South of Post-Media [text]

:: text/book-chapter : with Alejo Duque + Felipe Fonseca> : 1312

(i): Wikimedia/US Drug Enforcement Administration
Fully operational Narco-Submarine in Ecuador
>


in: Apprich, C/Berry Slater, J/Iles, A/Schultz OL (2013) : Provocative Alloys - A Post-Media Anthology. MUTE Publishing (PML Books), London. (pp. 84-105)

from the introduction of ‘Provocative Alloys’

“In Oliver Lerone Schultz’s dialogue with media activists Felipe Fonseca (Brazil) and Alejo Duque (Colombia), the interaction between smallscale, autonomous practices and their deployment by the state is discussed. Lula’s socialist government in Brazil turned to the expertise of urban media activists to try and implement its policy of digital inclusion for the country’s often rural poor. The result was that some progressive ideas, such as copyleft and open source software, were integrated into government policy as ways to bridge chronic underdevelopment and the need to accelerate the use of computer networks. Although the activists had few illusions regarding the stakes of ‘digital inclusion’, nevertheless the experience of these delicate social and technical networks’ use as conduits of increased normalisation was sobering. But, shifting their focus from the technical, Fonseca reports that the unexpected outcomes were the lessons media activists learned from poor communities in ‘simple human values like generosity, sharing [and] dynamic social formations oriented to problem solving.’ This exchange exemplifies the non-linearity of capitalist development and its resistance: pre-techncial networks of co-operation and enunciation come to affect a ‘later’ technical form that can be deployed to both normalising and singularising effect.”