________________________________________________________________________________ [remember: you can filter forwards from any specific mailing list by using the filter command. if, for example, you don't want to recieve any nettime forwards, just mailto:majordomo@rolux.org?subject= with a message body that reads: filter nettime] =====================================[brian carroll ]== >Fragments of Network Criticism >By Geert Lovink >Where are the >de Beauvoirs, Sartres and Camus of the Digital Age >now that we need them? on negation as the empirical source of first-hand knowledge: i negate, therefore i think.. or, i doubt, therefore i question.. i doubt the network, yet the network is... the archaeology of media, of archive, of the network as a thing-in-itself, replicating, doubling-back, geologically thrusting up, pyramid building, collective spirit (of capital as e-commerce), the growth, exponential, stocks split, markets boil over... what is the existence of the network for the critic..? an interpretation of the object, event, place, unfolding and emergent in the chaotic spectrum of culture, economics, socius, and politic ranges bridging time, the present, the Virilian light of speed, money is all that matter(s)... >What would Nietzsche have thought of the Californian >Uebermensch, preaching to embrace the herd? the Superman is the economist on a Harley-Davidson, potato! potato! potato! breaking limits of the dromo- sphere, up 5/16ths is not enough, warp speed till escape velocity- then sell! the ego of the supra-, the overriding structure, the facade of makeup, mascara, lipstick, eyeshadow, all of a bullish networked costume party.. put on strapless bra, tatoo, leather jacket- to roar into the Tofflerian future, the future is near, the future is here, there is no here there... the individual ego, fusing with the collective psyche, superman and woman, rising above the flames of discourse, to critique? to dissent? or to glorify the network as status, to protect and to hoard the information of the Trademark, the Copyright, and the All Rights Reserved... battle cry- no one dies electronically! the immortal silence in not changing, not questioning, not critiquing, not cognitively dissenting the role of the network as is, as was, future tense, future hense, wherewithal. the knowledge worker, pun, equating information with knowing, with existence without a being in it, an utter emptyness, silence, without voice, without psychology besides that of a bad dream, of virtues, of ideas, of beliefs economically unfeasible... philosophy out of a networked vending machine, what need is there for philosophers in an ideological bath of excess, of doing - not thinking, of thinking therefore being, but all in bad faith, Camus' virtual gun shooting blanks on silicon beaches, leaving only the text dead, the text as image, as symbol, electronic diaspora... >One day, >origins and basic structures will no longer be dominant. Media can grow, >and transform into something different, more playful, open, with modular >architectures. Breaking the magic spell of meaning and casting will create >democratic structures in which truely flat channels prevail. the subconscious network, will the origin story become a forever lost 'first tale' of our path, a mystical and divine beginning, to be rehersed again and again by the net critic.. to divine the true meaning and the retro-reality of a pre- net cultural zeitgeist? "what was it like, grandma, when the net didn't exist?" "you mean you didn't have e-mail?" "you didn't have a global e-state?" what is ancient in this electronic archive of civilization? what is the foundation of the network structure... Marx's supra, Freud's sub, Jung's alchemical symbol transferred onto D&G's body without organs, where are we now without a network in our future? we are nowhere, that is here- mixing bits of electronic bytes, chaotic flows of energy representing information, direct current riding on the processors, fluid dynamics through router, ISP, screen, to teleport to the power, the glory and the media for all. >@ >Electronic >arts, incapable of taking a real avant-garde stand, has maneuvered itself >in an impossible position. It is neither participating in fundamental >research, nor does it have content, compared to 'regular' websites, videos >or audio pieces. At best they are form studies, esthetic explorations, in >search for a visual language, done by arts students and their teachers. art is not dead- it is irrelevant. the artist is no longer "creator" but "interpreter". but not by organizations of power and institutions of legitimation, but of a critical dissent/descent in the family tree of familial black sheep. the shepherd of the electronic herd, taking horrific paths to a virtual charged oasis where ideas are economies unto themselves. back to discourse, back to archive, back to Foucault's archaeologies of knowing... i doubt, therefore i judge... i think, therefore i think i know... the break, the schiz, the flow, the analysis of the network as hermeneutic device, for mass psychological profiles, for RTMarks and CNETs, same space, different places in mind... where to go where to be where to see? 'here comes the regular?' how we interpret the network- how does the network interpret us? -or is there no us? no group ego, only maniacs. no commonality, no public, relativity again gaining upper hand in a crooked game of cards. if you have no bits you cannot play... > What is >needed are new spaces for reflection and critique, free zones where >researchers of all kinds can work without the pressure of sponsors and >administrators, free from short term commercial pressure. The same can be >said of the 'digital Bauhaus' concepts, which lack any negation of >mainstream digital utopia and are hardly different from average photoshop >plus HTML-courses. mine the archive. reinterpret the recent past... compost heaps of information to detourn, to burn, to reassemble... the aesthetic is regurgitated, reappropriated, string into a bird's nest, an animalistic, animistic, mystic weaving of ideas, no his- or her- story, an our-story, an imaginary utopia in the dystopic present. mind is an island. dreams are atmospheres. are we in the same universe? on what levels, in what nodes, in what spectrum does our realities intertwine? or is it all junk. garbage. waste. ruins of