In the 1960s and '70s musicians devised innovative forms of notation and protocol to liberate themselves from aesthetic and social conventions. Today's digital devotees of code based production and improvisation are continuing this tradition, argues Simon Yuill*

If relational aesthetics and open source were always commercial, can the musical score provide a way of thinking through different relationships between creativity and code? The return to improvisation in 'livecoding' draws parallels with experimental practices developed by maverick musicians, programmers and educators from Sun Ra, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Scratch Orchestra to Seymour Papert. Simon Yuill argues that these 'di

What is radical research? Does it emanate from grass roots social movements, the universities, both, or neither? Melancholic Troglodytes review AK Press’s recent collection of ‘militant research’ with an illustrated tour following the book's line of enquiry from the ‘ivory tower to the barricades’

Professor,
take off your bicycle glasses!
I myself will expound
those times
and myself.

This Anarchist Federation analysis of the National (UK) ID Database, parts of which are already up and running with no need for cards, needs to be read as widely as possible.  A terrifying account of how much more than abstract 'privacy' is at stake, and FOR WHOM.

Strong analysis of state repression from A Murder of Crows (http://www.geocities.com/amurderofcrows1/), via libcom.org.  Makes the crucial connection between spectacular 'emergency' measures (SWAT teams, anti-terror laws etc) and the racially differentiated class war waged every day as 'community policing'.  

Repression as state strategy - A Murder of Crows

Repression is a topic that is often discussed in the revolutionary milieu, but unfortunately it is a subject that is not well understood.

In his latest book Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination, Benedict Anderson advances his longstanding ambition to rehabilitate the image of nationalism. Through a collaged history of the late 19^th century, Anderson forges uncanny connections between anarchism and anti-colonial bourgeois nationalism.

As xenophobic border regimes around the world rigidify, activist groups
are joining forces to denounce them and the neoliberal economics on
which they stand. Amidst a worsening climate of vigilantism, San Diego
based anarchist collective o.r.g.a.n.i.c. report on recent antiborder
actions in the towns, desert wastelands and graveyards along the
US/Mexico border

The Glocal Research Centre of Barcelona's Infoespai on the progress of the 'antiglobalisation' network Peoples' Global Action (PGA) and the challenges it faces

Mayo Fuster, an active participant in the People’s Global Action (PGA), reviews the network’s progress and potential

BACKGROUND: WHAT IS PGA?

Rahul Rao was enthusiastic about the opportunities and encounters catalysed by the Mumbai WSF. But the Forum’s commitment to inclusion and diversity coexists with exclusions – both intentional and unintentional – that can no longer be ignored

II The revolution shall not be criticised?
In response to ISEA98 Micz Flor, organiser of Revolting temporary media laboratory, asks "why now, why revolution?" Is the current popularity of the term and its associated icons anything more than Middle Youth talking to itself in the latest of a long line of fashionable lingos?

IV Net.Politics Q&A

After summer 2002's bizarre display of jubilee-, sport- and media-fuelled nationalism, replete with bunting, flags, street parties and other nostalgic symptoms of the Po-Mo crisis of belonging, we thought the only possible response was fiction. Here Gwyneth Jones - science fiction writer, critic and author of Bold as Love - converts the psychic trauma of 'UK Summer 2002' into a short story...