Una palabra sobre el arte en Inglaterra (70)

Before the emergence of Indymedia, online activists employed a number of means to create

community awareness. Mass emails and posting to newsgroups (or listservs) were very effective in creating awareness of issues. Meikle addresses in detail the role of online social relations

concerning civil actions and the promotion of particular issues by community groups. For instance, the Zapatistas312 _{are a significant cultural group and arguably the first to have utilised the Internet as}

a means of promoting cogent issues. Meikle states that:

310 _{Znet: The spirit of Resistance Lives http://www.zmag.org/interznet.htm (accessed 10 November 2003).} 311 _{Znet: The spirit of Resistance Lives http://www.zmag.org/interznet.htm (accessed 10 November 2003).}

312 _{The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) stands against the 70 year, one-party rule of the PRI (the ruling}

party of Mexico). They especially take issue against the oppression that this reign has wrought on the people of Mexico.( http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/comment/why.html)

The Net enabled the Zapatistas to spread their bulletins, communiqués and alerts without the necessary endorsement of mainstream media; more importantly, it enabled them to build networks of support and pressure from NGOs and activists around the world.313

The process undertaken by the Zapatistas was very effective and provided a model that other activist groups and organised civil actions have followed as a means of disseminating information, sharing media (e.g. photographs and video footage) and presenting a platform for the issues at hand. For instance, the previously mentioned actions at Woomera and Baxter detention centres in

Australia over the last few years have been a subsequent example of the capacity to distribute information and media to an audience seeking an alternative to corporate TV and print media perspectives.

However, like the physical impact and litigious consequences that the Woomera and Baxter actions had on detainees and supporters, there were tragic outcomes for members of the Zapatista

communities, as despite their successes in creating an online media event and dictating its terms, the Zapatistas continued to struggle against very non-virtual forces. On 22 December 1997, more than 40 members of a Zapatista community were shot dead at Acteal by state-supported paramilitaries.314

Newsgroups and listservs still play in important role in ensuring vital information is widely distributed. Earlier in the chapter, the role of Nettime was mentioned in terms of its capacity to disseminate information about a range of issues. Theorist and critic Geert Lovink was one of the original developers of Nettime and he continues to be involved in similar projects. For example, he has been involved in the Australian cultural list Fibreculture, a listserv that has many artists, media The Zapatista uprising occurred when four towns were seized on 1 January 1994. The EZLN had been in existence in some form since 1983 but it is only after 1994 that a clear history of the EZLN and events in Chiapas can be constructed. http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico.html

The enormous response to the 1996 Zapatista call for a series of continental and intercontinental Encounters led to an historic gathering in Chiapas at the end of July 1996 where over 3,000 grassroots activists and intellectuals from 42 countries on 5 continents came together to discuss the struggle against neo-liberalism on a global scale.

http://www.eco.utexas.edu/~hmcleave/zapsincyber.html (accessed 16 November 2006).

313 _{Meikle, G., Future Active, pp. 145-146.} 314_{Meikle, G., Future Active, pp. 145-146.}

makers and activists listed as subscribers.

Obviously, the role of websites like Indymedia were important in publishing alternative

interpretations of news and current affairs and they were successful because of the way in which people act and participate with the information published on these sites. This is ‘Social Media’ at work. For instance, when readers encounter a story they deem important on such a website, they may decide to alert other readers by referring to the article or site by mailing the lists with which they are affiliated. In addition, many people have developed their personal lists over time — these might include family, friends and work-mates outside of the activist community in which they are involved with as an activist. This transference of information across the users networks is central to the concept of distributed aesthetics. This is even more pronounced with the onset of Web2.0 technologies. Users can synch tools together to share media across the communities, for example, when I update my status in Identi.ca it automatically updates my Facebook and Twitter status. Also, when I add links to Del.icio.us and images to Flickr, they are also published as updates on

Facebook. As Bruns notes:

Indeed, the fundamental driver of the changes in journalism, as well as of many wider changes in society, is an idea of access and participation for which the Internet and its associated technologies can be seen as emblematic examples rather than determining components.315

These comments refer to a shift in how society in general now operates; although he is discussing the Internet and its technologies, he does not confine these changes only to online communications, because these changes have affected society on every level, from ideas of what constitutes a country to how an individual can negotiate communal space.