1
00:00:00,399 --> 00:00:09,320
preroll music

2
00:00:09,320 --> 00:00:12,389
Herald: And now, a warm welcome
for Vera Tollmann.

3
00:00:12,389 --> 00:00:14,939
She is from the research center
for proxy politics.

4
00:00:14,939 --> 00:00:18,099
For those ones from Berlin,
as far as I know,

5
00:00:18,099 --> 00:00:20,929
there is still a very exciting exhibition

6
00:00:20,929 --> 00:00:23,449
in the Museum of Photography.

7
00:00:23,449 --> 00:00:27,359
So a warm welcome for Vera Tollmann.

8
00:00:27,359 --> 00:00:28,389
(Vera) Thanks.

9
00:00:28,389 --> 00:00:33,740
*applause*

10
00:00:33,740 --> 00:00:36,030
Thank you very much for inviting me.

11
00:00:36,030 --> 00:00:40,780
First of all, it's just me.
Boaz Levin, my colleague,

12
00:00:40,780 --> 00:00:43,910
who is also the co-author of this text
that I'm going to present today,

13
00:00:43,910 --> 00:00:46,740
didn't make it in the end.

14
00:00:46,740 --> 00:00:52,630
It was also very kind of last minute
invitation, that we received a week ago.

15
00:00:52,630 --> 00:00:57,780
I am going to present a text,
which is entitled:

16
00:00:57,780 --> 00:01:00,970
“The Body of the Web” or
“Proud to relay flesh”

17
00:01:00,970 --> 00:01:07,800
It's a text where we want to
install the proxy as a figure of thought.

18
00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:12,200
And continue an argument,
that Hito Steyerl, the artist,

19
00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,920
started in her text
“Proxy Politics: Signal and Noise”

20
00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:18,640
which you can find online.

21
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:21,610
In this co-authored text
we are going to pick up

22
00:01:21,610 --> 00:01:28,560
her trope of the proxy and test it in
relation to different cases of protest.

23
00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:33,600
So, from our understanding the
notion of proxy politics can be understood

24
00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:39,320
as both a symptom of crisis in current
representational political structures

25
00:01:39,320 --> 00:01:44,100
as well as a counter strategy aiming to
critically engage and challenge

26
00:01:44,100 --> 00:01:47,970
the existing mechanisms of
security and control,

27
00:01:47,970 --> 00:01:51,150
which leads to a series of questions.

28
00:01:51,150 --> 00:01:57,040
What forms of resistance might fit this vague
technopolitical economic condition?

29
00:01:57,040 --> 00:01:59,720
Mass protesters become image makers.

30
00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:04,150
Do resistance movements
need to employ PR consultants?

31
00:02:04,150 --> 00:02:06,760
How does one protest
in public space,

32
00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:09,249
if there is no public space left?

33
00:02:09,249 --> 00:02:10,789
And in what way does this

34
00:02:10,789 --> 00:02:18,859
virtuality and duplicity challenge
both public space and human bodies?

35
00:02:18,859 --> 00:02:21,899
Actually the latter is
the most important

36
00:02:21,899 --> 00:02:28,559
that we are trying to answer
or follow through with this text.

37
00:02:28,559 --> 00:02:31,429
Can you hear me well?
Yeah? Good!

38
00:02:31,429 --> 00:02:35,179
Ah, there’s … yes?

39
00:02:35,179 --> 00:02:38,959
No … okay …
I just thought there is a comment.

40
00:02:38,959 --> 00:02:40,690
Since July 2015,

41
00:02:40,690 --> 00:02:46,010
protesting in public space in Spain
has become an expensive affair.

42
00:02:46,010 --> 00:02:53,060
I don't know, if you remember from media
reports in July, there was a huge protest

43
00:02:53,060 --> 00:02:57,909
where they used the hologram as a medium.

44
00:02:57,909 --> 00:03:01,349
So protesters are now threatened
by hefty fines

45
00:03:01,349 --> 00:03:02,999
and authoritarian reaction to

46
00:03:02,999 --> 00:03:07,430
the anti-austerity protests
three years earlier.

47
00:03:07,430 --> 00:03:11,260
The citizen safety law,
otherwise known as the gag law,

48
00:03:11,260 --> 00:03:16,159
criminalises protests,
that interfere with public infrastructure.

49
00:03:16,159 --> 00:03:22,760
Under the new law which was passed by the
governing People’s Party in December 2014

50
00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:26,980
protesters are liable
to fines up to 600.000 EUR,

51
00:03:26,980 --> 00:03:32,919
for marching in front of congress,
blocking road, or occupying a square.

