Throughout the previous chapters we have seen how the abstract machine of
hacktivism actualises potentialities within products and communities and releases
new lines of flight. Yet, to use the full potentials of this mindset and technique we
also have to assemble more force and work on more levels to effect the vectors or
channels through which the fashion intensities are transmitted, and where most
people meet “the latest”.
We have so far followed three approaches. One approach is to hack and bend rays,
ride lines and intersect intensities, as we have seen in the hacktivist chapter. The
second approach is to bring down control, get organized, form a community of
practice, share resources and build together, like the base communities discussed in
the previous chapter. We will now examine examples that address the question of
who has the right to access the vectors of media. Some practitioners insert their
own new creations, interpretations and intensities along existing lines, while others
create own symbiotic forums that empower the whole community’s work.
This chapter will explore how transmissions are made, how ideas travel and how
people reclaim vectors and make their own to “talk back” through the system. They
oppose the “culture of silence” (Freire 2000). They are the unseen people, people
without a heard voice, using various media tactics to gain access to vectors and find
channels to talk back through the established vectors. As we will see, there are many
ways to hack channels, vectors, and flows and to inject your own intensities. This
will be exemplified through fan fiction in which fans write their own stories within
the existing narratives, using the force flowing through the existing line, using
zines, or home made magazines, to spread their word. Likewise, the “losers” in so-
ciety use zines to find likeminded and make their everyday a shared adventure to-
gether with others and to spread their own creations through the postal network.
This model is also used by marginalized groups, empowering their situation
through collaborating to make a publication. We will meet examples of this in the
zine Duplex Planet that originally documented everyday life at a nursing home in
the US and the pirate TV-station Disco Volante that was run by handicapped peo-fan fiction
• Fan Fiction is a genre of fiction about characters or settings within popular narratives, written by amateurs fans
rather than by the original creators. These stories are usually unauthorized by the original publishers but add new
intensities to the fan culture as they bypass the official fan clubs and distribution channels.
or“Don’t Hate the Media,
Be the Media”