Hi Anna, Jo & all, Regarding your comment 'the old cynicist that I am'. I would say that your questioning around the emergence of Web 2.0 and related studies on networked information society, is an insightful approach.
>I see it more as a catalytic event whose preconditions >were already being mapped out by the convergence of >military, political and economic tendencies around the >rise of a networked information society. I am not sure if you were at the Next 5 Minutes in Amsterdam and Rotterdam in 95? There was much talk about the Internet being a continuation of military agendas "In the agencies of communication, the illusion of power can be as seductive as the fall into utopia. And while the colonization of cyberspace by artists and theorists is a sign of tremendous creativity, the linked forces of privatization and control are breathing down our necks. Playtime is over." Broeckmann.r I feel that in aspects of life, we should be more engaged in questioning and challenging the (obsessive) control over, not only our own data on and off-line, but also data that trawls through mass systems, with all communities. Critical Art Ensemble way back in 95 said "Each one of us has files that rest at the state's fingertips. Education files, medical files, employment files, financial files, communication files, travel files, and for some, criminal files. Each strand in the trajectory of each person~s life is recorded and maintained. The total collection of records on an individual is his or her data body~a state-and-corporate-controlled doppelg~nger. What is most unfortunate about this development is that the data body not only claims to have ontological privilege, but actually has it. What your data body says about you is more real than what you say about yourself. The data body is the body by which you are judged in society, and the body which dictates your status in the world. What we are witnessing at this point in time is the triumph of representation over being. The electronic file has conquered self-aware consciousness." Norwayweb and Data Bodies: http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=295 Unfortunately, I have to cut this short & and continue to discuss this in the next few days. Only because I am involved in setting up the show with the furtherfield crew and Jeremy at the HTTP Gallery today. I find this complex subject extremely interesting and unnerving at the same time. It warrants much more than mere casual convesation of course. Even though having it aired and shared can bring about important thoughts and potential findings that may of not been there before :-) marc Hi Jo, Marc, many thanks for the Antidatamining url - of great interest and a wonderful project! Marc, in reply to your comments and questions: yes, it is rather a huge project and I'm afraid a part of another even bigger project about networks and contemporary experience... however, what I'm trying to have a look at here is the relations - at the level of both the development of network analysis (organisational network theory, the use of link analysis in datamining etc, data visualisation) and at the level of the socio-economic development of networked 'culture - between military and corporate interests prior to 9/11. I'm not sure this will tell us anything more about 9/11 per se but I have always been suspiscious of the idea that 9/11 *changed the world*. I see it more as a catalytic event whose preconditions were already being mapped out by the convergence of military, political and economic tendencies around the rise of a networked information society. Something I've found interesting in looking through information on datamining thus far (I mean fairly straight up accounts of the development of various datamining software during the late 1990s)is that the US military contracted out much of their datagathering of *intelligence* to Internet information brokers and software firms. This is a fairly significant shift in the history of the military's relation to computation and the development of networked technology - for example, the other big period of development of course occurs in the post wwII and through into the cold war and Vietnam war period, where as Paul Edwards had detailed so well, the primary model of information developed was of a 'closed world' - ie internal to and completely in the hands of the military. But instead - and I suspect in direct relation to the general movement toward the privatisation of govt. services that we see dominating the 1990s and now – with datamining we have the military moving to a more *open source* (in the sense of outside their own perimeters) mode of gathering and analysing data. This convergence - of gov-military-corporate software firms and the flow of funds and data between them in the late 1990s - I think sets up the conditions for the emergence of Web 2.0. Of course this understanding of Web 2.0 is not what most have in mind when they think about the 'sharing, participatory' nature of it. But, being the old cynicist that I am, I tend to be suscpicious of that as well and I see a much darker side to the current web economy! Best Anna > > Hi Anna, > > > > This might be of interest: http://antidatamining.net/ > > > > Regards, > > Jo > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Message: 1 > > Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:02:09 +0100 > > From: marc garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] data nonvisualisation > > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > > <[email protected]> > > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed > > > > Hi Anna, > > > > >I'm currently doing a lot of reading and thinking > > >around the development of data mining capacities > > >for the US intelligence community especially > > >in operations such as Able Danger and the 'lead-up' > > >to the Iraq invasion (so late '90s). And how this > > >then sets up the corporate possibilities which we > > >start to see emerge with the post-dot com rejig > > >of the web via amazon, google etc. > > > > It' a pretty large research project. Are there any thoughts/ideas on > > what this type of research will bring about, as in what it may teach us > > before sept 2001? > > > > marc > > > > > > > > > > Thanks for that Mark! That post is actually in progress - I'm hoping > > to turn it into a 3 way piece with the other two members of that blog > > - Andrew Murphie and Xavier Fijac over the next few weeks. I'm > > currently doing a lot of reading and thinking around the development > > of data mining capacities for the US intelligence community especially > > in operations such as Able Danger and the 'lead-up' to the Iraq > > invasion (so late '90s). And how this then sets up the corporate > > possibilities which we start to see emerge with the post-dot com rejig > > of the web via amazon, google etc. > > > > If anyone has good pointers on stuff to look at around this (ie beyond > > alll the congress reports by intelligence agencies etc which I'm > > already wading through), I'd really appreciate it. Anyone doing > > critical work on this stuff etc. > > > > btw enjoying Jeremy! > > > > cheers > > Anna > > > > On 13/09/2008, at 1:46 AM, marc garrett wrote: > > > > > > Hi all. > > > > > > > > JuSt thought that I'd highlight something that I came across > > > > recently by > > > > Anna Munster on the Dynamic Media site called 'data > > nonvisualisation'. > > > > > > > > > > http://researchhub.cofa.unsw.edu.au/ccap/2008/08/19/data-nonvisualisation/ > > > > > > > > definitely worth a read... > > > > > > > > marc > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > NetBehaviour mailing list > > > > [email protected] > > > > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > > > > > > > Dr.Anna Munster > > Senior Lecturer > > School of Art History and Theory > > College of Fine Arts > > UNSW > > P.O. Box 259 > > Paddington > > NSW 2021 > > 612 9385 0741 (tel) > > 612 9385 0615(fax) > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > > ******************* > > > > _______________________________________________ > > NetBehaviour mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > > > Dr.Anna Munster Deputy Director, Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics, Senior Lecturer, Art History and Art education College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales Box 259 Paddington NSW 2026 Australia _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
