Political Design and Hacktivist art are very similar but it all comes down to the purpose of the work. Political design projects often aim to help people. For example Patrick Ball created a database to keep track of track tortured dissidents in Sri Lanka and Guatemala. This project was created to inform while helping all of these individual people. Any one learning about this project sees the people who need help and get a better understanding of the conflict. Hacktivism is less about a political stance and more about the use of the internet to change the way people think about things. The ‘Free Kevin Mitnick’ campaign was an attempt to free the first famous hacker from jail. Both projects require code but the actual purpose of each project differs.

Execution can mean a lot of things. When a piece of computer code executes its values and functions are invocation. Execution can also mean the killing of a human being but thats not really the point. But for the point of this discussion the execution of code refers to the evocation of a piece of code. When showing code there is a difference between its representation and its execution. The representation of the code its just the characters that make up the individual lines of code. Execution of the code has vastly different results in comparison. In some sense the actual program itself could be considered art while the codes actual product can be something total different.

If Hacktivist artists were to only hack things that were deemed social acceptable their carriers would almost be completely pointless. Hacktivists need to change what society deems acceptable by doing things that some people say you shouldn’t. Their skill and their activities are dependent on changing society norms. For the most part if a organization says you should hack it, isn’t that enough reason to hack it? Just by saying no, more people what to try to. Its a part of human nature. One of the more interesting hacks was the barbie and army shoulder voice box hack. Not only was this off line, it had a decipherable result that many people took notice of. This project switched what the barbie and the army doll said so that it was reversed.

The Yes Men project challenged many different organizations around the world. Their main purpose was to show organizations what was wrong with their ways by shocking members. Its an interesting take on such a purpose. The Yes Men seemed to focus on large companies but because of the worlds current structure, changing those companies changes the whole world.