nettime BMM by a Knock Out!
BMM by a Knock Out !
Last night Dutch reality TV and shocksploitation giants BMM ('Barts
Never-ending Network) won the world 'tactical guerilla media
championship' of the world with a stunning first round knock out.
The unexpected result left the assembled world press, gathered last
night at Hilversum stunned, as they stood eagerly waiting to gawk
and to fulminate at the latest example of the Dutch commercial
medias capacity to invent ever more outrageous reality TV. But in
the dying moments of the event, the moral credibility tables were
turned. The media world (not to mention the entire Dutch political
establishment) were rocked and awed by the revelation that the world
title (previously held by Orson Wells) for most daring media hoax now
resides in the Netherlands.
Is this it? Have we reached it, tactical medias final frontier.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6714287.stm
David Garcia
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Re: nettime sad news
I heard just yesterday upsetting (given his youth the shocking) news of Ricardo's death. I came to know Ricardo first through reading and admiring his writing. His texts (I refuse to say was) are so valuable because they offer a window into vibrant world of Brazilian free media activism. They are illuminating precisely because he refuses to buy into the hype of the revolutionary 'open source Brazil' that is maybe still fashionable. The writing is critical but without rancor his observations always diffused the observed through a sensibility which is simultaneously gentle and rigorous, affectionate and skeptical. But because his critique is delivered not in text alone but by practicing alternatives it is able to show the particular power and potential of Brazilian media activism. My encounter with this aspect of Ricardo's work came from the piece which Brian Holmes describes earlier in this thread. The Autolabs project in which he was part of a team and a passionate advocate. Worked actively mentoring teen agers in free media practice in the poor districts of Sao Paulo The power of the Autolabs project is that embodied everything which the state sponsored Telecenters claimed to be but in Ricardo's view were not. I know he did many other things which have been identified by Lucas Bambozzi and I am sure there is much more that will emerge but these are my memories While I stayed in Sao Paulo Ricardo (and others in the team) gave me so much in terms of hospitality, warmth and education, changing the way I saw many things. As Ricardo is no longer here in person nettime (I hope he might agree) is as good a place as anywhere to say goodbye. David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime Are Cities Good For Creativity?
On this subject of camps as cities there is an extraordinary photo-essay at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/ americas_inside_a_bolivian_jail/html/1.stm San Pedro prison, the biggest in Bolivia's main city, La Paz, is home to about 1,500 inmates. Once you pass the thick walls and the security gates, any resemblance to a normal jail disappears: there are children playing, market stalls, restaurants, hairdressers and even a hotel. It looks more like the streets of El Alto, Bolivia's poorest neighbourhood that sprawls on the outskirts of La Paz, than a prison. Text and photographs: Rafael Estefania, BBC Mundo David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime RE: nettime as idea
John, I feel double about what you say. Your right and many lists have been destroyed by endless self meta-discussion. On the other hand from time to time it may be needed for at least a little while. To clear the air. And that has something to do with the peculiarity of a list as a social/publishing space. In other words it is not just TV where you can just 'change the channel' neither is it a space for discourse alone it is also a community of sorts and as such has a community memory. Arguing over its meaning may also involve questions of historical fact including personal issues between members of the community. And yes sometimes its boring. But I do not think that these discussions are disconnected to issues of more substance. How we treat each other in our communities of discourse is an important expression (and test) of our politics in practice. Maybe something of the old feminist slogan holds true in this instance: the personal is political. Best David On Jun 13, 2006, at 9:51 AM, J Armitage wrote: All I think I can say that I have been on nettime for as long as I can remember but, please, will someone change the channel? ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime nettime as idea
On Jun 11, 2006, at 5:57 PM, A. G-C wrote: From this point of view, I think that Geert's provocation on closing the list to have it reborning from this new time, it is really interesting as logical activist attitude happening in real time of the mails against misunderstanding and mortification... Re borning situation of creating among the others is not a death, this is life. It was great to hear guibertc's Anglo/Francophone voice and be reminded of something that Mckensie Wark said on this list long ago (very rough quote from memory) that these days english does not belong to any one (I would add; least of all the english). This post also has something of the euphoria for a culture of continuous migration accompanied by the perpetual possibility of closure (not a death, this is life) as a measure of integrity. Other less inspiring postings on this thread have talked airily about slaughtering of sacred cows etc These avant garde (Fluxes like) rituals or 'tactics' in which ephemerality is taken as an emblem of life and authenticity are assumptions that run deep in our culture. This is particularly true of visual art and as we know from Venice Biennale to Dokumentas the visual arts were a important componant of nettime. But maybe we also have learned (eventually) that the cult of ephemerality is just not enough, that nothing slaughters 'holy cows' more voraciously than the capitalism these movements seek to subvert. The burning question has become how to move on from a kill your darlings culture without relinquishing the articulations of freedom we value (sometimes presented