Cybernetics & Entheogenics
Abstract of the lecture by Peter Lamborn Wilson
For the 'Next Five Minutes" Conference, Amsterdam, january 1996
Abstract of the lecture by Peter Lamborn Wilson
For the 'Next Five Minutes" Conference, Amsterdam, january 1996
The Internet was started in the 1970's by the U.S. Defense Departmentas a communications tool and is now being bought out by I.B.M., M.C.I.and other megaCorporations. April, 1995 marked the closing of theNational Science Foundation's part of the internet, and signaled thebeginning of the end of the publicly funded computer networkinfrastructure.
March 2003
Democracy can be understood in two notably distinct ways. In the institutional view democracy is understood as the interplay of institutional actors that represent 'the people' and are held accountable through the plebiscite; public votes, polls and occasionally referenda. The second view on democracy is radically different in that it sees the extent to which people can freely assemble, discuss and share ideas about vital social issues, organise themselves around these issues, and can freely voice their opinions in public fora, as a measure for just how democratic a given society is.
- Ethische NETZPRINZIPIEN
Impulsreferate etablieren eine engagierte RL Diskussion, die Im Netz fortgefuehrt und in Newsgroups konkretisiert wird.
Der Wunsch und die Notwendigkeit zur Entwicklung neuer Terminologien
und originaerer Diskurse wurde evident. Nach den Jahren des Zitierens
ist es an der Zeit und wird durch neue Lebensrealitaeten im
elektronischen Netzwerk und aufgrund internationaler Erfahrungen mit
der Praxis regulativer Eingriffe neue Begriffe, Strukturen und Theorien
zu entwickeln. Jeder kann sich aktiv an dieser Koevolution technischer
und Inhaltlicher Verbindungen beteiligen!
At first glance the concept of "organised networks" appears oxymoronic. In technical terms, all networks are organised. There are founders, administrators, moderators and active members who all take up roles. Think also back to the early work on cybernetics and the "second order" cybernetics of Bateson and others. Networks consist of mobile relations whose arrangement at any particular time is shaped by the "constitutive outside" of feedback or noise.[1] The order of networks is made up of a continuum of relations governed by interests, passions, affects and pragmatic necessities of different actors. The network of relations is never static, but this is not to be mistaken for some kind of perpetual fluidity. Ephemerality is not a condition to celebrate for those wishing to function as political agents.
ReadFor many reasons, the 80's, years of the Mitterand socialist government, were years in which grass roots movements got institutionalized and traditional activism was "out". The logic of the Republic (everybody is equal without distinction) allied with traditional individualism and clanic behaviour ("la guerre des chapelles") forbid the emergence of non dominant/non normalized subjectivities. This tradition is still alive today. The 68 generation didn't feel necessary to pass on their knowledge to younger generations. From their point of view, they created new ways to go about the world by themselves, so should the new generations. The notion of alternative and activism became stigmatized. It wasn't a very tactical in those years to position oneself in terms of an alternative. As a result, by the beginning of the 90, the most visible part of the intellectuals and the grass roots movements seams to be lobotomized.
Read01. These are precarious times. These are eventful times. Let us note some of the symptoms of this instability. There is September 11,and the prospect of a new form of American empire that uses September11 as its pretext. There is the global stock market slide, triggered by the collapse of American tech stocks, which altered the lives of chip-makers in Korea and Coltan miners in the Congo. These are instances of what I call weird global media events. They are events because they are singular. They are media events because they happen in a vectoral space of communication. They are global media events because they call a world into being. They are weird global media events because they defy explanation. They subsume every explanation as mere ripples and eddies in their wake.
Read"The darkest, hottest place in hell waits for that repulsive angel choir
Which, at the hour when crisis strikes, sings equivocal, neutral songs".
Dante, Inferno, Canto III.
An interview with a Syrian activist in exile, code-named Sami, published by Occupy.com draws attenton once more to the radical experiment in real-life bottom-up matriarchal democratic design unfolding against all odds in the autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava in Northern Syria. We are republishing two short texts here on this subject matter to speculate about the question if 'Rojava' could offer a repeatable model for post-governmental political design?
Archives - Life-Cycles - Care
TMF editors Eric Kluitenberg and David Garcia have been invited to participate in the workshop "Taking Care of Things!" in Lüneburg, Germany, January 15-18, organised by the Post-Media Lab / Centre for Digital Cultures - Leuphana University, and Habits of Living in cooperation with the Stadtarchiv Lüneburg.
Geert Lovink wrote:
A gap is now in danger of getting bigger: old school video journalism, done by political activists, versus a thriving technology based network of media artists. Complaints about an 'eighties' style of amateurism of video works are on the rise. On the other hand, a depolitization of electronic arts is apparent as well. Or do we speak here about a mutual non-understanding? A return of the outworn difference between activist and artist? Can the concept of 'tactical media' present itself as a easy synthesis?
We've had the camcorder revolution. It made making videoprograms
cheaper. Audio-equipment is affordable, so radiomaking is possible for
a large amount of people too. So for a long time already the masses are
potential mediaproducers. There were only minor successes in accessing
the broadcast channels both legally and illegally. But the efficient
one-to-many distribution system (radio and tv) are chocked, regulated,
hard to get access to. The Internet having the capacity for streaming
media seems to promise new possibilities. Boundless access, for anyone
making radio, and maybe in the near future TV. Some are pessimistic,
and see these channels soon closed and regulated as well. What will
this streaming media look like and who will be streaming?
In the wireless era, is the paper medium simply passé for the work of activists? Are zamizdat, fanzines and political magazines just good for historians? After the mid-nineties zine crisis due to a sudden rise of the cost of paper and the advent of the Internet, the actual role of magazines seems to be re-defined and still strategical for the circulation of ideas.
Read
This short essay was written in the run up to the fourth Next 5 Minutes festival of Tactical Media, which took place in Amsterdam September 11 - 14, 2003.
Door Geert Lovink
Amsterdam, december 1995
(voor Next 5 Minutes 2 - internationaal festival voor tactische media, 1996)
'CYBERPOSITIVE'
O(rphan) d(rift>)
Cabinet Editions
ISBN 0-952-58240-6
Public Agency in Hybrid Space
Lead-essay for the theme issue "Hybrid Space" of OPEN, Journal for Art and the Public Domain, #11, (Amsterdam / Rotterdam, 2006).
The Negative Dialectics of the Net
In his essay, "Presenting the Unpresentable: The Sublime", Jean-François Lyotard observes that capitalism, technoscience and the pictorial avant-garde of the twentieth century share an 'affinity to infinity'. All three point towards a sensibility that is constitutive for the experience of the modern world.
Dr. Shahidul Alam, internationally renowned photographer, activist, founder and Managing Director of the Bangladesh multimedia company, Drik, founder of Chobi Mela International Photography Festival and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, was forcibly abducted from his home on the night of 5 August.
Shahidul Alam was granted bail on November 15, 2018 and released from jail, but still faces a maximum of 14 years in prison if convicted.
News and updates #freeshahidulalam