Bruce STERLING / US-IT-RS: Multicolor Revolutions 
Science fiction author, WIRED journalist, critic and futurist 
In the framework of the Global Control keynote lectures HYBRID WARS AND GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE 
13/09/2018
RIXC / The National Library of Latvia

Bruce Sterling describes media events in Ukraine after the Euromaidan, the Novorussia secession and five years of armed struggle online and on the ground. This presentation includes a lot of images from his private collection of separatist and loyalist Ukrainian propaganda, along with some papers that Bruce discovered in the Yanukovych Palace while sleeping in the abandoned secret-service headquarters of Ukraine’s former President. Since the Euromaidan “Color Revolution,” this kind of covert media struggle has been professionalized by the likes of “Fancy Bear,” so it’s of interest to see how “computational propaganda” looked back when it was much more amateurish, awkward, comical and confused. Since Bruce is a science fiction writer rather than an intelligence operative, this speech will end with a few mild speculations about how the new media culture of armed struggle and frozen conflicts may go in the near future.

Bruce Sterling is a novelist and journalist. While acting as “Visionary in Residence” at Art Center College of Design in 2008, he wrote “Shaping Things,” one of the first books about the Internet of Things. In 2008 he was the curator of the Share Festival in Turin, on the theme of Italian digital manufacturing. He was one of the original columnists for Make magazine and wrote the cover story for the first issue of WIRED. His most recent book is a work of fiction titled “Pirate Utopia”. Bruce Sterling lives in Turin, Belgrade and Austin.