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Date: 8.4.98 [This interview, between RTMARK and David
Kushner David Kushner: I am writing an article for Wired News (Wired magazine's
online news service) in the USA and would like to ask you a few questions
about the InfoWeapon prize. My deadline is tomorrow, so please respond
immediately. RTMARK: We can answer some of your questions on behalf of the
InfoWeapon jury. (We're the ones who sent out the press release about
Popotla.) DK: Why did you award the people of Popotla with the InfoWeapon
award? RTMARK: They displayed, with their work, the best use of technology
possible. The Popotla wall directly and beautifully serves the people who
made it, and delights and satisfies many others as well. So much
technology does the opposite--oppressing instead of delighting, horrifying
instead of uplifting, discouraging instead of aiding. The story of the
Titanic, as related in the movie, is a story of class struggle, overcoming
economic and technological barriers placed in the way of the poor--and we
find the counterpart of this in the Popotla wall, paradoxically. DK: Who else did you consider for the award? RTMARK: The Zapatista
Floodnet DK: How much is the cash prize? RTMARK: The prize includes $1,000 and travel to and accommodation in
Linz for the winner (in this case, two representatives of Popotla) for the
awards ceremony and the Infowar festival. DK: Do you feel that it is ironic to also present an award to the
Titanic movie itself? RTMARK: Yes, it really highlights some important issues. Fox made
Titanic at a cost of $200 million (the price of 200,000 typical Popotla
fishing boats), and utilized the techniques of Nike and other companies to
keep costs low--establishing a maquiladora, most notably. The movie is
about overcoming class barriers--and a real-world example, much more real
and immediate than any such examples in the movie itself, is the Popotla
wall. The movie Titanic presents to the viewers--including the legions in
the Third World who will see it--a picture of hope, resistance, and
possibility. The people of Popotla, by decorating the Popotla wall,
express their hope and resistance, and explore possibilities. DK: Do you have any contact information for a representative from
Popotla or Titanic? RTMARK: Contact info for Popotla at top of this note; please contact
info@aec.at for Titanic contact info. DK: What is infowar? RTMARK: Please see http://www.aec.at/, or write to info@aec.at. http://www.thing.net/~rdom/zapsTactical/zaps.html + + + Date: 8.4.98 FISHING VILLAGE WINS PRIZE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL WARFARE Ars Electronica, the foremost new media technology festival in the
world, has awarded its prestigious InfoWeapon cash prize to the people of
Popotla, a tiny Mexican fishing village, for resisting unwanted
technologies by means of trash and recycled materials. To film the movie Titanic, Twentieth Century Fox built a movie
maquiladora in Popotla, and surrounded it with a giant cement wall to keep
the villagers out. ("Maquiladora" is the term for US factories operating
in Mexico because of the low wages.) The people of Popotla reacted to the
unsightly wall first in humiliation and anger, and then by covering it
with a mural constructed from garbage they amassed and collected. The Ars
Electronica InfoWeapon jury is rewarding Popotla for this remarkable
low-tech gesture against an unpleasant high-tech situation. Ars Electronica is also awarding the movie Titanic itself, which cost
US$200 million to make, its Golden Nica cash prize for computer animation.
Ars Electronica is thus in the cutting-edge position of rewarding both
parties in a cultural and economic impasse, thus perhaps furthering
discussion between them. RTMARK will present the InfoWeapon cash prize to a representative of
Popotla at the Ars Electronica award ceremony in Linz, Austria, this
September. For a fuller story of the Popotla wall,
see For a description of the InfoWeapon prize,
see To learn about Ars Electronica, see http://www.aec.at/. RTMARK was established in 1991 to further anti-corporate activism, in
some cases by channelling funds from donors to workers for sabotage of
corporate products. Recent and upcoming acts of RTMARK-aided subversion
are documented on RTMARK's web site, http://rtmark.com/.
http://rtmark.com/popotla.html |
