[spectre] DigiMag 37 Interview_Geoff Cox: Social Networking is not Working

[Redazione Digicult]

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Digicult presents:
Digimag 37 - September 2008

GEOFF COX:
SOCIAL NETWORKING IS NOT WORKING
Txt: Clemente Pestelli
http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1282

Geoff Cox is an artist, teacher and organiser of events connected with 
digital experimentation in the United Kingdom. Within his curatorial route 
for Arnolfini, an organisation dealing with contemporary art, he developed 
an interesting project whose topic is the intersections between critical 
theory of social networks and critical practice of the world of art.
Already from its name, "AntiSocial NotWorking", we can understand that the 
project aims at questioning two of the founding terms of the Web 2.0: 
"social" and "networking". Within the very rich portal, there are some of 
the most interesting Internet projects of the last few years: from 
<$BlogTitle$> by Jodi to "Amazon Noir" and "Google Will Eat Itself" by 
Ubermorgen-Cirio-Ludovico, from "logo_wiki" by Wayne Clements to "Blue Tube" 
and "Friendster Suicide" by Cory Arcangel, from "web2dizzaster" by 
sumoto.iki to "Fake is a Fake" by Les Liens Invisibles.

With Geoff Cox, we talked about how, beyond the quick enthusiasm and the 
rhetoric of social networks, it is urgent and necessary to develop a 
critical theory of social networks, and about how contemporary artistic 
practice could be essential for the exploration of new forms of 
participation, activism and democracy on the Internet.

Clemente Pestelli: The title of the project is controversial and, at the 
same time, fascinating. Can you explain, in a few words, what "AntiSocial 
NotWorking" wants to suggest?

Geoff Cox: I'm glad you find it a fascinating title. It's deliberately 
playful, a "hack" if you like, and one where it seems to contradict itself 
with a double negative. The first point is simple: that by saying 
"antisocial", the pervasive use of the term "social" is thrown into 
question. I write about this in the accompanying notes to develop a critique 
of the apparent
friendliness of social interactions through web 2.0 platforms, but at the 
same time to strike a distinction from antisocial networking sites such 
as"Hatebook" that are not dialectical enough in my view.

The crucial point is that by stressing friendliness and avoiding antagonism, 
politics is avoided. What is also evoked is the critical tradition of 
negation associated with dialectics. For instance, "negative dialectics" 
would suggest a number of things but perhaps most importantly for this 
context more of a focus on subjectivity and structures of communication.

The influence of communication in contemporary characterizations of labour 
find their way into the second term "notworking". This is a common enough 
joke - "notworking" as opposed to "networking" - and a good way into various 
discussions about free labour and how labour time is less and less distinct 
from time outside work - as 'nonwork'. Work on the Net is a clear example of 
this tendency and one of the significant aspects of social network sites is 
the way in which users volunteer their labour time - and their subjectivity.

I like the way when you put all this together -"antisocial" and 
"notworking" - the meanings become multiple and contradictory. There is a 
further aspect of contradiction and negation at work here too perhaps, in 
evoking the concept of "negation of negation" to understand the title not as 
a double negative or a simple reversal of one thing with another but an 
ongoing deeper engagement.

Clemente Pestelli: In your "Notes in support of antisocial notworking", you 
writes about how, during the ascent of social networks, social relationships 
were emptied of every form of antagonism and so, in short, of every form of 
politics. I think the analysis is right. But if we think about the first 
period of the World Wide Web, we cannot but be impressed by the fact that 
exactly the Internet was the privileged ground of political experimentation, 
exploited by movements and activists from all over the world: an example is 
the " Battle in Seattle " of 1999 and the role of Indymedia. Today, 
corporate communication platforms such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo allow 
to share and spread even more information than before, but although this 
fact, I can't see any conflictual approach that is as much efficient. What 
do you think has happened? Is it something depending on a precise strategy 
of the global corporations or is it something that has to do with the health 
of movements?

Geoff Cox: Both I suppose. I would stress how the production of 
non-antagonistic social relations has become absolutely central to social 
control. In the notes I cite Rossiter who argues that without identifying 
the antagonisms that politics simply cannot exist. As far as network 
cultures are concerned this is a technical and social truism. Of course 
there is nothing new in this, and earlier iterations of the net are full of 
examples of antagonistic tactics.