as part of the 'precarity' discussion). How to achieve sustainability without institutionalisation (or professionalisation). The fact that we are arguing (and fighting) 11 years after its birth shows that something in nettime (as it exists now) is worth struggling over. It suggests that nettime has found away to address the questions posed above, in fact and action as well as theory. The list has its ups and downs but is clearly very much alive and (as Felix pointed out) it has not professionalised or institutionalised. It is my belief that we owe this part of nettime's achievement is owed in large part to the current moderators. Not only to the years of quiet methodical un-glamerous work but also the courage to put up a fight when necessary! This is not the first time that closure has been argued for. In the past there are those who have argued strenuously to close the list and move on in which we would now be talking in the past tense. The moderators put up a fight and kept the platform we are now arguing on open. Whatever differences there may be the years invested in nurturing this space, with generosity and finesse, should (in my view) be too easily disrespected. I am not arguing that moderators, and their position can not be questioned. But what I am saying is tokenistic expressions of gratitude great job guys, time to move on..bye. Are shallow and disrespectful in the extreme. And more importantly fail to engage with an important aspect of the list's achievement. I would argue that any movement for radical change should be carried out in close collaboration with the moderators and should take a very different approach and tone from some of the peremptory notifications we have seen on this thread. And above all they should seek to work imaginatively with the fact that nettime has found a powerful way of addressing our most pressing issue; sustainability without institutionalisation. Respect David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime report_on_NNA
For the sake of clarity Geert are you putting yourself forward for all the hard work involved in being part of the next stage in the 'rotation'. you are proposing or is this a prompting that others rather than yourself should put themselves forward to take up this burden ? On Jun 9, 2006, at 8:33 AM, Geert Lovink wrote: No, not at all. Did I suggest that?... Not directly but in any community/collective I know if someone 'stands up in a meeting' and makes a suggestion involving work then such an intervention carries with it the implication (and perhaps responsibility) that they are also willing to share in that work. Otherwise the intervention could be mistaken for being somewhat aristocratic. The examples you gave of larger networks of moderation implies that having been part of the early phase need not preclude being part of the new rotation in fact a blend of experience and new blood might enrich any new model under consideration. David # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime report_on_NNA
On Jun 8, 2006, at 10:12 AM, Geert Lovink wrote: Ted and Felix should be thanked for their massive work, move on and rotate, leaving others (a bigger group, I would suggest) to moderate the central nettime-l list. For the sake of clarity Geert are you putting yourself forward for all the hard work involved in being part of the next stage in the 'rotation'. you are proposing or is this a prompting that others rather than yourself should put themselves forward to take up this burden ? David # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Latino political influence in the US?
In Europe the mainstream media are representing the US approach to this issue as playing very differently from populist politics of Europe. And for once with more humanity and good sense. The general media perception from this side of the pond is that the issue does not seem to be polarize opinion along traditional left/right political lines in the US. The narrative of the US being a nation created by immigrants (however mythologized) seems to produce more realism among general popular opinion of the important contribution made by immigrants (legal and illegal) to US economy and society. And the mainstream European media are even representing Bush to some degree siding with the 'illegals'. So although the recent rise of the left in Latin America is momentous and influencing oppinion and across the world, I wonder whether this current US campaign is (as is often the case with US) more inward looking than Ben's post suggests. David # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime Diminishing Freedoms
Diminishing Freedoms On a visit to Brazil in 2004 I stayed with Grazilia Kunsch an important artist who is also a committed political activist. Part of her work is ?hosting? foreign visitors at her house ?Casa Grazie?. To be hosted by Grazie is a delight, not least for her wonderful breakfasts and the long discussions that are given the time to unfold throughout the morning. Like many artists who are politically active she keeps the boundaries between the two spheres deliberately blurry. But she told me how although this was once acceptable, she was finding it progressively harder to declare openly that she is an artist in activist circles. Freedom, the expressive freedom of art seems to becoming the impossible word. Why? What is at stake? Why are so many political activists moving to repudiate cultural politics and the expressive freedoms that continue to inspire and draw so many to call themselves artists? There seems to be an oppressive philistinism emerging on the radical left, raising the worrying prospect that it is not only neo- liberalism that is instrumentalising all of life. I have been troubled by these developments for some time, but I have only recently found a framework to address discuss the problem with myself in more detail and with a little more rigor. It was in the context of a review for a book on DIY Media by the London based artist activist group C6. As always Mute editors are (at least in my case) rarely passive recipients of the articles they solicit, and I was gently prodded into much more than a simple review. I don?t pretend that the resulting ruminations are in any way definitive but I hope that it triggers