collectives ran many of the telestreet channels from
squats or from independent media centres. The aim
of telestreet was to “reclaim the ‘socializing’ power
of television.” (Garcia 2004) Their programs have
everything from local political discussions, neigh-
bourhood presentations and indymedia reportages,
to pirated pay-channel football matches, “liberated”
for non-payers to see. Another common broadcaster
were the Catholic churches, equipped with an an-
tenna in the tower transmitting the local church
service throughout the neighbourhood for those
who could not attend the local service, but did not
want to follow the national broadcast.
One of the most famous telestreet channels was
“Disco Volante”, which was started in 2002 in the
Italian small town of Senigallia (Povoledo 2005). The
channel was run by a group of disabled people, led
by Franco Civelli, who suffered from a severe post-
polio disability and was bound to his wheelchair and
the cameraman, Allesandro Giuliani, who had
Down’s syndrome. Together they documented life
for disabled people in Senigallia, from their own ex-
periences. They documented the problems of every-
day life and how the surrounding community treated
them as extraterrestrials. Therefore the name of the
channel, “Disco Volante” means flying saucer.
According to Civelli the task of their channel was to
be a media for the marginalized, to talk back, and to
work against the “humpty-dumpty” power exercised
by the dominant broadcast federations. By control-
ling almost all media they set the agenda, controlled
speech and opinions and left no possibility for peo-
ple to talk back. However small the signal, it is the
citizen’s right to send his or her opinion back into
the system and back into the ether. Attracting a large
audience is not the main task, it is a political gesture
(Povoledo 2005).
This small proxy-channel still challenged the broad-
casting dominance from the Berlusconi-controlled
media industry and it became a topic of public de-
bate. It was eventually brought to court and shut
down and the equipment confiscated. Yet it proved
to be “illegal but constitutional”; technically unlaw-
ful but a free voice under the freedom of speech. Civ-
elli even won a major Italian journalism prize for his
work, the Alpi award. During its time on the air the
channel brought attention to how society treated the
voices of its marginal groups, the unseen citizens that
are often locked-up inside by the city’s physical infra-
structure more than by their actual handicap.
Both Duplex Planet and Disco Volante are examples
of how even minimal vectors can create a real impact
for the involved community, not only for organizing
the actors and empowering participants through col-
laborative work, but how their limited addition to
the commons make a real difference. Instead of fight-
ing for access to the existing channels and being at
the mercy of editors, journalists and gatekeepers,
they create their own vectors. They reclaim not only
authorship, but also the control of the vectors of dis-
semination themselves, and even if they are small
they still can make a difference.