They threw a wooden shoe into the gears. The machine stopped. And no one got hurt.
The is a critical research collective and artistic-academic initiative focused on investigating the intersections of algorithms, power, and resistance. The group is best known for developing the concept of "Algorithmic Sabotage"—a framework for understanding how individuals and groups can deliberately disrupt, confuse, or subvert automated decision-making systems to protest bias, surveillance, and opaque governance. algorithmic sabotage research group %28asrg%29
: Technical breakdowns on how to implement these strategies, such as scrambling images for static sites , are shared within their network. If you'd like, I can help you find: Specific technical tools they recommend for unreadability They threw a wooden shoe into the gears
The choice of the word "sabotage" is deliberate and pedagogical. The term originates from the French sabot , a wooden clog. Legend holds that disgruntled weavers in the Industrial Revolution would throw their wooden shoes into the gears of mechanical looms, jamming the machines that were replacing their livelihoods. The is a critical research collective and artistic-academic