point of view, and through the
different links (that
bring you to the different web sites), perhaps you
will be able to
create your own map of Italian hacktivism and art.
My idea is to show how in Italy many activities formed
a network which
link the concept of hacking to the concept of art.
This is even more
true if the the hacktivist practices are the focus of
the
interpretation. Hacking is a form of art. Hacktivists
experiment with
language, code and daily life to create new cultural
and social
conditions. This philosophy is founded on the concept
of hacking and
reaches out to the concept of art.
Like in the map of jodi, several IP addresses are
being shown. In my
personal plagiarism of jodi's map, they show the real
server addresses
of some Italian projects: the map is understandable
through the source
code, and the web's connections are better
understandable through the
IP
addresses. The computer icons and the rabbit icons are
taken from
jodi's
map. According to my interpretation, the computer
icons show the
presence of a server and the rabbits show a strong
connection between
different projects.
If you compare jodi's map to this ones, you can see
that the structure
is really similar, but naturally the links and the
connections are
different. My project is an attempt to show a complex
Italian scene
trough the practices of the people who use code with
an artistic and
social point of view.
I think a map like that of jodi, is really perfect to
describe the
concept of network and could be really usefull if
other people will use
it to show their personal theoretical links.
You can find the map here:
http://www.ecn.org/aha/map.htm
Have fun reading the source code!
Tatiana Bazzichelli
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