Category: Technologies of Control

We think that any­one seri­ous about con­fronting dom­i­na­tion as it stands today will soon­er or lat­er come to the ques­tions of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. It’s clear how both have an increas­ing­ly vital role to the rul­ing order by cre­at­ing, man­ag­ing and spread­ing con­trol with­in soci­ety and over the rest of an earth we’re false­ly sep­a­rat­ed from. By inves­ti­gat­ing the devel­op­ment of these pow­ers in the region and who makes it pos­si­ble, we came to Vin­ci.

In the U.K, the French multi­na­tion­al ener­gy and con­struc­tion giant Vin­ci car­ry out spe­cial­ist con­struc­tion ser­vices for the police, Min­istry of Defence and pris­ons, earth­works for motor­ways, rail­ways and quar­ry­ing, pow­er sta­tions, off­shore rigs and nuclear new-builds, as well as shop­ping cen­tres and the like. World­wide this cor­po­ra­tion and its sub­sidiaries are active in many fields: dam build­ing, pri­vate secu­ri­ty, air­ports, ura­ni­um mines; these scum have no prob­lem with inflict­ing car­nage on the earth and us as part of it, rais­ing an indus­tri­al cage around us both fig­u­ra­tive­ly and lit­er­al­ly, and feed­ing off the labours of their work­force while the boss­es line their pock­ets and move on to the next con­tract.

In these respects we attack Vin­ci any­way, but one of our main motives for tar­get­ing them is because they’re respon­si­ble for build­ing the new Bio­log­i­cal Life Sci­ences Cen­tre soon to open at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol.

We set off an explo­sive at Vin­ci’s offices at Van­tage busi­ness park, north of Bris­tol, at approx­i­mate­ly 3:45 yes­ter­day morn­ing (6th Jan­u­ary). It was placed with the aim of cut­ting off pow­er lines, scorch­ing the exte­ri­or and start­ing a fire inside. We con­sid­ered the res­i­dent com­pa­ny in the next-door part of the unit a wor­thy sec­ondary tar­get in any dam­ages (White­head, anoth­er con­struc­tion and build­ing ser­vic­ing group who do com­mis­sioned work for Vin­ci).

A £54 mil­lion facil­i­ty, the Bio­log­i­cal Life Sci­ences Cen­tre will offer cours­es for “the next gen­er­a­tion of biol­o­gists” as well as cur­rent spe­cial­ists, aim­ing to improve col­lab­o­ra­tion with the uni­ver­si­ty’s nan­otech­nol­o­gy cen­tre and just across from the Med­ical School’s genet­ic engi­neer­ing, vivi­sec­tion and ani­mal breed­ing labs. The world cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem sees advances in fields like this as key to the next round of dis­cov­ery, enclo­sure and wealth cre­ation. As the area around Bris­tol and Bath hous­es the biggest hi-tech design clus­ter in the world after Amer­i­ca’s Sil­i­con Val­ley, this “rev­o­lu­tion” is hap­pen­ing on our doorsteps, “with Bris­tol being an excit­ing and ide­al place to car­ry out research over the com­ing years.” (This is in the words of Pro­fes­sor Gary Fos­ter, whose work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol in genet­ic-mod­i­fi­ca­tion and oth­er biotech­nolo­gies feeds the nox­ious phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try such as Glax­o­SmithK­line. The uni­ver­si­ty breeds genet­i­cal­ly-altered mice, for exam­ple, then mor­bid­ly sub­jects these liv­ing crea­tures to exten­sive nerve dam­age and hand the results to drug com­pa­nies.)

One of the main thrusts of this dri­ve is syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy, a dis­turb­ing prac­tice using the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy for “rewrit­ing and rebuild­ing nat­ur­al sys­tems to pro­vide engi­neered sur­ro­gates.” In 2012 a con­fer­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol stat­ed that syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy “could become a dri­ving force of the nation­al econ­o­my,” and the gov­ern­ment have declared it a top research pri­or­i­ty. The Euro­pean Union has now award­ed £3.3 mil­lion to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol just to cre­ate “pub­lic aware­ness” pro­mot­ing the prac­tice.

The log­ic of these kind of sci­ences has, as its pri­ma­ry goal, attempt­ed con­trol over every­thing. They reduce knowl­edge, that might be more deeply gained in wild rela­tion­ships of inter­ac­tion and inter­de­pen­dence, to a detached uni­verse of obses­sive mea­sure­ment and objec­ti­fi­ca­tion, arro­gant­ly sep­a­rat­ing parts from the whole that gives them mean­ing as if every­thing were mere­ly a machine to dis­man­tle. This sci­en­tif­ic tra­di­tion is close­ly tied up with the world­view that emerged dur­ing the ear­ly for­ma­tion of com­mer­cial cap­i­tal­ism, which sought and still seeks to adapt life­forms to the dri­ve for prof­its, jus­ti­fy the dom­i­na­tion and destruc­tion of the liv­ing world, and imple­ment a macho uber-ratio­nal­ism scorn­ful of every­thing frag­ile and organ­ic on which all species depend. Right now, plant and ani­mal genes are bro­ken down and opti­mised in labs so they suit pro­duc­tive stan­dards and to cre­ate new pri­vate prop­er­ty through patents. Where we might see the unique leaves, seeds, bod­ies and minds of our­selves and our fel­low crea­tures, this sci­ence (if not nec­es­sar­i­ly each sci­en­tist, the results are the same) just sees life­less objects to pick apart, study and sac­ri­fice on the altar of eco­nom­ic use­ful­ness to their pay­mas­ters who reap the ben­e­fits from this sick and sick­en­ing soci­ety.