some discussion. Below is an extract, the full text can be found at http:// www.metamute.org/ The Split We have seen the emergence of three interconnected tendencies, since the tactical media of the 90?s. Firstly there is a widespread rejection of the homeopathic and the micro-political in favour of ambitions scaled up to global proportions coupled with a willingness to move beyond electronic and semiotic civil disobedience and to engage in direct action, to literally ?re-claim the streets?. This is almost entirely as a result of the emergence of the powerful global anti-capitalist movement which (from their perspective) have transformed tactical media into the ?Indy-media? project. But there is also a third less visible and more troubling tendency, a tendency towards internal polarisation. This polarisation is based on a deep split which has opened up between many of the activists at the core of the new political movements and the artists or theorists who, whilst continuing to see themselves as radicals, retain a belief in the importance of cultural (and information) politics? in any movement for social transformation. Although I have little more than personal experience and anecdotal evidence to go on, it seems to me, that there is a significant growth in suspicion and frequently outright hostility among activists to the presence of art and artists in ?the movement?, particularly those whose work cannot be immediately instrumentalised by the new ?soldiers of the left?. So what is it that has changed since the 90s to give rise to these tendencies? To understand we must cast our minds back to the peculiar historical conditions of that time. The early phase of tactical media re-injected a new energy into the flagging project of ?cultural politics?. It fused the radical and pragmatic info politics of the hackers with well-established critical practices based critiques of representation. The resulting tactical media were also part of (and arguably compromised by) the wider internet and communications revolution of the 90?s which, like the music of the 1960s, acted as a universal solvent not only dissolving disciplinary boundaries but also the boundaries separating long established political formations. The power some of us attributed to this new ?media politics? appeared to be born out by the role that all forms of media seemed to have played in the collapse of the Soviet Empire. It seemed as though old style armed insurrection had been superseded by digital dissent and media revolutions. It was as if the Samizdat spirit, extended and intensified by the proliferation of Do-it-yourself media had rendered the centralized statist tyrannies of the soviet empire untenable. Some of us allowed ourselves to believe that it would only be a matter of time before the same forces would challenge our own tired and tarnished oligarchies. Furthermore the speed and comparative bloodlessness of the Soviet collapse suggested that the transformations that were coming would not have to be achieved through violence or personal sacrifice. This would be the era of the painless (?win win?) revolution, in which change would occur simply through the hacker ethos of
Re: nettime FW: [IP] Craigslist Planning To Shake Up Journalism
Bloggers as Media Parasites (Of course I mean parasite in a good way:) Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite em little fleas have smaller fleas and so on ad infinitum These discussions on the shifting boundaries of the media landscape/ ecology and the position of citizen journalism blogging tactical journalism or whatever the buz word of the moment is, was well addressed by a feature on BBC's Newsnight last week The Newsnight feature (which at the time of writing) can still be found on their website under the title WarBloggers was based on the report by the excellent Paul Mason who is officially Newsnights business and industrial correspondent. (Mason made his reputation in 2003 with a series of three reports on China's rise development. But his recent reports have gone well beyond his brief and last week's War Blogger indicates that he has been given wander the editorial liberty to wander into ever more interesting territory). The War Bloggers piece examines the role of bloggers in forcing the Pentagon to admit to using of white phospherous not simply as means of illuminating enemy positions but (like napalm) as a means of burning the enemy and (given the indescriminate nature of the weapon) any body in the viscinity. The Blogger Insomnia highlighted a piece in The American army magazine Field Artillerywhich calls the technique Bake and shake-first you burn them, then you blow them apart using high explosives. Mason goes on to describe how it was not only the Pentagon who was shamed by the revelations but also the mainstream news services who had neglected the many reports and a great deal of evidence that had been in the public domain for more than a year. Having failed to adequately examined the case for going to war, the 4th estate now stand accused of lacking enthusiasm in the search for truth. But what more complex than these sloganising is the way that this report showed the complex relationships operating between the different scales (including time scales) of media practice. The bloggers do not often break a story but over an extended period persistently pick over details and sifting the evidence long after the news caravan has moved on. In words which echo Raymond's aphorism many eyes make all bugs shallow Mason declared that if a story is going 'no where' for journalists the blogosphere can continue to focus the power of many minds on collectively sifting minute details. Revealingly Mason goes on to describe, what he sees as his changing his role as a journalist from being Guardians of Truth or Gate Keepers filtering the evidence into umpires (the name for a referee in the game of Cricket) sitting in the middle of competing accounts which are out there whether we like it or not. Although we will dispute Mason's self appointed role of umpire with all the traditional BBC claims of impartiality which this term smuggles in, the piece was at least attempting coming to terms with the potential of networks (seldom realised and progressively undermined by the gate keeping