%20Italian_Hacktivism_and_Art [21.08.2004 15:35:24]
From Hacking to Art in Italy

%20Italian_Hacktivism_and_Art [21.08.2004 15:35:24]
This project, realized for Read_me Software Art Festival, is a plagiarism of jodi's map, map.jodi.org, which I have customized, showing the different connections beetween art and hacking in Italy.
The address is: 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:
www.ecn.org/aha/map.htm

Have fun reading the source code!
Tatiana Bazzichelli

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