mind. ruins of time. to electromagnetic detectors, brains as info engines, mind as crypto without a code, life as signal diminishing... >The computer as a machine will disappear anyway, and will be >dispersed into our daily environment. So it be quite an achievement to >negate and ignore these devices. I do not blame anyone for anything. Let >us overcome this universal protestantism and instead concentrate on the >architecture of these new media, now that there is still something to >decide. Time is running out. architecture as archaeology, interpreting the built, with the design of the future, to build.... looking backward, waking up with cryonic sneeze from the deep freeze- what was it like in 2000 grandma? >Future generations will look down on our time >and think: why did they all use these crap Microsoft products? >Why did not they revolt against the supidity of its interface and the >corporate take over of this once so public and open Internet platform? bc ===============================================[Max Herman ]== In a message dated 8/23/99 8:20:42 PM Pacific Daylight Time, human@architexturez.com writes: > >Fragments of Network Criticism > >By Geert Lovink > > >Where are the > >de Beauvoirs, Sartres and Camus of the Digital Age > >now that we need them? This is an interesting comment. Where are they, so they can tell us what is right, or, so they will listen when someone else says what is right? The age of the expert is over, this is the implicit message of the network; it is best to stop looking for them. Media forms will no longer be incarnate in particular humans, but in more networked structures. Ideas, concepts, and their architectural design are more substantive actors now than individual voice or insight. It used to be that the individual prophesied the network; now that the network can be actual, waiting only for us to shape it, the lone observer is an anachronism. Its importance must either wane or continue; there is no avoiding the shift, the point of saturation. > the individual ego, fusing with the collective psyche, > superman and woman, rising above the flames of discourse, > to critique? to dissent? or to glorify the network as > status, to protect and to hoard the information of the > Trademark, the Copyright, and the All Rights Reserved... This passage seems to describe the dystopia where the worst of the individual reaches supremacy in the worst kind of network. Panic is never suitable in a crisis because it only encourages delay. > >One day, > >origins and basic structures will no longer be dominant. Media can grow, > >and transform into something different, more playful, open, with modular > >architectures. Breaking the magic spell of meaning and casting will create > >democratic structures in which truely flat channels prevail. We won't reach this equilibrium, this sustainable ecosystem of media and cognition, until we pass the stage we are in right now: a terrified search for the meaning of technology. Every species whose technology outruns its comprehension faces the same task, the reconstruction of nature or something like it; a reclaiming of awareness from mythic fate. If democracy is both a practical obligation and an ideal, why not reject the hierarchy of genius at least experimentally? Which is to say, imagine a history in which the great analyst is irrelevant. (They're working on this at Oxford right now, vis the First World War.) Max Herman The Genius 2000 Project Day of Demonstration Sept. 1 www.geocities.com/~genius-2000 =====================================[Felix Stalder ]== Geert, change is overrated. And so is speed. In spite of all hype, nothing happens over night, and now that commerce has taken over as the main force of media development, we can expect that not much will change anymore. There will be new products, lots of new ad campaigns to be sure. It will all look new. But, opening the glitzy hood, we will see a rather uninspired implementation of what has been developed in the last ten years. True innovation is the anti-thesis of business, which is good in optimizing but bad in coming up with surprises. No one wants a surprise in business. The media landscape is more or less developed. All the start-ups, just hoping to cash in big time at the first opportunity to sell-out. This does not mean that everything will remain the same, far from that. The transformation has just began. What it means is that the change will follow paradigm which are already laid out. Centralizing of control, decentralizing of production. Take any example. War: a central commando, micro managing mobile forces (automated, if you're rich). Nato did it a bit more sophisticated, Milosevic a bit cruder. Financial markets: centralized (logically, not so much geographically) control, the rest of the world as endlessly rearrangeable sites of production, fragmented and exchangeable. But history never comes to an end. Where could it go? All over the place! One of the things in the big puzzle that could introduce another round of true innovation is electronic money, cheap, private, distributed. When money can flow like any other information, when it will become fluid for everyone, as it is already for the rich, then the Internet will take on it final form. What the financial markets did to the nation state, electronic money can do to other gate keepers, distributers, and regulators. Independent, self-sufficient communities, spiralling from the virtual into the real, provide themselves with what they need. Independent and interconnected, all communicating through a common protocol. Money as a common language, not very uplifting, indeed, but very powerful for real deep change. In the long run, only the rich will live comfortably in a gift economy. Or will it degrade to a self-help network for corporate consultants? But it's no surprise, there is no such thing like electronic money. Despite being hyped as the next big thing, it's not even a failure, no one has really tried yet. Will the user become really powerful, as Genc Greva hopes? Only when there is a possibility to translate her attention into more than advertisement dollars. Advertisement still holds all the keys, pressing the network back into the shape of the mass media. The market has taken over the internet and almost all the research (don't hope for too much coming of computer science departments, all