52
00:03:32,919 --> 00:03:38,789
The law, criticised as a severe attack
on Spaniards’ right of assembly and speech,

53
00:03:38,789 --> 00:03:44,150
is the most recent attempt by the government
to curb a wave of popular protests,

54
00:03:44,150 --> 00:03:47,839
that has swept the country since 2011.

55
00:03:47,839 --> 00:03:56,939
With the unemployment rate exceeding 25%
and one half of Spaniards under 25 jobless,

56
00:03:56,939 --> 00:04:01,559
hundreds of thousands of
outraged citizens took the streets,

57
00:04:01,559 --> 00:04:05,319
occupying squares and universities.

58
00:04:05,319 --> 00:04:11,009
In response to a discredited political class,
tarnished by years of political scandal

59
00:04:11,009 --> 00:04:16,078
and corruption, the Indigñados,
Spanish for “The outraged”,

60
00:04:16,078 --> 00:04:21,529
sought to mobilise citizens in a series of
grassroots demonstrations across the city

61
00:04:21,529 --> 00:04:27,229
by reclaiming their right to public space.

62
00:04:27,229 --> 00:04:30,659
Another flashback to 2011,
where protests using

63
00:04:30,659 --> 00:04:35,360
similar occupation strategies
were taking place across the world:

64
00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:39,759
in Tunesia, Egypt, Greece, Israel,
and the United States.

65
00:04:39,759 --> 00:04:44,889
Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, home to
the headquarters of Israel's largest banks,

66
00:04:44,889 --> 00:04:49,340
became a kilometre-long encampment,
dubbed “the Tent Republic”.

67
00:04:49,340 --> 00:04:58,530
I have some pictures here.

68
00:04:58,530 --> 00:05:02,930
Lasting for almost three months,
this protest called the tent republic.

69
00:05:02,930 --> 00:05:08,150
Syntagma Square in Athens too was filled
with tents and make shift dwelling places

70
00:05:08,150 --> 00:05:11,550
and became a site of
lasting popular assemblies

71
00:05:11,550 --> 00:05:15,180
and daily clashes with the local authorities.

72
00:05:15,180 --> 00:05:19,230
In Zuccotti Park, New York, activists
tapped into the electricity grid

73
00:05:19,230 --> 00:05:21,580
via lantern posts and set up

74
00:05:21,580 --> 00:05:27,050
semi-autonomous mesh networks
for the benefit of the protesters.

75
00:05:27,050 --> 00:05:32,199
Though numerous commentators pointed out
the role played by new technologies such as

76
00:05:32,199 --> 00:05:34,399
social networks and smart phones,

77
00:05:34,399 --> 00:05:38,680
in facilitating the protests it was
the city's square

78
00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:44,509
as old as political thought,
which was the true common denominator.

79
00:05:44,509 --> 00:05:50,229
Our understanding of the rights of free speech
and assembly as well as the concept of

80
00:05:50,229 --> 00:05:57,330
participatory democracy are deeply indebted
to the development of the Greek city state,

81
00:05:57,330 --> 00:06:01,159
the Polis, and later
the Roman public square.

82
00:06:01,159 --> 00:06:04,369
In nearly every protest occurring
around this time,

83
00:06:04,369 --> 00:06:10,669
the spatial dimension of political action
was once again affirmed.

84
00:06:10,669 --> 00:06:16,229
Might this significance be altered by the
emergence of new technologies of control

85
00:06:16,229 --> 00:06:18,960
and new modes of resistance?

86
00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:22,190
As Hannah Arendt pointed out,
the idea of Polis,

87
00:06:22,190 --> 00:06:26,909
which for her denoted the public realm
of a political community,

88
00:06:26,909 --> 00:06:32,809
does not necessarily designate
the physical location of the Greek city state,

89
00:06:32,809 --> 00:06:39,100
rather this form of public realm
as the organisation of the people, quote:

90
00:06:39,100 --> 00:06:43,469
"as it raises out of acting and
speaking together", end of quote.

91
00:06:43,469 --> 00:06:46,489
Thus it's all the more fitting that when

92
00:06:46,489 --> 00:06:50,450
the People’s Party of Spain passed
its draconic law,

93
00:06:50,450 --> 00:06:53,100
demonstrators were quick to

94
00:06:53,100 --> 00:06:57,920
seek an alternative to bodily presence
and physical space.

95
00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:07,849
Their solution was a hologram protest,
the first ever.

96
00:07:07,849 --> 00:07:11,359
The first ever, as media outlets
were quick to point out,

97
00:07:11,359 --> 00:07:18,150
skillfully choreographed and artfully projected
in front of the gates of congress in Madrid.

