Communication and Social Change in Africa: Selected Case Studies
Edited by Manfred A.K. Asuman, Theodora Dame Adjin-Tettey and Modestus Fosu
This book invites you to join leading Africa-focused scholars in a conversation that vividly highlights the intricate relationship among communication, media, culture and social change.
Communication and Social Change in Africa: Selected Case Studies provides a timely and thought-provoking exploration of diverse and unique understandings in the way communication, in its vast and varied manifestations, is reshaping the continent’s future. Collectively touching base with almost every part of Africa, the book demonstrates a firsthand and grassroots understanding of the continent. The thirteen case studies in the book from across the continent illuminate the challenges, opportunities, and successes of communication-driven narratives, offering valuable lessons for scholars, policymakers and practitioners.
It goes without saying that this book is ideal for students, researchers and everyone interested in appreciating Africa and its cultural and developmental dynamics, which have been presented from different cultural and stylistic perspectives. While sufficient in its coverage to provide decent insights into the transformative power of communication in African societies, this book would undoubtedly provoke the reader’s curiosity and anticipation for a follow-up to this volume for more width and depth about the continent through communication and social change in Africa.
Cheikh Sakho, in Holland known as Papa Sakho, was born in Dakar, Senegal, on the 27th of February 1960, the second son in a family of artists. He finished the Art Academy, Ecole des Arts du Sénégal, in 1988. He expressed himself in painting, music, welding and leather and was active as art producer and manager, taking up a prominent role in Dakar’s cultural life.
In his house Sakho used to receive visitors from all over the world. Hospitality (in wolof : Teranga) is a key concept in Senegalese culture. Sakho is a master of Teranga. Many of the visitors from Europe advised him to bring his art to Europe, if only to get a better price. Sakho sold the house that he inherited from his father and in 2000 organized a tour of the African Lions to five European countries, including a performance in Amsterdam’s Milky Way.
At the end of the tour, in 2004, the director of the African Lions, Laie Ananas, asked him to stay with him in Amsterdam. But he could not bring his family over. By now the money was all gone, so he could not even buy a ticket home. He tried to make a living on the Waterlooplein market, where one day he was caught up in a fight and was detained by the police. Since he did not possess a document stating his regular residence he was soon transferred to the detention complex for undocumented migrants at Schiphol East, in order to be deported back to Senegal. While imprisoned he drew portraits of his fellow inmates and kept the spirits high.
In the night of the 26th of October 2005, cell block K, caught fire due to inadequate prevention and security. Thirteen men and two women died in the fire, Sakho was among the fifteen severely wounded. As a survivor of the fire, having seen his fellow men die and suffer, he was himself heavily traumatized. It took the Dutch government another year to finally give the survivors a chance to restore their life, with proper documents and psychiatric treatment. Sakho could then move out of the asylum and settle back in Amsterdam. He lived for half a year as artist in residence in the Blue House, curated by Jeanne van Heeswijk. In the same period he joined forces with Jo van der Spek, campaigner and journalist, to make a weekly radio-program. Every year they organized the commemoration of the Schiphol fire. In 2009 Jo and Sakho founded M2M; the Migrant 2 Migrant foundation.
Sakho had several exhibitions in Goningen (2006) and Amsterdam (Melkweg (2006), Blauwe Huis (2006), Ruigoord (2011), Kameleon (2013) and The Beach (2012-2018).
Sakho died in Amsterdam on January 9, 2025 and was buried in Dakar on January 17.
Sakho is one of the godfathers of the refugee collective We Are Here. In 2006 he proclaimed at the first commemoration:
We Are Here
To make a life again
Together as one
Here some fragments of a presentation about the 2005 Schiphol Fire by Mustapha Mujahid, Cheikh Papa Sakho and Jo van der Spek at Basis voor Aktuele Kunst art space (BAK), Utrecht, October 2018 (In English). The full video, which starts with a presentation by Forensic Architecture can be found here.
Please donate to cover the costs of the burial: Bank: NL53TRIO0338573607 of Stichting Migrant 2 Migrant (Triodos Bank, NL), BIC/Swift code TRIONL2U.
Totality and Feminist Life: Reading Silvia Federici’s Writing on Lukács’ Aesthetics Reading & Discussion Event Series January – April 2025 Silvia Federici is best known as an autonomist feminist and theorist for her groundbreaking work on the intersections of gender, labor, and capitalism. She has been a leading voice in the global feminist movement, particularly […]
Video games, as interactive forms, create a space where participants not only consume content, but also create, shaping virtual lives and narratives in real time[1]. At 8 years old, The Sims 2 introduced me to a quirky, engaging world that became my first exposure to life simulation. I didn’t think much about their significance growing up—I was just obsessed with playing. However, in this space, I was an active creator; it became a tool I began to understand, with its codes and mechanisms. The Sims 2 I encountered which had some strange, now in The Sims 4 removed, elements like burglars (who would sneak into your house accompanied by music that could trigger a heart attack), gloomy social workers taking kids to the Orphanage, the Wohoo cutscene (that made you glance over your shoulder, hoping no one would walk in and catch you), a literal mental breakdown (with a Social Bunny falling from the sky and a hypnotizing Therapist), and maids dressed in stereotypical and, let’s face it, sexist outfits. And of course, male Sims being abducted by aliens and mysteriously impregnated (I don’t even know how to comment on that).
I am not sure if this is how I would describe deleting the pool ladder and drowning one Sim after another, just to create a massive, impressive cemetery. Or, if you’re feeling more ambitious, trapping them inside walls with only a grill, forcing them to cook until they burn. It’s not just about the act of causing chaos but also about pushing the game’s systems to their limits. The Sims offers a playground where morality takes a backseat to experimentation, allowing players to explore the boundaries of control, agency, and the consequences of their choices.
The Sims is a life simulation video game series created by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. With nearly 200 million copies sold globally, it ranks among the best-selling video game franchises ever. The Sims series began with the release of its first game on January 31, 2000, followed by The Sims 2 on September 4, 2004, The Sims 3 on June 2, 2009, and The Sims 4 on September 2, 2014. In September 2024, EA announced there would be no The Sims 5 but that The Sims 4 would continue to evolve.
The time gaps between these releases naturally shaped different generations of players, each attaching unique experiences, memories, and cultural influences to the game. Fans of the original recall its groundbreaking mechanics, The Sims 2 introduced generational gameplay and chaos, The Sims 3 offered open-world exploration and deep customization. The Sims 4, with its focus on user-generated content, expansions, and updates, has become a unifying platform that brings together 8-year-old newcomers, 30-year-old lifelong fans of the series, and the vast online community of modders, builders, and storytellers. These generational shifts not only reflect advancements in technology but also mirror evolving societal norms and player expectations, making The Sims a cultural phenomenon that transcends gaming.
The Sims Logos
As part of The Sims 2 generation, I found myself particularly intrigued by the life of Don Lothario, the notorious heartbreaker. I was fascinated with how his four simultaneous affairs played out and, more importantly, how to keep his secrets from being uncovered. In his company, I discovered the mechanics of The Sims, where the game is equipped with both a build/create mode and a life mode. Our Sim is categorized according to Life Stages, Traits, Aspirations, Careers, Skills, and Lifetime Wishes. In gameplay mode, you can develop your Sim across all these categories, as well as build Social Relationships and manage their needs through Interactions.
Ian Bogost’s assertion that video games act as rhetorical devices—tools for exploring complex systems through interactive simplification[2]—offers a profound lens for understanding The Sims which distills human life into manageable, gamified components. These mechanisms were developed in the creation of the real-life simulation, effectively creating an alternative version of perceiving life by categorizing and creating a visual representation of phenomena that are normally invisible and intangible. Through this process, a new way of perceiving the world was formed, one that transcended the boundaries of the game and became a language of communication. The digital world of life simulators, originally modeled after real life, now loop back to influence it, blurring the boundaries between the two realms.
The mechanics of The Sims have evolved into a language through which people communicate not only about the game itself but also about their own lives and the world around them. These mechanics have found their way into memes, become the subject of online discussion, and are frequently referenced in everyday conversations. What makes these mechanics so compelling is their ability to distill complex human experiences into simple, visual, and interactive systems. Concepts like fulfilling needs, managing aspirations, or building relationships are compelling because they parallel the invisible frameworks that shape real life.
As Brad Tromel suggests, this merging of virtual and physical realities exemplifies the aspiration to break down the boundaries between art and everyday life[3]. By drawing on its logic, symbols, and dynamics, The Sims can be reinterpreted as a medium to explore profound themes such as identity, societal norms, and the essence of humanity. This integration of gaming mechanics enables a blurring of the lines between the digital and the real, prompting a reconsideration of the systems that shape life and how those systems can be visualized, critiqued, and reimagined. Building on this idea, I have created works that engage directly with the mechanics of The Sims, using its systems not only as a tool for exploring identity and societal structures but also as a way to examine the construction of the self.
