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Computers Human-computer Interaction

When Technocultures Collide

Innovation from Below and the Struggle for Autonomy

by (author) Gary Genosko

Publisher
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2013
Category
Human-Computer Interaction, Urban, General
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781554588992
    Publish Date
    Oct 2013
    List Price
    $20.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781554588978
    Publish Date
    Oct 2013
    List Price
    $26.99

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Description

Examines computer hackers, phone phreaks, urban explorers, calculator and computer collectors, “CrackBerry” users, whistle-blowers, Yippies, zinsters, roulette cheats, and chess geeks. The dangers and joys of struggles for autonomy are underlined in studies of RIM’s BlackBerry and Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks website.
When Technocultures Collide provides rich and diverse studies of collision courses between technologically inspired subcultures and the corporate and governmental entities they seek to undermine. Gary Genosko analyzes these practices for their remarkable diversity and their innovation and leaps of imagination. He assesses the results of a number of operations, including the Canadian stories of Mafiaboy, Jeff Chapman of Infiltration, and BlackBerry users.
The author provides critical accounts of highly specialized attributes, such as the prospects of deterritorialized computer mice and big toe computing, the role of electrical grid hacks in urban technopolitics, and whether info-addiction and depression contribute to tactical resistance. Beyond resistance, however, the goal of this work is to find examples of technocultural autonomy in the minor and marginal cultural productions of small cultures, ethico-poetic diversions, and sustainable withdrawals with genuine therapeutic potential to surpass accumulation, debt, and competition. The dangers and joys of these struggles for autonomy are underlined in studies of RIM’s BlackBerry and Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks website.

About the author

Gary Genosko is an independent writer, editor and cultural critic. He is the author of McLuhan and Baudrillard: The Masters of Implosion (Routledge 1999), Undisciplined Theory (Sage 1998), and Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze (Routledge 1994); and the editor of The Guattari Reader (Blackwell 1996), among other works. He teaches social and political theory at Lakehead University, and has written extensively on the life and work of activist-intellectual Félix Guattari.

Gary Genosko's profile page