98
00:07:18,150 --> 00:07:21,440
The Independent, the newspaper reported:

99
00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:27,749
“Spanish activists have staged the world's
first ever virtual political demonstration.”

100
00:07:27,749 --> 00:07:31,949
The Daily Mails headline read:
“The world's first hologram protest.”

101
00:07:31,949 --> 00:07:34,480
And News India asked and answered:

102
00:07:34,480 --> 00:07:41,169
“Ghosts on Spain's street?
No it's world's first virtual protest.”

103
00:07:41,169 --> 00:07:46,079
In an interview, Cristina Flesher Fominaya,
spokeperson for the activist group,

104
00:07:46,079 --> 00:07:49,050
that organised the hologram intervention,

105
00:07:49,050 --> 00:07:53,869
"No somos delito" –
in English "We are not a crime"

106
00:07:53,869 --> 00:07:56,139
explained how it all came together.

107
00:07:56,139 --> 00:08:00,409
A group of creative professionals,
who decided to remain anonymous,

108
00:08:00,409 --> 00:08:06,209
provided the needed technical support
prior to the outdoor projection,

109
00:08:06,209 --> 00:08:09,180
which lasted for the course of an hour.

110
00:08:09,180 --> 00:08:11,749
The campaign was developed online.

111
00:08:11,749 --> 00:08:16,670
A webpage with the slightly lofty title
"Holograms for Freedom",

112
00:08:16,670 --> 00:08:20,789
in which anyone can leave their hologram,
a written message, or a shoutout,

113
00:08:20,789 --> 00:08:23,599
was where it started.

114
00:08:23,599 --> 00:08:29,800
Finally these composite images were screened
across a transparent screen and looped.

115
00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:35,570
By representing people as holograms,
which appear in a particular cool blueish tone

116
00:08:35,570 --> 00:08:39,510
reminiscent of surveillance camera footage,

117
00:08:39,510 --> 00:08:46,520
the protest organiser seem to elude to the
popular depiction of a dystopian totalitarian state.

118
00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:52,070
Spectors, for once quite literally,
haunted the sterile streets

119
00:08:52,070 --> 00:08:56,880
voicing the grievance
of those barred from assembling there

120
00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:02,360
The event had been rehearsed, performed, and
recorded in a nearby city and the equipment

121
00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:09,350
had been installed in Madrid by a
PR company in a clandestine operation.

122
00:09:09,350 --> 00:09:15,210
A tech savvy, [unwittingly] absurd way
to demonstrate without violating the new law.

123
00:09:15,210 --> 00:09:21,350
Instead of public space,
the demonstrators inhabited a new medium.

124
00:09:21,350 --> 00:09:26,180
After all, bodies in public space
pose a problem in contemporary politics.

125
00:09:26,180 --> 00:09:33,400
The natural corporal vulnerability of protesting
was now intensified by the threat

126
00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:38,190
of disproportionate financial penalisation.

127
00:09:38,190 --> 00:09:42,770
This was a proxy protest fit
for the age of proxy politics.

128
00:09:42,770 --> 00:09:46,820
So, what is a proxy then,
like the way we understand it?

129
00:09:46,820 --> 00:09:50,540
A proxy is a decoy or a surrogate.

130
00:09:50,540 --> 00:09:56,910
The word derives from the Latin procurator
(Prokurator), meaning someone responsible

131
00:09:56,910 --> 00:10:01,870
for representing someone else
in a court of law.

132
00:10:01,870 --> 00:10:06,470
These days, the word proxy is often used
to designate a computer server

133
00:10:06,470 --> 00:10:11,180
acting as an intermediary
for request from clients.

134
00:10:11,180 --> 00:10:14,170
These servers afford
indirect connections to a network,

135
00:10:14,170 --> 00:10:17,170
thus providing users with anonymity.

136
00:10:17,170 --> 00:10:23,770
However, proxy servers
are not distinct technology

137
00:10:23,770 --> 00:10:31,020
to hide users but can also be set up
for the opposite task: to monitor traffic.

138
00:10:31,020 --> 00:10:38,000
Proxy politics, as defined by Hito Steyerl,
as the politics of the stand-in and the decoy,

139
00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:45,850
is characterised by fraudulent contracts,
calmarical sovereignties, and void authorities.

140
00:10:45,850 --> 00:10:50,500
The concept of the proxy is emblematic
of our post representational,

141
00:10:50,500 --> 00:10:53,210
post democratic political age.

142
00:10:53,210 --> 00:10:58,060
Disembodyment and invisibility of politics
and its increasing subordination

143
00:10:58,060 --> 00:10:59,740
to economic interests.

144
00:10:59,740 --> 00:11:06,600
So, this political age is one
increasingly populated by bot militias,

145
00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:12,650
puppet states, ghostwriters,
and communication relays.

