[Nettime-bold] politics of a digitial present: fibreculture debate and meeting:

[Ned Rossiter <Ned.Rossiter@arts.monash.edu.au>]

[FINAL PROGRAM]

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i n t e r n e t
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theory | criticism | research
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::fibreculture:: politics of a digital present
6 - 8 December, 2001, Melbourne

Noting a vacuum in critical Australian net culture and research, 
::fibreculture:: was founded as a mailing list in January 2001 by 
David Teh and Geert Lovink.  The purpose of the list has been to 
exchange articles, ideas and arguments on Australian IT policy and 
practice in a broad context.

The inaugural ::fibreculture:: meeting considers four key areas of 
net culture and research: theory, policy, education and the arts. 
Co-organised by Cinemedia and the Australian Centre for the Moving 
Image, a public debate on the evening of 6 December will precede the 
meeting.  The debate seeks to address these issues in dialogue with a 
wider audience.

A 2 day meeting follows the debate.  All are welcome.

Both events bring together a community of critical thinkers engaged 
with new media/Internet theory and practice, with a view to 
constructing a strategic program of how Australia might better 
support innovation, R+D and the applications and culture of new 
technology.

A reader has been prepared for publication prior to the 
::fibreculture:: meeting.  It can be ordered from the 
::fibreculture:: website (www.fibreculture.org).  Submissions of 1500 
to 3000 word short essays, position papers, or manifestos were 
invited that address at least one of the four key themes, and these 
were posted to the ::fibreculture:: mailing list and subject to peer 
review.

The aim of the ::fibreculture:: meeting is not to present formal 
papers, but to circulate papers in advance which can operate as a 
point of reference and basis for discussion during the meeting.

We aim to produce more readers, monographs, edited collections and 
newspapers.  Proposals to the list are most welcome for future 
publications.  We see this as one key intervention into the current 
political economy of commercial academic publishing and the "command 
economy" approach to academic production by DETYA.



Digital publics: a debate
Thursday 6 December, 7pm - 10pm
Organised together with Cinemedia's Australian Centre for the Moving 
Image (ACMI)
Treasury Theatre, Lower Plaza
1 Macarthur Street, East Melbourne

Registration: at the door ($10 full/$7 concession)

7pm sharp
Introduction

Moderator: Geert Lovink

7.15pm - 7.50pm
Session 1 - Net Theory

Key Speaker: Mathew Allen, Associate Professor, School of Media and 
Information, Curtin University of Technology; author of Smart 
Thinking; and the Executive of the Association of Internet 
Researchers (http://www.aoir.org).

Respondent: Esther Milne, writer and PhD candidate, Department of 
English with Cultural Studies, University of Melbourne.

7.50pm - 8.25pm
Session 2 - Policy, Intellectual Property Rights, Commercial Practices

Key speaker: Victor Perton, Victorian Shadow Minister for Technology 
& Innovation; Victorian Shadow Minister for Conservation & 
Environment; former Chairman, Victorian Government Multimedia 
Committee, Data Protection Advisory Council, Electronic Business 
Framework Group.

Respondent: Tom Worthington, Visiting Fellow in the Department of 
Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, 
Australian National University; electronic business consultant; 
author of the book Net Traveller; information technology professional.

BREAK - 25 minutes plus launch of book, Politics of a Digital 
Present: An Inventory on Australian Net Culture, Criticism and Theory
* light snacks and drinks available in foyer

8.50pm - 9.25pm
Session 3 - New Media Arts/Culture and the Arts

Key Speaker: Terry Cutler, currently a member of the Australian 
Information Economy Advisory Council.  He is a member of the 
International Advisory Panel of Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor, 
reflecting his strong interest in the role of, and opportunities for, 
Asian countries in the new information era.  Terry Cutler is also 
Chairman of the Australia Council, having previously chaired its New 
Media Arts Board, and he is on the Council of the Victorian College 
of the Arts. He has previously served as a director of Cinemedia and 
Opera Australia.

Respondent: Amanda McDonald Crowley, currently Associate Director, 
Adelaide Festival 2002. Cultural worker, researcher, facilitator, 
curator working primarily in the new media/ electronic arts field. 
Previous Director of the Australian Network for Art and Technology.

9.25pm - 10pm
Session 4 - Education

Key speaker: Paul James, Senior Lecturer, Political and Social 
Inquiry, Monash University; President of Association for the Public 
University; author of Nation Formation: Towards a Theory of Abstract 
Community; editor of The State in Question: Transformations of the 
Australian State and Technocratic Dreaming: Of Very Fast Trains and 
Japanese Designer Cities; editorial member of Arena publications.

