When Technocultures Collide: Innovation from Below and the Struggle for Autonomy

By Gary Genosko

When Technocultures Collide provides rich and diverse studies of collision courses between technologically inspired subcultures and the corporate and governmental entities they seek to undermine. The adventures and exploits of computer hackers, phone phreaks, urban explorers, calculator and computer collectors, "CrackBerry" users, whistle-blowers, Yippies, zinsters, roulette cheats, chess geeks, and a range of losers and tinkerers feature prominently in this volume. Gary Genosko analyzes these practices for their remarkable diversity and their innovation and leaps of imagination. He assesses the results of a number of operations, including the Canadian stories of Mafiaboy, Jeff Chapman of Infiltration, and BlackBerry users. The author provides critical accounts of understudied technological detours, such as the prospects of deterritorialized computer mice and big-toe computing, the role of electrical grid hacks in urban technopolitics, and whether info addiction and depression contribute to tactical resistance. The goal of this work is to look beyond means of resistance to find examples of technocultural autonomy in the minor and marginal cultural productions of underground groups, ethico-poetic diversions, and sustainable withdrawals with genuine therapeutic potential to surpass accumulation, debt, and competition. The dangers and joys of these struggles for autonomy are underlined in studies of the BlackBerry and Julian Assange's WikiLeaks website.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1554588979
• ISBN13: 9781554588978
• Release Date: October 2013
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 7.9"