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Tactical Media and the New Paranoia

Presented at The Fifth HOPE (2004), July 11, 2004, 11 a.m. (60 minutes).

The Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA), The Yes Men, and the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) are activist collectives that use unconventional means to deliver their message. The IAA is an anonymous collective of artists, hackers, and radical engineers who have produced projects such as high speed graffiti-writing robots and map-based websites that help people avoid surveillance cameras. The Yes Men have gained international notoriety for their use of extreme social engineering in order to impersonate World Trade Organization officials at conferences, on the web, and on television. A feature length film documenting their antics will be released by United Artists in August. The Critical Art Ensemble is a collective that explores the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical theory. Their books including Electronic Civil Disobedience and The Molecular Invasion have been translated into 18 languages and are used in universities the world over. Recently the FBI has accused the group of bio-terrorism. Due to the ongoing investigation, members of CAE are unable to speak publicly on these issues. However, members of IAA and The Yes Men will describe the events of the case and discuss it as it relates to investigations of hackers.


Presenters:

  • Mike Bananno
    Mike Bananno is a member of The Yes Men (http://www.theyesmen.org), a group that has impersonated World Trade Organization officials at international trade conferences the world over. At times they have given keynote addresses as the WTO to international trade attorneys, textile representatives, accountants, university students, and the entire audience of CNBC Marketwrap just to name a few.
  • John Henry
    John Henry is a founding member of the Institute for Applied Autonomy (http://www.appliedautonomy.com) and was a young lad at the first HOPE conference. The IAA was founded in 1998 as a technological research and development organization dedicated to individual and collective self determination. IAA projects to date have included robots that write graffiti in high profile locations, a cute robot that distributes subversive literature, a vehicle that prints six foot tall letters on the ground while driving, and a website which generates maps that avoid surveillance cameras in cities.

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