deeply connected by now with what is called "industry partnerships" which basically means that industry funds parts of the research while setting all of the agenda). Can it come up with something like electronic money that is truly decentralized. From all I can see, I have my doubts, there is simply not much to win for the gatekeepers by undermining the very foundation of their gate keeping. Similarly, the market would have never come up with tcp/ip, its simply no money in it. Something that is at the same time intensely technical and intensely social cannot does not happen over night. We're just at the beginning, true communities of content, communities that really share things with one another, that have been built around real needs, rather than just boredom and novelty, will pave the ways to create the demand for an internal economy. Don't worry about the technology, this it can be done, for engineers, things are easy. Maybe its as easy as remebering and updating some long forgotten technology, something from those optimistic 90s, thus, creating autonomous zones, not temporary but self-sustainable. -----|||||---||||----|||||--------||||----- Les faits sont faits. http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/~stalder ========================================[Craig Brozefsky ]== Felix Stalder writes: > Will the user become really powerful, as Genc Greva hopes? Only when there > is a possibility to translate her attention into more than advertisement > dollars. Advertisement still holds all the keys, pressing the network back > into the shape of the mass media. How does the user become "really powerful" by having their attention translated into something else? What do you propose their attention be translated into? Who does the translating? I could see how someone else, other than the advertisers, could become powerful by translating the attention of users into other things, such as political power, social power, or perhaps consumer power. But I can't see how the *user* becomes "really powerful" thru this. > Something that is at the same time intensely technical and intensely > social cannot does not happen over night. We're just at the beginning, > true communities of content, communities that really share things with one > another, that have been built around real needs, rather than just boredom > and novelty, will pave the ways to create the demand for an internal > economy. I'm not sure I'm buying the notion that we are just beginning, but perhaps we just have different understandings of what "beginning" means. I read beginning as "only a couple years into the endeavor" but perhaps you are talking about scales of centuries. Anyways, I'd like to point out that since the 70's at least their have been communities built within these technological spaces. If we expand our notion of what defines these spaces a little, we can go back even further to the dispersal of the telephone and party lines. Now, wether or not these count as "true communities of content" I cannot say, since it seems that phrase has no real meaning on it's own. In the context of your post and what I know about your research, I can guess that the "content" indicates something being exchanged, creating the demand for the internal economy. I think "markets of content" is perhaps more apt than "true communities". Your use of community in this sense reminds me of Sun's "Java Community License" which is sorta like a version of intellectual fuedalism. On the Internet, "community" has come to mean a market which is formed by social relations, and has developed it's own identity as a market, often internalizing the demographics of the advertising firms. Linux geeks, ala Slashdot, are a particularly fresh-faced example. > Don't worry about the technology, this it can be done, for > engineers, things are easy. Maybe its as easy as remebering and > updating some long forgotten technology, something from those > optimistic 90s, thus, creating autonomous zones, not temporary but > self-sustainable. I've found the first step towards building powerful, sustainable social relations online is to regard the other with compassion. This strategy has paid off well in the last 5 years. The technology itself is mostly arbitrary, perhaps it does create a space with special flavors that let's a particular relation flower. But if you're not open to building a relationship in these new spaces, then you'll miss your chance. -- Craig Brozefsky Free Scheme/Lisp Software http://www.red-bean.com/~craig I say woe unto those who are wise in their own eyes, and yet imprudent in 'dem outside -Sizzla ==============================================[Geert Lovink ]== > The age of the expert is over, this is the implicit message of the > network; it is best to stop looking for them. it is the message of the dominant network ideology, yes. we all know that the dirty digital reality looks different. just read that 5% of the content attracks 75% of the users. that's not ideology but plain numbers. disappointing figures, yes. Internet is a mass medium. Not in essence, but in practictal terms. And it has always been run by experts, I wonder how else one could call the programmers and sys-ops. > now that the network can be > actual, waiting only for us to shape it, the lone observer is an > anachronism. I just read an article in a dutch newspaper, the NRC, who finally discovered post-modernism. According to this Bas Heyne, post-modernism is characterized by the shift from the actor to the observer. This is also my impression of most academics these days. They do not feel comfortable anymore with the notion of theory as an intervention (let alone as a utopia or manifest/proposal). Many prefer to observe, and to deconstruct, working with somewhat older material, not with the latest cultural constructs. Perhaps the network does not encourage the point-of-view of the outsider. But then again, the network is not the society (dispite Castells...). The Net might produce a temporary dominant ideology, which does not mean that all human/power relations are affected by it. > Panic is never suitable in a crisis because it only encourages delay. Again such a naive copy-paste of Bill Gates' 'friction free capitalism'. Panic is a very deep, psycho-physical response to immediate danger. Suitable or not, it's there. The question is only how society