146
00:11:12,650 --> 00:11:19,580
So now one paragraph on post democracy,
or the post representational,

147
00:11:19,580 --> 00:11:22,660
what it actually means.

148
00:11:22,660 --> 00:11:27,420
There is a book by Colin Crouch.
It's entitled “Post Democracy”.

149
00:11:27,420 --> 00:11:30,000
And there he describes the
current political condition

150
00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:34,830
as one in which power is
increasingly relinquish to business lobbies

151
00:11:34,830 --> 00:11:37,830
and non-governmental organisations.

152
00:11:37,830 --> 00:11:40,170
As a result, he argues, quote:

153
00:11:40,170 --> 00:11:45,000
"There is little hope for an agenda
of strong egalitarian policies

154
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:53,950
for the redistribution of power and wealth
or for the restraint of powerful interests."

155
00:11:53,950 --> 00:11:57,300
As a corollary to the rise of neo-liberalism,

156
00:11:57,300 --> 00:12:01,690
the vision of an autonomous potent
political subject is devastated

157
00:12:01,690 --> 00:12:07,190
by the growing power of privileged elites,
standing at the nexus of transnational

158
00:12:07,190 --> 00:12:13,050
corporations, extra juridical zones,
infrastructural authorities,

159
00:12:13,050 --> 00:12:17,560
non governmental organisations,
and covert rule.

160
00:12:17,560 --> 00:12:23,210
Similarly, Jacques Rancière,
in his book entitled "Post Democracy",

161
00:12:23,210 --> 00:12:29,610
he refers to democratic action,
post-democracy in the government practice,

162
00:12:29,610 --> 00:12:34,140
and conceptual legitimisation
of a democracy after the demos,

163
00:12:34,140 --> 00:12:38,300
a democracy that has eliminated
the appearance, miscount,

164
00:12:38,300 --> 00:12:42,860
and dispute of the energies and interests.

165
00:12:42,860 --> 00:12:46,520
At the heart of this condition
lies an ontology of deception,

166
00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:50,080
where the public realm is conceived
as a series of smoke screens,

167
00:12:50,080 --> 00:12:53,330
false flags, and simulations.

168
00:12:53,330 --> 00:12:59,940
The democratic appearance of the people
is strictly opposed by its simulated reality.

169
00:12:59,940 --> 00:13:05,820
One, which is set up by the conjunction
of media proliferation of whatever is visible

170
00:13:05,820 --> 00:13:12,480
and the endless count of opinions polled
and votes simulated.

171
00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:17,190
With this concept of double government,
policital scientist Michael Glennen

172
00:13:17,190 --> 00:13:23,200
has introduced a vision of US political power,
split between elected government officials,

173
00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:29,430
and a network of institutions constituting a disguised republic.

174
00:13:29,430 --> 00:13:31,820
Glennan traces this phenomenon back to

175
00:13:31,820 --> 00:13:38,870
World War II and president Truman's signing
of the national security act of 1947,

176
00:13:38,870 --> 00:13:44,770
which established, among others,
the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA.

177
00:13:44,770 --> 00:13:50,450
Since then, he argues, the United Staates
has moved toward a double government,

178
00:13:50,450 --> 00:13:52,790
wherein even the president exercises

179
00:13:52,790 --> 00:14:00,030
little substantive over the overall direction
of US national security policy.

180
00:14:00,030 --> 00:14:02,590
Similarly, in Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, and Syria,

181
00:14:02,590 --> 00:14:06,860
political commentators have used
the notion of the deep state

182
00:14:06,860 --> 00:14:12,460
to describe the nexus of police,
intelligence services, politicians,

183
00:14:12,460 --> 00:14:14,840
and organised crime.

184
00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:20,520
Surely, secrecy, or discretion,
to use its diplomatic euphemism,

185
00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:24,080
is as old as politics itself.

186
00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:27,900
But its recent resurgence
under the guise of democratic rule

187
00:14:27,900 --> 00:14:32,810
reveals “arcana imperii”,
the secrets of governance,

188
00:14:32,810 --> 00:14:36,110
to be all but arcane.

189
00:14:36,110 --> 00:14:41,550
So the age of proxy politics is thus one
in which power is displaced

190
00:14:41,550 --> 00:14:45,110
into the hands of
extra juridical unchecked authorities.

191
00:14:45,110 --> 00:14:50,230
Whether by way of covered institutions
that it builds in classified budgets,

192
00:14:50,230 --> 00:14:54,640
organised crimes, and grey markets,
or no less disturbingly

193
00:14:54,640 --> 00:15:00,490
through gross privatisation
and the rise of transnational corporations.