function of search engines) of presenting competing versions of reality rather than claim that there is only one official version. An important aspect of the report was the way in which it relatavised the heroic role of the blogger. Bloggers (for the most part) feed of the work of journalists who are their number one source, both independent and mainstream. Bloggers are parasitical in the best ecological sense of the word, combing the fur of the media searching for bugs. In the case of white phospherous story we see it traced from Alkud, Islam On-line, and numerous claims of humanitarian workers in the field to the counter claims of sites such as those found on US administration's Identifying Misinformation and on to a multitude of Blogger responses filtering, commentating and drawing on various sources. Instead of thinking about just blogging we need to observe the cumulative effects a whole raft of independent media (which include reports from humanitarian agencies on the ground) in which blogger commentaries become magnified within an alternative public realm and into which the mainstream media are eventually dragged kicking and screaming. Most interestingly the area which is least examined is that which lies between the mainstream media and the bloggers. The independents upon whom both extremes of the media feeding chain increasingly depend but rarely acknowledge. And this commentary, drawing as it does from a report from a mainstream media source finds itself embedded in the reflexive loop and so on ad infitum David Garcia - End forwarded message - # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime Mohammed Mongrel
The Oog platform in which the on-line version of the Dutch national newspaper Volkskrant has been a platform for visual artists to commentate on news events. Today Tuesday 1st of November the 9th contribution to Oog is an extraordinary work by Mongrel. The piece marks the anniversary this week of the murder of Dutch film maker and controversialist Theo Van Gogh. Even after such a short existence the Oog platform is seen at the newspaper as a success as it is one of the most visited of the on-line news paper's pages. A glance at the archive will show that the possibilities interactive visual artists working in the context of mainstream news and commentary offers exciting possibilities which to my knowledge have not been explored in quite this way anywhere else. The Oog initiator and editor Nanette Hoogslag [EMAIL PROTECTED] is interested in any ideas and feedback you may have about how this platform might be developed. David Garcia Begin forwarded message: From: harwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 31 October 2005 23:13:57 GMT+01:00 To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: Mohammed Mongrel Mohammedb.jpg - a new work by mongrel commissioned by the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant http://www.volkskrant.com/oog/index10.php Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004, Amsterdam: film-maker Theo Van Gogh was found murdered in the early morning. His throat was slit and two knives were left implanted in his torso. One knife pinned a five-page note to his body. Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26-year-old man of Dutch and Moroccan descent, was apprehended by the police after being shot in the leg. In Dutch media he was subsequently referred to as Mohammed B. One of the first pictures of Mohammed B. began to be circulated on Thursday, November 4th at 15:37:07, 2004. This image seemed to be derived from a photocopy of an identification card (http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~rvano/mohammedb.gif). The most frequent image of mohammedb.jpg first appears on Monday, November 29th at 12:59:52, 2004 (www.geenstijl.nl/mohammedb.jpg). It then spreads throughout the following day: Mon Nov 29 21:18:14 2004 matar.web-log.nl/MohammedBouyeriOS.jpg Mon Nov 29 21:36:59 2004 wtr.stratfor.com/mohammed.gif Mon Nov 29 21:36:59 2004 www.aivd.lookingat.us/mohammed.gif Mon Nov 29 21:48:00 2004 www.112-mail.net/mohammedb.jpg From these seeds mohammedb.jpg populates the network Mohammedb.jpg was commissioned by the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant for their Oog project which creates a podium to focus on the image as news and commentary. Harwood # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Landscape Painting of the Information Age
Romanticism was a rebellion against the utilitarian stance of the enlightenment project, in which the world of nature was an emanation of spirit. Both a political and an artistic movement the romantics believed that art and poetry could restore the world to us by revealing what was behind it. But modernists in their turn repudiated romanticism, not only because the development of urbanised and technological society had marginalised the nature and landscapes of Herzen, Wordsworth, Freiderich and Constable etc with their peasants depicted living in sybiosis with nature (no calloused hands and summary evictions here). The spiritless world view of science had evolved beyond simple machanics expanding to envelope the life sciences. Moreover modernism also registered a deeper shift in the sense of how we understand nature. The Romantic notions of nature as a benifiscent spiritual reality came to be replaced by something closer to Schopenhauer?s a great amoral force ?nature red in tooth and claw?. These and other strands too complex to enumerate here came together to make the romantic view of nature in the contemplative sense which Armin refers to as untenable. Many modernists defined themselves (and continue to) as anti-romantic Also in method. To reject the romantic stance was also to reject the epiphanies of being. High modernism produces a poetics which strips away the aura of things, including the aura of the artist as romantic hero. Interestingly this repudiation of the romantcism gives rise to a profound poetics of its own which Roger Shatutuck has described as a poetics of ?juxtopisition?. This approach is to my mind more illuminating for our networked media than unproblematised versions of romanticism articulated thus far in this thread. To simplify (over simplify I know) the methods developed by the modernists *make things appear* or *to bring them into presence* Not in the sense of the old romantic language of being, whereby the object portrayed expresses a deeper reality; rather the illumination occurs *between elements* . ?Its as though the words or the images set up between them a force field which can capture a more intense energy?. The romantics are an inescapable part of our heritage and a source of who we modern westerners are (the good and the terrible) and although it is true that this part of our heritage is often overlooked and falsified any act of recuperation should also include a fuller account of the good reasons why Romanticism was repudiated. David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime tv-tv copenhagen