repsonses to it. > If democracy is both a practical obligation and an ideal, why not reject > the hierarchy of genius at least experimentally? Which is to say, imagine > a history in which the great analyst is irrelevant. Yes, I think we can do away with the genius, this 19th century figure. Still, this is the age of the media, if you like it or not, and media are (re)producing the rich and famous. Internet is also based on a star system, closely related to the print industry, and the infotainment business. But I also imagine such an utopian situation, where we wake up from the nightmare called mass media. A victory of the Irrelavant! geert =========================================[Yvonne Volkart ]== hi all i read Geerts paper and the following replies with great interest, for i am very much involved in the subject how art (new media art), artists and cultural politics maintain pancapitalism. Beyond other things, my lecture at the next cyberfeminist international was about hegemonic esthetics and counterstrategies in the infobiobody field of art and i will post the paper within the next days. My problem with Geerts statement regarding media art and its intertwinement with economy is, that he, and much more Brian Carroll, do not differentiate this term and seem to perceive the heterogenous field of art specific articulations as a homogenous zone of capitalist reterritorialisation, as weird outputs of commercialization: >It is said that visual arts are playing a creative role in the R&D of the >visual languages for human-machine interfaces, shortly before they leave >the high tech laboratories. For decades now the paradigm of the >interdisciplinary approach, mainly between engineers and visual or media >artists, has been promoted, yet remains unfulfilled. "Art" in this context means one-dimensional visualization of "scientific" speculatations, and has usually been very much successful in its ideological and popular effects. Then people do not seize to believe in what they see with their own eyes, and scientists and incorporations know that. But this kind of art is webdesign or graphic work or whatever you will call it. The same is with the huge installations of electronic and digital media art, as we know it from Ars Electronica, ISEA, ZKM etc. This kind of simplicistic Techno art, which has no critical contents and has always been not more than pure decoration, has never been recognised in the traditional mainstream field of art. There has always been a big gap between electronic and media art addicts and the traditional art scene, which despises most of these work, may it be for its lacking of conceptual esthetics, may it be for the art scene's fear of technology based works. However, this is changing actually. But nevertheless, until now curators and editors of the traditional mainstream art scene have wellcomed other forms of esthetisations of economic media power. They like and push the more subtle, more esthetic ones than this esthetically conservative techno stuff à la ZKM and others. But interestingly, this side is changing image too and will become more avantguard. Peter Weibel's upcoming netcondition-project at the ZKM may be another example. With this project he and his team are currently not only taking over >netart>, i.e.they are not only institutionalizing critical and progressive netprojects, but rather symbolically substituting the old conservative ZKM-stuff by these more avantguard and subcultural ones. Like actually many of the progressive mainstream institutions in the arts do, the ZKM does also offer workshop lounges, financialization of books etc. in order to establish process and context related work of engaged netpeople. But beyond these mainstream outcomes and its overtakings of critical potential, there are many critical artists and cultural workers, living on the edge and involved in the field of new and/or digital media, who seriously explore how they can criticise and develop other issues and esthitics than the hegemonial ones. Interestingliy enough, Geert doesn't name them in his featured >models to leave the dilemma of new media arts behind< - dilemmas i would like to hear more than the short accusations reveal. >Lose, temporary collaborations, sharing >resources within free associations of programmers, designers, critics and >organizers could be another. Running websites, servers, (net.)radios, >tv-programs or a magazines is yet another. Developing software goes one >step further. So does exploiting the hidden gold of content. These are all >models to leave the dilema of new media arts behind. Artists, even critically engaged artists, seem to be not competent in building >spaces for reflection and critique, free zones where >researchers of all kinds can work without the pressure of sponsors and >administrators, free from short term commercial pressure.< Maybe i misunderstood something important. But it is irritating, that at the crucial points regarding the future spaces, Geert has no concrete examples which could illustrate his plea. I as a cultural worker and engaged in critical production, i as a cyberfeminist and female nettime subscriber finally want to know: Who is this we, which forms this fictional we-identity of the anti commercialists? Who are the subjects, agents and builders of this upcoming free zones? Which gender do they have, to which class and culture do they belong? Furthermore I want to know, how these spaces would look like, how they come into being and how its economy and financialization function. I think it is time now to reflect and name more precisely these issues and agents of free zones. Because otherwise it becomes an essentialist and close community issue with too well-known inclusion and exclusion structures based on white middleclass anglo-american males. Why is it no topic, that e.g. nettime and the community around it has been initiated and continued in the middle of the biggest art mainstream events which exist? I have problems with the idea to take only the mainstream art's money, but not wanting to engage in changing its premisses and ideologies by building spaces in its territory too. I consider the above kind of parasitism to be too one-dimensional and self-legitimate. I want to be clear and state that i really don't want to establish an art - non art gap or to plead for art in general. There are