Beyond Culture Jamming

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Beyond Culture Jamming

• xtine
• California State University, Fullerton
• Electrofringe Festival
• Newcastle, Australia
• October 5, 2008

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Video of 50 M Freestyle Swim, South African
contestant available for viewing here
http//mechanicalolympics.org/?p182
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MechanicalOlympics.org
Directions Create a new video of someone
performing the role of a woman from South Africa
competing in the Womens 50 Meter Freestyle Swim
Competition. You can actually be a woman from
South Africa or you can be any gender, from
anywhere, and simply represent
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MechanicalOlympics.org
Directions In the video you can do anything that
you think someone would do during a freestyle
swim competition. Any abstraction on the idea is
acceptable.
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MechanicalOlympics.org
Directions The video should be between 25 and 60
seconds. It does not have to be edited. It can be
made from a cell phone or any kind of camera that
records video. Wear the sign. Post to
YouTube.com and submit your link.
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MechanicalOlympics.org
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Video of Womens Track and Field Hurdles Event,
USA contestant available for viewing here
http//mechanicalolympics.org/?p192
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Mechanical Turk
This is what a typical HIT looks like on mturk.com
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Mechanical Turk
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MechanicalOlympics.org

• Purpose The Mechanical Olympics offers the
  human intelligence task (HIT) workers a creative
  and physical alternative to their typical HITs.
  Workers perform Olympic events while creating
  videos for YouTube and the Mechanical Olympics
  blog. The blog is an Olympic event for the
  masses, where every viewer has the opportunity to
  vote on medalists. Gold medalists win a bonus
  award. Participants and viewers are reminded that
  the amateur can often be just as engaging and
  entertaining as the professional (xtine,
  mechanicalolylmpics.org/?page_id2).

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MechanicalOlympics.org

• Purpose To create information exchange promoting
  interpretation independent thinking.

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Mens Platform Dive
Video of Mens Platform Diving, Great Britain
contestant available for viewing here
http//mechanicalolympics.org/?p157
Information exchange promoting interpretation.
Representing Great Britain
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MechanicalOlympics.org
Video of Mens Platform Diving, Australian
contestant available for viewing here
http//mechanicalolympics.org/?p157
Information exchange promoting interpretation.
Representing Australia
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MechanicalOlympics.org
Video of Mens Platform Diving, USA
contestant available for viewing here
http//mechanicalolympics.org/?p157
Information exchange promoting interpretation.
Representing USA
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MechanicalOlympics.org
Information exchange promoting interpretation.
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MechanicalOlympics.org
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Culture Jamming 101

• In 2002, Naomi Klein defined culture jamming as
  the practice of parodying advertisements and
  hijacking billboards in order to drastically
  alter their messages (280).

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Culture Jamming 101

• By 2004, Mark Dery made the term popular in The
  New York Times and Adbusters articles as
  something that might best be defined as media
  hacking, information warfare, terror-art, and
  guerrilla semiotics, all in one
  (http//www.markdery.com/archives/books/culture_ja
  mming/000005more).

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Culture Jamming 101

• Kalle Lasns Culture Jam The Uncooling of
  America reads as a manifesto for a millennial
  reincarnation of Timothy Learys Turn on, tune
  in, and drop out, but Lasn inverts the message,
  commanding readers to turn off (the television),
  tune out (of mass medias agenda) and drop in
  (unexpectedly, as culture jammers)(xtine,
  http//journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/04-xtine.
  php)

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Examples of Culture Jamming
Video of Adbusters Whirl-Mart available for
viewing here http//www.youtube.com/watch?vJaj
JCcUUVgk

• Adbusters Whirl-Mart

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Examples of Culture Jamming

• Billboard Liberation Front

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A Penny For Your Thoughts
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A Penny For Your Thoughts
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A Penny For Your Thoughts
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A Penny For Your Thoughts
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The conquest of cool

• The critical voices that are meant to be heard in
  the efforts of a culture jam often become the
  new strata ofcool culture. From Adbusters
  merchandise to the co-optation of the
  counterculture (cool) identity, jamming generates
  more of the same.

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The conquest of cool

• When writing about American culture, Lasn often
  substitutes the word culture with cool. As
  in, American culture resides in the development
  of a marketable and highly manufactured, American
  cool. This suggests that American culture
  consists of marketed products carrying symbolic
  meanings associated with status (the brand) and
  lifestyle mythologies (xtine, http//journal.medi
  a-culture.org.au/0804/04-xtine.php)

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The conquest of cool

• In The Conquest of Cool, Frank illustrates that
  Burroughs appearance in a Nike commercial (and
  assorted commercials for GAP) is symbolic of
  members of the counterculture who transgress the
  counter/alternative border into the mainstream.
  The mass media consumes the cool identity.