Apart from the Italian Telestreet movement Some of the promise of tv-tv is already being delivered on Amsterdam cable in the form of Outloud TV http://webserver.outloud.tv/ one of the more successful recent projects to have emerged from the Art Media and Technology department of the Utrecht school of the art. A few weeks ago Amsterdam's pop venue Melkweg hosted the Outloud groups party celebrating a year of the results of their cross media juke box. The system allows people to upload clips via the internet to the Outloud server whereupon the clips are transmitted on to SALTO TV (Amsterdam's open channel) where it is possible for viewers to determine the extent to which the clips are played by voting. The clips can also be viewed on the web. The project began in 2003 when a group of students were asked to create a system for Amsterdam's open Channel to be called Pause TV. The idea was to fill the empty time between the scheduled items with some kind of semie-automated TV project. The result was Outloud which (to my knowledge) is one of the few successful (ie sustainable) fusions of grass roots broadcast TV with the web. (although Telestreets collaboration with NGvision have approached these questions from another angle). The Outloud project has already developed an extensive network of participants and archive of clips. The Outloud group is a complex mix with many different interests. Last months initiative of holding the first of a series of off-line Outloud meetings where the participants could get together speaks of some of the group member's desire to transform the 'network' into more of a 'community' in this they seem to be resisting the pressure of the networks to undo any of allegiances that might bind them. For the moment the transmissions are still operating within the limits of the traditional framework of little items each individually authored. In conversations with the Outloud group there is discussion of what seems to me to be the real challenge, which is to allow Outloud to resonate with the achievement of open-content projects (wikipedia being the most visible example). To exploit the possibilities to experiment on Amsterdam cable (while they last) to allow the Outloud data base and easy cross platform accessibility to trigger some unforseen model of open, fluid moving image collaboration. Perhaps nettimers can point to some existing examples that might inspire the Outloud group. David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime Amsterdam: Berlin
and tragedy. But the opposite is also implicit in Berlin's approach. A suggestion of the need for vigilance, circumspection (even courtesy) in our use of language. It is interesting how in the current climate the term political correctness is frequently used to ridicule anyone who seeks to use language respectful of the sensitivities of particular groups or cultures. Since Fortuyn blew the roof of Holland's cozy and paternalistic consensus politics, unedited expressions of prejudice if they reflect our feelings have become positively fashionable. Feelings have become big political business in Holland these days. Open expressions of saloon bar bigotry, is taken, if not always for native folk wisdom, then at least as a healthy antidote to the pieties of old style politics. And those who dare to criticize the current rise of Islamophobia are likely to find themselves denounced as the mind police of political correctness. Berlin reminds us that pluralism will necessarily generate a complex landscape of potentially conflicting values and antagonisms. They will not need to be sought out; they will be all too present. Antagonisms should be neither suppressed (the Dutch mistake in the past) but neither do they need to be deliberately inflamed (the Dutch mistake in the present). Only liberal fundamentalists such as Geert Wilders, Theo van Gogh and Fortuyin, who interpret free speech as a free for all. For Berlin. Loss was inevitable, because values were in conflict and because human reason was incorrigibly imperfect Berlin's ideas are important for us because he helps us resist our addiction to quick fixes and the organized optimism that inform the party political democracy of a consumer society (as the recent US elections showed us pessimistic realists rarely win elections). Living in a pluralistic society will never be a soft option. It is simply the kind of society, which most openly expresses the intrinsically divided nature of human psychology. In proposing a human nature this is an essentialist creed, but not in the manner of cynical and simplistic Darwinian neo-liberals who sees the market economy as an expression of our essential nature as competitive predators, or even Karl Popper's technocratic and critically rational open society. Berlin's contribution was a darker liberalism that laid the emphasis squarely on the fact that values are frequently incompatible; justice and mercy, equality and liberty often find themselves irreconcilably at odds in daily life, in principle and (most happily) in art. Reason could clarify facts, but choice itself was an act of will, instinct and emotion and as such was a gamble made in the dark=EE. It is the incompatibility of values that gives rise to the tragic dimension of liberal choice. In his various and numerous reiterations of this perspective Berlin is a useful corrective to the happy clappy third way social democrats who promise a world full of choice but without loss or sacrifice (we are promised low taxes AND social justice for all). But it also makes him the enemy of utopian politics, which often seek to elide different values into a harmonious and seamless unity. He saw this tendency as the main reason why utopian political movements tend to morph into authoritarian regimes. The quote he used most often was Bishop Butler's Everything is what it is and not another thing for Berlin liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or culture, or human happiness or a quiet conscience.. The truth has never made men free, and freedom did not always make men better David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime Reviews of Books and the law of unintended consequences