too many reasons why one has to be suspicious. But as on this list always the same simplicistic prejudices against >art< raise, I would like to seek for a differentiation: Art is not Art. It is important to insist in the fact, that art -i.e. engaged art - like theory, could be another good space among others to produce these postulated reflections. And i think that many people are already involved in doing so and need theorists who encourage and not despise them in the name of their critical authority. Yvonne **************************************************** Yvonne Volkart Riedtlistrasse 30 CH-8006 Zuerich fon/fax 0041 1 362 41 09 e-mail: yvolkart@access.ch **************************************************** ===============================================[Max Herman ]== In a message dated 8/25/99 9:38:23 AM Pacific Daylight Time, geert@xs4all.nl writes: > Max Herman writes: > > > The age of the expert is over, this is the implicit message of the > > network; it is best to stop looking for them. > > it is the message of the dominant network ideology, yes. we all know that > the dirty digital reality looks different. just read that 5% of the > content attracks 75% of the users. that's not ideology but plain numbers. > disappointing figures, yes. Internet is a mass medium. Not in essence, but > in practictal terms. And it has always been run by experts, I wonder how > else one could call the programmers and sys-ops. The message of the network per se, though I wouldn't call it an "essential" trait, is that expertise is distributed. This expertise can be technical or artistic; it can also be merely subjective, in that each person is the "expert" on his or her subjectivity (both individual and collective). I grant that this message, which I take to be self-evident, has gone largely unheard and is often suppressed by various expert classes. These classes can be technical, artistic, financial, political, cultural, you name it. Currently the web is unquestionably divided into providers and users for the most part. Many people, however, are both conceptualizing and implementing alternatives. They remain the minority of course, in part because the technology is virtually newborn and older media systems--the corporate in particular--still dominate in both material and conceptual terms. None of this alters the unique character of digital media as the first cheap technology to offer virtually unlimited capacity, if not access and audience, to those able to purchase a PC. The traditional foundation of expertise--possession of the means of media production such as a library, printing press, radio or TV transmitter, or newspaper--has been undermined irrevocably, which makes the "message" of distributed production an ever-present condition whether it is ignored, suppressed, or fulfilled. > > > now that the network can be > > actual, waiting only for us to shape it, the lone observer is an > > anachronism. > > I just read an article in a dutch newspaper, the NRC, who finally > discovered post-modernism. According to this Bas Heyne, post-modernism is > characterized by the shift from the actor to the observer. This is also my > impression of most academics these days. They do not feel comfortable > anymore with the notion of theory as an intervention (let alone as a > utopia or manifest/proposal). Many prefer to observe, and to deconstruct, > working with somewhat older material, not with the latest cultural > constructs. Post-modernism is too complicated to ever be discussed, at least according to Chomsky. In any event, theorizing the limitations of the observer in conceptual terms does not imply that contemporary society will instantly reflect this awareness; it will take some time to sink in. The world is full of professional observers who don't want to jeopardize their income and/or sense of self. The fact remains that the construct of knowledge as the product of observation exclusive of action is losing its coherence in virtually every discipline. This construct still dominates the world but it is tottering. (Of course there are many professionals charged with meticulously documenting each totter.) >Perhaps the network does not encourage the point-of-view of > the outsider. But then again, the network is not the society (dispite > Castells...). The Net might produce a temporary dominant ideology, which > does not mean that all human/power relations are affected by it. I think we agree here; systems of power relations are never completely hegemonic, but always contain interstices of resistance if only in the form of contradictions and internal fractures. The benevolent facade of corporate digitalism (Expo 2000?) is neither accurate in its depiction nor absolute in its control of representation. It warrants neither fear nor respect. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > > Panic is never suitable in a crisis because it only encourages delay. > > Again such a naive copy-paste of Bill Gates' 'friction free capitalism'. I'm not sure what you mean here. I never read any Gates but I assume you are equating my critique of panic with some kind of follow-the-leader idealism, carpe diem, just do it, etc. I merely meant that time is lost and opportunities are wasted if unduly pessimistic and frightened attitudes prevail in times of transition or conflict. As the Gateses are poised to turn the Web into another form of TV, in both hardware and brainware, the actions that dissenters take now are important. (I also think that excessive observation, which you mentioned earlier, is one manifestation of panic.) > Panic is a very deep, psycho-physical response to immediate danger. > Suitable or not, it's there. The question is only how society repsonses to > it. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > > If democracy is both a practical obligation and an ideal, why not reject > > the hierarchy of genius at least experimentally? Which is to say, imagine > > a history in which the great analyst is irrelevant. > > Yes, I think we can do away with the genius, this 19th century figure. Sometimes I think that because I talk about my work all the time everyone has heard about it. I was speaking above, when I mentioned the "hierarchy of genius," about the expert class, or master analyst in particular. (The nineteenth century seems to have been enamored of the lyric or poetic genius, like Byron, Napoleon, or Edison; I think that the analytical genius is more the favorite of the twentieth century--Freud is the great exemplum here.) The Western mythos of genius goes far deeper than Pasteur and Wagner. > Still, this is the age of the media, if you like it or not, and media are > (re)producing the rich and famous. Internet is also based on a star > system, closely related to the print industry, and the infotainment > business. Absolutely. Genius is the aura of every celebrity, the justification of every denial of access, and the currency of the corporate cognition-industry. If we dismantle the myth of genius and define it for ourselves the spell will be broken. The creation, re-creation, and distribution of genius is a worthy task for both theorists and practitioners. The integrity of a Sartre or Camus rests in part on a principled rejection of the star system; this becomes paradoxical in times of media transition but so do a lot of things. >But I also imagine such an utopian situation, where we wake up > from the nightmare called mass media. A victory of the Irrelavant! > > geert > I imagine utopia too, and to tell you the truth, I think a lot of people are going to wake or be woken in the next few months. Utopia won't be there when they wake up but they will know how to get there. The paths will be chaotic and irrelevant. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Geert, I've enjoyed this dialogue quite a bit. I won't plug my own work, but I would be interested to hear your critique of it should you have the time. Sincerely, Max Herman The Genius 2000 Project www.geocities.com/~genius-2000 ==========================================[Andreas Broeckmann ]== >> If democracy is both a practical obligation and an ideal, why not reject >> the hierarchy of genius at least experimentally? Which is to say, imagine >> a history in which the great analyst is irrelevant. > >Yes, I think we can do away with the genius, this 19th century figure. >Still, this is the age of the media, if you like it or not, and media are >(re)producing the rich and famous. Internet is also based on a star >system, closely related to the print industry, and the infotainment >business. But I also imagine such an utopian situation, where we wake up >from the nightmare called mass media. A victory of the Irrelavant! geert, why be so defensive about the role of intellectuals? after all, the question was where the Sartres, the de Beauvoirs and the Camus' of the digital age are. this is not about empty 15-minute media-stardom, but about people who are able to reflect about the present in a political and historical perspective and who are able to communicate (write!) their thoughts in a way that makes it possible for others to follow these insights, have new and other ones, construct new political strategies, people who can conduct or participate in a political debate and who will not be afraid to have an influence on the course of history. the captains of industry rarely have any doubts about that, intellectuals mostly do. and the above (i think: misplaced) critique of genius and authority is another indication for the levelling of the potential for political initiative that might flow from a debate/channel/circle like Nettime. so, quite to the contrary: the question should be raised again, maybe extended: where are the CRL James' of the playstation, where are the Foucaults of software power, and where are the Rosa Luxemburgs of the political economy of the net? again, this is not about genius and stardom, this is about brave, intelligent, creative, witty, committed people, often working within groups and movements, who will help to formulate politically effective positions. to give the position of the 'organic intellectual' (Antonio Gramsci) up for the sake of late-anti-authoritarian Kinderladen flatness which only serves to weaken the little political weight that critical media circles might have, seems silly to me. -a ps: i think that we are probably not doing as badly on 'digital intellectuals' as Geert suggests; this list has some, and if i look at my bookshelves, i can see some others who are providing some help; rather than horizontality, we might actually lack a sense of _profile_. =======================================[Faith Wilding ]== Dear Yvonne, dear nettimers: I second much of what Yvonne wrote in response to Geert and Brian Carroll. An additional--and dirty--issue which is never brought up openly and honestly is the kind of monetary valuation hierarchy which is often practiced at so-called subcultural or political art events. These events also have their stars and have a hierarchy of artists and presenters who are usually offered far more support to come to venues and festivals than are less well known artists, groups, or beginners. Though I understand that everyone has different financial needs and resources I would like to make a plea for more equality and honesty when the money is being apportioned. The subculture could take a stand in this and maybe begin to demand better treatment at mainstream venues also. Even this small action could help us flex our anticapitalist muscles. Faith Wilding =====================================[Felix Stalder ]== Craig Brozefsky wrote: >How does the user become "really powerful" by having their attention >translated into something else? What do you propose their attention >be translated into? Who does the translating? I could see how >someone else, other than the advertisers, could become powerful by >translating the attention of users into other things, such as >political power, social power, or perhaps consumer power. But I can't >see how the *user* becomes "really powerful" thru this. Who does the translation? This is exactely the question. Right now, advertisers are doing it and for their kind of translation a mass audience is necessary. But what other ways are possible. Linux points to one which goes like this: I value what you do so much that I invest my time in making it better. Attention is translated into participation. Attention, in a way, is semi-active. I watch (active) but you do not really do something with what you see (passive). The advertising model stresses the passive part of attention (letting something sink in), the open source model enhances the active aspect of attention (finding a bug). What other