194
00:15:00,490 --> 00:15:04,800
According to Sheldon Wallin,
the paradox of our current regime

195
00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:11,200
is that the more open to the
pressures of organised interests,

196
00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:15,370
the more opaque even
mysterious politics becomes.

197
00:15:15,370 --> 00:15:20,550
Consequently, responsibility becomes
virtually untraceable.

198
00:15:20,550 --> 00:15:25,460
In her “Lying in politics”,
a text published in 1972,

199
00:15:25,460 --> 00:15:30,060
written in response to the revelation
of the Pentagon Papers,

200
00:15:30,060 --> 00:15:35,860
Hannah Arendt lamented the beginning
of an age, in which image making has become

201
00:15:35,860 --> 00:15:39,890
the core value of American global policy.

202
00:15:39,890 --> 00:15:41,610
When image makers govern,

203
00:15:41,610 --> 00:15:48,240
the institutions of representational democracy
are destined to become a mere semblance.

204
00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:53,650
The recent example came as the house of
representatives voted in May 2015

205
00:15:53,650 --> 00:15:57,920
to end bulk surveillance by the NSA.

206
00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:01,750
Rather than bringing
all bulk surveillance to an end,

207
00:16:01,750 --> 00:16:06,530
the vote merely took the government
out of the collection business.

208
00:16:06,530 --> 00:16:13,420
It would not deny its access to the information,
it would be in the hands of the private sector.

209
00:16:13,420 --> 00:16:19,170
Almost certainly telecommunications companies
like ATT, Verizon, and Sprint.

210
00:16:19,170 --> 00:16:24,330
In other words, even after
seemingly successful governmental reform,

211
00:16:24,330 --> 00:16:30,390
it was revealed that the corridors of power
lay elsewhere between politics

212
00:16:30,390 --> 00:16:34,070
and the private sector.

213
00:16:34,070 --> 00:16:35,920
So popular protests in one country

214
00:16:35,920 --> 00:16:39,040
are often convicts for the
expansion of power in another.

215
00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:43,800
In the aftermath of a successful,
non violent-regime change in Belgrade,

216
00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:47,600
activits behind the Otpor movement
relayed their experiences into

217
00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:49,650
tutorials and training camps,

218
00:16:49,650 --> 00:16:55,590
teaching activists in numerous countries
how to ignite and lead a revolution.

219
00:16:55,590 --> 00:16:56,830
What's more,

220
00:16:56,830 --> 00:17:02,740
Srđa Popović and Slobodan Đinović,
both former Otpor activists,

221
00:17:02,740 --> 00:17:09,000
founded CANVAS, which is the Center for
Applied Non-Violent Actions and Strategies.

222
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:13,030
With the aim of educating
pro-democracy activists around the world

223
00:17:13,030 --> 00:17:19,920
in what they regard as the “universal principles
for success in non violent struggle”.

224
00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:22,889
CANVAS has trained activists
in more than 50 countries,

225
00:17:22,889 --> 00:17:29,690
including Iran, Ukraine, Palestine, and recently
Tunisia and Egypt, to name but a few.

226
00:17:29,690 --> 00:17:33,860
By late November 2000, an article in the
New York Times had revealed

227
00:17:33,860 --> 00:17:37,990
that prior to the revolution,
Otpor had received funds

228
00:17:37,990 --> 00:17:47,270
from US government affiliated organisations,
such as the National Endowment for Democracy.

229
00:17:47,270 --> 00:17:52,600
In addition, their ties to the private
global intelligence company “Stratfor”,

230
00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:56,900
also know as the “shadow CIA”,
prompted questions concerning

231
00:17:56,900 --> 00:18:03,350
activists’ involvement in
global American covert foreign policy.

232
00:18:03,350 --> 00:18:07,760
So how might proxy politics be more
than just a condition,

233
00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:13,980
the name of a political regime that thrives
an obscurity, opaqueness, and decoys?

234
00:18:13,980 --> 00:18:19,400
How might it also designate
a corresponding mode of resistance?

235
00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:25,420
Ideally, proxy politics would encompass
myriad modes of withdrawal,

236
00:18:25,420 --> 00:18:28,410
both technical and metaphorical.

237
00:18:28,410 --> 00:18:36,970
Its tools could be a VPN, a holographic
surrogate, a stock image, or a double.

238
00:18:36,970 --> 00:18:44,760
Its outcome is always concealment,
evasion, subterfuge.

239
00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:48,280
The hope is that strategies
such as these

240
00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:51,630
might be effective during our
current interim phase,

241
00:18:51,630 --> 00:18:57,220
the period in which the difference between
real virtuality and virtual reality,

242
00:18:57,220 --> 00:19:02,380
the tangible and the digital is
increasingly difficult to discern.