Alan Sondheim wrote We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People, Dan Gillmor, O'Reilly, 7/94. O'Reilly's publications have always fascinated me - their books on linux, more recently on Macs. They have been increasingly presenting a phenomenology of 'porousness' - peer-to-peer, blogging, etc. - books dealing with, not only open source, but open knowledge, open knowledge management/manageriality, and here, open journalism. You could see this at work at the recent 'republican' convention demonstrations; you can see it every day on the Net. I love this book. Parts of it seem overly simplistic or optimistic - but it's all we have, in a way - this form of _breathing_ and exchange that involves webcams, camera phones, sms, blogs, and almost daily new forms of journalism and journalistic expertise. Do check out this book; it gives one both guidelines and a sense of hope in terms of the future of free information and information-dissemination. I agree very much with Alan when he indicates that this book is over optimistic. And recent events in Beslan might lead us to put it far more strongly and say that such a one sided relentlessly upbeat vision of the free media future is a serious distortion. The images released last night of hostage takers videoing those with just hours to live demonstrate one of many of the unintended consequences of the future of free information and information-dissemination that has come to pass. These terrible acts are deliberately orchestrated to be media events. They would make little sense for their perpetrators without the presence of real-time global dissemination of the images. The fact that Tactical media is one of the ways in which the weak turn the tables on the strong is demonstrated by the sight of both former and current super powers rendered impotent. These horrors are grass roots media activism at their most devastatingly effective. David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime Prisoner Abuse:
The only thing that is shocking (though not surprising) about the Iraqi prisoner abuse furore is the degree of astonishment, media coverage and conscience stricken hand-ringing it has generated. The anger of the Bush administration towards those directly involved is probably more real than we imagine. But perhaps not so much at the individual crimes as the fact that these images of contempt and degradation of Arab men by American men and women might be seen as having let the cat out of the bag. Though portrayed as an aberration, this treatment is (on the contrary) seen as the norm by Muslims world-wide who, at home or in diaspora, frequently feel either exploited (treated like dogs) or that their culture and civilization is denigrated and treated with contempt. These images give a surprisingly simple answer to the most frequently asked question since 9/11: why do they hate us? These images reinforce a commonly held belief on the Arab street that what ever we say; we simply think we are better. And do everything we can geo-politically to maintain our dominance. The images of Arabs on leashes, treated like dogs or attacked using military dogs could not have been more eloquent. There is indeed an injustice in making a few examples at the bottom of the military pecking order carry the can for the inevitable outcome of the whole Iraqi misadventure. The very idea that our boys and girls will or should be somehow better able to control the bloodlust that inevitably flows from any decision to unleash the dogs of war in itself goes to the heart of the problem. Why should we think we are likely to be any better? What else might we have expected from a war which was premised from the outset (whatever the self deluding pieties) on the atavistic requirements of indiscriminate blood sacrifice to avenge 9/11 and the corroborating need to re-enforce a badly shaken sense of global sovereignty. David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime A Global Sense of Place
beyond the conceptual boundaries of national politics. Slowly a translocal awareness is occurring in part through the work of writers like Agnese Trocchi and Mateo, Pasquinelli and Mark Coté whose work is helping to spread the Telestreet virus. Versions of Telestreet are already beginning to spring up in Holland, Switzerland (Proxyvision) and most recently as Telesione Piquetera the first Telestreet in Argentina [4]. Cecelia Landsman and myself were attending the meeting on behalf of Amsterdam¹s version of Telestreet: Proxyvision. In our presentation we emphasized the translocal dimension of Telestreet [5]. Italian Telestreet works in part because it is embedded in local histories but is also through inspiring similar initiatives elsewhere. Our point is that once these initiatives take hold active connections and support from the more developed Italian Telestreets will take the project down pathways unconstrained by the puppet show of national party politics. The ways in which this process is already occurring are helping to a relatively new kind of *situated metropolitan tactics*. From this perspective, rather than imagining that the networks have made boarders disappear, we see the emergence of new ways of organizing locally that (by the very act of connecting across and through our differences) lead us towards something like a global sense of place. David Garcia http://www.telestreet.it/ [1] Sources of the Self. Charles Taylor 1993 [2] http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0302/msg00116.html I later found a quote of Alan Toner from an essay he wrote about the anti-Iraq war demo in Rome which could equally be applied in the Telestreet context. Challenges on this scale put into perspective the sniping between different radical factions and pose once again the problems of representation. How can practices of self-organisation, democracy and direct action proliferate? [3] http://www.ngvision.org/index.en.html [4] http://www.metamute.com/look/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1IdPublication=1NrIssu e=24NrSection=5NrArticle=1368ST_max=0 [5] Proxyvision Presentation http://www.radioalice.org/nuovatelestreet/modules.php?op=modloadname=Newsf ile=articlesid=59mode=threadorder=0thold=0 # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime wromng signals
