Action Sharing
As it has evolved, [epidemiC] has always believed
that the risk of the system “adminstering” the aesthetics
of art would be deeply harmful to the ethics fundamental to working
as an artist. (Indeed, Beuys has already spoken out at length against
this – “Artists are the most reactionary class. Classes
don’t really exist any more but artists are so reactionary that
they almost form a new class”). The question thus arises of
how to continue as a “virus” – meaning no demobilization
of an ethical sort – and lay the groundwork for direct action
involving widespread collective creativity. The answer is AntiMafia,
a social virus which has come about as a result of previous ideas
on source code aesthestics.
Within a shared area, you let me take what I want and I let you take
what you want: thus peer-to-peer philosophy so far. This technology
is natural to the net and its impact on the general social and economic
system has always caused trouble with matters related to copyright
and property. If you let me take something which is not yours but
which is in your possession, I shall do likewise: this is an inevitable
process but is also considered to be outside the law. What is new
about it is that more and more people can give away something which
is not considered their property. In doing so, they deprive themselves
of nothing, they simply allow a copy or duplication to be made. This
availability produces “wealth”. The more I give, the more
opportunities I have to take. The next step in this line of thought
has profoundly innovative implications for established rules concerning
“property” and “legality”. Castoriadis says,
"For an individual, making his own laws - when and where this
is possible - requires the ability and courage to stand up to all
the conventions, beliefs, fashions and bigheads that continue to maintain
absurd notions on the media, on public silence and so forth."
This drive towards individual independence is growing in parallel
with a drive towards social independence. Individuals want their independence
socially and individually.
When two people exchange audio mp3 documents on the net, they are
saying in unison, "this law preventing it is not mine”,
and hence are making a political statement.
[epidemiC] is now turning its attention to how to coordinate and synchronize
these emerging forms of individual independence and turn them into
social independence and creativity. So far, equality has been created
through the practice of file sharing. To the question of whether that
could lead to a sharing of collective events – in other words
action sharing – the anwer is: AntiMafia.
AntiMafia enables coordination yet has no coordinators.
It enables synchronization yet has no timekeepers beating out the
rhythm from on high. It thus has no place for the classic figure of
the all-controlling artist.
The events which AntiMafia generates
emerge from the community of participants (knots).
Each AntiMafia knot acts fully independently, does not delegate and
decides personally what is right or not, what to take part in and
what to dissent from. The expression of personal "law" of
each knot (auto-nomos) leads to social independence in which each
individual feels – and so agrees with everyone else –
that the “laws of society” are his own “laws”
as an individual.
AntiMafia favours a democratic process which avoids the surrender
of responsibility which comes when one delegates.
The more disagreement coincides with one’s “own personal
law” the more powerful it is. The rules of society are the rules
of the direct majority of individuals.
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