[rohrpost] %20Italian_Hacktivism_and_Art [21.08.2004 15:35:24]

[Tatiana Bazzichelli]

%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
-- 



           8/|\   ---------------------------------------------
          /c_"/   Tatiana Bazzichelli
         //_/\__  web site: http://www.strano.net/bazzichelli
           /  \             http://www.ecn.org/aha
          /____\  e-mail: t.bazzichelli at mclink.it
            /|    ---------------------------------------------