Aida Hozic is very illuminating on this subject: perhaps the most important aspect of the construction of war zones by and through the media is their de-contextualisation from other, global, political and economic trends. There are no economic crises in war zones, only humanitarian. There is no politics in war zones, only the perennial struggle of good and evil. War zones are *zones* precisely because they are cut off from the rest of the world, internally homogenized and externally policed. Violence is thus fetishised, turned into an object separate from body politic and, as such, voyeuristically adored. Extract from Hollywood, Violence and the Construction of War Zones (presented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles (March 2000)- Quoted in Publicity's Secret, Jodie Dean (2002) David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime wrong signals
If symbols really do matter we might conclude that American administration's PR machine has got it badly wrong. In the carefully orchestrated news management of Saddam's capture, once again, the public opinion which *really* matters in the middle east: Arab public opinion, has been conclusively misread The image of an Arab leader (however terrible) being objectivised by a white gloved American medic like a bug on a lab bench, will not be read in the Arab world as a moment of liberation. It will be seen as a special kind of humiliation, the kind which typifies the depth of ignorance which has inspired this campaign from its outset. Once again the images (chosen with great care one imagines, given the time lapse between Saddam's capture and the John Wayne style triumphalism of the announcement) treats Arab opinion to a further demonstration of the power of the west to objectivize the world under a coolly scientific gaze. In this context no mediaeval torturer could have conceived of a greater humiliation than the medical torch's pencil thin beam illuminating the inside of the tyrant's mouth. A stupidity of almost incomprehensible proportions seems bent on prosecuting a war against terror in which the twenty-four hour news machine is mobilized to disseminate images that do little more than fan the flames of hate. David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime Of Men and Monuments
He was, along with Paul Myoda, and also one of the principal folks involved with designing up the Towers of Light/Tribute in Light Memorial for the World Trade Center victims. Like Maya Lin's 1982 Vietnam Veterans Memorial - the Towers... sought to commemorate a dilemma of American culture - a dilemma usually implies a situation that requires a choice between options that are or seem equally unfavorable or mutually exclusive. One monument was about permanence and the American aspiration to monumentalism. The other, made of light, was about transparency and impermanence. Light and text - permanence and impermanence - these are issues that info culture faces - in the tradition of Virilio, this is certainly no Albert Speers with lights intimating a 1000 Year Reich, but then again, hey... under the Bush Admin. maybe it could be after all, Leni Riefenstahl was a pretty good film maker too... this is art that asks - imperial time aspires to be universal, but how are we to think about the forms that represent the idea of empire? Anyway... read on The dilemma as it is described here goes to the heart of many of the practices and cultural forms explored on this list. To the familiar categories of traditional art: structure, content, appearance and context is added a fifth and defining category (for new media practice) which is *behavior*. Behavior, that is, of the whole system, including users and machines. In this zone we move into the new spaces of *the art that learns*. It is here that continuous change is a sign not of degradation (as in more traditional forms) but an indication that the work is valued enough to be used and developed by others, no matter that the outcome maybe forms that, eventually, the original authors may no longer recognize. But in scenarios that celebrate these dynamic properties it is also worth remembering the central deficit. It would be a mistake to believe that high value we place on the relatively stable forms of traditional art are simply the desire for the reassurance and safety of the familiar, for still points in a turning world. There is another more important reason for valuing the durability and stability of *monuments*. They offer us the referents against which we may measure our own processes of change and transformation. If I return to a painting ten years after I first stood before it and it seems to have changed, its relative stability is the guarantor that it is *me* that has done the changing. And the nature and qualities of the changes perceived will be both poignant and instructive. The same can be said of societies and other collectives as we saw when Martin Luther King used the Lincoln Memorial as the backdrop against which to re-draft the American dream for a new generation. David Garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime Reverse Engineering Freedom and make world paper#3
