HackOn, at Discord, part one: day 2 at 19:00, part two: day3 at 12:00.
We announced:
Propaganda design workshop (we bring a tee-shirt press) and conversation around the concept of Third-TechnoScape. Tee-shirts, slogans, media invasion tactics, fun with propaganda from the city to social media.
This was propaganda.
Report From Day 2
Under the dome of Discord we gathered a small group interested in activist practices and the link between hackers and activists. We shortly introduced the concept of Third-TechnoScape, as a reference to the Third-Landscape where life abounds in abandoned spaces, which itself refers to the Third-State, the revolutionary party of the French Revolution, not the so-called Third-Space of a fictional home-work straight line from rest to productive work in capitalist society.
The workshop took the form of a free conversation starting from there, where our group could express their perspectives on the situation. @natacha and @how introduced the reasons why :ps: chose to focus on small human groups with active practices in the world as a vector of change, favoring listening and accompanying existing practices with free technologies instead of trying to teach people how to use the “right” technology.
We acknowledged:
- the presence of the enemy, and took a decision to focus on actions we can take rather than placebo solutions involving it
- the asymmetry of means and access to media and reaching out to a large public, eliminating a marxist approach to look for a critical mass
- scale issues in what living groups can achieve with regard to each person’s availability and engagement capacity
- friendly fire among hackers quibbling each other’s technical choice, and widespread disinformation
- the illusion that a technology can scale to all situations
- interesting tools to work with (e.g., radar.hso to coordinate action)
A number of pending issues were convoked:
- free software is not enough: although we like to think we can solve a lot of issues with free software, and technology in general, we don’t control device production. There’s a huge asymmetry here.
- people adopt technologies that is simple to use even if they enter a masochistic relation (e.g., wasting time)
- hacker events are usually not non-techie friendly
- non-techie events are not necessarily attractive to hackers (“full of hippies”
)
How Could Hackers Help ADM?
What kind of media reach-out tactic is doable in the situation of the announced eviction of the place?
- Do hackers have the capacity to mobilize a large network in favor of ADM?
- Using frontal brand-trashing approach might work (stretching politics vs. repression)
- Hacking public displays (see Day 3 workshop)
Conclusions
- Hackers need to mix with non-hackers more in order to help them better (and relate hacking to existing struggles and situations outside of hacking circles more)
- Documentation relays and knowledge bridges are lacking for a whole range of simple technical setups that can be reproduced
- Let’s gather tomorrow at 12:00 to make another step together.
