HOUR

The art of subversion is Heath Bunting's specialty. Expect
to find yourself on his webpage next time you electronically
search for a commercial site.

Bunting is a hacker/artist/nomad who is borrowing
military-like techniques to smash electronic constructs of
capitalism and surveillance in the name of art. He doesn't
like surveillance cameras, "But if I smash them, I reinforce
the need for them," he says. "Instead, I make the system
seem erroneous, add information that's not really there."
Being oppositional is not effective, he maintains.

He's using the same techniques on the web: a perfect target
for creating "disinformation."

Bunting's latest work is an attack on the Nike and Adidas
shoe manufacturers. Within the next month, when you query
any search engine about Nike, the first 10 or more links
will send you straight to his domain -- www.irational.org --
where you'll find the words URL FOR RENT and a link to the
company's competitor, Adidas.

He's done this by making his own web site more sensitive to
search engine queries than Nike's. He used the same
technique to keep people from reaching the "Sainsbury's"
site: a British grocery store chain.

His form of activism mucks up the consumer and the company
alike, creating a void where the capitalistic centres exist.

He sees his methods as the most effective, because they're
modelled on military techniques. He gives them a taste of
their own medicine. Opposition is not his taste. Bunting
says that the online civil liberties campaigns are good for
attention, but for the most part, they're misguided. He says
that being the defence is not the way to get your point
across.

"Subverting information is much more effective," he says.

Bunting is hopping a plane from Britain in early August to
paint about 20 copies of himself around Toronto subway
stations. "They (security) won't know if it's me or just a
picture," he explains.

The web is a good place to play with this technique. For any
activist, the greatest obstacle to reaching a mass audience
is getting past preaching to the converted and getting on to
truly broadcasting to the masses. On the streets, activist
groups can have a demonstration, or poster walls and
billboards up the wazoo. But online, different tactics need
to be employed. An animal activist group or a McDonald's
boycott organization can't exactly afford to buy an ad on
the AltaVista search engine to direct people to their web
sites. Bunting sees a way around that: just bring the
Internet browser to a web page denouncing the company when
people search for it.

Bunting's artistic installations are guerrilla tactics for
subverting capitalistic ideals. He's used pirate radio
stations, bulletin board systems, graffiti, the arts and fax
machines to get out his message: his main focus of
subversion at the moment is capitalistic exploitation of the
net, and surveillance.

Ask Heath for his business card. He'll give you one, but it
won't be his own. He'll scratch out the name on a card in
his back pocket, and replace his own name. People find it
amusing. He said that when he was traveling in Japan, one
Japanese businessman gave him a whole stack of cards, hoping
Bunting would make use of them. "Humor is another way to get
through to people," he says. With no fixed address, and an
email address that changes monthly, Bunting does a decent
job of subverting even himself.

But his web page is fairly easy to find at
www.irational.org. Don't expect to point and click easily
though. His site index page looks like a UNIX directory. He
doesn't think he should bother making a flashy page.

"The most radical thing you can do, to my mind, is to do
nothing. To go nowhere, not have a name, and not have any
money," he says.

Perhaps that's true, but in that case, Bunting is certainly
not following his own definition of radicalism. Doing
"nothing" may be the best way to stay away from electronic
surveillance, but it's clear that doing "something" can be
far more effective as an activist.

Following Bunting's technique of subverting may be the
answer for the future of activism. In the information age,
it may be the only way to get your point across.

Seek, and ye shall not find.

Ingrid Heim