Needs
One of the most iconic mechanics in The Sims is the Needs system, which is split into eight core categories—Bladder, Hunger, Energy, Fun, Social, Comfort, Environment, and Hygiene. These must be maintained for well-being and are represented as bars that gamify basic human needs. Green signifies balance, yellow indicates decline, orange signals urgency, and red warns of a critical state that could lead to collapse or even death.
By translating normally invisible human experiences into visible cues, the system allows to show abstract concepts like mood and deterioration in a tangible way. While it may be a simplification of real-life complexity, it has proven to be an effective and relatable tool for communication. The Needs panel resonates so deeply that people often use it as a metaphor to describe their own states, adopting its straightforward framework to express emotions, struggles, and personal challenges in a way that feels universally understood. As Sherry Turkle suggests, we become the simulacrum of our own lives. The boundary between real and virtual is increasingly indistinct, as we model our lives in simulations and then live them out in simulations[4]. This observation highlights how The Sims mechanism allows to model and perform aspects of life through the game’s mechanics.
In video loop MOOD (2021), I incorporated both the Needs panel and the Plumbob—the hovering crystal that not only indicates a Sim’s mood but also signals their status under the player’s control. By drawing on the game’s familiar visuals, I reinterpreted its mechanics as a language to express complex internal states. In the raw, spontaneous nature of the work—recorded with a mobile phone in a computer lab—I reflected a profound sense of helplessness and an inability to articulate an emotional state using borrowed symbols to convey feelings that otherwise felt inaccessible.
By weaving The Sims 2 soundtrack into the piece, I drew on another iconic motif that many would recognize instantly. The familiar music not only evokes nostalgia but also grounds the work emotionally, contrasting the playful tones with the underlying themes of exhaustion and vulnerability. The music serves as a shared cultural reference that further connects the piece to the collective experience of those who have spent time in the world of The Sims.
This is encapsulated in the title MOOD, a short phrase that can carry multiple meanings yet, in each instance, feels remarkably precise and clear. Whether referring to emotional states, personal energy, or even fleeting moments of being, mood resonates as a succinct and universally understood expression. It’s a term that transcends specific contexts, becoming a representation of individual experiences that are simultaneously shared by many.
In this context, the self-image I present through my work, using The Sims mechanics, becomes a tool for exploration, while also acknowledging the broader social and technological frameworks that influence how we understand ourselves. Rather than focusing on the self as a fixed entity, MOOD highlights its fluidity, shaped by both internal experiences and external systems.
In The Sims, interactions are the core actions Sims perform with other Sims, objects, and their environment, forming the foundation of gameplay. These interactions govern communication, relationships, and engagement with the world. Some are simple, like eating or watching TV, while others are more complex, such as building friendships, falling in love, or starting conflicts. Sims can also engage in self-directed actions, like practicing skills, reflecting on emotions, or fulfilling their own needs. The way Sims interact is shaped by their traits—key aspects of their personality that influence their behavior, preferences, and reactions to various situations. Traits determine how Sims respond to others and their environment, ultimately guiding the course of their lives.
INTERACTIONS (2023) is a 12×17 cm publication inspired by the instructional manuals often included in DVD video game packaging. Printed on slightly glossy, newsprint-style paper, it spans 34 pages. It builds upon the titular mechanism and the aesthetics of The Sims 2—its color palette, fonts, and icons— but transforms them into a wholly original system of interactions, designed to echo real-life situations and structures. It introduces definitions of interactions, reflections on the factors that influence their choices, and a taxonomy of custom interaction types, including Existential Interactions, Disgraceful Interactions, Scattered Interactions, Romantic Interactions, Tearful Interactions, Social Interactions, Transactional Interactions, Imaginative Interactions, and Virtual Interactions.
As part of the work, I created my own Sim-like alter ego and cataloged my identity using a system of traits: Emotional Intelligence, Hypercorrectness, Chauvinism, and Narcissism. Each trait was measured on a scale from 0 to 10, with its intensity visualized through a familiar Sims-inspired interface of colored points. This approach annexes the mechanisms through which players engage with The Sims, as noted by Thaddeus Griebel, who observed that players project their personalities and values onto their Sims, using the game as a medium for self-reflection and experimentation[5].
In The Sims, all actions are predefined by the game’s programming, and similarly, in real life, the “choices” individuals face are often shaped by societal structures, expectations, and technological interfaces. As Jessica Baldanza observes, our interactions in the physical world are no more objective than those made in the virtual world[6]. By adapting The Sims 2’s gamified approach to interactions, the work shows how virtual systems can serve as a metaphor for understanding societal norms, internalized patterns, and contextual constraints. Through the prism of the game, it becomes possible to critically examine the surrounding reality, highlighting the parallels between simulated and real-world relationships while questioning the structures that define them.
Creating an online self, designing an appearance, cataloging an identity, and simulating possible interaction scenarios can extend or replicate life. This portrays the online world as a heterogeneous environment that transcends digital boundaries, necessitating the involuntary creation of an ambiguous online self to explore and manipulate one’s identity. It examines how people use available technology to create cues that are interpreted offline to perceive others’ behavior. Additionally, it highlights how online interactions mimic offline interpersonal relationships, leading to the fluidification of identity, the redefinition of relationships, and the blurring of boundaries between online and offline realities.
Me Living My Best Life (2021) is a video exploration of the blurring lines between physical and virtual realities. It integrates my physical form into the simulated world of The Sims 2. The piece features a recording of me dancing against a green screen, transitioning my physical presence into a digital avatar. Set to the iconic The Sims 2 radio track Dance the Dawn (Salsa), the video embodies a life without boundaries, allowing for an infinite reimagining of self within the virtual realm.
As Ludovica Price notes, what enabled The Sims and its sequels to stand out from other games was the way in which it allowed players to create their own worlds and to embellish others[7]. This core concept of constructing personalized, immersive scenarios lies at the heart of The Sims and served as the conceptual foundation for work. Within the game, I meticulously built all the virtual scenographies myself, designing each environment as a visual backdrop for my performance/best life. Complementary costume changes further reflect situational shifts within these simulated spaces.
Me Living My Best Life delves into the fluidity of identity within alternative forms, where the boundaries between reality and its digital representations become increasingly blurred. As Vasa Buraphadeja and Kara Dawson highlight, The Sims offers players the opportunity to immerse themselves in different scenarios of life—they can take on many different roles and assume several personas[8]. In this vein, work creates alternative realities, reflecting the way both identity and the medium itself become more fluid. The boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds dissolve, allowing images to not merely replicate reality but to transform or even distort it, distancing us from its original essence. This fluidity allows for the exploration of multiple versions of self, liberated from the limitations of the physical world.
The performative aspect of the work deeply resonates with Ana Peraica’s observation that we don’t know how to exist anymore without imagining ourselves as a picture[9]. The act of embedding my likeness within The Sims 2 underlines the profound intertwining of digital and physical identities. It showcases the fabricated and performative qualities of selfhood in an age increasingly dominated by visual culture. By incorporating my image, the piece not only interacts with the game’s well-established practice of crafting personal narratives but also delves into the nuances of digital identity and the conception of oneself as a visual construct. This interplay between self-representation and self-creation highlights how virtual spaces redefine our understanding of identity, portraying it as both fluid, multifaceted, and inherently linked to its visual manifestation.
As McKenzie Wark aptly observes, more and more relentlessly, the everyday life of gamers is coming to wear the expression of game-space[10]. This notion resonates deeply with the way mechanics from games like The Sims transcend their digital origins to influence how we perceive and navigate the real world. TheSims series is more than a life simulation game—it is a lens through which to explore the structures that shape human experience. It has become an integral part of contemporary perceptions of identity, where we categorize, visualize, and create algorithms that define and shape how we understand ourselves and others. Ultimately, The Sims serves as both a mirror and a critique—a tool to reimagine the systems we navigate daily and a platform to envision new ways of understanding and expressing the human experience. Through its playful simplicity, it opens the door to profound insights about the complex and interconnected realities we inhabit.
What. A. Year. Thank you to all of the amazing thinkers who generously shared their writing with us during rough waters worldwide. During those times when our work feels like we’re screaming underwater, it’s especially important that we’re still out here making waves. A special shout out in gratitude to our readers, who are listening even harder during our 15th year, and rocking the boat along with us into 2025. –JS, Ed-in-Chief
Here, beginning with number 10, are our Top 10 posts released in 2024 (as of 12/19/24)!
