http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/zkp/notes.txt Short Notes from: pit@contrib.de date: January 1996 Short note#4: what is net criticism? first a kind of tension between two mediations of text. Even if the different platforms or genres we present here interfere in more than a binary sense, they function with 'an enemy': The future of a future we just can't trust, but we have to follow according to the rhetorics of 'cyberology'. The 'Californian ideologies' of a new 'virtual class' functions here as something to get rid off, in text, in action, in attitude. The desire to not get wired in such a way is based on the insight that it is not the question to resist technology as a whole but to disrespect some ways it is used especially as a humourless power ideology.The following texts are collected partly from the internet, they protocol a potlatch culture of information exchange, as they are also part of a 'little practise' which tries to avoid the pathos of the giants, in face of immense streams of dirty data trash, and look sideways for examples of an art of living in the nets. from :pit@contrib.de date: december 1995 Short note#3.: A Computer Aided Subjectivity should amplify not the processes of individualisation but the collectivation of conflict zones, not exporting the disturbance to the fringes of society or territory, or neutralizing it trough the traditional discourse machines. 'net criticism' could function as another way of dealing with the schizophrenia of capitalism, it's seducing, integrating and destructive forces, and newest tool, The Net. Beyond the dualism of the philoes and phobies, driven by 'the desire to not get wired in such a way' there are still some hidden opportunities to disturb the networks of power with pure pleasure. Desiring machines are not made to function. from:pit@contrib.de date: december 1995 1995- the year of the net hype. During several conferences it became obvious that the good old times of internet were over. Califorian libertarian idealism turned into postcapitalistic hardcore liberalism. Main discourse formatters like Wired Mag are now distributing nationalistic propaganda of a 'virtual america'. Webvertisment fills our harddisks and visual channels, netscape starts to be the next microsoft. 'lessons in modesty'. Following an old european tradition first there is theory and then there comes practise, but this time it's different. Culture, politics, technology, economy fall together in the global dynamics of an ongoing 'shift' where _The Net_ plays a uncertain role and external observing seems impossible. The self definition of the 'critical intellectual' transforms. Textual theory, the concept of humanity, institutional based belief systems are in a crisis. Everthing which resists getting connected to the circulatory systems of info-capitalism becomes endangered. Let's define 'net criticism' as the desire to not get wired in such a way. It means that one has to find tools and methods and 'an other collective subjectivity' to deal with the alienating 'market forces' distributed via the new networks of power. Meanwhile social imbalance and the reactivation of reactionary believe models gets more popular and old systems of idendity-construction are loosing ground by a simple lack of efficience. The different time zones of the 'third wave' and third world may lead to new conflict lines. The ZK proceedings of this year, were little meetings beside bigger meetings, parasites of cultural centralisation, where we tried to develop a fuzzy idea how to find a position behond dualism, materialism, technofetishism, dandyism... more a process than a product. But now, after this year of 'hype and backlash', it seems obvious that the big institutional machines, government, science, commerce and corporate culture (forget about art), appropriating the dynamics of the net, to make history out of it. The 'ZK proceedings 95' are a trial to write our own 'paper version', of course the better and more dynamic one, more directly bound to a deep intimacy with the net, heterogenous, fast, contraditionary, vague, massive, wild, and your contribution should be part of it. --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de