For instance we can see the cur­rent push for genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied (G.M) food in the U.K by the media, indus­try and gov­ern­ment, for which these research insti­tu­tions play an impor­tant part: such as advances in biotech­nol­o­gy for crops thanks to the Long Ash­ton Research Sta­tion run by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol in the past. Sci­en­tists like Gary Fos­ter are well aware of the dan­gers from G.M genes “leak­ing into the nat­ur­al world” (again, his own words) but appar­ent­ly the mon­ey and pres­tige from their mas­tery are worth more than our insignif­i­cant lives. A decade ago the first wave of G.M tri­als was slowed here by sus­tained pres­sure and crop-trash­ing; today sab­o­tage con­tin­ues from Hol­land to the Philip­pines, and oth­ers like us also won’t be accom­plices to these devel­op­ments or their agents through inac­tion. It’s nec­es­sary to attack the new wave of so-called ‘life’ sci­ence facil­i­ties at the root (those who design them, those who con­struct them) not just crit­i­cize the more well-known prod­ucts of their research: because to these insti­tu­tions all knowl­edge becomes anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty for con­trol and exploita­tion, so extend­ing the scope of a sys­tem that’s in real­i­ty anni­hi­lat­ing and arti­fi­cial­is­ing life in all it’s beau­ty.

Abroad, plant and ani­mal die-offs as well as increased aller­gies and intol­er­ances are already being attrib­uted to G.M. With the bio-tech indus­try non­cha­lant­ly unleash­ing its mon­sters, espe­cial­ly across lands in the glob­al south where patent­ed G.M seeds that must be re-bought year­ly exert a stran­gle­hold, it many take gen­er­a­tions to show some of their effects on infi­nite­ly com­plex webs of life that evolved over mil­lions of years. That is, before civilised cul­tures began inten­sive­ly manip­u­lat­ing them, today even down to the nano-scale. With the like of syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy we’re mov­ing fast into a future where even life­forms “in nature” are the prod­ucts of lab­o­ra­to­ry exper­i­ments, and noth­ing remains that isn’t engi­neered some­where along the line by a human-cen­tred sys­tem of sci­en­tif­ic total­i­tar­i­an­ism.

For obvi­ous rea­sons as peo­ple turn­ing against laws and dom­i­na­tion in more than words we also stand against new polic­ing and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion con­trols enabled by more foren­sics, bio­met­rics etc. and the intro­duc­tion of their com­mon use in the infor­ma­tion-age social prison (mobile fin­ger­print­ing, facial recog­ni­tion sys­tems, D.N.A swabs etc. — they did­n’t stop us yet though…).

This isn’t Vin­ci’s only U.K ven­ture into this lucra­tive field either. They’ve also under­tak­en future expan­sions in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and engi­neer­ing depart­ments at Swansea Uni­ver­si­ty. They’ve com­mis­sioned White­head for the job too, their neigh­bours at Van­tage busi­ness park, who are now also marked by our attack. This will be the result for as long as soci­ety steps in line to realise the fan­tasies of a despot­ic sci­ence, reach­ing for their dreams which are our night­mares.

So what about the ‘ben­e­fits’ that these hi-tech insti­tu­tions want to sell us, found­ed as they are on mas­sive ener­gy con­sump­tion and resource extrac­tion, on the author­i­ty of a spe­cial­ist caste’s some­how-unre­proach­able med­dling with our envi­ron­ments, and on the domes­ti­ca­tion of wild spaces and the tor­ture of oth­er ani­mals? They promise us advances in (human) health, food and tech­nol­o­gy, fos­ter­ing the illu­sion that sci­ence can fix all the dam­age incurred by the dom­i­nant ways of liv­ing. They expect us to for­get how many of the dis­eases, dis­or­ders and can­cers are direct­ly caused by the same indus­tri­al out­put, glob­alised mass soci­ety, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly unhealthy habi­tats and tox­ic work­places of a cul­ture which goes toward these labs and more in the first place. They expect us to for­get that agri-mono­cul­ture pro­duc­tion led to an anti-nutri­tious diet of manip­u­lat­ed short-term energising/comfort food at an esca­lat­ing cost to the land, while diverse wild plant and ani­mals species we used to coex­ist with get wiped out by the sys­tem’s end­less expan­sion and pol­lu­tion. (Vin­ci’s works being a prime exam­ple.) They expect us to for­get how it’s pre­cise­ly the advances in com­plex tech­no­log­i­cal sys­tems that gen­er­ate our depen­dance on their design­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers, alien­ation from our­selves as well as the earth as a whole and each oth­er at the per­son­al lev­el, and increased effi­cien­cy in achiev­ing the goals of soci­ety’s rulers: prof­it and pow­er, through mis­ery and exploita­tion, push­ing the plan­e­tary ecol­o­gy toward col­lapse.