What is it? The braids?–Kendrick Lamar, “Euphoria”
After a much-anticipated wait, Kendrick dropped “Euphoria.” It not only stopped Hip Hop culture in its tracks, but it allowed all spectators to realize this was gearing up to be an epic battle. The song starts with the backwards Richard Pryor sample from the iconic film The Wiz. For those unfamiliar, The Wiz is a film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz featuring an all-Black star-studded cast, including Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. Richard Pryor played the role of the Wizard. When the characters realize the Wizard is a fraud, he says, “Everything they say about me is true”; this is the sample Kendrick uses, grounding himself in 1970s Black culture and situating where he plans to go in his writing.
“By now, it’s safe to say very few people have not caught wind of the biggest Hip-Hop battle of the 21st century: the clash between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. Whether you’ve seen the videos, the memes or even smacked a bunch of owls around playing the video game, this battle grew beyond Hip Hop, with various facets of global popular culture tapped in, counting down minutes for responses and getting whiplash with the speed of song drops. There are multiple ways to approach this event. We’ve seen inciteful arguments about how these two young Black males at the pinnacle of success are tearing one another down. We also acknowledge Hip Hop’s long legacy of battling; the culture has always been a ‘competitive sport’ that includes ‘lyrical sparring.'”
“In both sound studies and the sonic arts, the concept of ‘resonance‘ has increasingly played a central role in attuning listeners to the politics of sound. The term itself is borrowed from acoustics, where resonance simply refers to the transfer of energy between two neighboring objects. For example, plucking a note on one guitar string will cause the other strings to vibrate at a similar frequency. When someone or something makes a sound, everything in the immediate environs—objects, people, the room itself—will respond with sympathetic vibrations. Simply put, in acoustics, resonance describes a sonic connection between sounding objects and their environment. In the arts, the concept of resonance emphasizes the situated existence of sound as a transformative encounter between bodies in a particular time and place. Resonance has become a key term to think through how sound creates a listening community, a transitory assemblage whose reverberations may be felt beyond a single moment of encounter.
“Sarah La Morena (Sarah the Black woman), or Sarah Palafox, was adopted and raised by a Mexican family in Mexico. At the age of five, she moved to Riverside, California, a predominantly Mexican city an hour east of Compton. Palafox started singing as a way to express the racism she faced as a child in Southern California, feeling caught between her Black appearance and her Mexican sound. She found her voice in church, a nurturing environment where she could be herself, surrounded by her family’s love. She gained attention with a viral video of her rendition of Jenni Rivera’s “Que Me Vas a Dar.” Palafox delivers each note with profound emotion and precision, leaving even the accompanying mariachi violinist in awe. . .”
“Sometime last year, during a recent deep clean of the apartment, I pulled out a wooden chest that my father built for me when I was ten, a pine-scented time capsule of that period of my life, full of assorted construction-paper projects and faded movie tickets. Buried underneath all this loose paper, set apart by a shiny laminated cover, is the first “novel” I ever wrote, our final project in fourth grade, which was really just a few typed pages folded and stapled together, held between a cardstock cover. In this book, I write about a mall janitor with magic powers, who uses his mop handle to transform villains into piles of fabric, and who time travels throughout history by way of a magic corvette (clearly, I had just seen a certain Robert Zemeckis film).
Having rediscovered this story, I am struck by the realization that my writerly voice has hardly changed. I am still drawn to the same hokey surrealism, the same comic book sensibilities, the same spirit of hand-stapled publishing projects. This is to say: I could not help but to identify in this proto-novel traces of my work to come, early impulses that echo throughout my present practice. As Lisa Robertson puts it in an interview: “Defunct forms resurface after years of latency. New work speaks with old work, as well as with the future.”.”
“I am not a board games person, yet I always seem to find myself surrounded by them. Such was the case one August evening in 2023, during a round of the bird-watching-inspired game, Wingspan. Released in 2019 by Stonemaier Games, designer Elizabeth Hargrave’s creation is credited with a dramatic shift in the board game industry. The game received an unparalleled number of awards, including the prestigious 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres (Connoisseur Game of the Year), and an unheard of seven categories of the Golden Geek Awards, including Best Board Game of the Year and Best Family Board Game of the Year. In addition to causing shifts in typical board game topic, artistry, and demographic, Wingspan has led many board game fans to engage with the natural world in new ways, even inspiring many to become avid birders.
Following the game’s rise to popularity, developer Marcus Nerger released an app, Wingsongwhich allows players to scan each of the beautifully illustrated cards and play a recording of the associated bird’s song. On the evening in question, the unexpected occurred when I scanned the Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis) card and received a message that read:
Playback of this birds[sic] song is restricted. . .”
“‘So I have heard The Hum… The rest of what I’m about to tell you is beyond reasoning, and understanding.” Here, in a Reddit post, Michael A. Sweeney prefaces their story of their first encounter with “the hum,” an unexplained phenomenon heard by only a small percentage of listeners around the world. The hum is an ominous sonic event that impacts communities from Australia to India, Scotland to the United States. And as Geoff Leventhall writes in “Low Frequency Noise: What We Know, What We Do Not Know, and What We Would Like to Know,” the hum causes “considerable problems” for people across the globe—such as nausea, headaches, fatigue, and muscle pain—as it continues to be an unsolved “acoustic mystery” (94). . .”
“The announcer’s piercing “lucharaaaaaán” cries from the middle of the ring proclaims the constitutional two-out-of-three-falls rule of lucha libre. But before the famous cry rings out to set the stage for the spectacularized acrobatic combat between costumed warriors, their theatrical entrances set the all-important emotional stakes of the battle. The entrances are loud, campy, interactive exchanges between luchadores and spectators. An entrance song itself cues the luchador’s persona: a cumbia could signal a técnico (a good guy); a heavy metal song more than likely indicates a rudo (a bad guy) typically donning black, death-themed getups. Luchadores saunter into the arena, stopping to pose, high five their fans, and verbally heckle their opponents. The storylines of good versus evil, betrayal and revenge, or humility versus arrogance are some of the more standard plots that motivate spectators to adamantly cheer for the favorite and jeer for the foe.
The sonic exchanges between luchadores’ and spectators before, during, and after the fight positions lucha libre as much more than a sport. And while the term spectators, suggests the privileged act of watching or viewing; here, we expand spectators within lucha libre arena to mean “a call to witness” (á la Chela Sandoval). Put simply, lucha libre is a cultural phenomenon where contemporary cultural, social, and political anxieties are often tapped as fodder for theatrical plots. In the U.S./Mexico’s sister cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, the political realities of border enforcement, immigration politics, and racial tensions are loudly heard and placed on display. . .”
“in the context of the rapid rise of big tech in san francisco, california, the perspective of land as perpetually exploitable is ever-present. tech-sponsored development projects are always framed by the city as being motivated by care and consideration for residents, and sometimes as being motivated by environmentalism. in reality, the displacement and destruction that results from projects like these falls primarily on poor people of color, and their homes, gardens, businesses, community spaces, and schools. similarly, large-scale development projects more often than not have devastating impacts on the land – whether it’s the land that’s being built over or the sacrifice zone elsewhere. perhaps the electric cars of san francisco are thought to represent clean energy and a healthy modern city, but the manufacturing of these cars is predicated upon extensive mining and exploitative and extractive labor outside far outside the city’s borders. and these cars drive over flattened creeks and sand dunes turned to asphalt—through gentrified neighborhoods on stolen land of the Ramaytush Ohlone, people who are still alive and fighting for sovereignty on their traditional territory, and who remain stewards of the land.
these disparities are present in the sounds of the bay area. sound, quite literally, does not exist in a vacuum. the presence of sound thus implies the presence of something outside of that sound; in every sound we hear, there is also information about the context that surrounds it. and the sounds that we do hear say something about the value of the sounds that we don’t. however, i want to argue for a soundwalking praxis that does not settle for the sounds that most easily reach the ear, as in the freeway noise or the planes passing above or the white people on the street, but that reaches beyond to listen for the negative sonic space that is always present and creating itself in the spaces between what weperceive as audible. in my understanding, this is a practice of giving life to that which capitalism/white supremacy/colonialism renders dead, a practice of centering the life that is otherwise stepped on, forgotten, discarded, silenced. listening for the ecologies of the dispossessed. for proof of life, insisting. this is a decolonial soundwalk praxis. . .”
We
hope this email finds you well and that you've had a wonderful month so
far. We write with exciting publication announcements, news about our
social media presence, and reflections on the use of AI in our
publishing practice.
'Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures (Czerniewicz and Cronin 2023) (hereafter HE4G)
has been more than a book. It has been a public event, a gathering, a
diversely peopled conversation within and beyond its pages: the
desperate throw of a lifeline or the hopeful throw of a dream, beyond
the really existing universities of the present towards better
alternatives. If, somehow, readers of Postdigital Science and Education
have managed to avoid this conversation, I urge you to join it now,
wherever your scholarly social media and reading habits find it.'
