ABSTRACT

The praxis of civil disobedience (CD) has developed to become a key element in political mobilisation. This chapter examines the construction of digital direct action as electronic civil disobedience (ECD). The analysis proposes a reading of Critical Art Ensemble's (CAE) second pamphlet, Electronic Civil Disobedience, as a reformulation of digital protest within the legacy of civil disobedience. In addition, CAE's controversial placing of the computer hacker at the centre of the activist cell challenges the democratic assumption that anyone should be able to engage in social action. Countering the historical relation between creative practice and socio-political mobilisation, electronic civil disobedience implicitly discounts the legacy of performance in protest. Finally the chapter, discusses the loss of theatricality, in favour of computer hacking and hackers, betrays a disregard for the historical role of art, artists and creativity within social mobilisation, which, in turn, limits the conceptualisation of electronic civil disobedience.