Situation Room: Designing a Prototype of a Citizen Situation Room (2010) [English/Spanish]
Filed under book | Tags: · architecture, capitalism, cartography, cybernetics, military
The term Situation Room is normally used to designate a secret place used in times of crisis to assess and monitor data for decision making purposes. Its origins can be traced back to World War II with the invention of computers, digitalization, and the collaboration of architects and the military. These rooms are equipped with monitors and data boards used to control everything from flows crossing the strait of Gibraltar to nuclear fission processes in Nuclear Power plants and the life support mechanisms on board the International Space Station.
“Rather than being afraid of control, and technologies in general, we prefer to think in terms of social appropriation and implementation with research and creativity; we even think that, as Cybersyn shows, the source of technological creativity actually lies in social cooperation, and that it is only later captured by the military or capitalism.” -Hackitectura
Idea: José Pérez de Lama y Pablo de Soto
Editors Pablo de Soto & Hackitectura
Publisher dpr-barcelona, June 2010
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License
ISBN 9788461415045
112 pages
Jeremy Scahill: Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (2007/2008)
Filed under book | Tags: · afghanistan, iraq, military, politics, united states, war on terror
On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad’s Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled “Baghdad’s Bloody Sunday,” was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide.
This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the “War on Terror.” In his gripping bestseller, award-winning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine.
First published in 2007
Revised and updated edition
Publisher Nation Books, 2008
ISBN 156858394X, 9781568583945
550 pages
interview with the author (WeAreChange.org, 14 November 2012)
interview with the author (Democracy Now!, 2009)
Scahill’s speech at the Miami Book Fair (2008)
interview with the author (PBS, 2007)
interview with the author (Democracy Now!, 2007)
Jill Magid: Failed States (2012)
Filed under book, fiction | Tags: · military, secrecy, transparency
Failed States is an exploration of coincidence and poetics amid the barriers and bureaucracy of governmental power. While on a trip to research the history of snipers in Austin, Texas, artist Jill Magid witnesses a mysterious shooting on the steps of the State Capitol. Twenty-four year old Fausto Cardenas fires several rounds in the air before being arrested. The event becomes the background against which Magid, under the guidance of CT — editor at the Texas Observer and former embedded war correspondent for AP — starts her training to become an embedded journalist with the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
Magid’s non-fiction novel Failed States approaches the themes of transparency, secrecy and publicity through her personal desire to engage the war on terror and its media representation through becoming an eyewitness.
Publisher Publication Studio, Portland, OR
Coproduced by Z33 – House for Contemporary Art, Belgium; Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles; Bucharest Biennial 5; and The Romanian Cultural Institute of Stockholm
ISBN 9781935662044
140 pages
Failed States installation by the artist
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