'Transparent Minds
is a very good book…it possesses the power to draw the inexperienced
reader into sf and make her want to read and find out more. It is
sufficiently replete with informed discussion and illustrative quotation
to spur further interest. Matthews convinces us that the study of
consciousness is the perfect window from which to observe sf if your aim
is to encourage more people to read it. This may be a small book, but
it offers a seat at a big window and there is a lot of light shining
through it.' - Stephen Dougherty for Science Fiction Studies
We welcomed three new editorial board members for our Applied Theatre Praxis series
We are thrilled to announce that Dr Rebecca Hillman, Dr. Clara de Andra, and Dr Jazmin Llanawill
be joining the Applied Theatre Praxis Board! Rebecca is a Senior
Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exteter whose research centres
the relationship between activism
and performance. Clara is a Brazilian actor, singer, teacher and
researcher in Theatre Arts, whose main field of research is the
transnational networks of the Theatre of the Oppressed and Theatre for
Development.
Jazmin is an actor, director, and poet who currently serves as
the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at De La Salle
University-Manilla, Chair of the Research TWG of the National Commission
for Culture and the Arts, and Vice President of Performance Studies
International.
We are
confident that these accomplished scholars will be excellent additions
to the Board, enriching the content we publish in our Theatre Praxis
series.Welcome Rebecca, Clara, and Jazmin!
Applied
Theatre Praxis (ATP) is an OBP series that focuses on theatre practice,
where plays and performances provide the basis from which theories are
generated and histories are vivified. The series also explores theatre
and performance as sites where ethical ideas or political beliefs are
expressed, and systems are challenged and reimagined, such as in
political and agitprop theatre. In this vein, ATP invites writing that
draws from the author/s’ praxis to reflect on diverse manifestations of
Applied Theatre.
December 3:
Beyond PALOMERA: Shaping the Future of Open Access Book Policymaking.
PALOMERA is a two-year project funded by Horizon Europe that has sought
to understand why so few OA funder policies include books, and to
provide actionable recommendations to change this. As the project draws
to a close, this webinar will explore the varied outputs created by
PALOMERA. Secure your place here.
New on the Blog
Navigating AI in Academic Publishing: Balancing Efficiency, Expertise and Ethics by Adèle Kreager
Artificial
intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming many sectors, from its role
in breakthrough research on protein structure prediction, which recently earned a Nobel Prize, to more controversial uses in film and entertainment.
As AI infiltrates our digital world, internet users are increasingly
exposed to what has been evocatively termed ‘AI slop’—from seemingly
innocuous AI-generated meme trends, such as ‘Shrimp Jesus’, to more demonstrably dangerous outputs, such as AI-generated mushroom-foraging books
that contain bogus advice. In turn, AI now powers everyday tools like
Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar checks, or Gmail’s email filters,
often without us even noticing.
Amid this surge in AI
capabilities and applications, many industries, including academic
publishing, are recognising the opportunities and challenges posed by
these tools. AI offers a way to enhance efficiency, streamlining the
more time-consuming, repetitive and mundane tasks. Yet these
advancements come with ethical and practical considerations that demand
careful thought. As a small, scholar-led, non-profit publisher, we are
experimenting with how AI can support, rather than replace, the human
expertise and creativity that underpin high-quality academic research
and its dissemination.
I have a plan. On my back, I carry a heavy load: a camera, microphone, Zoom recorder, and tripod. I decided to leave my bike at Amsterdam Sloterdijk train station—a huge mistake. Utrecht’s main station is a maze, and I wander up and down various routes before finally finding a bus that will take me to the first venue: IMPAKT’s Centre for Media Culture. This is where the main exhibit, THE CAKE IS A LIE, is showcased. A small group of people stands outside, smoking a cigarette, but the real fuss is on the second floor of the building. I’m searching for someone in a red suit; this is part of my mission and the reason for the heavy load I’m carrying. I find Mike Bonanno from The Yes Men deep in conversation with one of the curators and the program coordinator of this year’s festival, Daniela Tenenbaum. I grab a glass of white wine and head downstairs to the exhibit. An opening speech is about to begin. Two large velvet theatre-like curtains mark access to the room.
The atmosphere is crowded, and everyone’s curiosity is palpable. The exhibition’s title – The Cake is a Lie – echoes the viral internet phenomenon from the 2007 videogame, Portal. It’s a humorous choice, yet the contrast with the diverse selection of artworks elicits a bittersweet smile from the audience. The persistence of gaming themes in recent cultural events and contemporary investigations intrigues me—especially in times when there seems to be little left to laugh about. This feeling surfaces again when Himmelsbach (Dominique Himmelsbach de Vries), a social designer and the mind behind WILDERSWEBWINKEL.NL, begins to speak. His work takes the form of an ironic shop selling Geert Wilders-themed gadgets—perfect for the holiday season, visiting friends, far-right party supporters, or even that irritating neighbor of yours.
Credits: Pieter Kers – beeld.nu.
From WildersWebWinkel:
“By challenging and disrupting societal polarization, we strive for deeper understanding and connection between divided groups and celebrate the richness of human visions and experiences.”
After Himmelsbach, Roy Villevoye takes the stage, presenting Reset – Vienna 1909, 20-year-old Adolf Hitler Is Homeless (2024), and Amún Mbes’ Reenactment (2017). Following him is Roee Rosen, showcasing The Gaza War Tattoos. Continuing my tour of the room, I stop in front of a three-screen installation displaying a 3D animated video. The alien-like figure on the screen speaks from a bathtub drenched in blood. As they talk, I move closer, peering through the gaps between people’s shoulders to get a better view. The work is titled UNDERSTANDING OTHER(S). The artist is Julie Goslinga, and later on that night, I had a chance to speak with her and record an interview about her process.
DEAL WITH IT
Opening night keynote speech – Het Huis
We all move to Het Huis for the keynote speech that marks the official opening of IMPAKT’s Festival night. The session features Dries Verhoeven, Mary Maggic, and Mike Bonnano (The Yes Men), moderated by Cecile van Bruggen. Alongside curators Ine Gevers and Arjon Dunnewind, van Bruggen introduces new festival participants who had not yet spoken at IMPAKT’s Centre for Media Culture. Dries Verhoeven, a theatre-maker and visual artist based in the Netherlands, presents his performative installation Alles Moet Weg, 2024 (Everything Must Go), which is on display at De Paardenkathedraal from Thursday, October 31st. The work examines the moral landscape of late capitalism from shoplifters’s perspective.
Credits: Pieter Kers – beeld.nu.
Following him, Mary Maggic takes the stage. A nonbinary Chinese-American artist and researcher, Maggic frequently employs biohacking as a xeno-feminist practice of care, aiming to demystify the invisible lines of molecular bio-power. Maggic is also a contributor to the Cyberfeminism Index, exhibiting their workEstroworld-now: The Quarantine Edition (2021) at The Cake is a Lie. In addition, they are also participating in various panels throughout the festival.
Credits: Pieter Kers – beeld.nu.
Then, the stage clears—just in time for a grand entrance. A green sponge, oozing a slimy green substance, walks in. Holding a microphone, the sponge addresses the audience in a familiar voice. It’s Mike Bonanno, disguised as Scrubby, the greenwashing sponge.
Credits: Pieter Kers – beeld.nu.
When Scrubby approaches the laptop to begin the slide presentation, he finds out that the fabric of his green fingers makes clicking impossible. In one swift motion, Mike Bonanno emerges from beneath the disguise. He begins by introducing The Yes Men’s body of work over the years, recounting its origins and its very first hijacks. After the presentation, he hands out a very-secret-book, which he invites the audience to pass around. While he doesn’t reveal much about the book’s mission, he promises that all will be revealed in early December.
Credits: Pieter Kers – beeld.nu.
The next segment features the first European screening of The Yes Men’s latest documentary, Adidas Owns the Reality (2024). The activist group, Clean Clothes Campaignand Berlin designers Threads and Tits fooled the fashion world into believing Adidas had launched a revolutionary ethical campaign. The movie featured a fake co-CEO, Cambodian garment worker Vay Ya Nak Phoan, who exposed labor abuses and signed a “Pay Your Workers” agreement. The unveiling of “Adidas REALITYWEAR,” a provocative streetwear line reflecting worker exploitation, shocked audiences with its graphic presentation of factory workers’ conditions. After a while, Adidas denied any involvement, but the elaborate spectacle, complete with staged press releases and a campaign official website, highlighted their human rights violations. Activists used the hoax to push the company to take accountability for improving workers’ treatment and sign the binding agreement. Christie Miedema and other members of the CCC are also present in the audience, along with labor organizations and union representatives. During the Q&A session, they take the floor to elaborate on their legal work and their collaboration with The Yes Men on this project. The movie also includes clips from the fashion show staged during the Berlin Fashion Week 2023, showcasing reactions from the largely unsuspecting audience. From The Yes Men strike again: Adidas failure to meet workers’ compensation demands highlighted in adiVerse hoax:
During Berlin Fashion Week in 2023, these same activists released a false statement from Adidas announcing that its new CEO would appoint a former garment worker as co-CEO. This statement included the suggestion that Adidas would move to sign the Pay Your Workers – Respect Labour Rights agreement, legally binding the company to compensate and safeguard workers and their rights.
