Disruption Network Lab

CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE: Independent Investigations for Change The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 3 The 17th conference of the Disruption Network Lab GHOSTS IN THE WOODS AND UNCANNY ENTITIES: On How to Cover the Italian «NO TAV» Movement Wu Ming 1 (Author & Writer, Wu Ming Foundation, IT). Moderated by Alexandra Weltz-Rombach (Author & Filmmaker, DE). The Wu Ming collective is more known abroad as a «band of writers» authoring a particular strand of «metahistorical fiction», i.e. books like Q, Altai, Manituana and The Army of Sleepwalkers; however, in the course of the 2010s they've been exploring different territories. Very often, they've been literally exploring territories on foot. By writing the books they called UNOs [Unidentified Narrative Objects] they've been trying to map – as an act of re-imagination – the elusive lands where «creative non-fiction» becomes ever more hybrid. Even when they are "solo" projects, i.e. they are signed by an individual member of the Wu Ming collective, these books are always collaborative efforts, the process is very open and participatory, and it remains so after publication. A case in point is provided by the work Wu Ming 1 did to cover the so-called No Tav movement, opposing the construction of a high-speed railway in the Susa Valley, in the Western Alps. On a continental scale No Tav [No Treno ad Alta Velocità] are the most long-lasting, enduring movement opposing a mega-project, a public infrastructure which they consider not only useless and unbelievably expensive, but also dangerous for the environment and their lives. The struggle started in 1991. 28 years later, the movement is still effectively slowing down the project, which was modified and downsized many times by the government. However, there's much more than that: the movement has the cultural hegemony in the Susa Valley, influences the whole political life of the region and keeps making successful experiments in participation, self-management and even collective property. Police violence, judiciary repression, arrests, defamation, demonization… Nothing could defeat them; they're still there. How could that happen? https://www.disruptionlab.org/citizens-of-evidence Photo credit: Wu Ming 1 Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE: Independent Investigations for Change The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 3 The 17th conference of the Disruption Network Lab WHAT INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATORS DON'T USUALLY DISCLOSE Matthew Caruana Galizia (Investigative Journalist & Software Engineer, MLT). Moderated by Crina Boros (Investigative Reporter, UK). This keynote speech will address issues freelancers who investigate high-level corruption face in silence and isolation, often with tragic consequences. Calling all journalists, due diligence investigators, whistleblowers and human rights professionals, Matthew Caruana Galizia, in conversation with Crina Boros, will look at what impacted murdered Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia personally and professionally during her dangerous work, and will discuss a freelancer's personal responsibility, as well as the shield owed by employers, cross-border networks, as well as state regulators and legislators. Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb in Malta on 16 October 2017. The investigation into her killing is ongoing, but "there is little doubt that she was murdered because of her work. With a brazen, unapologetic and uncompromising style, she denounced corruption, nepotism, clientelism, and all kinds of criminal behaviors in her tiny EU member state", as stated on the website of The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) https://www.occrp.org/en/thedaphneproject/. Read more about The Daphne Project: https://forbiddenstories.org/case/the-daphne-project/ (investigation coordinated and led by Forbidden Stories). https://www.disruptionlab.org/citizens-of-evidence Photo credit: Elena Veronese Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

This panel highlights how citizens are contributing on facilitating evidence, as well as how journalists, policy makers or activists are empowering voices against corruption and abuses. Reporting about three different local contexts, the speakers will reflect on how their work was effective in raising awareness, exposing human rights abuses, and building cases on neglected issues.

Melissa Segura (Investigative Reporter, BuzzFeed News, US), Samuel Sinyangwe (Data Scientist & Policy Analyst, Campaign Zero & Police Scorecard, US), Gareth Benest (Participatory Video Facilitator, UK). Moderated by Michael Hornsby (Communication Officer, Transparency International, UK/DE).

From CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE: Independent Investigations for Change

