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4 Activist Commons for Poeple without States of Cybergolem
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65 4 An Activist Commons for People Without States by Cybergolem andoni alonso and iñaki arzoz cybergolem as a diasporic and activist entity We must begin this article writing about the deep connection between the purpose of this paper and its dual authorship.1 The “we” refers to an activist and intellectual node composed by artists and scholars who have joined together to generate theoretical work under the label of Cybergolem . Thus, the “we” used in this paper is something more than a rhetorical strategy. Computer networks have produced a new understanding of authorship such as the one shared by two or more authors. Wu Ming,2 also known as Luther Blisset, is a good example of the recent changes concerning the very idea of authorship. This new understanding of authorship is not arbitrary. Hypertext and hypertextualism are new writing technological devices that require fresh strategies. For instance, communication technologies erase the spatial distance among the different authors who belong to Cybergolem. In this particular case, the authors who write this paper have been working for more than fifteen years under different pseudonyms. Cybergolem has become something more than a nickname for collective authorship. It is an entity that changes, acquires different forms, and tries to reelaborate the 66 d i a s p o r a s i n t h e n e w m e d i a a g e idea of authorship in each work. Sometimes the authors involved are two, and sometimes there are more than two. Cybergolem began as a digital hetero-identity composed of a Basque philosopher and artist. Later on, other authors and readers from the Basque Country and elsewhere joined Cybergolem. What we are trying to underline is that Cybergolem is also diasporic, in the sense that it is a digital entity. Therefore, we need to refer to its diasporic “life history” in order to be able to explain our peculiar focus on digital diasporas. One of the authors works in his Basque homeland; the other has worked as a nomad in different places as a Basque diasporan: Madrid, Cáceres, Pennsylvania, and Reno. According to v ance Stevens (2007), computer manager for the Petroleum Institute, those types of authors would be digital immigrants, because they were born in the analogical or pre-Internet era. Paradoxically, the Cybergolem entity would be considered a digital native, because it was born much later and inside cyberspace. Cybergolem as a Basque diasporic entity as well as a digital native entity would determine our experiences and our focus of research on the Basque digital diaspora. That is to say, it is not about using new technologies to close the existing geographical gaps among the different Cybergolem authors. Our focus can be defined as the effort to build a complex identity that assumes multiple perspectives according to different works and activities. The beginning of Cybergolem was more conventional and focused primordially on Basque culture and st s (science, technology, and society) approaches. Later on, Cybergolem went through a period of criticism about cyberculture that took the form of books and Web projects such as La nueva ciudad de dios (The New City of God) (Alonso and Arzoz 2003).3 That period underlined the birth of a new pseudoreligion composed by new technologies as the ultimate promise (Bloom 1996).A posterior work, La quinta columna digital (The Fifth Digital Column; Alonso and Arzoz 2005),addressed activist actions inside cyberculture itself. The Basque issue influenced that book very much, as it dealt with questions such as Basque identity and the place for peoples without political states. It is clear that the long, violent conflict experienced in the Basque homeland was an important question that has not yet been fully explored. This activist approach has also marked other Cybergolem interests. Contributions to other collective works such as Tester4 (2006) or the Free Knowledge Foundation proved the need for a more involved and activist positioning. Some works were published in Basque, English, and Spanish: Euskal Herria digital 1.0(The Basque Country Digital 1.0) (Alonso and Arzoz 1996),The Electronic Forest (Alonso and [44.213.99.37] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 12:09 GMT) a n a c t i v i s t c o m m o n s 67 Arzoz 1999),Destino cyborg (Destiny Cyborg) (Alonso and Arzoz 2007), and above all Basque Cyberculture (Alonso and Arzoz 2002). Cybergolem is a collective venture that understands research as a diasporic and activist Basque-entity...