Here's a mid-January update on some of what's been going on around Autonomedia.
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1. Critical Art Ensemble: trial update, new book
2. Shut Them Down!: New book on the G8 protests in Scotland
3. 50% off 2006 Autonomedia Jubilee Saints calendars
4. Some highlights from the Interactivist Network
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1. Steve Kurtz (and by extension, the Critical Art Ensemble) was denied a motion to dismiss his trial last week in Federal court. Critical Art Ensemble are the collective authors of a series of Autonomedia books analyzing the authoritarian uses of science and technology, particularly where these mechanisms operate with a positive, "everyone's a winner" face (the full-stomached promises of food genomics, for example, or the healthy-and-smart-kids promises of the reproductive industries). Not content to be armchair critics, the CAE also produce art and performance that brings their analysis to museum and gallery audiences and into the public sphere, demystifying the spectacle of what they've called the "military techno-security cineplex."
Of course, this got Steve in big trouble with the security-happy administration, and for close to two years now he's been under investigation for an artwork found in his home at the time of his wife's death. The absurdities of the case seem apparent to nearly everyone except the court itself, which insists on draining everyone's resources to pin a mail-fraud charge on him.
There is good news, though. Despite these many months of strain and stress, CAE has another book in the pipes, scheduled to be published in the early Spring of this year. It's called "Plague March", and rips apart the fear economy at the foundation of bio-warfare alarmism. That's all I'll say about it just now, except that one of the appendices to the book comes from Claire Pentecost, of the CAE Defense Fund, analyzing the real reasons the State has chosen to prosecute Steve's case. This text is well worth reading online at our Interactivist site, at the following address: http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=05/05/30/2348202
Also, please read the forwarded email at the bottom of this Autonogram, from Lucia Sommer of the Defense Fund, and check their website from time to time: http://www.caedefensefund.org
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Autonomedia has recently collaborated with the Dissent Network in the UK to produce "Shut Them Down! The G8, Gleneagles 2005, and the Movement of Movements", a new collection that takes as its starting point the protests in Scotland last summer. Not content to just rehash what went on there, the book addresses issues fundamental to the globalized resistance to capital, such as the nature of openness and "horizontality" and limitations of the "activist" identity. More on the book, including a table of contents and list of contributors, is at http://www.shutthemdown.org, and you can order the book from our new online bookstore. We'll be shipping these books as soon as they're received from the UK.
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50% off Saints calendars! Another tradition of mid-January around here (aside from hot buttered rum-soaked toboggan races across the East River with Team Autonomedia) is trying to sell off the remaining Calendars of Jubilee Saints still in our inventory. $4.98 gets you a fresh copy here.
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Interactivist Info Exchange: Recent Headlines
Please make a regular visit to our online Interactivist Info Exchange. Read a story, leave a comment, engage, debate, illuminate! Here are some recent hotties:
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/01/17/2225239 is a recent interview with Italian Autonomia philosopher/agitator Paolo Virno, discussing his history, immaterial labor, etc. (and http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=05/12/27/0513241 for Steve Wright's discussion on some of the same)
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/01/07/1727205 on the recent death of Zapatista Comandante Ramona (and http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/01/03/1459209 for Marcos' transition to Candidate Zero)
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=05/12/13/1414210 for an analysis of Chomsky's anarchism.
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/01/03/199257 for efforts by WalMart employees in Florida to use collective action and mutual aid to deal with problems on and off the shop floor.
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