Politics for the Public Domain

"Social space is produced and structured by conflicts. With this recognition, a democratic spatial politics begins.…..The political sphere is not only a site of discourse; it is also a discursively constructed site. From the standpoint of a radical democracy, politics cannot be reduced to something that happens inside the limits of a public space or political community that is simply accepted as 'real'. Politics, as Chantal Mouffe writes, is about the constitution of the political community. It is about the spatializing operations that produce a space of politics. Oliver Marchardt

shuddha@sarai.net, emailing dak@sarai.net on the nettime mailing list: Let us stretch the classical western notions of the 'public' as an open and local space of conversation, solidarity and dialogue towards the dimensions of the hidden and the ubiquitous. This will bring into meaning the very opposite of what we commonly understand when we say 'Public.' There is an Indian song which says, 'The Public, it knows everything.' This suggests that the public includes things that are not necessarily apparent, or visible, or transparent. It means, the Public knows more things than the 'marketplace of the knowable.' It suggests codes and protocols of encryption that circulate in self-governing constellations of people, data and cultures. It evokes the idea of very public secrets, of whispers, rumors, prophecies, blandishments, fantasies and calls for insurrection that no one may be willing to speak out loud for fear of being caught but which, nevertheless, everyone is murmuring. This means that the Public Domain may be the safest refuge for those ideas that are vulnerable because they are the most radical. The ones that need to be most obscure to the censor, and at the same time most understandable in common speech, because they are the closest to lived experience. The designs of identification and the disguises of anonymity are equally attractive forms of costumes in this domain. In shifting between one and the other, between secrets and announcements, lies the enigmatic attraction of surfing the Public Domain."

Information:
Why do we show the vulnerability of NGOs and media artists?
Network Context
What is a Public Domain Scanner?
What is Portscanning?
Exhibition Context

Art, Media and Legal Issues:
Artistic network practice on the bad guys space
CODES BAD GUYS SPACE
Open Law
Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Computers

Public Domain:
For the Public Domain
Giorgio Agamben On Security and Terror
The Patriot Act