Call For Accountability And The Criminalization Of Research
In the past few weeks, a number of developments have occurred in relation to the art/research practices of bang lab and Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), which we wish to share with the public in accordance with our long history of radical transparency.
- Since November of 2009 the Transborder Immigrant Tool has become a media event with many groups and individuals, such as Congressman Duncan Hunter in his Op-ed in the San Diego Union Tribune, calling for the defunding of the Transborder Immigrant Tool. The University of California system began a financial audit of the project on January 11, 2010, in which they requested that every member involved be interviewed by Audit & Management Advisory Services (UCSD). The exact investigations (they claim that there are multiple) under way have yet to be clarified by UCOP or other UC entities, but in the interviews thus far, TBT members have been questioned about the usage of the funds and the originality of the project. The investigation has ‘arrested’ TBT’s developmental process and core research matrix.
- To add injury to injury, due to widespread media coverage of the Transborder Immigrant Tool, members of bang.lab and EDT also have been receiving copious hateful email and paper letters, some including threats of physical violence and murder. The racist, xenophobic, classist, misogynist, homophobic and transphobic “excitable speech” of the threats has been as clear as that of the correspondence received in recent weeks by national representatives who voted for health care legislation. Hardly a tea party!
- On March 2nd, Markyudof.com publicly declared the resignation of UCOP Mark Yudof in a gesture of minor simulation to encourage the imagining of other possible futures. On March 21st, bang.lab received notice that a faculty member at UC Riverside was being investigated in relation to this action.
- On March 4th, bang.calit2.net hosted a virtual sit-in against the UCOP website, providing a space for many people concerned with public education to embody their dissent online. As a result, UCSD IT Security shut down our server’s access to the Internet for eight days. Shortly thereafter, we were informed that an investigation of Ricardo Dominguez by the Senior Vice Chancellor (SVC) was initiated by the UCOP to determine if criminal charges were in order for the virtual sit-in, despite the legal precedent that a virtual sit-in is political speech, not a DDOS attack. This investigation—itself in the service of a denial of distributed free speech—has been framed by SVC as potential reason to end Professor Dominguez’s tenure.
These events are of a piece with a number of troubling trends in the current transnational struggle for education (and more equal distribution of resources, generally speaking): - A disregard for the academic freedom of cultural producers engaging in research trajectories of art, literature and technology (that, for instance, the Visual Arts Department and CALIT2 considered valuable enough to earn Professor Dominguez tenure)
- The use of bureaucracy as a weapon, to prevent the aforementioned research from continuing by bogging down its practitioners in endless meetings with accountants and investigations.
- The criminalization of dissent: across the UC system and the world on March 4th people engaged in actions, including civil disobedience, to try to restore public education, stop the budget cuts and work towards a better future for education. We are among hundreds of people facing charges for engaging in dissent from the very institutions that claim to foster independent thinking (connect the dots—consider the group of students recently threatened with 6 month suspensions).
While we believe that poetry, walking art and queer technology cannot be “spread-sheet Excel-ed,” we, in bang lab, harbor our own concerns for the lack of accountability that enables the UC system to continue transforming a public university for the state of California into a private corporation, accessible to a select few. The selective lack of accountability, that bedrocks that hubris, fails to count the number of deaths tragically enabled by the continuous gerrymandering of international borders for instance. To perform our own due diligence in the spirit of accounting for the here and now, we seek to “queer the census”: if you feel that you are a part of the bang.lab or have participated in any of our activities in mind, body, spirit (in real or virtual timespace), get up, stand up!, sign your name and/or comment.
Update 4/1/2010: Yesterday, March 31st, 2 UCPD detectives showed up at Ricardo’s office at Calit2 to question him, indicating that they were investigating criminal charges at all levels, city, county, state, federal. The harassment is increasing in severity.
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On 18 April 2010, 19:46 Yiannis Colakides said:
A response to Renate Ferro and Timothy Murray’s invitation for empyre.
For many people in this region and in particular for Greek and Cypriot readers, many aspects of my response to your topic are part of our everyday sensibility not only because of the passion which accompanied the actions but because they represented, and still do, a collective action for democracy, freedom and social responsibility for academic voice.
On 14 November 1973, the Athens Polytechnic student body with the support of some of their professors took control of the main campus building to protest against the then governing military Junta. They did this by organizing a strike and commandeering the university’s radio station where they started broadcasting anti-junta pleas directed to the residents of Athens as well as to the military. The Colonels responded with military might ending the student revolt on the 17th of November by sending tanks into the campus which resulted in the killing of 24 civilians. Eight months later, on 15 July 1974, the Junta, allegedly in collaboration with the US, organized a coup in Cyprus which culminated in a Turkish invasion and the occupation of 40% of the country. This unsuccessful coup and developments led to the overthrow of the Junta a few days later and democracy was restored in Greece.
One of the subsequent legislations the new Greek parliament passed was that of university asylum entitled “Academic freedoms and University Asylum” (article 2, Law 1268/82).
The first paragraph of the law states: “Academic freedom in teaching and research and the free movement of ideas is enshrined within the Universities”. The fourth paragraph states: “To ensure the academic freedom and freedom of scientific inquiry and the free flow of ideas, the University Asylum is recognized.”
The seventh paragraph states: “Interference by the State without the permission of the University is allowed only if caught committing a felony or committed flagrant crimes against life.” (my translation).
Admittedly the Greek law has its pitfalls and few students use it to reportedly avoid classes or exams by staging spontaneous takeover actions but this reflects on the issue of responsibility rather than freedom. Recently and continuing the policy of the previous administration’s efforts, the current PASOK government is implementing means to rescind this law describing it as ‘outdated’ so another discussion regarding the extent of State control over academic institutions is in progress as will be, no doubt, many more demonstrations and campus sieges by students and staff.
Another very important difference between Greek tertiary institutions and those of other countries is not only the soon to be rescinded Asylum but the law prohibiting the universities to contract and undertake any top secret research. As such, the State has guaranteed control that research activities on campus will not be of a ‘threatening nature’ to national security. This, of course, can be seen as a limitation upon innovative academic exploration especially in areas of great pertinence to our complex and dysfunctional present reality. In contrast, most universities of Europe and the Americas are contracted by their respective Governments or independent Corporations to conduct research of a highly sensitive and top secret nature. A lucrative contract which also brings much academic kudos together with another type of State control.
The case of Ricardo Dominguez and in particular the locative media artwork “Transborder Immigrant Tool” is by no means a “flagrant crime against life” but in fact, the exact opposite, as it assists survival. Would the authorities or other ‘patriots’ intervene if Dominguez named the artwork “Forces Survival Tool” and made it exclusively available to US soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan?
The issue here is not about the ethics of a crime nor the blatant misuse of university funding but instead, it is the crucial question of racial elitism which denies the nationality and perceived value of the life that is being potentially saved by “Transborder Immigrant Tool”. Such independence and challenging cutting edge research are not usually accepted by governments. The situation is urgent. Universities and other educational institutions require courageous administrations and agendas which implement and safeguard these rights, bastions promoting free thinking and compassion in the spirit of William Blake’s 1790 poetic statement, [if] “the doors of perception were cleansed [then] everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”