243
00:19:02,380 --> 00:19:04,040
At the same time, it is becoming

244
00:19:04,040 --> 00:19:08,880
increasingly evident, how severely
controlled both spheres are.

245
00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:12,840
The world wide web, by
way of its architecture and protocols,

246
00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:18,480
and public space by
increasing privatisations.

247
00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:23,690
As Alexander Galloway has observed,
instead of a [politicisation] of time or space,

248
00:19:23,690 --> 00:19:25,910
we are witnessing a rise in the

249
00:19:25,910 --> 00:19:34,350
[politicisation] of absence- and presence-oriented
themes, such as invisibility, opacity, and anonymity.

250
00:19:34,350 --> 00:19:38,450
Or the relationship between
identification and legibility,

251
00:19:38,450 --> 00:19:42,210
or the tactics of
non-existence and disappearance.

252
00:19:42,210 --> 00:19:49,480
New struggles around prevention,
therapeutics of the body, piracy on contagion,

253
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:54,860
information capture and the
making present of data via data mining.

254
00:19:54,860 --> 00:19:59,030
According to Galloway,
recent protest movements' refusal

255
00:19:59,030 --> 00:20:03,670
to make clear demands is
a form of black boxing.

256
00:20:03,670 --> 00:20:09,260
A conscious withdrawal from political
representation and collective bargaining.

257
00:20:09,260 --> 00:20:16,280
The choice is for relations, relays and links,
in the words of Édouard Glissant.

258
00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:20,360
All qualities associated with the proxy.

259
00:20:20,360 --> 00:20:30,020
This politicisation upholds the right to opacity,
also a quote from Glissant.

260
00:20:30,020 --> 00:20:35,720
Rather than reverting once again
to the age-old demand for transparency.

261
00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:40,330
For Glissant, opacity is the force
that drives every community,

262
00:20:40,330 --> 00:20:48,420
the thing that would bring us together forever
and makes us permanently distinctive.

263
00:20:48,420 --> 00:20:53,060
Recently in Paris,

264
00:20:53,060 --> 00:20:58,100
where the state of emergency, declared in
the wake of recent terror attacks,

265
00:20:58,100 --> 00:21:02,680
prevented climate change activists from
assembling in public spaces

266
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:08,550
during the climate change summit,
protesters installed over 10.000 pairs of shoes

267
00:21:08,550 --> 00:21:10,500
at Place de la République,

268
00:21:10,500 --> 00:21:14,900
theatrically standing in place
of the absent bodies.

269
00:21:14,900 --> 00:21:17,720
Images of the square circulated
widely in the media,

270
00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:22,280
emphasising the inherent mediatisation 
of contemporary protest

271
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:28,540
and the need for effective images,
not necessarily real bodies.

272
00:21:28,540 --> 00:21:33,620
Holograms and shoes function as
placeholders, making it all the more possible

273
00:21:33,620 --> 00:21:40,400
for images of absent bodies to
communicate large scale discontent.

274
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:44,620
So in reference to the
wave of protest in 2011,

275
00:21:44,620 --> 00:21:49,260
Judith Butler has suggested that
protest in public space has, quote:

276
00:21:49,260 --> 00:21:53,500
"become politically potent only
when and if we have a visual and audible

277
00:21:53,500 --> 00:21:59,640
version of the scene communicated in
live time, so that the media

278
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:04,950
does not merely report the scene,
but is part of the scene and the action;

279
00:22:04,950 --> 00:22:10,360
indeed, the media is the scene or the space
in its extended and replicable

280
00:22:10,360 --> 00:22:13,870
visual and audible dimension."

281
00:22:13,870 --> 00:22:18,740
In Madrid, the shadow-like figures
in the hologram embodied a double movement,

282
00:22:18,740 --> 00:22:24,080
a process of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation.

283
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:27,410
Slogans and shouts were
crowdsourced online

284
00:22:27,410 --> 00:22:30,980
and synced with holographic images
filmed in a nearby city.

285
00:22:30,980 --> 00:22:37,230
Then, the resulting image was meticulously
reworked to match the

286
00:22:37,230 --> 00:22:41,260
distances and angles of the scene
in front of congress.

287
00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:51,110
So in recent years, there has been a
growing interest in the reterritorialisation

288
00:22:51,110 --> 00:22:52,950
of the internet.