translation models are there? I'm sure there are many, such as barter, labour exchange, gifts, status, access, security etc. The most dominant translation mechanism is money. A lot of things can be translated into money and money can be translated into a lot of things. In a way, money exchange is also semi active. Yes, you give something (active) but it requires not much (passive), particualry at the low end of the scale. It's not really a major commitment to hand over 20 cents. Money per se is nothing bad, and if there is a way to make it flow more according to our attention, that is to what we really spend our time with, rather than channeling it into a few preestablished directions, this could allow more of us to spent our time with that we really like, as long was we find other who also like is as much as we do. Right now, lots of that is done "after work" relegating it to a "hobby" elevating a boring job to a "necessity". >Now, wether or not these count as "true communities of content" I >cannot say, since it seems that phrase has no real meaning on it's >own. Here is a also where community of content comes in. Building up communities around the exchange of content important enough that enough members devote enough time to developing this content that it becomes valuable for others. Again, there are many ways in which this value can be expressed, money exchange is just one of them, and finding ways as many ways to create and circulate this value is one way to overcome the increasingly boring commodification/standardization of the Net. Not by returning to some academic ideal (although being in academia I like it) but in creating different kinds of exchanges that are not limited by the standard commodity form. -----|||||---||||----|||||--------||||----- Les faits sont faits. http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/~stalder =====================================[brian carroll ]== >I second much of what Yvonne wrote in response to Geert and Brian Carroll. >Faith Wilding to me this is incredibly curious, especially considering the intriguing thought of an existential network by Geert, then having a flurry of what seems like a defense of institutional legitimation, almost like new age self-help of the California Ideology. i wrote as a counterpoint to the utopic American vision, as if everyone dreams of a $5 billion IPO as 'the good life.' on the contrary, i think the post surrounding network criticism needs more consideration on its existential grounds: such as, does network criticism exist at all apart from institutions of legitimation? you euro's have a much better deal than in the U.S. state sponsored multimedia and the embrace of more than monetary ideas profit you directly. here, in the U.S., to me at least, it seems to be a desert of content. a great diaspora that left dreams behind to rot, or to be economically recycled for profit by some jackal. i lobby that it is near impossible to have critical dissent, or critical discourse without jeopardizing institutional placement. thus, the "freedom" of the network is actually in bad faith. that is, if i speak out on the netowrk about my job, i will face repercussions that directly affect me. the option would be 'anonymizers' and remailers, yet what does that do for legitimization and freedom in the network? existence in the network seems panoptic, and may haunt till days of death, the archive of the discourse embedded into a million micro-processes, the network has a memory. can there be "being" on the Internet computer network, in the specific sense of network criticism? for example, my specialty is critiquing the e-power system which supports the network. i think anyone on the network is sustained by electricity, yet, for some reason people think it is optional where the power comes from for their network 'free speech.' occasionally, a few people who've criticized the e-power system, well- they end up dead. that's politics. and, let's imagine it is true that it is one of those touchy issues. now, what if nettimers were going to _really_ critique the Internet. i mean, besides ARPA, the NSA, etc. and into the Nuclear powerplants, scientific research facilities, colleges and universities.. uh- institutions of legitimation of this type of network 'being' that we are doing here... the case for a 'we' is a shared identity. if you're a you, and i am a me, then we are a three, you me we, public. for example, a she might write about a he, but could code their language minus 3rd person pronouns into a [wo|man] who can write about [him|her] without having to worry about the [his|her]-story because sex and gender are not always it. so, negating the network, existence on the network, being on the network... what kind of being, what kind of people are being on the Internet... who's becoming whom? is this list constituted by network critics? and to what level is the criticism waged? is it possible that the network critics are at some level, a thing-in-itself turning into a thing-for-itself? from my very specialized vantage, i wage that there exists no network criticism beyond certain limits, and beyond the protected enclaves of power established at institutions by the legitimized critics. if i remember correctly, i think it was said that the critic is the one who is the interface between the work and the audience. it is a person whom helps others decide how and what to think about what. that's why i think Geert's post is so interesting, is that it is, to me, an existential angst about criticising the network, multiperspectival and open and honest. all i have to add is that i think it could be considered that there exists no network criticism at certain levels, and that these levels should be addressed. that is, to consider 'the nothingness' of network criticism: what is not being said, by whom, and why? i don't know about you, but i am worried and feel guilty and unknowing about a future vector travelling this way on the network. i feel like something is creeping up in all of bureaucracy and the e-commerce economic engine, that, it will all of the sudden pull an electronic blanket over our audiovisual sight and the potential, the possiblity will no longer be "here" to dissent the way we can now. there, i fear, will be "nothingness" instead of "being" on-line. and i wonder what the network critics will be saying