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The conquest of cool

• The co-optation of youth culture started in the
  1960s, as Frank writes in his 1997 book The
  Conquest of Cool, In its hostility to
  established tastes, the counterculture seemed to
  be preparing young people to rebel against
  whatever they had patronized before and to view
  the cycles of the new without the suspicion of
  earlier eras (27).

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The conquest of cool

• Klein interviews Carrie McLaren of Stay Free!
  Magazine who opposes Adbusters Magazine, where
  the culture jammers tool box sale items include
  posters, videos, stickers and postcards.
  McLaren says, What comes out is no real
  alternative to our culture of consumption. Just a
  different brand (295).

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Delocator.net
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Delocator.net

• Purpose Corporate industries invading American
  neighborhoods, from coffee chains to bookstore
  chains, music chains and movie theatre chains,
  pose a threat to the authenticity of our unique
  neighborhoods. Although there is room on the map
  for shared territories - both the homogenous
  corporate enterprise and the independent ventures
  across the nation, our independent,
  community-operated businesses deserve your dime
  (xtine, delocator.net/whydelocate.htm).

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Delocator.net
The site was launched in 2005. In 2006 I added
books and movie theaters. User feedback suggests
1.  The ability to edit entries 2.  A better
distance calculator 3.  Additional categories
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Beyond Jamming

• In his article, Interactive Audiences, Henry
  Jenkins wrote, audiences are gaining greater
  power and autonomy as they enter into the new
  knowledge culture. (Jenkins 158). Jenkins essay
  culminates in differentiating culture jamming
  from an interactive model for social reform.

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Beyond Interruption

• Jenkins differentiates jamming from blogging.
  While culture jamming generates noise in a
  one-way communication system, a two-way
  communication system such as utilizing
  user-generated information facilitates Jenkins
  knowledge culture.

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Beyond Noise

• The key is that a participatory culture producing
  alternatives to the mass media creates the
  possibility for an alternative reality. Instead
  of generating noise, the knowledge culture aims
  to change social behaviors.

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Beyond Static

• Online user-generated information in combination
  with a participatory culture (both on and
  offline) empowers citizens to act on alternative
  ideologies. I provide examples in the following
  projects.

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Your Neighbors Biz

• Purpose Your Neighbors' Biz is a Google map
  mash-up that locates neighbors in your social
  network who have connected with you through
  Facebook. User-generated content on this site
  serves three purposes 1. To assist neighbors in
  finding and supporting hobbyist services, such as
  dog-walking, hair-cutting, baby sitting, lawn
  mowing, car washing, and so on, 2. To promote
  using the web for the discrete purpose of
  socializing offline - specifically, to persuade
  web users to meet their neighbors, and 3. To
  increase the client base of neighbors who have
  side-jobs(xtine, yourneighborsbiz.com/about.html)
  .

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Your Neighbors Biz
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Your Neighbors Biz
The website will rely on key factors 1. The
trust that is already instilled within online
social networks 2.  A Google Map interface to
calculate distances, most notably for services
that are nearby but not part of the online
network 3. An interest in promoting local sales
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In Summary

• Delocator.net YourNeighborsBiz.com utilize
  information exchange to empower web users in the
  analog world.
• My experiments with Mechanical Turk, Mechanical
  Olympics, A Penny For Your Thoughts, Mechanical
  Cookbook, create information exchange promoting
  individual thinking and interpretation.

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In Summary

• Culture Jamming continues to be useful for media
  projects that simply critique the mainstream
  media.

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In Summary
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In Summary
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In Summary

• ...but...

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In Summary

• ...empowering users to think as individuals and
  to act in their local neighborhoods is critical.
  Using the web to make social change offline
  surpasses critique and implements democracy.

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In Summary

• Dery, Mark. Culture jamming Hacking, Slashing
  and Sniping in the Empire of Signs. Open
  Magazine Pamphlet Series 25. 1993. 22 June 2007.
  mming/000005more.
• Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of Cool. Chicago
  University of Chicago Press, 1997.
• Frank, Thomas. Why Johnny Cant Dissent Ed.
  Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland. Commodify Your
  Dissent. New York W.W. Norton Co. 31 46.
• Jenkins, Henry. Interactive Audiences? Ed. Dan
  Harries. The New Media Book. London British Film
  Institute, 2002. 157-170.
• Klein, Naomi. No Logo. New York Picador, 2000.
• Lasn, Kalle. Culture Jam The Uncooling of
  America. New York Eagle Brook, 1999.
• xtine. Why Delocate? Delocator. 5 September
  2006 .