All too often we have encountered a fear of freedom amongst radical activists. There is a deep desire to call for regulation and control that, in the past, the nation-state and its repressive apparatus had to enforce upon the out-of-control capitalism. As true techno-libertarians we have to state: the struggle is about nothing else other than freedom (Everyone is a Californian). There is a freedom of sharing, exchanging, multiplying and distributing resources, no matter how material or immaterial. So far, freedom has always been connected with equality, and therefore tied up with the possession of or alienation from property. Today this link is broken. It is exactly the complete farce of all sorts of management scenarios (from border management to digital rights management) which make evident that property is an absolutely inadequate juridico-political relation to handle the potential and the complexity of social relationships within the immaterial sphere of production and distribution. It is an essential and unalterable fact that ideas circulate online and people are free to move around offline. Content should not be restricted to the Internet or any one medium for that matter. For its own sake the multitudes will refuse to be handcuffed and fettered by the myths of a nation-state or some global government. It is a sad truth that although imperfect, the most effective guarantor of the personal safety upon which the freedom Geert and Florian celebrate, including (perhaps especially) the innovations of the opensource movement, are not universal principals but the power sovereign states, able and willing to offer minimal conditions of safety to its resident netizens, activists and hackers whether in Brisbane, Berlin or Delhi. Geert and Florian's words are as always provide an inspiring dose of boosterism but nevertheless (in this paragraph at least) they are a chimera because the condition of the privileged and mobile, net-savy intelligencia they generously wish to universalize is totally dependent on the existence of the network of states and their institutions whose boarders they would dissolve. To act as though globalization and the networks (from either above or below) have rendered nation states either illusory or merely an oppressive anachronism, is to fail to see the plight of the tens of thousands of stateless people, whose membership of the human family alone affords them little pity, protection or hope, let alone freedom (reverse engineered or otherwise). This outdated narrative which claims to be going beyond the naivetes of the dot.gone era, merely succeed (here and there) in recuperating its lack of (all but the most recent) historical awareness. Despite a critical ambience we are re-visiting the euphoria of another holiday from history. Geert and Florian dissolve in the universalising solvent of their rhetoric the fact that many important liberation movements (including that taking place in Palestine) are more than than ever likely to be nationalist movements. Kurds. Tamils, Kosovar Albanians all seek statehood and the right to create a framework of legal and political protection for their people. Try telling Palestinian fighters who dream of living in their own country that they are handcuffed to the myth of the nation-state. There are many hells in this world and many (admittedly by no means all) of the worst occur when not only through oppressive by states, but when states break down. And the technologies of violence that were previously under proprietary control of the nation are opensourced (in proliferation) to the warlords and the gangsters. When a state dissolves and our predatory side is unconstrained we will all ask just one question: where will I be safe? It is then that we discover (empirically) why boarders exist. Of course even under these conditions we remain within boarders.. but these boarders shrink, drastically -along with our freedoms- as we slide from nation to tribe to clan to gang. And the much celebrated commons becomes Shakespeare's pitiless heath where (if we are luckless) we might attain the freedom of a wandering Lear, who, naked and unprotected, is thus purified to the state of natural man and so becomes that 'poor, bare forked animal' .. Is this fear of freedom? You bet! There is always great pleasure in reading the inspirational texts Geert and Florian but they also give the sense that it might be time for a slightly different tone. For at least some critical internet culture to proclaim less heroically, Zarathustra style, from lofty peaks. Maybe alongside charismatic Nietzschean flights, we might remember Gide who famously declared that fear and trembling are the best in man.. david garcia # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l
nettime FW: [N5M4 editorial] New and final dates for Next 5 Minutes 4 Festival
ANNOUNCEMENT OF FINAL FESTIVAL DATES FOR NEXT 5 MINUTES 4 Amsterdam, February 14, 2003 We are pleased to announce the final festival dates for Next 5 Minutes 4 - International Festival of Tactical Media in Amsterdam, The Netherlands: The dates of the festival are: Friday September 12, Saturday September 13, and Sunday September 14 (2003). Next 5 Minutes is a festival that brings together art, campaigns, experiments in media, technology and transcultural politics. The fourth edition of the Next 5 Minutes festival is the result of a collaborative effort of a variety of organisations, initiatives and individuals dispersed world-wide. The program and content of the festival is prepared through a series of Tactical Media Labs (TMLs) organised locally in different cities around the globe. This series of Tactical Media Labs started on September 11, 2002 in Amsterdam and will continue internationally until June 2003. TMLs have so far been organised in: Amsterdam, Sydney, Cluj, Barcelona, Delhi, New York, Singapore, Birmingham, Nova Scotia, and Berlin, while upcoming TMLs are planned in Chicago, Portsmouth, Sao Paulo, Moscow, Dubrovnik, and Amman Reports from the various TMLs, essays and other materials can be found on-line via the Next 5 Minutes web journal: http://www.n5m4.org A series of workshops, seminars and networking meetings will be scheduled in the days before, during, and after the festival. Further announcements of the final schedule for these side-events will follow as the program develops. Detailed program information about the festival will be released as the final program takes shape via the general web site of Next 5 Minutes: http://www.n5m.org For further information about the festival and the TML please contact the Next 5 Minutes production office in Amsterdam: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Next 5 Minutes 4 : http://www.n5m.org # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