Respondent: Anna Munster, Lecturer in Digital Media Theory, School of 
Art History and Theory, College of Fine Arts, UNSW.  She is also a 
media artist whose work ranges across new media, time-based and 
photomedia (see her online work: http://wundernet.cofa.unsw.edu.au). 
Anna has written for ctheory, m/c, Photofile and Artlink among others 
and is currently researching biotechnical art and ethics.

Closing Panel


::fibreculture:: inaugural meeting, 7 - 8 December,
Organised together with the Centre for Ideas, Victorian College of 
the Arts (VCA)
234 St Kilda Road
Southbank, Melbourne VIC 3006

Registration: $50/$30 full; $30/$20 single day (payable at the door - 
NOTE cash or cheques only).  Registration includes lunch, tea, coffee 
and copy of the book, Politics of a Digital Present: An Inventory of 
Australian Net Culture, Criticism and Theory.

Venue: a PDF map of the room locations can be downloaded from 
www.vca.unimelb.edu.au - go to the link "Where is the VCA".

Program

Friday 7 December
Venue: Room 216 in the Music School (entry from St Kilda Road)

10.00am - 10.30am
Introduction of ::fibreculture:: facilitators and organisers

10.30am - 12.30pm
Mapping Australian FibreCulture
Round with introductions and 3 minute presentations
* Researchers, critics, theorists, writers, programmers, designers, 
developers, consultants: WHERE are you and WHAT are you up to?

12.30pm - 1.25pm - Lunch break

1.30pm - 3.30pm
Session 1: Network Theory/Philosophy

Topics:
* Debating neo-empirical approaches and the return of objective 
social science after the exhaustion of post-structuralism
* Crisis of the offline (AI/VR) body centred Deleuzian notions
* Hegemony of digital Darwinism and biologism within new media arts 
and IT industry
* Importance of media archaeology, mapping pre-histories of new media
* Global governance debate
* Public Domain vs. the Corporate State
* Problematic relation to Cultural Studies
* Network theories for the future-present

3.30pm - 4pm - Tea/coffee break

4pm - 6pm
Session 2: Policy

Topics:
* Telstra, broadband, right of access, bandwidth
* Australia and the censorship tendency (political, pornography, 
gambling, etc.)
* Alternative plan for IT Centre of Excellence
* Mapping the policy players
* How to fight the consumerist ethos in IT policy - "access" as cyber 
literacy and skill, not high bandwidth data-gluttony
* How can ::fibreculture:: be heard and operate on the policy level?
* Policy futures

6pm onwards - drinks/dinner party (location to be decided)

Saturday 8 December
Venue: Federation Hall (entry from Grant Street, Southbank)

11.00am - 1pm
Session 3: Culture and the arts

Topics:
* Cult of representation, proximity to political power
* Patronage system (cultural state apparatus)
* Primacy of aesthetics
* Lack of game/net.art and e-literature funding
* Deliriating over an (absent) synergy of arts and science
* Generationalism in new media arts

1pm - 2pm - Lunch break
* screening of The Code - a Linux documentary from Finland

2pm - 4pm
Session 4: Education

Topics:
* Current approaches/paradigms: teaching new media/internet studies 
and e-learning
* Corporatisation and the Virtual University - profit obsessions, 
confused IT sovereignty, limited teaching and research outcomes
* What constitutes the mode of production?
* Relationship between curricula development and university funding and policy
* Both government and opposition share limited horizons. How can we 
explode these?

4.15pm - 6pm
Closing session ::fibreculture meeting::

* Directions of ::fibreculture::
* Discussion about the list
* Legal structures for ::fibreculture:: as formal organisation
* Futures: the place of ::fibreculture:: within policy making, 
research funding and practice


Convenors:

Hugh Brown (Brisbane) hughie@onlineopinion.com.au
Geert Lovink (Sydney) geert@xs4all.nl
Helen Merrick (Perth) H.Merrick@exchange.curtin.edu.au
Esther Milne (Melbourne) e.milne@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
Ned Rossiter (Melbourne) Ned.Rossiter@arts.monash.edu.au
David Teh (Sydney) dteh@arthist.usyd.edu.au
Michele Willson (Perth) M.Willson@exchange.curtin.edu.au


With special thanks to:

John Arnold, Head of School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University
<John.Arnold@arts.monash.edu.au>

Alessio Cavallaro, Producer/Curator New Media Projects
Cinemedia's Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)
<alessio@cinemedia.net>

Nikos Papastergiadis, writer and Head of the Centre for Ideas, 
Victorian College of the Arts (VCA),
<n.papastergiadis@vca.unimelb.edu.au>
Louise Adler, Deputy Director of VCA

Arena Printing and Publications Pty Ltd., http://www.arena.org.au


Sponsors:

Centre for Ideas, Victorian College of the Arts
Cinemedia's Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Humanities Division, Curtin University of Technology
Monash Publications Grants Committee
School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University
The Power Institute, University of Sydney

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