Later on, I have a chance to speak more with Mike Bonanno and record an interview, including some stolen shots of Scrubby.
Fri, Nov 1st 2024
Reinventing Manhood
I return to Utrecht, feeling a bit more accustomed to commuting. The plan for the day is to attend the first panel, Reinventing Manhood, and later check out Dries Verhoeven’s performance, Alles Moet Weg. At noon, we enter the main stage of Het Huis, where Linda Duits moderates the panel discussion featuring Mounir Samuel, Babah Tarawally, and Mary Maggic.
The session begins with an introduction of the speakers, after which Duits hands the floor to multidisciplinary artist and journalist Mounir Samuel. Samuel provides an analysis of gender identities in the Netherlands through the lens of language and biblical translation. He reflects on how northwestern Europe has historically set global standards for gender diversity.
Next is Babah Tarawally, a writer, columnist, and journalist originally from Sierra Leone who came to the Netherlands in the 1990s as an asylum seeker. He discussed his latest book, De Getemde Man (2023), and speaks about how his childhood shaped his understanding of gender. For Tarawally, naming things brings attention to them.
The last speaker, Mary Maggic shares also a personal story, touching on the expectations placed on Chinese women and exploring definitions of gender that aim to liberate rather than confine. Maggic emphasized the violence inherent in rigid gender categories and discussed the importance of limits, permeability, and our connections with environmental change. They also mention the project Open Source Estrogen, which positions biohacking as a form of existential knowledge, exploring the intersection of gender and climate change and highlighting their interconnections. A thought-provoking question was raised about whether queer bodies have a place in the future, given their non-reproductive nature. Additionally, the discussion emphasizes love as a radical strategy to counteract an industry fundamentally built on lovelessness. Finally, the panel addresses the societal framing of menopausal women as obsolete, challenging these perceptions. Maggic speaks about gender manipulation discourses, encouraging us to “love the alien in you“.
CONSENSUS ARCHITECTS INC.
Jonas Lund
After the panel, I grab some lunch. On the second floor, in Studio 2, there’s a performative installation going on: Consensus Architects Inc. by Jonas Lund. I enter the room, and it resembles an office space populated by a few people drinking coffee, working on laptops, and wearing name tags. The person at the desk gives me one, too: I am Aisha. Along with the name tag, I receive a printed page detailing Aisha’s background, mission, conspiracies, and her behavior towards other company members, especially Maxwell, the Head of Misinformation.
I’m invited to get a drink and begin socializing with the others in the room. Consensus Architects Inc. turns out to be an engaging roleplay experience. Participants take on roles such as political strategists, content creators, or investors in disinformation. The installation critiques misinformation campaigns, highlighting ethical dilemmas, and encourages to reflect on the impact of propaganda and susceptibility manipulation.
Credits: Pieter Kers – beeld.nu.
The office setting feels like a social experiment, with no client interactions (no showings) and no CEO speeches for this session. It’s all about roleplay, suspension of disbelief, absurdity, playfulness, boundaries, and masks. I find myself amazed by the easiness of getting involved with each character, bonding on the simple fact that all the strangers around me have a clear mission printed out in front of them. Which makes us a little bit less strangers for a couple of hours.
EVERYTHING MUST GO
Dries Verhoeven
After saying goodbye to my newfound colleagues with a clear excuse (I have to take my son from his school’s theatre play), I take a bus to De Paardenkathedraal, to view Dries Verhoeven‘s Alles Moet Weg (Everything Must Go, 2024).
I leave my coat at the entrance, and I step into the exhibit space. The setting is the perfect reproduction of an Albert Heijn’s aisle. A performer with a Snowhite dress and a piggy mask is sucking from a tomato paste. Their voice resonates in the room, dark and quiet, while screens show different angles from CCTVs planted inside the glass-bordered lane.
Credits: Pieter Kers – beeld.nu.
For this piece, Verhoeven interviewed 24 supermarket pickpocketers who consider their action a form of resistance to an unjust system. The dialogues that the performer is presenting are crafted from interviews with the late capitalism’s Robin Hoods, combined with excerpts from Jean Genet, Karl Marx, Ruben Östlund, Rachel Shteir, Mathild Clerc-Verhoeven, and Slavoj Žižek’s words.
6.
We have to do this together, people. if we don’t do it, who will do it?
We have to destroy the supermarket from within.
Our shopping cart is
a Trojan horse, you get it?
I started sharing online what I take from the store…
and my followers really appreciate it. We become this army of shoplifters… the product liberation front.
And it’s also just a good
joke of course, stealing. #borrowing
In other words: How to steal?
Lesson one: presentation.
Don’t dress too shabby, no hoodies, no leggings.
And the outfit has to match…
you cannot wear a fancy jacket
from Bijenkorf with worn-out sneakers.
Not too much makeup. Lesson two: methodology.
Roughly speaking, there are two methods: be messy or be impeccable.
First, the messy method.
Forget a basket, make sure you have too many groceries in your hands.
Make a call while walking, put your phone back in your pocket, take it out…
put a protein bar in your pocket, take out your phone again, drop something.
In other words: juggle.
The atmosphere is captivating, with a strong mise en scène. There’s an uncomfortable feeling that perfectly represents a common sensation, making it easy to immerse in it. It’s creepy, yet also poetic, as the performer describes it. As the lights shift to a warmer pink, the eyes beneath Piggy’s mask glow, and the camera is suddenly pushed away. You can feel the two dark holes looking into you, even though they aren’t. What are they focused on? An expert shoplifter? An amateur? Are you a messy or an impeccable thief? I find myself wondering: which type am I?
This series listens to the political, gendered, queer(ed), racial engagements and class entanglements involved in proclaiming out loud: La-TIN-x. ChI-ca-NA. La-TI-ne. ChI-ca-n-@. Xi-can-x. Funded by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative, the Latinx Sound Cultures Studies Working Group critically considers the role of sound and listening in our formation as political subjects. Through both a comparative and cross-regional lens, we invite Latinx Sound Scholars to join us as we dialogue about our place within the larger fields of Chicanx/Latinx Studies and Sound Studies. We are delighted to publish our initial musings with Sounding Out!, a forum that has long prioritized sound from a queered, racial, working-class and “always-from-below” epistemological standpoint. —Ed. Dolores Inés Casillas
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Busco la colaboración universal donde todos los Benitos puedan llegar a ser Bad Bunny. –FlowGPT, TikTok
In November of 2023, the reggaetón song “DEMO #5: NostalgIA” went viral on various digital platforms, particularly TikTok. The track, posted by user FlowGPT, makes use of artificial intelligence (Inteligencia Artificial) to imitate the voices of Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny, and Daddy Yankee. The song begins with a melody reminiscent of Justin Bieber’s 2015 pop hit “Sorry.” Soon, reggaetón’s characteristic boom-ch-boom-chick drumbeat drops, and the voices of the three artists come together to form a carefully crafted, unprecedented crossover.
Bad Bunny’s catchy verse “sal que te paso a buscar” quickly inundated TikTok feeds as users began to post videos of themselves dancing or lip-syncing to the song. The song was not only very good but it also successfully replicated these artists– their voices, their style, their vibe. Soon, the song exited the bounds of the digital and began to be played in clubs across Latin America, marking a thought-provoking novelty in the usual repertoire of reggaetón hits. In line with the current anxieties around generative AI, the song quickly generated public controversy. Only a few weeks after its release, ‘nostalgIA’ was taken down from most digital platforms.
Screencaps of two TikTok videos posted by DJs in Argentina and Peru. On the left, it reads “This AI will heat up any club.” On the right, “Sorry, Benito.”
The mind behind FlowGPT is Chilean producer Maury Senpai, who in a series of TikTok responses explained his mission of creative democratization in a genre that has been historically exclusive of certain creators. In one video, FlowGPT encourages listeners to contemplate the potential of this “algorithm” to allow songs by lesser-known artists and producers to reach the ears of many listeners, by replicating the voices of well-known singers. Maury Senpai’s production process involved lyric writing, extensive study of the singers’ vocals, and the Kits.ai tool.
