Mute

"The analogy between the picket on the highway with piquetero TV is almost perfect, because it cannot be understood as simply an interruption of radio frequencies. It is not only about trying to take control of the space that is usually dominated by the communication monopolies but also creating a new relation between the common person and mass media." [more]

"This is the moment in which the language system sponsored by the sovereign is at its most violent; it seeks to efface historical memory by denying its constitutive or legislative relation with non-linguistic social energies; it casts itself and its unilateral doctrine as absolute and natural. For Deleuze, this is a psychomechanical production of social reality more than an organicity of community torn asunder by human alienation and the incursion of reactionary ideologies, false consciousnesses, and agents. Not that the latter do not exist, or are unimportant components in this matter, but that this technology of power cannot be simply seen as a neutral arrangement of tools misused by evil ones." [more]

"Openness – as an organising principle and political ideology – has become an article of faith across networked social movements. From its role as a central tenet of free and open source software production to its current popularity within activist circles, the concept of openness is attracting enthusiastic adherence. Here, as part of our series on the politics of alternative media structures, JJ King takes a less credulous view of what lies beneath the dream of organisational horizontality." [more]