At the core of this presentation is Tatiana Bazzichelli’s research on business disruption as artistic and activist practice. Her hypothesis, described in the book Networked Disruption (2013) is that mutual interferences between art, hacktivism and the business of social networking have changed the meaning and contexts of political and technological criticism. Hackers and artists have been active agents in business innovation, while at the same time also undermining business. Artists and hackers use disruptive techniques of networking within the framework of social media, opening up a critical perspective towards business to generate unpredictable feedback and unexpected reactions; business enterprises apply disruption as a form of innovation to create new markets and network values, which are often just as unpredictable. Bazzichelli proposes the concept of the Art of Disrupting Business as a form of artistic practice within the current economical and political framework. The notion of disrupting business becomes a means for reflecting on immanent practices of hackers, artists, networkers and entrepreneurs, highlighting empirical and theoretical interconnections and contradictions, as multiple layers of intervention.