Therefore, contrary to FlowGPT’s robotic brand, ‘nostalgIA’ was the product of careful collaboration between human and machine– or, what Ross Cole calls “cyborg creativity.” This hybridization enmeshes the artist and the listener, allowing diverse creators their creative desires. Cyborg creativity, of course, is not an inherent result of GenAI’s advent. Instead, I argue that reggaetón has long been embedded in a tradition of musical imitation and a deep reliance on technological tools, which in turn challenges popular concerns about machine-human artistic collaboration.
Many creators worry that GenAI will co-opt a practice that for a long time has been regarded as strictly human. GenAI’s reliance on pre-existing data threatens to hide the labor of artists who contributed to the model’s output. We may also add the inherent biases present in training data. Pasquinelli and Joler propose that the question “Can AI be creative?” be reformulated as “Is machine learning able to create works that are not imitations of the past?” Machine learning models detect patterns and styles in training data and then generate “random improvisation” within this data. Therefore, GenAI tools are not autonomous creative actors but often operate with generous human intervention that trains, monitors, and disseminates the products of these models.
The inability to define GenAI tools as inherently creative on their own does not mean they can’t be valuable for artists seeking to experiment in their work. Hearkening back to Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg, Ross Cole argues that
Such [AI] music is in fact a species of hybrid creativity predicated on the enmeshing of people and computers (…) We might, then, begin to see AI not as a threat to subjective expression, but another facet of music’s inherent sociality.
Many authors agree that unoriginal content—works that are essentially reshufflings of existing material—cannot be considered legitimate art. However, an examination of the history of the reggaetón genre invites us to question this idea. In “From Música Negra to Reggaetón Latino,” Wayne Marshall explains how the genre emerged from simultaneous and mutually-reinforcing processes in Panamá, Puerto Rico, and New York, where artists brought together elements of dancehall, reggae, and American hip hop. Towards the turn of the millennium, the genre’s incorporation of diverse musical elements and the availability of digital tools for production favored its commercialization across Latin America and the United States.
The imitation of previous artists has been embedded in the fabric of reggaetón from a very early stage. Some of the earliest examples of reggaetón were in fact Spanish lyrics placed over Jamaican dancehall riddims— instrumental tracks with characteristic melodies. When Spanish-speaking artists began to draw from dancehall, they used these same riddims in their songs, and continue to do so today. A notable example of this pattern is the Bam Bam riddim, which is famously used in the song “Murder She Wrote” by Chaka Demus & Pliers (1992).
This riddim made its way into several reggaetón hits, such as “El Taxi” by Osmani García, Pitbull, and Sensato (2015).
We may also observe reggaetón’s tradition of imitation in frequent references to “old school” artists by the “new school,” through beat sampling, remixes, and features. We see this in Karol G’s recent hit “GATÚBELA,” where she collaborates with Maldy, former member of the iconic Plan B duo.
Reggaetón’s deeply rooted tradition of “tribute-paying” also ties into its differentiation from other genres. As the genre grew in commercial value, perhaps to avoid copyright issues, producers cut down on their direct references to dancehall and instead favored synthesized backings. Marshall quotes DJ El Niño in saying that around the mid-90s, people began to use the term reggaetón to refer to “original beats” that did not solely rely on riddims but also employed synthesizer and sequencer software. In particular, the program Fruity Loops, initially launched in 1997, with “preset” sounds and effects provided producers with a wider set of possibilities for sonic innovation in the genre.
The influence of technology on music does not stop at its production but also seeps into its socialization. Today, listeners increasingly engage with music through AI-generated content. Ironically, following the release of Bad Bunny’s latest album, listeners expressed their discontent through AI-generated memes of his voice. One of the most viral ones consisted of Bad Bunny’s voice singing “en el McDonald’s no venden donas.”
The clip, originally sung by user Don Pollo, was modified using AI to sound like Bad Bunny, and then combined with reggaetón beats and the Bam Bam riddim. Many users referred to this sound as a representation of the light-heartedness they saw lacking in the artist’s new album. While Un Verano Sin Ti (2022) stood out as an upbeat summer album that addressed social issues such as U.S. imperialism and machismo, Nadie Sabe lo que va a Pasar Mañana (2023) consisted mostly of tiraderas or disses against other artists and left some listeners disappointed. In a 2018 post for SO!, Michael S. O’Brien speaks of this sonic meme phenomenon, where a sound and its repetition come to encapsulate collective discontent.
Another notorious case of AI-generated covers targets recent phenomenon Young Miko. As one of the first openly queer artists to break into the urban Latin mainstream, Young Miko filled a long-standing gap in the genre—the need for lyrics sung by a woman to another woman. Her distinctive voice has also been used in viral AI covers of songs such as “La Jeepeta,” and “LALA,” originally sung by male artists. To map Young Miko’s voice over reggaetón songs that advance hypermasculinity– through either a love for Jeeps or not-so-subtle oral sex– represents a creative reclamation of desire where the agent is no longer a man, but a woman. Jay Jolles writes of TikTok’s modifications to music production, namely the prioritization of viral success. The case of AI-generated reggaetón covers demonstrates how catchy reinterpretations of an artist’s work can offer listeners a chance to influence the music they enjoy, allowing them to shape it to their own tastes.
Examining the history of musical imitation and digital innovation in reggaetón expands the bounds of artistry as defined by GenAI theorists. In the conventions of the TikTok platform, listeners have found a way to participate in the artistry of imitation that has long defined the genre. The case of FlowGPT, along with the overwhelmingly positive reception of “nostalgIA,” point towards a future where the boundaries between the listener and the artist are blurred, and where technology and digital spaces are the platforms that allow for an enhanced cyborg creativity to take place.
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Featured Image: Screenshot from ““en el McDonald’s no venden donas.” Taken by SO!
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Laurisa Sastoque is a Colombian scholar of digital humanities, history, and storytelling. She works as a Digital Preservation Training Officer at the University of Southampton, where she collaborates with the Digital Humanities Team to promote best practices in digital preservation across Galleries/Gardens, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM), and other sectors. She completed an MPhil in Digital Humanities from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge scholar. She holds a B.A. in History, Creative Writing, and Data Science (Minor) from Northwestern University.
From the 4th to the 9th of October, 2024, ISSA (Island School of Social Autonomy) facilitated a collective building action and series of lectures, workshops, and discussions in Vis, guided by the central theme of To Live Together. The aim was to build new ways of “being, living, and learning together beyond the ruins of capitalism” and provide an embodied “platform for contemplating a different world.”
The essay was originally published in Makery.info on November 13, 2024, as part of the Rewilding Cultures series – a cooperation program co-funded by the European Union.
A community has been brewing on the island of Vis, one of the most distant islands in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of southern Croatia. The Island School of Social Autonomy or ISSA, located above the village of Komiža on the western part of the island, is a recently formed organism. Spearheaded by the Croatian philosopher Srećko Horvat, it is a sprawling community of mostly Balkan artists and activists who collectively bought and are working on restoring three hectares of desolate land and previously uninhabited mountainous green terrain. ISSA is an old stone house, a small construction site, a group of friends, an extended community, and a network.
Before I attended the ISSA To Live Together conference, I was talking with a few friends about going. Some of them knew about it because of the involvement of the Italian philosopher, Franco Bifo Berardi. Some knew about it through the grapevine, and some knew about it because Pamela Anderson is listed as a donor on the website. One acquaintance laughed and said; “The School of Social Autonomy? Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron?” Later on the ferry ride, as I watched the sun dip into the sea and felt the mainland retreating behind my back, his question stuck in my head.
Credit: Matteo Principi
The school in the name of Island School of Social Autotnomy is not glided over, nor is it a stand-in word to represent the conference-type structure of the program. It is an integral part of ISSA’s ideological positioning inspired by Ivan Illich’s book Deschooling Society (1971) and his claim that the contemporary educational system has turned into an “advertising agency that makes you believe that you need the society as it is”. The notion of social autonomy is not divorced from the notion of pedagogy, and learning with and from each other. According to Paulo Freires Pedagogy of the Oppressed, one of the inspirations of ISSA, the learner is to be treated as a co-creator of knowledge. Many of the lecturers at the ‘conference’ are members of the ISSA organism, or have started their own similar, perhaps more private initiatives such as James Bridle, a British artist and writer who is based on an island in the Aegean Sea. The search for autonomy as a political strategy and a model for social organization is a recurring idea at ISSA. It is closely linked with the nature of islands as isolated and hermetic spaces, spaces where people inscribe their desires and grow them patiently, in the process integrating with the existing topology. ISSA’s location is thus both a geographic and metaphorical stance: “We believe that the future lies in archipelagos of autonomy.”
