FloodNet was a conceptual artwork and a tool for online collective action.
Developed by the collective Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), it took the form of a Java applet that allowed users to send useless requests or personalized messages to a remote web server in a coordinated fashion, thereby slowing it down and filling its error logs with words of protest and gibberish—a kind of virtual sit-in.
The large crowds and brightly coloured placards of the school climate strikes became some of the defining images of 2019.
“There would be lots of chanting and the energy was always amazing,” says Dominique Palmer, a 20-year-old climate activist from London who has been involved with the strikes for more than a year. “Being there with everyone in that moment is truly an electrifying feeling. It’s very different now.”
Food delivery riders are taking industrial action in China over low pay and the recent detention of an unofficial labor leader. The strike comes after Xiong Yan, who headed an unofficial union formed by workers for the food delivery app Ele.me and other services, was detained in Beijing last month. His whereabouts are still unknown.
The world is shocked by China’s dog meat festival and by videos showing that animals are eaten alive in restaurants in Guangdong. But in that country of 1.3 billon people, a massive shift in ideology is happening. Our friends at PETA Asia are helping millions of people see that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.
The original March For Our Lives event in 2018 formed the largest youth-led protests in American history, with turnout estimated at more than 2 million in 387 districts across the nation, protesting the lack of gun control legislation. Since then, the group that started locally in Parkland, Florida, has expanded, organizing more marches, sit-ins, and bus tours. They’ve become as a disrupting force in the fight against gun violence.
On Friday night, as U.S. television screens burned with images of peaceful protests turning violent, Nike released a new socially conscious ad calling on Americans to do something quite different than the brand’s usual call to “Just Do It.” Instead, one of the nation’s leading athletic apparel companies called on individuals to not turn their back on the painful issue of racism in the United States.
Something Terrible is the story of Trippe’s childhood sexual abuse and painful struggle with its psychological aftermath. Though the comic itself is sparsely scripted and free of gory details, Trippe provides an afterword that relates the hard facts: he was raped as a child by a teenager, and for three days. The older boy, who took advantage of the trust of someone much too young, threatened Trippe’s family and used a gun as persuasion.
LEGOVC is a fictional, made up, 100% fake, plastic, 'pantomime villain' Vice Chancellor of a fake British University struggling as his utter managerial brilliance crumbles in the face of sustained strike action by his staff after their pension scheme is slashed.
ScareMail is a web browser extension that makes email “scary” in order to disrupt NSA surveillance. Extending Google’s Gmail, the work adds to every new email’s signature an algorithmically generated narrative containing a collection of probable NSA search terms. This “story” acts as a trap for NSA programs like PRISM and XKeyscore, forcing them to look at nonsense.
What is it like living with AIDS? This heart-wrenching video for South Africa’s Topsy Foundation brings us through 90 hard days in the life of someone living with it. Be sure to watch it all the way to the end. It’s worth it:
Did you catch that? If you didn’t, watch it again. Spoiler after the jump.
Transfixed by racial, political, and socioeconomic tensions saturating the news, movement artists Jon Boogz and Lil Buck, enveloped by the art of Alexa Meade, switch off the TV and release their emotion into a stirring dance that is both a lament and a spirited call to action.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have released a pair of live albums to benefit relief efforts in response to devastating wildfires in their native Australia.
Original Story: The GOG and Steam store pages for Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear are littered with negative reviews, with gamers trashing the game largely as a result of an encounter that takes place between the player and a transgender character.
Dr. Stella Nyanzi, a Ugandan medical anthropologist, activist, and writer, was convicted after writing and posting a poem online, in which she criticized Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his mother. In November 2018, Ugandan authorities charged Dr. Nyanzi with “cyber harassment” and “offensive communication” under Sections 24 and 25 of the 2011 Computer Misuse Act, and detained her in connection with the poem.
When And Where Will #TeamTrees Plant 21.5 Million Crowdfunded Trees?
Two months after reaching one of the most ambitious crowdfunding goals in YouTube history, #TeamTrees is getting closer to delivering on behalf of its 800,000+ unique donors.
Trash Tycoon is an upcycling social network game developed by Guerillapps. The game applies traditional social gameplay features to highlight real-world issues such as waste, water, and “green” activities. Gameplay includes cleaning trash, recycling, and constructing products and decorations out of recycled material.
Creative Time, a public art fund, invited artists to make online comics that addressed contemporary issues. Every month for two years a new artist presented their comic strip online. At the end, there were a total of 24 comic works that were archived online and also released as a publication in 2010.
A video collaboration betweenHayley Silverman and Emily Shinada. Using clips from a Japanese pornography film, the video highlights fears of interpersonal connection and explores the objectification of women. It was on view at Alogon Gallery for theWomen Get Fucked exhibition.
The Arte Útil archive presents a growing archive of over two hundred case studies that imagine, create and implement beneficial outcomes by producing tactics that change how we act in society.
Michelle Obama tweeted her own portrait holding a sign reading #BringBackOurGirls and soon countless celebrities echoed this meme online. Throughout a week, this trending hashtag had been turned into a social-media supernova. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign spurred by online sharing brought the outrage against Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping to the global stage.
Sima Qian: China's 'grand historian' By Carrie Gracie BBC News, Beijing
Speaking truth to power has always been a high-risk strategy in China. Its rulers tend to prefer flattery, and writers who forget this do so at their peril. China's "grand historian" - 2,000 years ago - was one of many who have paid a terrible price.
Oh, the sweet irony.
Pete Peterson is the conservative billionaire who is a major financier in the effort to dismantle, cut and privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Recently he and his foundation held a contest asking folks to submit videos on why it is important to “fix” the national debtof which, he and his foundation falsely claim, Social Security is a major contributor.