As for your main question about what has happened more recently, I'm not 
sure I'm qualified to answer this. However I suppose the issue for me is how 
contradictions are evident in new ways, and that organisational forms are 
more networked in character. There are a number of examples of 
network-organized forms of political organization, enhancing the open 
sharing of ideas - such as Indymedia, as you mention, and what is referred 
to as the "multitude" more generally. Contemporary forms of protest tend to 
reject centralized forms for more distributed and collective forms, but the 
tendency has both positive and negative consequences, both releasing and 
limiting future possibilities.

The example of Facebook exemplifies the point in that it both demonstrates 
the potential for self-organisation and at the same time the drive to 
commodify collective exchanges. Capital recuperates emergent tendencies 
really well, as we know. The autonomists refer to the "cycle of struggle" to 
emphasize that resistance needs to transform itself in parallel to 
recuperative processes. In a really nice description, Tronti says the 
restructuring of capital and the recomposition of resistance "chase each 
others tails". More tactical and strategic alternatives need to be developed 
all the time and I don't think there's a way out of this recursive loop. 
Antagonism is a necessary part of this but I'm not sure where to look for 
specific examples on the web, better to look elsewhere I think, to peer 
production more broadly.

Clemente Pestelli: NotWorking, antithetic to networking, is the other key 
word of the project. In particular, in the introductory notes to the 
project, you refer to Tronti's essay "The Strategy of the Refusal" (1965). 
What relationship is there, today, between job and social networks, when the 
time you spend at work can be less and less distinguished from the time you 
don't spend at work? How do you think it's possible to combine the idea of 
"refusal of work" with the completely absorbing dimension of the Web 2.0?

Geoff Cox: As you say, the confusion over what constitutes work and non-work 
turns attention to what constitutes effective action. Refusal to work is one 
established oppositional tactic in recognition of exploitation in the 
workplace. But it's harder to see how exploitation takes place in relation 
to nonwork, or how notworking in itself might be productive. To simply 
refuse to take part in social networking platforms or refuse to submit 
personal information is not particularly effective in itself. The point, as 
I tried to say in the notes, is how to think about "well-assembled 
collectives" that can be involved in production that is not an exploitative 
situation. As well as Tronti, I refer to Paolo Virno's "Grammar of the 
Multitude" for this reason.

What is required are strategies and techniques of better organization 
founded on different principles. Peer production offers one example of the 
opportunity to explore the limits of democracy and rethink politics. I think 
this is a really interesting area of activity that seems to be gathering 
momentum - as both an expression of"non-representational democracy" and as 
an alternative economic system altogether. Social networks hold the 
potential to transform social relations for the common good but only if held 
within the public realm and outside of private ownership.

Clemente Pestelli: "AntiSocial NotWorking" is a rich repository of projects 
showing a critical point of view towards the different platforms of social 
networks and the symbols of the Web 2.0. What can we expect from the works 
that are contained in the database? A simple point of view or maybe some 
useful techniques for a new creative resistance?

Geoff Cox: The project is modest in itself, hoping to draw together some 
existing and new critical works, in a body of practices that take issue with 
web 2.0 as an attack on peer production in the sense described earlier. 
There are some well known projects and some not so well known but together 
they demonstrate the usefulness of creative (art) practice to question 
popular forms - or I might even want to make a distinction here between 
popular and populism. Arts organizations have enthusiastically adopted the 
rhetoric of social networking but the critique is less well developed, at 
least in the UK.

The project has tried to draw in practices from software culture more 
broadly and bring them to the attention of the contemporary art world - 
remember I have produced this project as part of my curatorial remit at 
Arnolfini which is a contemporary art organization that is only just 
beginning to engage with the internet. But, as for more than this, your 
question is spot on I think - whether oppositional strategies are merely 
oppositional rather than transformative. This is one of the crucial 
questions for anyone working in the area of critical practice.

Otherwise politics might simply be cast as a trendy theme as we see all the 
time in contemporary arts practice. The challenge remains as how to make 
this transformative or whether art can have a role at all in this. I think 
the potential to transform social relations is demonstrated in the dynamics 
of social networking technologies but as I said only if certain principles 
are maintained. In addition, I think that the current struggles over sharing 
digital content, such as those over peer to peer file-sharing, are crucially 
important and this is where creative resistance is well-placed. Further 
projects that I am involved in will continue to explore this issue in the 
spirit of antisocial notworking.

http://project.arnolfini.org.uk/projects/2008/antisocial/
http://project.arnolfini.org.uk/projects/2008/antisocial/notes.php

....................................

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