Revolution in the Over-Developed World

Greetings from the University of Canberra, where

Professor McKenzie Wark, from the New School NY, is speaking on avant-garde movements and implications of the Occupy Wall Street movement. He had strong competition, with an interesting lecture on 1930s European architecture in the next room. The introduction included a poem on the state of the USA and status of the indigenous embassy outside Parliament House.

Professor Wark started by pointing out that many thinkers of the 20th century were not formal academics, but on the periphery of academia. He then read "Square du Vert-Galant" from his graphic novel "The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International". He then outlined the Street Ethnography of Paris in the 1950s, with the delinquent end of Bohemianism and Unitary urbanism.

Professor Wark discussed the reclaiming of the common cultural property through (or in denial of) plagiarism. In a way this is a precursor of thinking about open access and creative commons. Somehwere in here The Society of the Spectacle (La Société du spectacle) by Guy Debord was mentioned.

Professor Wark then asked what it means to create groups. Those of the 1950s avant-garde movement were volatile, with groups forming, expelling members and reforming (reminds me of the factions of the modern political parties). He suggested that self organismic groups could be a useful part of modern pedagogy, teaching students that not all organizations are designed as a hierarchy.

After some readings from his latest book, Professor Wark came around to the occupy wall street movement. He argued that the modern commodity world was boring. There is an urge to break through the boundaries and simply occupy the public space. The Occupy Watt Street Movement was not making specific demands, simply "occupying" public open space. He pointed out that the open space occupied is not Wall Street and does not disrupt the stock exchange.

Professor Wark related Wall Street to the occupation of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. He also suggested Twitter was not useful for revolution, as it can be used to spread false rumors.

Parts of Zuccotti Park have now been zoned by the occoupiers, with one area for non-denominational worship, and one near the library for information services. Professor Wark commented that many of the people at the protest in the park were at a loss to know what to do, as there was nothing to buy and no one to confront. He suggested that while the current movement has no clear political aim, the movement could be channeled to some aim (and that there may be some establishment reaction to this).

Professor Wark pointed out that most of the trading at "Wall Street" takes place on-line, with traders at distributed workstations. As a result the protest at Wall Street perhaps has the wrong symbolism. It occours to me that there has so far been no move to occupy the on-line manifestations of Wall Street. That would be more likely to result in a confrontation with authorities, as there are much clearer laws making it a crime to interfere with a networked computer system. The ACS is assisting the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) with Cyber Policy consultation. It is an interesting question as to the extent to which legitimate protest can be recognized and allowed for. Simply banning anything which looked like a protest would be very dangerous.

A Theory of Web Enhanced Protest

Professor McKenzie Wark, The New School NY, will speak on the implications of the Occupy Wall Street movement in "From thought as an occupation to some thoughts on the occupation" at the University of Sydney 6pm, 18 October 2011 and at the University of Canberra, 11am 19 October 2011 (Room 2B02).

From thought as an occupation to some thoughts on the occupation

Professor McKenzie Wark, New School for Social Research in New York City

Co-presented with the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney

Twenty years ago McKenzie Wark coined the term 'weird global media event' to describe the then-recent events in Tiananmen Square. While hardly on the same scale, the Occupy Wall Street movement shares with it certain characteristics as an event. In this presentation, Wark sums up the trajectory of his research on media, culture and politics, with particular reference to his new book The Beach Beneath the Street (Verso). The book offers a timely reminder of the relevance in the twenty-first century of the Situationist International. The last of the great aesthetico-political avant gardes, their work foreshadows in many respects the rise of the Occupy Wall St movement, which spread from New York to over sixty American cities, and is itself an echo of the politics of space that took place in Egypt and Tunisia earlier this year.

McKenzie Wark is Professor of Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He is the author of Virtual Geography (1994),A Hacker Manifesto (2004), Gamer Theory (2007) and various other things.

McKenzie Wark Through the Looking Glass

Greetings from CCA-EDUCAUSE Australasia 2011 in Sydney, where McKenzie Wark is speaking on "Alice Through the Looking Glass". He argued that there was no millennial generation of students who are comfortable with technology. Students producing a "newspaper" still want to see it in print.

I tried to find where I first came across McKenzie, so I did a web search and found a Libertus.net entry on the Austrlaian Senate Committee on Internet censorship 1997. This has a link to McKenzie Wark's commentary and my commentary.

McKenzie talked about Betaville, an "open-source multiplayer environment for real cities". The idea being that the public can experience proposed buildings and art installations before they are built (or ones which are completely virtual).

"The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International" is a graphic novel coming out in June 2011.

McKenzie pointed out that the cost of software distorts the education process. If students can't afford the software they learnt on after they graduate, them may have to enrol in a further course just to get access. He therefore argues for open access tools at unviersity. He suggested that courses should teach media students about rival video standards and the benefits of open formats (I teach this in my e-records course). He pointed out that game engines can be sued for creating videos, without using conventional movie making tools.

McKenzie argued that blogs are not a useful way to interact about a large text work. He pointed out that with a blog there will be a large lump of text from the blogger and then comments tacked on at the end. Instead he showed an interface showing the comments as stacked cards, linked to sections in the text. This reminded me of an early Apple Mackintosh application which used a card metaphor.

McKenzie explained that giving books away online helps print sales. He said he did not understand why this works and that publishers are willing to try this as they are so desperate for sales. I suspect that this only works for well know authors.

McKenzie demonstrated an animated online graphic novel. This looked okay, but he commented it can't be found with a web search. I need to show him how this can be easily fixed by following the web accessibility guidelines.

This was a virtuoso performance and worth the whole conference fee to see.

Educause finishes at lunch time today, but theme will continue in Sydney with Ted Nelson, Founding Designer, Project Xanadu is speaking at Unviersity of Sydney at 6pm this evening.