The idea of self-management as a framework has been consistently present in the history of island schools nurturing subversive discourse and activity. ISSA in its current form gives a nod of respect to the summer school of Korčula, founded in the 1960s on a nearby island in the former federal state of Yugoslavia. The historic summer school and the journal it birthed, Praxis, a Marxist-humanist journal, was commemorated in the panel talk entitled The 60th Anniversary of Praxis, and included Nadežda Čačinovič, Boris Buden, Ankica Čakardić, and Mira Oklobdžija all of whom were directly involved in the Korčula summer school. The Korčula summer school encounters that took place during the 1960s were crucial meeting
The 60th Anniversary of Praxis. CC 4.0 by ISSA School / BONK productions
As Boris Buden put it: “Dealing with the past makes sense only in the ability of us to take the past in our hands and affect the present.” The cultural heritage of Praxis proposed that these particular isolated spaces dedicated to critical thought towards existing infrastructures of property and social relations as well as simple collective leisure, took shape in ‘Dyonisian Socialism.’ Praxis and the Korčula summer school were informed by the idea that thinking must transcend the scope of academic institutions and nurture the singularity of multitudes rather than promoting a single monolithic school of thought: not a global revolution but many small local utopias. The ritual of meeting on the beaches in the late afternoon and drinking and talking was an important part of the Korčula summer school and was continued at ISSA, where initiatives such as Memory of the World, Chto Delat, Forest University, and Aventura presented their practices during the school on the beach sessions. Most of the two hundred participants that attended the current and second iteration of ISSA were activists, journalists, artists, and researchers working on parallel and often interlinked initiatives spanning multiple continents. Casual conversation merged with political critique and speculation ebbed and flowed with the waves.
Although it was not specifically mentioned, I couldn’t help but return to the concept of the archipelago and Edouard Glissant’s theory of archipelagic thinking. The theory of archipelagic thinking originates from the violently colonized scattering of islands in the Carribean, and the dissident philosophical thinking produced there, an arguably different context than the briefly colonized island of Vis that retained its language. Nevertheless, there are similarities in archipelagic thinking, marked by unpredictability, multiplicity-in-oneness, and ambiguity. It calls for an “insurrection of the imaginary faculties” aspiring towards innovative ways of conceiving the world, and resonates in many of the conversations echoing across ISSA and the Praxis journal before it.
Mira Oklobdžija, a panelist in the Praxis discussion, referred to a philosopher who had also reflected from the shores of an island: Aristotle and his definition of three forms of knowledge — theoria, poiesis, and praxis. She outlined some interesting digressions in the two generations of the Croatian summer schools, pointing out that ISSA is more activistic and anchored in praxis than the journal Praxis ever aspired to be. An audience member quipped that perhaps in ISSA, the poetry is precisely in the praxis, and this rings true to the guiding motto of ISSA; “We build the school, and the school builds us.”
Two days of ISSA were dedicated to restoring and expanding the old stone building or school nestled in the Vis hills, which will constitute the main hub of ISSA activities. During the days of To Live Together, the regular working force (usually just a few people) at the construction site swelled to a hundred or more, and work that normally took months was accomplished in two days. We carried wooden planks up the mountain and sanded them to construct the large terrace, and participated in a workshop on how to build traditional, terraced stone walls, a practice called dry stonewalling. This technique is so essential on the islands of the Adriatic that it has been included as an UNESCO intangible heritage of mankind. The workshop was led by Igor Mataić, a doctor of science specializing in geotechnics and environmental engineering who is also part of the Pomalo association, a cultural and action-based initiatives NGO on Vis dedicated to protecting the natural environment and sustainable life on the island. We learned where to place the larger anchoring boulders and how to fill in the gaps with smaller stones, making a type of wedge in the sloped side of the hill. The technique doesn’t need any adhesive or cement but relies on viney vegetation to slowly grow in the gaps of the larger stones, through the earth and pebbles, and hold the wall in place over time.
The incline of the mountain is consistently incorporated into the sustainable design of the school. The circular water system (as a convivial tool) demonstrated various ways of water circulation and collection. We were introduced to the construction of a large sloped surface of layered flat stones behind the house, dedicated to collecting and filtering accumulated rainwater. There is an adjacent fog collector project that catches mist and helps it to liquefy, dripping down into basins at the bottom of the fence-like structure.
CC 4.0 by ISSA School / BONK productions
At some point in the day, we saw a line of people walking up the mountain in single file, the first in the line carrying a large pole with a Wifi antenna at its top, looking for a good position to catch the available wifi and route it down to the house. It looked like a religious march in search of connection. Autonomy and self-management do not mean isolation. This initiative was the responsibility of !Mediengruppe Bitnik, an artist duo, and two core members of the ISSA collective who anchor the islands initiative as a practice of embodied tactical media. The co-founders of the Berlin-based collective originate from Vis and Zurich, and deal with reinterpreting urban technological systems that are not meant to be interacted with, utilizing “deliberate loss of control as a means to question established structures.” “When did we agree to these systems layered on top of society?” they asked in their lecture later in the week, describing their impressive opus of playful interferences. They rendered glitched photographs of urban architectural elements into the original stone structures and infiltrated the Zurich opera with phones that randomly dial citizens and transmit usually inaccessible audio, entangling interference with translation. In the spirit of tactical media, they not only initiated the Wifi antenna but also led a workshop titled Your Own Private Pirate Radio Station teaching participants how to assemble a predesigned FM transmitter circuit board to be used as a tactical tool, an artistic device, and a medium of communication. Participants constructed their own pirate radio stations, and, while edging around the law, achieved communicatation in a relatively local but useful radius.
The workshop For a Global Mutiny Against an Empire of Negligence led by the Pirate Care collective, resonated theoretically both with the act of making private radio stations and with the core principles of ISSA. Pirate Care is a research project and a network of activists, scholars, and practitioners who stand against the criminalization of solidarity. Pirate Care was introduced as a concept inspired by the hybrid figure of the pirate in his/her/their militant glory and autonomy, and the invisibility of the renegade figure of revolt. The pirate carer aims to address unequally distributed care, thus breaking empirical strongholds by repositioning knowledge production. In this sense, care is conceptualized as a militant and direct action practice and a partisan terrain of struggle. The concept of pirate care is grounded in its defining elements of breaking the law and claiming disobedience, critical usage of technology, communing private property and partisan knowledge and learning, queering kinship, and federating practices. Ultimately, pirate care unites anarchist legacies by aligning the vocabularies of diverse movements (such as Marxist & Eco Feminist) and federating fragmented pirate care initiatives. The wish to align vocabularies recalls the Praxis panel talk in which the concept of self-management was repositioned as an essentially anarchist framework rather than a communist legacy, thus interrogating the ownership of definitions.
For a Global Mutiny Against an Empire of Negligence. CC 4.0 by ISSA School / BONK productions
The idea of a federation is deeply important for the pirate carers and a concept that is too often forgotten in our leftist spaces. The pirate carers cultivate a profound suspicion towards positions of morality that frequently digress into judgment. Perhaps that is why, as a participant stated later in the day, contemporary political spaces are filled with “leftists who are looking for a political home where there is none”. Thus the Pirate Care Collective works with other people’s practices of care, even though they do not necessarily agree with their politics, consequently federating common struggles and unions. This type of activation is essential as a subversion of the often unnoticed “elite capture” and co-option of renegade academic discourse and trickle-down activism. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, in his recent book Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), states that elite capture is what “stands between us and a transformative, nonsectarian, coalitional politics.” Federating, allyship, and a possible political home for the future left represent a strong undercurrent of thought accompanying the wide breadth of activities at ISSA.
The Pirate Care Collective facilitated a playful and simultaneously dystopic workshop. We were presented with the scenario of being stuck on the island because the mainland had suffered an acute breakdown of infrastructure and civil society. We were then divided into groups and challenged to take roles based on our capabilities of care and assistance. What would we do first? Who does what? Who and what should we take care of? A challenging exercise as you can imagine since it is always the case in such settings that there is an under-representation of engineers, doctors, and herbalists, and an overrepresentation of writers and painters. Nevertheless, throughout the exercise, we realized that skills that are not always valued, such as cooking and emotional perseverance, are essential in small utopias. What will always be needed is clear and calm communication, humor, and (pirate) care, all skills that we expanded during the ISSA conference.
James Bridle, artist and technologist who moved to an island in the Aegean, spoke of his experiments with fog collectors and water purifiers during his lecture and his delight that the ISSA team was developing the same knowledge. Bridle was playful, speaking about the interconnectivity of the world on a metaphysical and organic level rather than an infrastructural and extractivist level. He talked about the hearing of plants and the dancing of bees as active sensory participants in the world and described the solar community of which he is a member on the island where he lives. A solar community provides access to energy for member households through an autonomous solar grid, literally and metaphorically redistributing power through self-management. Power communities are increasingly common, yet remain especially important to islands that are at bigger risk of being isolated from the main power grids of the mainland. “What was considered the periphery is actually the future,” explained James. The peripheries of the islands are places to prototype and experiment both because they are experiencing the climate conditions of the future and because of the archipelagic poesis ingrained in their seclusion and immersion.
