SmashXSmashWest 2025: Defend Reality From Techno-Colonization
March 7-15
Keep checking this page for updates and information leading up to SmashX
Every spring, South by Southwest occupies Austin, trapping the city in a dual position of dependency and dispossession–dependent on the flood of Capital & wealthy consumers for its economic functioning, and dispossessing land & labor to do so at the expense of the homeless, the housing precarious in gentrified neighborhoods, and the hyper-exploited workers who service the entire week. The worst of our technocratic overlords convene here to party at our expense and plot against us.
Last year, this occupation was undermined by a wave of divestment and disruption, which forced SXSW to remove the US Army’s and weapons manufacturers from the festival. But SXSW is still an incubator for the tools of our oppression and their 2025 focus on Artificial Intelligence is inherently linked to fascism, colonization, and genocide. This year’s Smash By Smash West counterfestival will continue to build and militantly defend our realities, and we invite everyone to join in building our resistance and futures together.
Smash By is an open brand that you can use for all activities you take in the spirit of this invitation, that are not part of, and express antagonism to, SXSW. Whether your plans feature cultural programming, education, care work, action, or anything in between, enact them without waiting for permission. Make your travel plans, self-organize with friends to the best of your ability, start planning events, and share this call with anyone who may be interested.
Once again, we’ve provided logos and other materials in our drive for you to use as you see fit at tinyurl.com/smashby. Reach out at SmashBySmashWest@protonmail.com for questions or support around:
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- Connecting to venues, artists, or workshops
- Resources you have to offer (such as space, housing, art production)
- Questions about hosting and lodging for travelers
- More ambitious proposals you want help collaborating on
We will do our best to assist you, with the understanding that our capacities as a decentralized, grassroots network may be limited.
What is Smash By Smash West?
Every Spring, South by Southwest brings a flood of tourists, celebrities, politicians, technocrats, venture capitalists, military officials, professional activists, and the elite, showcasing the cutting edge of Capital, its left and right wings fused in an unholy alliance to chart out the future of Empire’s hell-worlds. For Austin, this week is simultaneously the economic lifeblood of the City and a period of intensified exploitation and dispossession—homeless encampments swept away, neighborhoods colonized for South By-oriented development and hypergentrification, precarious workers pushed to their limit physically and financially. SXSW is a time when our enemies come together to connect, think together, strategize, and develop new ways of acting that consolidate their power.
We propose something different: Smash By Smash West, a week of action and counter-summit for those of us struggling against this world where we can connect, commune, conspire, think together, and develop new ways of acting that undermine the rule of our enemies and build our collective powers. While the conference is a show of strength for the ruling order, we believe that we can turn our enemy’s strengths into weaknesses, and their weaknesses into opportunities. For this week and beyond, we invite comrades and fellow travelers to begin gathering, hosting events, and taking strategic action with these shared goals in mind. We also invite the locals who, year after year, self-organize a plethora of “SXSW Unofficial” events to use those events to take action against SXSW’s most harmful effects, politicizing them as explicitly anti-SXSW instead of providing the festival with free advertising.
Smash By is not an organization, an activist campaign, a call to directly fight or end SXSW, or a platform to make demands from the powers that be. It is a radical alternative; an invitation to exploit the opportunities that are created by infrastructural overload, to engage in creative and courageous disruption wherever possible, and to plant seeds for more ambitious actions with more preparation in the years to come. Whether your plans feature cultural programming, education, care work, action, or anything in between, enact them without waiting for permission. Self-organize with friends to the best of your ability; and be co-responsible for the spaces we make together. Smash By Smash West is an open brand that you can use for all activities you take in the spirit of this invitation, that are not part of and express antagonism to SXSW.
Other smashX2025 Resources
SmashBy Opportunities & Research
SmashXSmashWest 2025 Calendar
SmashXSmashWest 2024 archive
Call for Divestment & Disruptions
SmashBy Insurrection Challenge
SmashXSmashWest 2024 Calendar
GoodBye SouthBy: The 1st Annual SmashXSmashWest In Review
FAQ:
How do I make a Smash By Event?
the secret is to really begin! You don’t need to go through us or ask for permission for a Smash By event. Smash By is a week of DIY, self-organized activity. The socials and wesbite are primarily a promotional platform for the week, not the organizing hub. Figure out what you want to do, where you’ll do it, who needs to be involved, what equipment or materials you need, when you can do it, and make it happen! Send the details once you have it planned so it can get promoted and put on the calendar.
If you have questions or need help you can reach out. Things we may be able to offer limited support with:
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- suggestions of & connections to spaces that could host
- circulating calls for equipment, volunteers, or performers
- research relevant to your event
- feedback to help develop an idea you have
- assistance with flyer design & promotion
Austin Autonomedia is hosting the call and other resources for Smash By Smash West. We are not the organizers of the counterfestival–please direct inquiries to the contact information given in this call. You are welcome to submit information about events, research reports relevant to the conference, or reportbacks from actions to us at austinautonomedia@autistici.org