https://www.disruptionlab.org/citizens-of-evidence

Photo credit: Elena Veronese

PRISONERS-OF-DISSENT: Locked Up for Exposing Crimes. The 11th Event of the Disruption Network Lab Panel with Annie Machon (former MI5 intelligence officer, UK/BE), Silvanos Mudzvova (Artist Protection Fund fellow in residency at The University of Manchester, ZWE/UK), Magnus Ag (senior program officer, Freemuse, DK/DE). Moderated by Annegret Falter (chair Whistleblower Netzwerk e.V., DE). Final Q&A with the speakers and CIA anti-torture whistleblower John Kiriakou. Presented in collaboration with the Whistleblower Netzwerk e.V., this panel reflects on the political, legal, social and personal consequences of whistleblowing and truth-telling. Speakers are Annie Machon, a former intelligence officer for the UK's Security Service MI5 who helped blow the whistle on the crimes and incompetence of the British spy agencies; Silvanos Mudzvova, artist and truth-teller persecuted for staging his one-man play 'Missing Diamonds, I Need My Share', criticising Zimbabwe's cash crisis and $15 billion USD raised from diamond sales that has gone missing; and international human rights advocate Magnus Ag, who works as senior programme officer at Freemuse, an international civil society organisation advocating and defending the right to artistic freedom worldwide. Moderated by Annegret Falter, chair of the Whistleblower Network of Germany, the panel presents personal experiences of repression and detention, and analyses the meaning of 'social agreement' in the information society, debating the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual, as well as discussing new forms of distributed social justice. CIA anti-torture whistleblower John Kiriakou will join the debate after the presentations. www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent (http://www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent) Photo: Thomas Schmidt Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

PRISONERS-OF-DISSENT: Locked Up for Exposing Crimes. The 11th Event of the Disruption Network Lab Keynote: Doing Time Like a Spy. On Prison Survival and the CIA's War on Terror. With John Kiriakou(CIA anti-torture whistleblower, USA). Moderated by Magnus Ag (Senior Programm Officer, Freemuse, DK/DE) CIA anti-torture whistleblower John Kiriakou is considered the first US intelligence officer to reveal information about the US intelligence community's use of torture techniques. A long-time former CIA official and case officer, John Kiriakou became an anti-torture whistleblower and activist when he told ABC News in December 2007 that the CIA was torturing Al Qaeda prisoners. Immediately after John's interview, the Justice Department initiated a years-long investigation, determined to find something–anything–to charge him with. John eventually was charged with three counts of espionage, one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and one count of making a false statement as a result of the 2007 ABC News interview. On February 28, 2013, after pleading guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Kiriakou began serving his prison sentence. During this keynote presentation, Kiriakou will talk about the effects and costs of national security whistleblowing in the United States, as well as his book, Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison, to be released May 3, 2017 (published by Rare Bird Books, pre-order here (http://www.rarebirdbooks.com/new-products/doing-time-like-a-spy-by-john-kiriakou)). The book is Kiriakou's memoir of his twenty-three months in prison. Using twenty life skills he learned in CIA operational training, he was able to keep himself safe and at the top of the prison social heap. What were improper and inappropriate manipulations of Kiriakou, through maneuvers that were designed to break him, came an end result that only made him stronger. www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent (http://www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent) Photo: Thomas Schmidt Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

TRUTH-TELLERS: The Impact of Speaking Out. The 10th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Panel: Beyond Evidence. Finding Sources, Questioning Truth with Jack Werner (investigative journalist, SE), Hans Bernhard / UBERMORGEN (artist, CH/USA/AT) Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo / !Mediengruppe Bitnik (artists, CH/DE). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (Director of the Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE). If we consider truth-telling as the act of providing clear facts and evidence, which is a keen discourse within whistleblowing, what happens if we question the concept of truth itself, by analysing how Internet culture works? The challenge becomes to investigate those obscure parts of the Internet that are fed by "fakelore" (as a combination of fake, and folklore), as well as artistic projects that question a single perspective of understanding and bring along multiple truths. Hans Bernhard, co-founder of the artist project UBERMORGEN together with lizvlx, will tell us about the (true or false?) stories of discovering whistle-blower Edward Snowden at the Vienna International Airport escaping from Hong Kong, as well as Facts, Truth, Fake, and consensual hallucinations; Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo /!Mediengruppe Bitnik will present, among others, their project "Delivery for Mr. Assange" as a SYSTEM_TEST and a Live Mail Art Piece broadcasted in the Internet through a camera, as well as other projects about the hidden side of the Internet. Finally, investigative journalist Jack Werner, author of the book Creepypasta: Ghost stories from the Internet (2014), will open up the discourse to "fakelore", by discussing the impact of viral storytelling and source trust in online journalism and culture. www.disruptionlab.org/truth-tellers (http://www.disruptionlab.org/truth-tellers) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

