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INFOWAR: Notes on a personal theory history
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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 98
INFOWAR. information.macht.krieg
Linz, Austria, september 07 - 12
http://www.aec.at/infowar
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Friedrich Kittler wrote:
>Naturally, the nineties of this century weren't the first ones to discover
>that information counts in war. For ages now, two elementary lists, which
>probably differentiate warriors from merchants as well as from priests, have
>been in use.
> First, A tries to know what B knows without B knowing of A's knowledge.
>Second, A tries to communicate his knowledge to A' (subordinates or superiors
>or allies) without B knowing of the transmission, let alone of the
>transmitted data.
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Hi to all on this new list.
I felt very strange reading this post, and am happy to see the list start
off debate in this particular direction. Like Geert I feel that we should
try to avoid notions of good and bad, right and wrong, and rather focus on
what is or might be, with more or less open minds as to the "value" of
things.
Why I felt strange about this post of Kittler's was to do with my father. I
got into using computers (as an artist) because of him (in the 70's). His
background was what could be called an info warrior, although what he
called it was Electronic Warfare. He started out during the Second World
War as a communications and navigation officer in the Airforce (flying
boats in the Pacific) and after the war he studied Electronic Engineering.
After this he worked for government (including NATO) in the area of
Electronic Warfare. This involved the sending and receiving of information
and also the disruption of information in transit.
The type of information these people dealt with was diverse. It might have
been battlefield data or intelligence briefings (human to human
communications)...but it could equally as well have been data being sent
from a computer to a missile (guidance data) or from a missile to the radar
system of the target object (perhaps a ship) in an attempt to disrupt the
target objects ability to perceive the missile and thus defend itself from
attack.
What is interesting here is that this sort of research was going on the
1940's and 50's and from what I know was in place in military technology
and systems in the 1960's. The Gulf war was certainly a spectacular
exhibition of this type of technology, but it was certainly not the dawn of
this type of warfare. As Kittler mentions, Napoleon was using conceptually
similar systems nearly 200 years ago, but here we can see the contemporary
form; that of digital electronic data being sent, received or used to cloak
or disrupt (the tenets of what I imagine InfoWar must be about), as long as
30 to 40 years ago.
I think what is most interesting here is not so much the use of this
technology in war (it would be a surprise if the technology had not been
developed and used for this purpose) but rather how the technology shifts
its use and value in the post-Cold War scenario. After all, it was the Cold
war that led to its development, but now we find that although that
particular event is over the technology develops just as rapidly, even
though there is no equivalently determined enemy or threat.
I am not sure that InfoWar is a great name for what we are to talk about on
this list. It is a very emotive term, and the use of this type of
technology (and the ideas that underly it) these days are less to do with
"normal" ideas of war and much more to do with ideas of commerce (not that
these things are necessarily very different or mutually exclusive).
Nevertheless, I guess the name will stick.
Simon Biggs
London GB
simon@babar.demon.co.uk
http://www.easynet.co.uk/simonbiggs/
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