Is it possible for lightning to be disciplined?

In this essay film, artist Ma Yongfeng seeks to explore whether it is possible to re-establish a direct-democratic, alternative-political algorithmic model in place of the current algorithmic ideology and hierarchical order of technological oppression shaped by nation-state and multinational technological giants. Is it possible for lightning to be disciplined? simultaneously addresses this dystopian tendency while exploring how to reinvent different and innovative algorithmic resistances in our times. It asks: today who is dominating the new order of algorithmic society? What kind of hierarchy exists under algorithmic governance? What ethical questions are raised by the algorithmic society? How can the democratization and decentralization of algorithms in the process of technological governance be achieved? how to reinvent different and innovative algorithmic resistances in this dystopian times?

Ma Yongfeng is a Chinese artist, filmmaker and curator based in Berlin. While his early artistic practice primarily engaged video and photography, his recent work has focused more on socially-engaged projects and site-specific installations, situations and events. Several projects (such as Forget Art, Uncut Talks and Anarchy Hospital) contain flexible, guerrilla and immaterial social actions including interventions, films and podcasts. His politically-engaged tactics include introducing new concepts and methodologies into existing mechanisms through social practices and relational resistance. Additionally, he curated the research-based project Harun Farocki: Wrestling with Images at Cache Space in Beijing collabrated with Goethe Institut China (2018-2019).