What should be the ideal character and purpose of the First Device we give to our young? How would such a tool define humanity's future approach to technology, and to our world? How would it shape and direct the mind? What kind of information should it contain? Would it be primarily audiovisual, or holographic, or… Continue reading the First Device
Category: politics
Cultural historian fails Police Entrance Exam / On the wonders of civil service / A family of (bad) corruption jokes
I really wanted to be a police officer. The dream was dashed when I realised that I couldn't produce passing transcripts during the Police Exams. I didn't have it in me to suspend critical thought in a way that would allow me to go through with it / answer the exam questions. It had become clear that this was the underlying requirement. What was left was to undergo the exercise as a kind of performance.
All one needs is an enemy: On the shifting definition of ‘political motivation’ and the Loizidou emails
I’ve been trying to understand what happened and why. Amidst the media absurdity, the offensive onslaught, the ever-deepening politics, and the strange suspension of normality, I’ve been asking questions in an effort to extract sense and political context from all this. I do not have my mother’s permission to publish / share anything (I have… Continue reading All one needs is an enemy: On the shifting definition of ‘political motivation’ and the Loizidou emails
4 points of frustration around the Eleni Loizidou ‘corruption scandal’ / My mom got hacked and they say she’s corrupt!
So she was hacked. There dawns the realisation that it was a matter of time, one way or another. When we recently talked about the possibility of her being targeted in this way, in advance of all this, she ended the conversation with 'μάνα μου εν έσιει τίποτε.' Her sense that there's nothing to hide… Continue reading 4 points of frustration around the Eleni Loizidou ‘corruption scandal’ / My mom got hacked and they say she’s corrupt!
openness, democracy, hack66, Phygital, and ellak.org.cy
What follows should, eventually, lead into a piece discussing conflict-resolution in open communities, and the handling of authoritarian mentalities. The sheer power of hierarchy-assuming or hierarchy-constructing exclamations of 'no' is always surprising to me. As is the arrogance, the injustice, the power-plays it contains, as is the speed, the insensitivity, and the ease with which… Continue reading openness, democracy, hack66, Phygital, and ellak.org.cy
not(es) on participation [on writing (on art) in the first person]
I wrote this for NeMe, mid-2016 It's one of my free-est texts, and it connects my thinking about art, tech, and openness into a kind of politics of civic participation, locating experimental comments on this in the Cypriot arts. Here it is in full / to be occasionally updated. Caption: A piece by Natalie Yiaxi,… Continue reading not(es) on participation [on writing (on art) in the first person]
allonan 