When Technocultures Collide Innovation From Below And The Struggle For Autonomy

When Technocultures Collide provides rich and diverse studies of collision courses between technologically inspired subcultures and the corporate and governmental entities they seek to undermine. The adventures and exploits of computer hackers, phone phreaks, urban explorers, calculator and computer collectors, “CrackBerry” users, whistle-blowers, Yippies, zinsters, roulette cheats, chess geeks, and a range of losers and tinkerers feature prominently in this volume. Gary Genosko analyzes these practices for their remarkable diversity and their innovation and leaps of imagination. He assesses the results of a number of operations, including the Canadian stories of Mafiaboy, Jeff Chapman of Infiltration, and BlackBerry users.The author provides critical accounts of highly specialized attributes, such as the prospects of deterritorialized computer mice and big toe computing, the role of electrical grid hacks in urban technopolitics, and whether info-addiction and depression contribute to tactical resistance. Beyond resistance, however, the goal of this work is to find examples of technocultural autonomy in the minor and marginal cultural productions of small cultures, ethico-poetic diversions, and sustainable withdrawals with genuine therapeutic potential to surpass accumulation, debt, and competition. The dangers and joys of these struggles for autonomy are underlined in studies of RIM’s BlackBerry and Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks website.

When Technocultures Collide provides rich and diverse studies of collision courses between technologically inspired subcultures and the corporate and governmental entities they seek to undermine. The adventures and exploits of computer hackers, phone phreaks, urban explorers, calculator and computer collectors, “CrackBerry” users, whistle-blowers, Yippies, zinsters, roulette cheats, chess geeks, and a range of losers and tinkerers feature prominently in this volume. Gary Genosko analyzes these practices for their remarkable diversity and their innovation and leaps of imagination. He assesses the results of a number of operations, including the Canadian stories of Mafiaboy, Jeff Chapman of Infiltration, and BlackBerry users. The author provides critical accounts of highly specialized attributes, such as the prospects of deterritorialized computer mice and big toe computing, the role of electrical grid hacks in urban technopolitics, and whether info-addiction and depression contribute to tactical resistance. Beyond resistance, however, the goal of this work is to find examples of technocultural autonomy in the minor and marginal cultural productions of small cultures, ethico-poetic diversions, and sustainable withdrawals with genuine therapeutic potential to surpass accumulation, debt, and competition. The dangers and joys of these struggles for autonomy are underlined in studies of RIM’s BlackBerry and Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks website.

This book is the first to explore technoculture in all of Don DeLillo’s novels. From Americana (1971) to The Silence (2020), the American author anatomizes the constantly changing relationship between culture and technology in overt and layered aspects of the characters’ experiences. Through a tendency to discover and rediscover technocultural modes of appearance, DeLillo emphasizes settings wherein technological progress is implicated in cultural imperatives. This study brings forth representations of such implication/interaction through various themes, particularly perception, history, reality, space/architecture, information, and the posthuman. The chapters are based on a thematic structure that weaves DeLillo’s novels with the rich literary criticism produced on the author, and with the various theoretical frameworks of technoculture. This leads to the formulation and elaboration on numerous objects of research extracted from DeLillo's novels, namely: the theorization of DeLillo’s "radiance in dailiness," the investigation of various uses of technology as an extension, the role of image technologies in redefining history, the reconceptualization of the ethical and behavioral aspects of reality, the development of tele-visual and embodied perceptions in various technocultural spaces, and the involvement of information technologies in reconstructing the beliefs, behaviors, and activities of the posthuman. One of the main aims of the study is to show how DeLillo’s novels bring to light the constant transformation of technocultural everydayness. It is argued that though such transformation is confusing or resisted at times, it points to a transitional mode of being. This transitional state does not dehumanize DeLillo’s characters; it reveals their humanity in a continually changing world.

This volume examines the challenges cinemas in small European countries have faced since 1989. It explores how notions of scale and »small cinemas« relate to questions of territory, transnational media flows, and globalization. Employing a variety of approaches from industry analysis to Deleuze & Guattari's concept of the »minor«, contributions address the relationship of small cinemas to Hollywood, the role of history and memory, and the politics of place in post-Socialist cinemas.

The writings of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari offer the most enduring and controversial contributions to the theory and practice of art in post-war Continental thought. However, these writings are both so wide-ranging and so challenging that much of the synoptic work on Deleuzo-Guattarian aesthetics has taken the form of sympathetic exegesis, rather than critical appraisal. This rich and original collection of essays, authored by both major Deleuzian scholars and practicing artists and curators, offers an important critique of Deleuze and Guattari's legacy in relation to a multitude of art forms, including painting, cinema, television, music, architecture, literature, drawing, and installation art. Inspired by the implications of Deleuze and Guattari's work on difference and multiplicity and with a focus on the intersection of theory and practice, the book represents a major interdisciplinary contribution to Deleuze-Guattarian aesthetics.

Becoming-animal is a key concept for Deleuze and Guattari; the ambiguous idea of the animal as human and nonhuman life infiltrates all of Deleuze's work. These 16 essays apply Deleuze's work to analysing television, film, music, art, drunkenness, mourning, virtual technology, protest, activism, animal rights and abolition. Each chapter questions the premise of the animal and critiques the centrality of the human. This collection creates new questions about what the age of the Anthropocene means by 'animal' and analyses and explores examples of the unclear boundaries between human and animal.

Material Cultures in Canada presents the vibrant and diverse field of material culture studies in Canadian literary, artistic, and political contexts today. The first of its kind, this collection features sixteen essays by leading scholars in Canada, each of whom examines a different object of study, including the beaver, geraniums, comics, water, a musical playlist, and the human body. The book’s three sections focus, in turn, on objects that are persistently material, on things whose materiality blends into the immaterial, and on the materials of spaces. Contributors highlight some of the most exciting new developments in the field, such as the emergence of “new materialism,” affect theory, globalization studies, and environmental criticism. Although the book has a Canadian centre, the majority of its contributors consider objects that cross borders or otherwise resist national affiliation. This collection will be valuable to readers within and outside of Canada who are interested in material culture studies and, in addition, will appeal to anyone interested in the central debates taking place in Canadian political and cultural life today, such as climate change, citizenship, shifts in urban and small-town life, and the persistence of imperialism.

Cybercrimes are often viewed as technical offenses that require technical solutions, such as antivirus programs or automated intrusion detection tools. However, these crimes are committed by individuals or networks of people which prey upon human victims and are detected and prosecuted by criminal justice personnel. As a result, human decision-making plays a substantial role in the course of an offence, the justice response, and policymakers' attempts to legislate against these crimes. This book focuses on the human factor in cybercrime: its offenders, victims, and parties involved in tackling cybercrime. The distinct nature of cybercrime has consequences for the entire spectrum of crime and raises myriad questions about the nature of offending and victimization. For example, are cybercriminals the same as traditional offenders, or are there new offender types with distinct characteristics and motives? What foreground and situational characteristics influence the decision-making process of offenders? Which personal and situational characteristics provide an increased or decreased risk of cybercrime victimization? This book brings together leading criminologists from around the world to consider these questions and examine all facets of victimization, offending, offender networks, and policy responses. Chapter 13 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.