Reading #2:DANAE What is hacktivism ?

This article dives into what hacktivism is and what it means to be a “hacker artist”. For starters, hacktivism is described as the art of taking/stealing preexisting media/works and transforming or “hacking” them by manipulating them using several hacker-like methods, such as glitching, breaking, reappropriating works, and re-coding to make different forms of social commentary and to critique the works they draw from. My main takeaway from this reading was that hacker artists are more prevalent with the advent of the internet, and how that made artworks so easily accessible for hacker-artists to make hacktivist art with. (Although there have arguably been hackivist works before the rise in the internet's popularity) These artists use these techniques to their advantage to be creative and try and break files and manipulate them in such a way to get their messages across in a way that genuinely follows methodologies that hackers use and were using the works they created/remixed from this to uplift things like (but not restricted to) the feminist movement, exposing sexism within the art world. These artists also covered the issues surrounding surveillance and the death of privacy because of government and/or corporate overreach, using user data to track and market certain advertisements and products to people based on their personal data and the digital footprints they leave behind. Overall, I feel like this article clarifies why it is alright to draw from other works to create one’s own since the practice of art is often derivative in nature, which, to an extent, I do agree with, but I feel that it also shouldn’t be used as an excuse to never credit one’s inspirations. There is definitely a way to practice this form of art and still be considerate of the artists you draw from, especially if they are not industry giants.