Synopses & Reviews
Cultural Writing. Politics and History. SHUT THEM DOWN! is an essential collection of reflections on the movement against the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. As well as action stories from the frontlines of resistance to the summit, there are detailed accounts of how various aspects of the mobilisation were organised, and analysis of the lessons to be learned. But the relevance of SHUT THEM DOWN! extends far beyond the Gleneagles experience. It addresses fundamental issues such as the nature of openness and `horizontality', and the limitations of the `activist' identity. Most important of all, SHUT THEM DOWN! poses the question: how can we take those worlds we glimpse in such moments and generalise them so that they make sense in the rest of our lives?
Synopsis
Having elsewhere explored the dimensions of social and political control in electronic culture, the Critical Arts Ensemble here turns full frontal towards the body, arguing that utopian promises of virtuality are simple distractions from the real project: the deployment of biotechnologies upon the bodies of citizens in the service of the transnational order.