In collaboration with

Session III:

Leaderless Politics

The notion of leaderless politics is studied through the optics of Pirate Parties International, as well as initiatives such as Heath Bunting’s Status Project, the research of design collective Foundland, and the open government platform Nulpunt (Metahaven and Jonas Staal). In this session, the participants reflect upon the implications that the Pirate Parties’ political programs and horizontal structure hold for the future of artistic production, such as the critical issues of open source and equal access, among others. The participants, teachers, and coordinators work together to develop an online and digital campaign for a leaderless party.

Teachers: Dirk Poot (Pirate Party of the Netherlands, The Hague) and other Pirate leaders.

Coordinators: Heath Bunting (artist, net activist, and co-founder of www.irational.org, Bristol) and design collective Foundland (Ghalia Elsrakbi & Lauren Alexander, Amsterdam).

The accompanying publication, New World Academy Reader #3: Leaderless Politics, includes contributions by: Heath Bunting, Becky Hogge (writer, Essex), Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Pirate Party Iceland, Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, WikiLeaks, Reykjavík), Geert Lovink (media theorist, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam) and Merijn Oudenampsen (sociologist and political theorist, Amsterdam) with Willem van Weelden (new media writer, Amsterdam), Matt Mason (writer, vice president of marketing, BitTorrent, San Francisco), design studio Metahaven (Vinca Kruk & Daniel van der Velden, Amsterdam), and Dirk Poot.

Program

*unless otherwise noted, all programs are public

13.–15.12.2013

Instructional workshop

closed

15.12.2013, 17.00–19.00 hrs

Leaderless Politics

public forum with participants, teachers, and coordinators

BAK, Utrecht

17.–22.12.2013, 12.00–17.00 hrs

Leaderless Politics

exhibition with works by: Heath Bunting, Foundland, Metahaven, and Jonas Staal

BAK, Utrecht

22.12.2013–ongoing

Leaderless Politics

online digital campaign