Electronic Disturbance Theater: Timeline 1994-2002

This Electronic Disturbance Theater Timeline presents a selection of the events that led to a radical shift from the use of the Internet for communication and documentation to its use as a space for nonviolent, direct action. Here you will find URLs of notes, essays, software, newspaper reports, and critiques; from the rise of Digital Zapatismo in 1994 to post-9/11 net.actions. It was between these two points in time that the Electronic Disturbance Theater responded to a call by the communities in Chiapas, Mexico, to bear witness to the global condition of neoliberalism.

The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) is a group of four net.artists and net.activists engaged in developing the theory and practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD). The group focused its electronic actions against the Mexican and U.S. governments to draw attention to the war being waged against the Zapatistas and others in Mexico since the start of 1998. The Electronic Disturbance Theater has been working at the intersections of radical politics, recombinant activism, performance art, and software design.

Ricardo Dominguez in a performance of Tales of Mayan Technologies, at the ROOT Annual Festival of Live and Time-Based Arts in Kingston Upon Hull, U.K., 15 February 2000. (Photo by Mark Harvey; courtesy of ID.8 Photography)

EDT has produced an ECD software tool called FloodNet to automate requests to a targeted webpage and, in so doing, disturb a web-site.

On 1 January 1999 EDT released the Disturbance Developers Kit, which led to the emergence of "International Hacktivism" around the world. Hacktivist groups at the end of 2002 were continuing to develop the practice of ECD as a digital presence against top-down globalization.

Electronic Disturbance Theater

Ricardo Dominguez

Carmin Karasic

Brett Stalbaum

Stefan Wray

"The battle between The Electronic Disturbance Theater and the Pentagon may go down in history as a defining moment."

—Winn Schwartua CYBERSHOCK: (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2000)

1994

FIRST DECLARATION OF THE LA REALIDAD the EZLN

http://www.ezln.org/documentos/1994/199312xx.en.htm

THE ZAPATISTAS AND THE ELECTRONIC FABRIC OF STRUGGLE

Harry Cleaver

http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/zaps.html

RUN FOR THE BORDER: THE TACO BELL WAR

Ricardo Dominguez

http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=155

1995

CHIAPAS-95 EMAIL LIST

www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html

ZAPATISTAS: THE RECOMBINANT MOVIE

Ricardo Dominguez

http://www.ctheory.net

THE THING

Ricardo Dominguez, editor

http://bbs.thing.net

"Here in the Lacandona surplus flesh gnaws at the dreams of virtual capitalism."

—Ricardo Dominguez "Run for The Border: The Taco Bell War" (<http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=155>, 1994)

1996

EZLN

http://www.ezln.org

ZAPATISTA NET OF AUTONOMY AND LIBERATION

http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/~zapatistas/index.html

ZAPATISTA PORT ACTION AT MIT

Ricardo Dominguez and Ron Rocco

http://www.artnetweb.com/port/grabs/rabi_screens.html

"human_rights.html not found on this .gov server."

—FloodNet 404 File ("File Not Found") Carmin Karasic and Brett Stalbaum (April 1998)

1997

INFORMATION WARFARE IN MEXICO

Stefan Wray

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/masters.html

ZAPATISTA NET

Rebecca Vesely

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,1823,00.html

THE ACTEAL MASSACRE

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,1823,00.html

"If The Electronic Disturbance Theater wasn't illegal it was certainly immoral [...]."

—U.S. Defense Department New York Times (3 October 1998)

1998

CALL FOR VR SIT-IN ON FIVE MEXICAN FINANCIAL SITES

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/anondigcoal.html

FLOODNET

Carmin Karasic and Brett Stalbaum

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/zapsTactical/foyer3.htm

HACKTIVIST

NEW YORK TIMES, FRONT PAGE

Amy Harmon

http://custwww.xensei.com/users/carmin/scrapbook/articles/nyt103198/31hack.html

ELECTRONIC DISTURBANCE THEATER'S BATTLE WITH THE...