Net Activism–Interview with Geert Lovink by Oliver Leistert

OL: Please tell us your favorite recent project, idea or materialization that you consider net activistic.

GL: It is appealing to mention Kony 2012 [2] because this biggest viral video campaign ever, aimed to catch the Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony is so huge, dramatic and politically incorrect (because they are US-Christian right-wing). Its founder literary went nuts. He got too excited about the overwhelming success of their video (100 million views). This is what we could call the cost of the virtual. Others would say it is the revenge of the real. I still follow Kony 2012, also because of my interest in Uganda (five of my students did research there in 2009, which we put together in a publication). It is interesting to see that the movements that had a real impact have moved away from this level of ‘public relations’. Even the online petition campaign Avaaz [3] is careful not to come up with topics that are ‘internet-only’. We have reached a stage now in which well-designed online campaigns can easily scale up in no time, very different from 10-20 years ago. Of course I am a fan of The Yesman [4]. They are no doubt the most successful examples of what we in Amsterdam coined ‘tactical media’. But I like Uebermorgen [5] as well. They are more dark in an Austrian style, disturbing and, no doubt, better understood within the art context. The more hardcore aesthetic a net art project is, the more political.

READ