[spectre] tm salon: Inke Arns: Net Cultures, Tue 7 May 2002, Berlin, 20:00

[Inke Arns]

Dears,

my book on 'Net Cultures' has just been published. I will give an "illustr=
ated introduction" 
to the book's theme on Tuesday 7 May 2002 during the transmediale salon in=
 the Podewil 
in Berlin. Here's some information about the book including the table of c=
ontents 
[translated into English] -- don't be mistaken: the book (& the event) is =
in German!

Greetings from Berlin,
Inke

-----

transmediale salon: Net Cultures
Tuesday, 7 May 2002, 20.00
Podewil, Klosterstr.68-70, Berlin-Mitte, Eintritt: EUR 4/5 

-----

Inke Arns. Netzkulturen, Hamburg: Europaeische Verlagsanstalt, April 2002

Since the development of graphic web interfaces in the beginning of the 19=
90s the use of 
the Internet and/or Web has risen dramatically. Here, new spaces of potent=
iality are 
developing which lead to the development of specific net cultural practice=
s. The 
development of these practices is in large part due to the usage of digita=
l =91minor media=92 
(a.k.a. tactical media, sovereign media) which not only allow the users to=
 read (passively), 
but which, most importantly, enable them to write (actively). =91Minor med=
ia=92 can thus be 
defined as practices, rather than distinct technologies.

After providing a brief overview over the historical development of the In=
ternet since the 
1960s, Netzkulturen / Net Cultures gives a broad introduction to the net c=
ultures of the 
1990s, which predominantly deal with the political, artistic and social di=
mensions of the 
Internet and which are opposed to its commercialisation. The Net now becom=
es, e.g., a
political tool: =93context-systems=94, as well as various (communication e=
nabling respectively 
blocking) net activisms employ new net-specific strategies for the realisa=
tion of net internal 
or external political and social goals. At the same time there developed a=
 specific =93net art=94 
which deals with the Net artistically / aesthetically and whose developmen=
t was 
predominantly influenced by artists and activists from Eastern Europe. Fin=
ally, over the 
last ten years in Europe and beyond there emerged a filigrane network of i=
ndependent 
media cultural institutions, groups and translocal communities communicati=
ng via mailing 
lists whose members critically reflect the political, cultural and economi=
cal consequences 
of the Internet and the social consequences of technological developments =
in general.


Commentary by Inke Arns

In this book, under the title =93Net Cultures=94 I am describing very dive=
rse and heterogenous 
ways of using and working with new media. Common to all these practices is=
 the use of 
minor media. These are not to be understood as techniques, or technologies=
 in the narrow 
sense, but as critical, minor practices opposed to thoses of mass media. C=
ertain 
technologies simply enable more easily the development of self-determined =
forms of 
media practice than others. The Internet, for example, allows its users to=
 not only remain 
passive receivers, but become active senders themselves. 

In an increasingly mediated world the early appropriation of a critical me=
dia literacy 
becomes increasingly important. Critical media literacy encompasses a self=
-confident and 
conscious use of those technologies we are surrounded by on an everyday ba=
sis, of their 
possibilities and dangers, as, for example, the potential for control and =
surveillance 
inherent in the digital media. I have followed the projects which I am pre=
senting in this 
book either from an internal perspective, or from very close by. These exa=
mples of 'good 
practice' are meant to incite a creative use of media technologies.

-------------


Table of Contents:


_What are Media Cultures, what are Net Cultures?_

What are Media Cultures, what are Net Cultures? [p.6]


_Brief History of the Net and its (User)Cultures_

A Short History of the Internet in the 1960s and 1970s [p.10]

Nets from below: Electronic Communities in the 1980s [p.14]

Commercialisation and Gentrification/Disneyfication of the Net in the 1990=
s [p.18]


_Net Critique and Critical Nets_

Gift Economy vs. Commercialisation of the Net [p.22]

Control/Surveillance: the Net as Panopticon. Echelon, PGP and Lessig=92s C=
ode [p.28]

Technoutopianism of the Digerati, Ideology of the Virtual Class: the Calif=
ornian Ideology 
[p.32]

The Importance of Minor Media [p.36]


_The Net as a Political and Cultural Space_

The Net as Political Space and Political Tool [p.40]

Translocal Networking -- =93new identities?=94 [p.48]


_The Practice of Net Cultures in the 1990s_

Context Systems: The Thing, Digitale Stad Amsterdam, Internationale Stadt =
Berlin [p.52]

Net Activism I: Autonomous Systems. ZaMir, Insular Technologies, name.spac=
e [p.56]

Net Activism II: Electronic Civil Disobedience. Critical Art Ensemble, Ele=
ctronic 
Disturbance Theater (Flood Net), etoy vs. eToys (Toywar) [p.60]

Early Net Art: Strategies of Deception [p.66]

Social Interfaces: Festivals, Conferences and temporary Media Labs. Next 5=
 Minutes, 
Hybrid WorkSpace, Revolting, tech_nicks [p.72]

Translocal Networks: Mailing lists. Nettime, Syndicate [p.76]

Local Networks: Media Cultural Initiatives. FoeBuD (Bielefeld), mikro (Ber=
lin) [p.78]


_Institutionalisation? From Alternative Culture to Political Involvement_

Virtual Platforms and Other Alliances [p.80]

Counselling and Lobbying - A Buy-Out of the Avant-garde? [p.82]


_The Transitoriness/Fugitiveness of the Net_

=84Technical innovation equals class war" (I/O/D): Socio-political consequ=
ences of 
Technological Development [p.84]

When Technology Gets Old: Dead Media, Obsolete Technologies, Bitrot and Co=
unter 
Strategies [p.86]


_Appendix_

Further Reading. Print- and Online Media, URLs [p.90]

Initiatives / Addresses [p.92]

Glossary	 [p.93]




Inke Arns
http://www.v2.nl/~arns

Out now:

Inke Arns. Netzkulturen. Europaeische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg, 2002
http://home.snafu.de/inke/Netzkulturen

Inke Arns. Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) - eine Analyse ihrer kuenstlerisch=
en Strategien im Kontext der 1980er Jahre in Jugoslawien [NSK - an analysi=
s of their artistic strategies in Yugoslavia in the 1980s]. Regensburg 200=
2. ISBN 961-90851-1-6 
http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Texts/NSK/abstract-NSK2002.html