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RTMark and Adbusters at the WTO Conference in Seattle |
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The 1999  WTO (World Trade Organization) Conference in Seattle not only attracted a multitude of demonstrators, but also artistic and cultural activists like RTMark and Adbusters.
Adbusters, well known as fighters against corporate disinformation, injustices in the global economy and "physical and mental pollution", timely for the WTO Conference purchased three billboards in downtown Seattle. Featuring an image with the text "System Error - Type 2000 (progress)", the billboards were meant to challenge "... the WTO's agenda of global corporate growth and expose what isn't reflected in the United State's GNP - human and environmental capital."
At the same time RTMark went on-line with its spoof WTO website http://gatt.org. Shortly after its release WTO Director-General Mike Moore accused RTMark of attempting to "undermine WTO transparency" by copying the WTO website's design and using "domain names such as `www.gatt.org` and page titles such as 'World Trade Organization / GATT Home Page' which make it difficult for visitors to realize that these are fake pages." http://gatt.org is not the first time that RTMark has used website imitation aiming at rendering an entity more transparent. RTMark has performed the same "service" for George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Shell Oil, and others with the principal purpose of publicizing corporate abuses of democratic processes.
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water-clocks
The water-clocks are an early long-distance-communication-system. Every communicating party had exactly the same jar, with a same-size-hole that was closed and the same amount of water in it. In the jar was a stick with different messages written on. When one party wanted to tell something to the other it made a fire-sign. When the other answered, both of them opened the hole at the same time. And with the help of another fire-sign closed it again at the same time, too. In the end the water covered the stick until the point of the wanted message.
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