“Are today’s specialists on Deleuze and Tarde the social engineers of our time?”

Posted on February 12, 2010 by Karl Palmås

Just a brief note: Eurozine has just republished an English translation of Karl Palmås’ recent article about FRA/NSA, panspectric business, and mapping of male slime. (The text was originally published in Swedish magazine Arena.)

Article in FiFF-kommunikation about panspectric surveillance

Posted on April 6, 2009 by Christopher Kullenberg

I the latest issue of FiFF-kommunikation I am applying the concept of panspectric surveillance in order to analyse contemporary conflicts surronding IT. Download the article here. The abstract goes:

Since the 9/11 attacks the world has been challenged with intrusive legislation upon civil liberties and increased use of surveillance technologies. As this development is proceeding rapidly, both from a legal point of view and the technological side, it takes more than parliamentary politics to pursue a democratic and open discussion about these matters. This is where the civil society, or rather the civil societies, need to collaborate. Thus, I will propose that engineers, software-programmers and people in the private sector of Information Technology could co-operate with activists, human-rights organisations and citizen-journalists in a very productive manner. I will also give tangible examples on how such activities have been pursued in Sweden during a controversy on the role of signals intelligence.

On clustered organization and legalist overcodings

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Christopher Kullenberg

[this post is written in English, but mostly links to Swedish pages. Republish freely anywhere]

Marcin de Kaminski coins a very useful concept in the spectrial; clustered organizational dynamics. Also Oscar Swartz elaborates on this theme in Wired, where Fredrik Neij is quoted in relation to the Pirate Bay:

“No,” Neij answered. “Why? If someone believes a new text is needed, he just inputs it. Or if a graphic is ugly, someone makes a better one. The one who wants to do something just does it.”

From a civil sociological point of view this is of course very interesting, not only from a theoretical point of view, but also because of the opportunity of relating theory to practice, as the blogosphere seems to discuss it widely at the moment. Also, it stands in opposition to formal models of social organization, and is harshly incompatible with any legal procedure.

The sticking point becomes; Are bazaar-like modes of organizing the world a form of realized anarchism, or simply the best way to make massive innovations, such as the Pirate Bay, work?

Rick Falkvinge relates this to the work of the Swedish Pirate Party (Piratpartiet). A party necessarily needs some formalized way of dividing roles (leaders, members, candidates, etc.). However, in order to actually get things done, meetings and procedures of authorization seem to be too slow to make politics work.

Pyramidal organization needs to waste a lot of energy in order to simply preserve the roles and identities of the organization itself, hence making the structure autopoetic. The result is very factual; record companies such as EMI are deterritorialized by way of speed (they still make money though), and the spectrial clearly displays that the nation-state based court has to be educated about this thing called the internets (even in terminology).

Clearly the prosecutors are desperately looking for an “ideological” motivation, as they are politicising the trial. This, however, pales in comparison to the ontopolitics of making things work.

Some related Swedish media: Aftonbladet ,DN.

Panspectrocism lightning talk at 25C3

Posted on January 12, 2009 by Karl Palmås

Karl Palmas speaking at the 25th Chaos Communication Congress, Berlin, 29 December 2008.

Lecture on panspectrocism - free download!

Posted on December 11, 2008 by Christopher Kullenberg

On the conference Peace and War - Digital I spoke about panspectric surveillance and resistance. A podcast from my presentation is availible here. 

Part III - Citizen journalism, pirate parties and activists

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Christopher Kullenberg

How can activists and engineers work together?

Part I - Introduction

Part II - Panspectric Surveillance and War

Part III - Citizen journalism, pirate parties and activists

We can make a tripartite division of activities that may challenge the increasing use of legal and technological means of mass surveillance; citizen journalism, pirate parties and activism. They may sometimes resonate in the same direction, towards a clear goal, but their basic properties and relations are essentially heterogenous. Read more

Part II - How can Activists and Engineers Work Together?

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Christopher Kullenberg