then. will they, er, us, be saying that network criticism is really occurring, and that these artist experimentations are what it _is_ really about (that act of legitimation)- or, like JODI, will a Brave New World'r spit in the face of the New (Electrical) World Order, and give cause for reflection about criticism and the critic(s). critiquing the critics, and the archive, de|con-structing the voice, popular and under-represented, to me is of interest, in the role of perspectivalist. who's saying what and why. more specifically- why aren't people talking or critiquing the 'heavy network', that ballistic missle toting, handgun carrying, gangnet surveilling, polluting State of mind and body, or did i miss it in yesterday's e-mail? how to say it is relevant- powerplant is sustaining consciousness in cyberspace powerplant is polluting cyberspace is polluting consciousness is polluting. to me, that is where the network critique should be placed, en masse by persons in positions of power to do something about it. even if rhizomatically, nodes of nomads popping up out in the desert to shout like JODI in unison, enough to wake up the network to dissent in this most proto- capitalist of mediums. i hoped that, from archaeological view into interpreting the past, and an architectural view of building the future, that we may have more critical things to say while we still have the freedoms we have. tomorrow may be too late, and, as i'm sure you all know- we're dying and the network is not. bc ========================================[Craig Brozefsky ]== Felix Stalder writes: > Who does the translation? This is exactely the question. Right now, > advertisers are doing it and for their kind of translation a mass > audience is necessary. But what other ways are possible. Linux > points to one which goes like this: I value what you do so much that > I invest my time in making it better. Attention is translated into > participation. You have given me an example of a different target for the translation, participation rather than absorption, but you have not told me anything about who is doing this translation. As a participant in the Free Software "community" I can see several different translators in play, the following are quick summaries of what I see: Richard Stallman who translates into cooperation, Eric Raymond who translates into a free labor pool, IBM who translates into a new market, RedHat who translates into a new business and a flush of investment capital, Microsoft who translates into a threat, Linux.com who translates into banner hits, ZiffDavis translating into a new magazine and another OS War, Michael McClagen translating into cash, MBNA translating into debt. There are many more. Alas, it seems that Linux points to dozens, maybe hundreds. Of those I listed, only one really provides the user with power, and that is the Stallman, FSF translation into cooperation, the removal of the software from exchange by making it freely available to all, and not allowing it to be privatized and removed from the commons(the GPL 'virus' clause). The user is empowered by being given access to the source code and being allowed to do whatever they wish, provided they do not attempt to remove the work from the commons. Noone loses anything when I grab a copy of the source code, and I do not need to give anything in order to get a copy, it is literally my right with the copyleft to get the source code. This "software commons" removed from an exchange itself is the basis for nearly all of the other translations which we see collectively as th eLinux phenomena. It seems the only translation there that I can find which empowers users also happens to be one which could never be a "true community of content" based on exchange of value! The others may indirectly benefit users tho, but they are not directed towards empowering users in any real manner. They translate the software commons into products, services, and the like. These perhaps resembles "true communities of content", but I think it's easier to call them what most other people do, businesses. How do you reconcile this example of the Linux community with your idea of the "true community of content" which will empower users? > Here is a also where community of content comes in. Building up > communities around the exchange of content important enough that enough > members devote enough time to developing this content that it becomes > valuable for others. Yes! Free Labor pools! You are commanded by an ethico-aesthetic imperative as a member of this community to produce value for others! Felix, I'm really having a hard time with your notion of communities built around exchange of content which is then translated into value, particularly in the context of empowering users. That notion of community feels quite sterile to me, a reduction of a widely varied and diverse phenomenon into some essentialzed ideas which are then dealt with thru some very conventional mechanisms of economics. I think that such an economic analysis can be informative in some cases, but it should not be mistaken for the whole of the phenomena we are studying, that is dangerous, and regretably a fairly common occurence nowadays. It does offers us insights into how to fund the things we like to do, such as write Free Software, but it should not be mistaken for how we should structure what it is we like to do. If you need information about anything related to the Free Software community, feel free to ask. I have been involved with it since 1993, when I got my first computer, and I participate hevily in various projects, like Debian. Perhaps we could come up with something more fertile than "true communities of content" to describe what we see there. Thanx for your time. -- Craig Brozefsky Free Scheme/Lisp Software http://www.red-bean.com/~craig I say woe unto those who are wise in their own eyes, and yet imprudent in 'dem outside -Sizzla # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net ________________________________________________________________________________ no copyright 1999 rolux.org - no commercial use without permission. is a moderated mailing list for the advancement of minor criticism. more information: mail to: majordomo@rolux.org, subject line: , message body: info. further questions: mail to: rolux-owner@rolux.org. archive: http://www.rolux.org