In short the sick­ness is civil­i­sa­tion itself, includ­ing its false solu­tions to its chron­ic prob­lems steadi­ly impov­er­ish­ing sur­vival for human and non-human pop­u­la­tions alike, an unac­cept­able trans­gres­sion on our intent to live freely.

Choos­ing direct action over despair we declare our part in a low-inten­si­ty urban war in its ear­ly stages across Bris­tol against the many faces of the sys­tem, with stones, paint or fire and with the plans, debates and dai­ly refusals; some­times almost imper­ceiv­able, some­times dev­as­tat­ing. In Britain’s ugly cities and inten­sive­ly-man­aged coun­try­side a deter­mined minor­i­ty of rebels and wilder­ness-lovers spo­rad­i­cal­ly take the offen­sive: some strik­ing anony­mous­ly, some form­ing one-off action groups, and some hav­ing test­ed the open pro­pos­al of the Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion; not only in the south-west but Not­ting­ham, Cam­bridge, Lon­don and now Glas­gow.

Every­thing is at stake to us and we our­selves have no time to waste. Toward recov­er­ing our own voli­tion and find­ing affini­ties for rebel­lion, our meth­ods shall include intractable con­flict with­out pause or nego­ti­a­tion: and much more besides, break­ing with this mis­er­able civ­il order with a wide vari­ety of exper­i­ments and the full scope of our imag­i­na­tions. Destruc­tion is just anoth­er indis­pens­able side of cre­ation (and vice ver­sa) not an oppo­site, we’re now sure of that. Our insur­gency would be jus­ti­fied as an end in itself in the face of this life we’re raised into, but it’s beyond only being reac­tive. It acts to solid­i­fy that we’re already tak­ing back in our face-to-face encoun­ters and in our minds. It allows poten­tial space for new and stronger rela­tion­ships cho­sen by aware indi­vid­u­als mind­ful of all life­forms, through active­ly weak­en­ing the cur­rent modes. Until some point of break­down where what­ev­er comes next is out of any soci­ety-wide con­trol and rea­son­ing, and so beyond soci­ety. Lib­er­a­tion can mean noth­ing less; tend­ing toward the wild.

The inter­na­tion­al and inter­nal bat­tle­ground between anar­chy and dom­i­na­tion holds both loss­es and gains, of which some are known and some unknown to us. With this is mind we start the new year by cel­e­brat­ing the release of Braulio Duran (an unre­pen­tant eco-anar­chist who was held by the Mex­i­can State) last Octo­ber, albeit into the wider prison-soci­ety. When we dis­cov­er sol­i­dar­i­ty with a locked-up com­rade through their atti­tude and words, it does­n’t dimin­ish when they get ‘out’; it just cre­ates more grounds to keep fight­ing toward our mutu­al goals. Still ‘inside’, we remem­ber the total-lib­er­a­tionist Adri­an Gon­za­les and anar­chist ban­dits of the Kozani case as well as Babis Tsil­ian­i­dis; and Mar­co Camenisch, denied parole once again. Respect to the Mi’k­maq War­riors engag­ing the Cana­di­an State/petro-indus­try aggres­sors in incen­di­ary clash­es, a renewed phase of indige­nous mil­i­tan­cy, and to the ones con­sis­tent­ly defend­ing both Khim­ki for­est and the land of Notre-Dames-Des-Lan­des from Vin­ci’s devel­op­ments. A raised fist above the prison walls for Nico­la Gai and Alfre­do Cospi­to aka F.A.I/F.R.I Olga Nucle­us, until cell­blocks are rub­ble and jail­ers are ash.

On a sad­der note, 2012 end­ed with the anar­chist Sebas­t­ian Over­sluij being fatal­ly shot in San­ti­a­go while try­ing to col­lec­tive­ly seize back some of what the banks extract every day from the exploit­ed. Nei­ther a vic­tim or a mar­tyr, we sim­ply see some­one who did­n’t bow their head and accept the sys­tem’s rules, and we are glad to have such peo­ple as com­rades. Even with­in this non­sen­si­cal, resigned and cyn­i­cal mod­ern cul­ture, every action demands a reac­tion. When they kill one of the resisters, our ene­mies must pay in any way. This is how our strug­gle leaves behind emp­ty ges­tures and keeps the dead from falling into obliv­ion. Black­ened offices won’t replace split blood, but they sig­nal that same social war isn’t fin­ished, and our grief births rage.

Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion (F.A.I) Insur­gents: Bris­tol North