[spectre] Out now! Rasa Smite, Creative Networks -- In the Rearview Mirror of Eastern European History

[Geert Lovink]

The Amsterdam Institute of Network Cultures presents:

Theory on Demand #11

Rasa Smite, Creative Networks, In the Rearview Mirror of Eastern  
European History

This study explores the dawn of internet culture from an Eastern  
European perspective. Starting with a theoretical angle several  
networks are introduced and interpreted as complex socio-technical  
systems. The author analyzes the development of self-organized  
formations that started off as 'virtual communities', 'creative  
networks' that emerged from the early days of internet culture during  
the roaring mid 1990s until today's social media. Along with  
translocal case studies of Nettime, Syndicate, Faces and Xchange, as  
well as other important facets of early network culture in Europe, the  
study looks into the local E-Lab initiative in Riga, Latvia.  
Describing the pioneering network culture of 1990s, this study  
reflects on the larger changes in the social structure of today's  
society, 15 years later, that occur as follow-ups of these earlier  
socio-technical transformations.

Rasa Smite is an artist, network researcher and cultural inventor,  
working with emerging media since the mid-1990s. She holds a PhD in  
sociology from the Riga Stradins University and currently is Associate  
Professor and Researcher in the Art Research Lab at Liepaja  
University. Rasa Smite is founding director of the Center for New  
Media Culture RIXC in Riga (www.rixc.lv) and founder of Internet  
culture and networked art projects such as Xchange, Acoustic Space Lab  
and more recently the Renewable Network. Together with her centre she  
organizes the annual festival Art+Communication (since 1996), curates  
networked art exhibitions and publishes Acoustic Space journal series,  
introducing novel themes such as internet radio (1997), locative media  
(2003), electromagnetic waves as material and medium in art (2006),  
art and renewable energy (2009), techno-ecologies (2009) and the art  
of resilience (2012).

Translation (from Latvian): Linda Vebere. Copy editing: Miriam Rasch.  
Design: Katja van Stiphout. DTP: Margreet Riphagen. Printer: ‘Print on  
Demand’. Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2012.  
ISBN: 978-90-818575-0-5.

Free downloadable as PDF here:

http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/theoryondemand/titles/no-11-creative-networks-in-the-rearview-mirror-of-eastern-european-history/

Available as a print-on-demand title at Lulu.com:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/rasa-smite/creative-networks-in-the-rearview-mirror-of-eastern-european-history/paperback/product-20413459.html

With a Web reader online at Issuu:

http://issuu.com/instituteofnetworkcultures/docs/creativenetwork

Or read the book on the Web with Scribd:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/107097212/Creative-Networks-in-the-Rearview-Mirror-of-Eastern-European-History