Silvia Federici, an Italian feminist, activist, and writer, addressed us by Zoom in the beautiful, sculpted stone movie theatre in Komiža. She said we must work on “rebuilding the commons and inventing new ways of being together. Crucial as a form of self-defense is expanding our imagination — the new world will not burst out of our head like Minerva from the head of Zeus. It will follow a period of experimentation, breaking with the isolation of the individualization of society, where we don’t confront capitalism alone. We do it in our everyday life by changing how we reproduce life and ourselves.” The ISSA School of Social Autonomy attempts just that, by experimenting and weaving ancestral knowledge with a multiplicity of contemporary and historic schools of thought leaving us all with a profound sense of community, excitement, and hope. When I returned to the depressing and apathetic private conversations of everyday urban life in a capital city on the mainland, I encouraged my friends to join us on the island of the future, where the effects of building and learning together are collective, invigorating and visceral.
My naivety did not let me fully believe the game would be so rigged. The data consists of 2,749,674 eligible voters and, somehow, 3,508,294 ballots are claimed by the Election Administration of Georgia to have been cast. From this morning, press speakers from the latter administrative organ insist there was no place for corruption, that elections were held in a peaceful and just environment, that opposition parties intentionally share misinformation, that this is an organised campaign against whatever propaganda they desire to be sunk into this time.
In what follows, I present a toolkit for how to claim the illegitimate power in a country deprived and sick, where elections were won before anyone cast a single vote.
Step 1:
In the days leading up to October 26th, the pro-Russian ruling party, Georgian Dream started massive ‘campaign’, especially outside of capital city – Tbilisi. This campaign mostly focused on taking away the ID cards of potential opposition voters, or buying them. In the second-largest city of Georgia, Kutaisi, the propaganda machine took a form of requests for personal numbers, targeting civil servants, and in this case, kindergarten teachers and their family members. In addition, they were asked to jot down their “wishes” in case of the party’s victory. Not one of them wished for anything beyond basic medical care. Some civil servants were not asked to write down wishes; instead, they were offered benefits in exchange for their personal numbers. The police was involved in the process too, leaving such digital footprint that it did not need any more clearance on the election day.
In a country that is ideologically sick, it nourishes from the mass poverty. The sickness, whether existential, medical, or cultural – becomes a very useful and convenient resource for the Russian puppet-state. The poverty and harsh social conditions are not recognized as problems, but a foundation for “legitimacy”, an endorsement of power. Voters were bought cheaply, at 50-100 GEL each (a mere 20-40 euros) courtesy of the oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Stagnation, alongside promises of “higher and higher”, “better and better”, “more and more Georgian” future are the only assets for clinging to power. The name of the party itself, “Georgian Dream” was part of the “not-really-there-yet reality plan”, and I have been sick of the word “dream” for a long time that is empty of any meaning.
Step 2:
Before election day, the GD party made certain that only a handpicked registrar of voters would oversee the process. This was ensured by the legislative change. Therefore, the position of registrar played their part: ID photos were often not checked against the faces of those who came to vote. The observers, in most instances, were not able to see the difference – they were restricted to go near to the regitrar’s table.
Step 3:
By buying the votes and taking away ID cards, we saw a classic example of carousel voting. People were able to cast multiple votes while moving from one place to another. Observers filmed case after case of these violations, and they got verbally and physically assaulted for this, or simply banned. Finger markings were often faded easily under soap and water. Some machines with UV lights to detect these markings were suspiciously broken. Observers who documented these failings and filed complaints often found themselves expelled from the premises, or worse – called upon and beaten by the Georgian thugs outside, who were also working for the GD.
November 6th, 2024
11 days after Georgian parliamentary elections
Following these events, being out of country, I started to cling onto online media. Several Facebook groups have become focal points for those opposing the regime, resonating amid these turbulencies. A sentiment quickly circulated in these Facebook groups, I saw many posts stating something along the lines of: “it would never be an easy task for us to overthrow this government anyway, how would you imagine life to be so simple?”. Indeed, it has long been challenging on a national level to claim its own space and identity while under the shadow of the Soviet Union, and neighboring Russia, let alone to overthrow a pro-Russian government in the midst of elections.
What interests me here is how living with this collective purpose shapes individual ways of living. A few years ago, my friend and I had a conversation about a phenomenon of “Georgian sadness”. He had just got back from his studies in Austria, and I remember him being struck by how easily a sense of happiness could be achieved in Vienna, and how people could feel content from simple pleasures – from having a cinnamon bun at a cozy café, or getting niche second-hand book found at an open-air market. “In contrast”, he said, “we do not allow ourselves that kind of joy; we have to break down and analyse the feeling of well-being before we can let it settle. We have to philosophise the very state of happiness as we do not accept it without question, but we put a demanding effort into introspection, almost as if it needs to be earned while asking ourselves whether it should feel good at all. Like, if we go skiing, it’s not enough to say it was fun – we frame it as a liberating experience, we talk about the grand, edgy mountains, the thrill of the descent, as if joy must be made complex to be valid.”
I would add that people around me, myself included, rarely describe sweet moments as “happy”. We do not seem to embrace these experiences but we feel the need to over-construct our feelings, rationalise them, turn them into something existential. This emotional landscape also inhabits our resilience against the regime. In the immediate aftermath of the elections when the shock effect was intact, these resilient practices found a foothold in the familiar terrain of endurance – that “ousting Russian government was never going to be easy, so why even be nihilistic about it when we are not used to simplicity anyway?”.
Having said this, I want to delve into the dynamics of activism in the context of Georgian elections. In offline spaces, such as streets overtaken by protesters, the pro-Russian government employs a range of strategies to delegitimise the very purpose of the demonstration, alongside with activists. This mechanism is usually manifested online through governmental TV channels that selectively share the demonstration footage, often forming hate-driven narratives, or underreporting attendance to portray “how purposeless the demonstration is due to a small amount of people”. Additionally, an army of bots attack real users in comment sections, further reinforcing hate language towards protests. I realised I became a bot also, however, I am attacking the ruling party in turn, through their online channels, media outlets and official FB pages of pro-Russian parliamentary members.
December 3rd, 2024 39 days after Georgian elections
Using fireworks as a tactic against water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets has proven effective so far, despite the government’s recent ban on local stores selling pyrotechnics. This form of resistance not only disrupts and belittles the suppression, but also symbolises the purpose of the protest movement. Precisely, street protests transcending the traditional resistance forms have formed a political and cultural space where people are actively reclaiming Georgia’s political landscape. This environment has become a platform for citizens to practice solidarity, and show the defiance in a way of collective self-determination.
The resistance and civil disobedience on the streets that are manifested through multiple forms are unfolding in real time on a daily basis. Protestors are shaping a specific infrastructure of solidarity on-site, which is getting more and more tangible in ways of remarkable unity and organisation. This infrastructure has strengthened over time, that then has helped the movement to adapt and expand.
What began on Rustaveli Avenue, has now decentralised, as the demonstrations are spread across various districts in Tbilisi and even in small rural cities of Georgia – places with no prior history of hosting such protests. There is a rotating system protestors use to ensure a continuous presence. Some remain on the streets from afternoon until late evening, whereas others replace them to hold the space through the night. This wave of protests is often met with the harshest dispersion, as police forces use brutal tactics, ranging from violent, unjust arrests, beatings, to threats of rape.
These acts of state violence have further helped the movement to expand, reinforcing the power of people to demand freedom.
The country currently is paralysed, and today we see dozens of arrests of opposition party leaders, bloggers, and activists, that have a strong positionality in the political scene. This brings back the wave of repressions that also has been the case during the summer when governmental forces were calling and violently threatening ordinary citizens attempting to silence them. Even though the regime remains aggressive, the resilience of the movement also alters itself to adapt to the present circumstances. What can be seen on TikTok is a great representation of how memeified the protest movement has become.
And lastly, what we also see is the emergence of gender dynamics within the protests, which further ridicules the governmental forces having any legitimacy while claiming they are the representation of the people’s aspirations – statements that are far removed from reality.
Credit: Matteo Principi
The 60th Anniversary of Praxis. CC 4.0 by ISSA School / BONK productions
CC 4.0 by ISSA School / BONK productions
For a Global Mutiny Against an Empire of Negligence. CC 4.0 by ISSA School / BONK productions
Credit: Matteo Principi