Laurier Rochon: The Dictator’s Practical Internet Guide to Power Retention (2012)
Filed under booklet | Tags: · internet, politics, power, social media, totalitarianism
The goal of this guide is to provide leaders of authoritarian, autocratic, theocratic, totalitarian and other single-leader or single-party regimes with a basic set of guidelines on how to use the internet to ensure you retain the most power for the longest time. The best way to achieve this is to never have your authority contested. This guide will accompany you in the obliteration of political dissidence. By having everyone agree with you, or believe that everyone agrees with you, your stay at the head of state will be long and prosperous.
Self-published, June 2012, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
55 pages
PDF
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Max Bense, Elisabeth Walther (eds.): rot 19: Computer-Grafik (1968) [German]
Filed under booklet | Tags: · aesthetics, computer art, computer graphics
“This little booklet of 14 pages is one of the first publications ever on computer art. It appeared at the occasion of the first exhibition of computer-generated, algorithmic art world-wide: the famous show of a small set of graphic works by Georg Nees. The show was held from February 5 to 19, 1965, on the premises of the Studiengalerie of TH Stuttgart (now University of Stuttgart).
The booklet is in German. It contains two short contributions by Georg Nees (2 pages) and Max Bense (3 pages) plus six images of Nees’ earliest works.
Both texts are important from a historic perspective. Nees gives a brief account of the essentials of early algorithmic art, including five descriptions of programs in plain language. These descriptions are precise formulations of the algorithms, and as such they constitute perfect documentations, independent of programming language, operating system, run-time support, or hardware. This was possible because of the simplicity of the algorithmic schema.
Bense’s text, Projekte generativer Ästhetik, must be considered the manifesto of computer art. It introduces the notion of Generative Aesthetics, in direct reference to Chomsky’s Generative Grammar. It is formulated in Bense’s typical apodictic, rigorous, almost mechanistic prose. But it points to a development that started to blossom and gained recognition only during the first decade of the 21st century: the exciting movement of generative art, design, architecture, music, and more.
The special issue of Studio International, published by Jasia Reichardt, for the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition in London, 1968, contains an English translation. It has often been re-published.” (source)
Published in Stuttgart, February 1965
14 pages
via Nina Wenhart
More information (compArt database Digital Art)
PDF (updated on 2016-2-17)
Comment (0)European Digital Rights: EU Surveillance (2012)
Filed under booklet | Tags: · biometrics, data retention, european union, privacy, surveillance
“The purpose of this booklet is to briefly outline current EU surveillance and security measures in order to give an insight into their scale and cumulative effect. In order to be legal under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, each security measure that limits fundamental rights is understood to be effective and a “necessary” and “proportionate” breach of the rights which our society considers to be fundamental.”
Written by Joe McNamee, Kirsten Fiedler, Marie Humeau, Daniel Dimov
Publisher European Digital Rights (EDRi), Brussels, 23 January 2012
The EDRi Papers, Edition 02
Creative Commons 3.0 License
20 pages