Disrupting (with) Technology: Computational Political Action (Topics in ITP)

This course explores “disruptive” political action that employs new technology. We look at initiatives with various ends and means—some noble, some explosively controversial, and others patently abhorrent. The level of “disruption” also varies extremely—from bureaucratic inconvenience to civilian casualties. However, all the actions express ideological or political protest, either by disrupting technology-driven systems themselves, or by appropriating technology to disrupt non-technical systems of power. Organized via mode of disruption, the class will focus less on the political ends of each action, and more on the modes of achieving those ends. We will also read theorists like Audre Lorde, Laboria Cuboniks, Tung Hui-Hu, Mark Fisher, Hito Steyerl and McKenzie Wark, to help us think about how/when/if recent technology may disrupt, rather than preserve, the status quo. In a world where our technology seems ever more aligned with hegemonic power structures, we must look at the moments where it is used, instead, to veer from them—if we are to see that technology clearly at all. Students will leave the class with a solid grasp of what it means for technology to be complicit in political disruption. Throughout, students will keep an ideation journal in the medium of their choosing, in which they plan their own disruptions and document one guided mini-disruption.