Donnerstag, 29. Oktober 2009

Support for University squats!

At 22nd of October Students began to squat the viennese Universitys main Auditorium called AUDIMAX.
Since then the movement grew. Additional squats were installed in Linz, Graz, Salzburg and at Viennas TU, Juridicum, Campus C1, Akademie der Bildenden Kunst and Boku. Protests were held at least in Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz. All in all a movement involving thousands of people all around the country.


what are the claims? (23.10.)

- Broad financing of all Universitys!
- Democratization of the University and strengthening of student codetermination!
- No more carious employment status for teaching staff, researchers and workers!
- Free access to master programms and no obligatory STEPS!
- Abolishment of still existing study fees (also for migrants)!
- No study restictions in all of Europe!
- Away with pre defined extended curriculum; free elective courses!
- Away with precondition chains!
- Away with point-registration system!
- An End to the Bologna process eg. the Bachelor-Master-System!
- Implementation of a Female quota in the University Administration!

The Best Support at the moment is to go there discuss, help to organize, and BRING FOOD TO THE VOKÜ!!



Some Links:
Livestram Vienna
Livestram Vienna English
Livestram Salzburg
Twitter Unibrennt
Twitter HwLinz
Malen Nach Zahlen
Freibildung.at
unsereuni.at
Audimax Facebook

Sonntag, 30. August 2009

Late Update: Political PasteUps in Vienna

Vienna:
During the campaigns for the EU votes some people made a paste up action against the extremley unapropriate hate campaign of Austrias far right FPÖ party.
The altered posters could be found in almost every district of Vienna (for about two days, then the FPÖ repasted all of their Posters).

The Slogan "ABENDLAND IN CHRISTENHAND" (occident in christian hand)
was transformed into
"FLASCHENPFAND IN CHRISTENHAND" (Bottle Deposit in Christian Hand)
"ABENDLAND IN SCHLUMPFVERSTAND" (Occident in smurf intellect)
and
"MOSLEMHAND IN CHRISTENHAND" (Muslim Hand in Christian Hand)

some pics of the altered Posters:
(Unfortunateley theres no Foto of the third slogan...)




And the Original:


Another initiative Emerged as the FPÖ party used Comic as a Propagandatool.
It's a demarcation of the Austrian Comic szenc by the name of: Comics Gegen Rechts. Always worth a visit as it is frequently updated!

FRK Big ups to both initiatives!!!

Sonntag, 26. Oktober 2008

T.A.Z. - Hakim Bey

T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism; is a book by anarchist writer Hakim Bey.
It defines the T.A.Z. as a situation overriding prevailing law and order. Authorities lose power and unexpected encounterment and experience occurs. Key issues are poetic Terrorism, Chaos, Anarchy, magic, enjoyment and networking.

Read the english article or the german article at Wikipedia.

Montag, 20. Oktober 2008

Big Brother Awards 2008

Don't miss this years Big Brother Awards!
The negative-award will be given to people who are responsible for the increase of surveillance control and paternalism.

Some nominees are:
Steve Jobs for "notorical divestment of the right for private property". A given example is describing iPhone 3G's "killswitch" which is allowing the apple company to terminate programms running on your iphone.
The UEFA for "transforming city centres into bizarre Entertainment Zones" killing freedom through absurd security controls.
Former Austrian interior minister Günter Platter for "parroting the ideas of Germanys interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble and actually applying them."
The new Austrian interior minister Maria Fekter for her plans to apply "video surveillance in schools."

The Gala will be at Saturday the 25th 19:00 at Theather Rabenhof, Vienna.

Mittwoch, 15. Oktober 2008

James Bradford - THE SHADOW AGENCY

At the beginning of the 60ties and 70ties the National Security Agency (NSA) got out of control. The Vietnam war caused the agency to spy on the US people on its own initative. The United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) brought back NSA's respect for civilians privacy.
Back then the head of the agency Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden was highly in favor of this directive. That changed when Terror reached the US on september 11th 2001. The land of endless possibilities then started to turn into a surveillance state.

Read the interview with James Bradford who is the main investigator for the subject matter.

Mittwoch, 8. Oktober 2008

Skype, Cellphones and ID cards

Two articles about a planned central cellphone and email database in britain:
Times online, Guardian

Surveillance in China:
Skype surveillance in China
Hightech ID-Cards in Shenzhen, China

Mittwoch, 17. September 2008

Montag, 15. September 2008

OPEN CALL ___ Cam' on People ___ C.O.P.

Cam'on People,

Observe the observer! Unmask the Grey eminences of urban public interior by masking them! Make them the stars of tomorrow, they deserve the public focus! Label Surveillance as a Product! Cam'on People!

Cam’on People is a Sticker Campaign with the aim to sensitize the people to the repressed topic of public observation. Local appliers (you!?) take action. Together they are forming a collective statement on globally increasing surveillance.

No matter weather you are streetartist, clerk, social worker, programmer, student, architekt, or else, if you fell like something should be done about the global surveillance trend and you have 15 minutes spare while taking the tube to work, this is the ideal opportunity for you!

Join! It's a democratic project by "freiraumkollektiv" which is an open collective and label for productive action on social concerns!
Somehow we are all part of Freiraumkollektiv.

How to participate Cam'on People:

- send your postal adress to freiraumkollektiv@gmail.com
- receive a C.O.P. package (stickers + safety card)
- apply the project as described in the safety ca
rd

- you can also download the C.O.P. sticker design and selfproduce them if you do so please read the safety card first!



The Cam'on people idea started with a camera captured, pimped and released back into urban public space.

Freitag, 29. August 2008

Under Surveillance. Naomi Klein on Surveillance in China

Read THIS INTERVIEW with Journalist Naomi Klein about Surveillance in China!!

"It's clear that it's not just the cameras feeding directly into local police;
it's the computer themselves."

"They are in the fear business, I think that presents some potential conflicts of interest that we should be discussing because these are companies that do better the more afraid we are, the more imperiled we feel, the more distrustful we are of one another."

just found another interview on the Olympics...

Sonntag, 20. Juli 2008

Selbstschutzzone Summer 07


Selbstschutzzone: “self observation. self control. self protection. feeling secure.” (text left) “1. enter zone 2. protect yourself 3. feel secure” (text right)


In recent years the political decisions affecting urban public space in the small town of Innsbruck (Central Europe) were dominated by capitalistic exploitation and surveillance measures. Parks located in the city center were replaced by Malls or made unaccsessible for the public using fines, guards and even removing benches and bushes so homless persons wouldn’t use them as temporary shelter. The Rapoldipark is the last possibility to step on a grass field legally. It’s located at the border of the city center and since Spring 07 “protected” by Cameras. Furthermore police officers have the right to search through your stuff or expel you without a specific reason from the Rapoldipark which is now called “Schutzzone” (protection zone). With our project “Selbstschutzzone” (self protection zone), located under a railroad crossing linking the city center with the park, we tried to show how absurd all these security measures appeal to us and raise the question if one feels really secure in the new Schutzzone…

read the interview with UnderdogFanzine (german)