I Come From The Third-TechnoScape

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” :wink:)

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.

Starting point for part 2…

Identify Online Resources

Third-TechnoScape

3TS unfolds from the alliance and agency of free spaces and free technologies.
It stems from human relations and conversation and not from an online platform (or media.) The latter can be used as support tool for historical and documentation purposes, but requires curating and reading time!

Shrinking space for the broader activist community

Previous Session at HackOn

What does it mean that space for action is under threat? Individual and collective activism is facing a global pushback from states, corporations and the Far Right.

Join this workshop with Niels Jongerius (Transnational Institute), Tessa Kersten (Transnational Institute) and Isabelle Geuskens (Women Peacemakers Program) and explore what is ‘shrinking space’ and how we can counter it.

What is meant by ‘shrinking space’? You are invited to a critical reflection on whose space is shrinking, to explore the ways that space is shrinking, and to find out how important it is that progressive forces pro-actively counter the continuous threat to civil society’s space for action.

Focus will be mostly on the shrinking space that is being experienced ‘at home’ in Europe.

Edit: Niels was in Hamburg last week and experienced first hand the problems activists faced. Were you there too? Come and share.

More to read and listen can be found at Rethinking Shrinking Spaces.

https://youtu.be/Ip4vAril47Q

Rethinking shrinking space | Transnational Institute

Take ground, keep ground over time, defend like-minded zones.

Use-case

Festival in Bure, France

Upcoming festival to bring attention to plan to bury nuclear waste in the commune’s territory.

BURE NOT BURY

Defending ADM

  • Media Attention vs. Concrete Action
  • Bringing historical reference to people who don’t know what you would expect they do. This goes through direct communication with people.

An Activist Event Perspective

Hackers come in, setup network, go away, network fails, tech is gone.

Less technically-oriented activists won’t have the scope of technical possibilities (e.g., setting up a media and sharing HD videos and documentation to remix and share) that hackers can bring.

Link with investigative journalism.

##ADM
##we love it

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