TRUTH-TELLERS: The Impact of Speaking Out. The 10th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Keynote: 50 Days of Lulz with Mustafa Al-Bassam (alias Tflow, former core member, LulzSec, UK). Moderated by Gabriella Coleman (Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University, Quebec, CA). This keynote presentation wants to trace back the so-called "50 Days of Lulz" ("lulz" as a derivation of lol, laugh out loud), 50 days of high profile attacks by the hacker group named "LulzSec" in the spring of 2011. This story, which is about truth-telling activity beyond moral conformism and political correctness, as well as fighting for freedom and social rights, facing corporations, oppression and corruption, is told by one of its protagonists, Mustafa Al-Bassam alias Tflow, who was one of the six core members of LulzSec, and at the time only 16 years old. The activity of LulzSec is well documented in the book Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (2014) by Gabriella Coleman (who will introduce this Keynote), as a unique example of a collective that was able to find vulnerabilities in high level computer systems, revealing hidden information, as well as straightforward attacks on private corporations (from HBGaryFederal to Sony Pictures), using the strategy of leaking for exposing wrongdoing and sensitive data. LulzSec is shrouded in some degree of deliberate mystery, combining the activity of whistleblowing with the one of opacity, deceit, and play, as the broader entity of Anonymous to whom LulzSec was affiliated. Here the fun of trolling and political activism are bound together, having a large impact on public opinion and media culture. Mustafa Al-Bassam, who also managed the LulzSecurity.com website, is currently a Computer Science PhD student at University College London, and back on the Internet after a nearly two year Internet ban imposed by police. www.disruptionlab.org/truth-tellers (http://www.disruptionlab.org/truth-tellers) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

IGNORANCE: The Power of Non-Knowledge. The 9th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Panel: Manipulation Incorporated: On Social Media Targeting, Self-Branding, and Emotional Pornification with Ippolita (activists and writers, IT), Hannah Jane Parkinson (digital culture journalist and writer, UK), and Vladan Joler (SHARE Foundation director, chair of New Media Department, University of Novi Sad, RS). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (artistic director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE). Which strategies of manipulation are hidden behind the use of social media? What are the targeting methods used by Facebook during political campaigns? How does an algorithm quantify and influence our intimate lives? Who is controlling our data and for what are they used? Social media corporations have been basing their economy on trade of personal connections, targeting of users, and the commercial use of our sensitive data. This is a trade that most of the time we accept almost automatically, exchanging data for free services. But while we experiment the pleasure of being always connected and the playful dependence of exposing our intimate digital self, somebody else is profiting, and even trying to orient our political vote. As pointed out by the Ippolita collective, we are electrical souls permanently in ecstasy, practicing the discipline of emotional pornography in the media spotlight - without realising we are at the mercy of a doping and manipulative power. A power that knows how to use social media, as well as operate across them, as we read on The Guardian piece by Hannah Jane Parkinson, who will describe Trump's social media strategy, as well as the post-fact problematic posed by the "Vote Leave" campaign by Boris Johnson in the UK. With Vladan Joler we will investigate what is at the core of the Facebook Algorithmic Factory, to map and visualise a complex and invisible exploitation process hidden behind a black box of the World's largest social network. www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance (http://www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance/) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

IGNORANCE: The Power of Non-Knowledge. The 9th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Panel: The Forbidden, the Doubtful and the Moral. What Could Be Known But Isn't with Joanna Kempner (sociologist, US), Jamie Allen (artist and researcher, CA/CH), Jan Willem Wieland (philosopher and researcher, NL). Moderated by Teresa Dillon (artist and researcher, IE/DE/UK). While it is difficult enough to develop what has been termed "negative knowledge", that is, knowledge about the limits of knowledge (Karin Knorr-Cetina), also later in the process it continues to be a challenge to understand how to deal with these identified fields of non-knowledge. This panel will deal with such known unknowns, and present experimental methods of investigation as well as the resulting question related to the responsibility for not-knowing in moral and ethical terms: While Joanna Kempner will present her exploration and work within the territories of "forbidden knowledge" in medical science research, Jamie Allen will give insight into his artistic work and research related to "apocryphal technologies" as examples for ignorance through the false believe of being knowledgable. The ethical questions related to these and other forms of willful (that is, motivated, affected, or strategic) forms of ignorance, to what can and should have already been known, will be presented by Jan Willem Wieland. Taking new forms of slavery and our so-called slavery-footprint as an example, he will discuss the question of whether people who are willfully ignorant can be held responsible for it. www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance (http://www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance/) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

IGNORANCE: The Power of Non-Knowledge. The 9th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Keynote: Ignorance. How to Know about Not Knowing with Matthias Gross (sociologist and science studies scholar, DE). Moderated by Daniela Silvestrin (curator, Disruption Network Lab, DE). In his keynote, Matthias Gross will present the publication and overview of inquiries within the field of ignorance studies he co-edited together with Linsey McGoey: Once treated as the absence of knowledge, ignorance today has become a highly influential topic in its own right, commanding growing attention across the natural and social sciences where a wide range of scholars have begun to explore the social life and political issues involved in the distribution and strategic use of not knowing. The field is growing fast and this handbook reflects this interdisciplinary field of study by drawing contributions from economics, sociology, history, philosophy, cultural studies, anthropology, feminist studies, and related fields in order to serve as a seminal guide to the political, legal and social uses of ignorance in social and political life. www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance (http://www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance/) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com