289
00:22:52,950 --> 00:22:59,060
The artist Trevor Paglen and theoreticians,
such as Tung Hui Hu and Keller Easterling,

290
00:22:59,060 --> 00:23:02,730
have drawn attention to the
materiality of the Internet,

291
00:23:02,730 --> 00:23:06,910
data centres, undersea cables,
and routers, which in turn

292
00:23:06,910 --> 00:23:12,330
rely on hydro-electric power stations
and dams for electricity, as well as

293
00:23:12,330 --> 00:23:20,470
railway tracks and telegraph lines
for communication routes.

294
00:23:20,470 --> 00:23:26,620
The web, until recently associated with
immateriality, virtually and spacelessness

295
00:23:26,620 --> 00:23:30,970
as exemplified by the
popularity of the term “cyberspace”,

296
00:23:30,970 --> 00:23:34,520
clearly has a body,
a sprawling physical infrastructure

297
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:38,190
and ever-growing ecological footprint.

298
00:23:38,190 --> 00:23:43,590
The benign-sounding “cloud” is nothing less
than a publicity ploy for a vast campaign

299
00:23:43,590 --> 00:23:49,250
to centralise digital data, and to turn
software and hardware into a black box.

300
00:23:49,250 --> 00:23:56,480
As our computers have become thinner and sleeker,
the weight of the cloud has only grown greater.

301
00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:00,140
So the body politic is now
intertwined with the body of the web,

302
00:24:00,140 --> 00:24:04,380
and the web, the world wide,
is constrained by

303
00:24:04,380 --> 00:24:08,360
national policies and geographical realities.

304
00:24:08,360 --> 00:24:10,070
In October 2015,

305
00:24:10,070 --> 00:24:14,630
citizens in Thailand protested against
their military government's plan to

306
00:24:14,630 --> 00:24:21,410
channel Internet traffic to international
servers through a single network gateway,

307
00:24:21,410 --> 00:24:25,859
with the intention of perfecting
state surveillance and censorship.

308
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:31,080
This political move was dubbed
“The Great Firewall of Thailand”.

309
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:36,510
As in Madrid, the choice of protest space
corresponded with the space,

310
00:24:36,510 --> 00:24:39,320
the new law was tailored for.

311
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:43,420
The military government's websites were
targeted and downed for several hours by

312
00:24:43,420 --> 00:24:45,990
denial of service attacks.

313
00:24:45,990 --> 00:24:50,620
The online action was reported beyond
activist platforms and international media,

314
00:24:50,620 --> 00:24:55,609
however, it lacked images that could
represent the bodies of those who would

315
00:24:55,609 --> 00:24:57,900
literally be barred from leaving Thailand

316
00:24:57,900 --> 00:25:01,500
where the government was
following through on its plans

317
00:25:01,500 --> 00:25:04,370
for greater surveillance and censorship.

318
00:25:04,370 --> 00:25:06,560
In the meantime, the
hacker collective “Anonymous”

319
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:10,640
declared cyberwar on the Thai government.

320
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:14,780
Operation “Single Gateway” targeted
Thai police servers in an effort to

321
00:25:14,780 --> 00:25:20,840
demonstrate the actual vulnerability
of virtual state institutions.

322
00:25:22,250 --> 00:25:28,290
So, how can one possibly grasp the current
relation between the digital and its outside,

323
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:34,820
back when the Internet was still thought of
as synonymous with cyberspace?

324
00:25:34,820 --> 00:25:38,490
Both were clearly defined as separate.

325
00:25:38,490 --> 00:25:40,110
A quote from Wendy Chun:

326
00:25:40,110 --> 00:25:44,020
"Cyberspace as a virtual non-place made
the Internet so much more

327
00:25:44,020 --> 00:25:45,930
than a network of networks:

328
00:25:45,930 --> 00:25:51,570
It became a place in which things happened,
in which users’ actions separated from their bodies,

329
00:25:51,570 --> 00:25:56,520
and in which local standards became
impossible to determine.

330
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:01,040
It thus freed users from their locations."

331
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:05,580
So in the 1990s, the Internet was
imagined to be a perfect frontier

332
00:26:05,580 --> 00:26:07,870
science fiction dream come true,

333
00:26:07,870 --> 00:26:14,010
where users could navigate as powerful agents,
invisible and free of physical constraints.

334
00:26:14,010 --> 00:26:19,750
Yet, as Wendy Chun in her book
“Control and Freedom”, published in 2006,

335
00:26:19,750 --> 00:26:23,280
as she has demonstrated,
the world wide web was designed

336
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:27,020
as a technology of control from the start,

337
00:26:27,020 --> 00:26:34,170
geographically rooted and constantly
monitoring its users via protocols such as TCP/IP.

338
00:26:34,170 --> 00:26:38,630
So in what way does virtuality challenge
our conception of public space

339
00:26:38,630 --> 00:26:42,059
and the mobilisation of human bodies?

340
00:26:42,059 --> 00:26:48,630
As we have seen, the digital and the real
coalesce in ever new forms and devices.

341
00:26:48,630 --> 00:26:51,330
And despite the gaming industry's
recent success in

342
00:26:51,330 --> 00:26:55,290
bringing early visions of virtual reality
to technical perfection,

343
00:26:55,290 --> 00:27:00,900
think of Oculus Rift, or something
like the body snap app,

344
00:27:00,900 --> 00:27:05,510
prior myth of virtual reality are slowly,
but certainly eroding.

345
00:27:05,510 --> 00:27:09,290
The old demarcations between
the human body in physical space

346
00:27:09,290 --> 00:27:15,420
and the so called “immateriality of the
digital sphere” are superseded.

347
00:27:15,420 --> 00:27:21,580
Attempts to conceptualise the
effect of the synthetic face-to-screen situation

348
00:27:21,580 --> 00:27:26,310
either one that this is downfall
of the sovereign subject or

349
00:27:26,310 --> 00:27:32,560
extricate emancipatory potential from
the entanglement of humans and technology.

350
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:38,070
How then might a proxy give way to
different bodily modes and morphologies

351
00:27:38,070 --> 00:27:41,360
a body both present and absent?

352
00:27:41,360 --> 00:27:46,300
Whereas Donna Haraway and Rosi Braidotti
have attempted to destabilise the subject

353
00:27:46,300 --> 00:27:52,070
as it was conceived during the 20th century,
exploring notions as the cyborg

354
00:27:52,070 --> 00:27:55,760
in conceptualising a feminist post humanism.

355
00:27:55,760 --> 00:28:03,820
Might the proxy antagonistically restabilise
a very concrete subject in a synthetic situation,

356
00:28:03,820 --> 00:28:07,890
is a proxy a techno body,
does it have flesh after all?

357
00:28:07,890 --> 00:28:12,470
Might it serve as the object other of the
high tech clean and efficient bodies

358
00:28:12,470 --> 00:28:16,720
endorsed by contemporary culture
as Haraway envisions?

359
00:28:17,060 --> 00:28:21,060
Or rather as a nomadic device
that enables people to become

360
00:28:21,060 --> 00:28:25,030
post human subjects in Braidotti's
line of thought?

361
00:28:25,030 --> 00:28:32,820
Braidotti warns of a fatal nostalgia for
either, humanist past or the cold war cyborg.

362
00:28:32,820 --> 00:28:39,640
And instead proposes that we embraced
vulnerability, take pride in being flesh.

363
00:28:40,350 --> 00:28:44,869
Her post-human theory aims at
shaping and shifting new subjectivities

364
00:28:44,869 --> 00:28:48,989
against modern humanism,
a school of thought she criticises

365
00:28:48,989 --> 00:28:54,170
for its wide male supremacy,
eurocentric normativity, imperial past,

366
00:28:54,450 --> 00:28:58,790
and inhuman consequences.

367
00:28:58,790 --> 00:29:03,279
So proxies permit human bodies
to step out of the line of fire

368
00:29:03,279 --> 00:29:08,540
to evade forensics,
the lack of a human silhouette,

369
00:29:08,540 --> 00:29:13,610
face, or fixed physiognomy
and can be associated with numerous

370
00:29:13,610 --> 00:29:16,460
individuals wherever they are.

371
00:29:16,460 --> 00:29:22,420
Rather than the avatar, a creatively designed
porn in the network gaming environment,

372
00:29:22,420 --> 00:29:27,910
they assume either a transformative
shape and form, or none at all.

373
00:29:27,910 --> 00:29:30,100
Last two sentences. *chuckles*

374
00:29:30,100 --> 00:29:36,640
Proxies are necessary in
contemporary political struggle,

375
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:40,510
they're counter figures to
capitalist self improvement

376
00:29:40,510 --> 00:29:43,980
or a [???] opaque other.

377
00:29:43,980 --> 00:29:48,650
So proxies provide an escape route
from a schizophrenic situation,

378
00:29:48,650 --> 00:29:56,320
which denies or limits bodies to being
mere vessels of biotechnological information.

379
00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:03,740
Proxies offer a path toward a new,
a fleeting relation as sovereign bodies.

380
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:06,900
Thank you.

381
00:30:06,900 --> 00:30:11,199
*applause*

382
00:30:11,919 --> 00:30:14,850
Herald: Thank you very much for the
spontaneity and the talk

383
00:30:14,850 --> 00:30:17,640
and I think there might be time
for questions outside.

384
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:19,840
Thank you.

385
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:30,060
postroll music