Re: <nettime> report_on_NNA

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.org>]

> Time(s) moves along -- especially nettime(s).  So what about these
> time(s)?

The rebels of the net.culture of the 1990s have encountered a cruel fate: 
they won. Alas, not on their terms. Many of the themes that have been 
explored by the old-timers are now mainstream. 

*free exchange of culture? Bittorrent and other filesharing networks are 
used by the millions. Nothing terribly avant-garde here, but it got the 
dinosaurs scared. 

* blurring the boundaries of artist and audience? For every music video 
produced by the industry and (illegally) posted on youtube.com (and 
similar things) you have 10 'tribute' videos (also illegal) where fans are 
remixing the music and reediting the visuals. Most of them suck, view 
would qualify as 'art'. But, hey, these are the users who are doing some 
real interaction here, not just pressing buttons.

* open personalities? We have this concept everyday in the evening news, 
but this time, it's not media pranks by a former soccer player, but bombs 
and murder by a shadowy organization everyone can claim membership in.

* xs4all? We, at least in Europe and N.America, have broadband coming out 
of our ears, thanks to Deutsche Telekoms and other friendly global 
corporations who gladly give our access logs to whatever law enforcement 
agency.

* net.art? net.artist Vuk Cosic represented Slovenia at the Venice Biennale 
2001. Geert Lovink and Florian Schneider have been repeatedly at Kassel's 
Documenta. 

* tactical media? embedded journalists in the service of the pentagon.

The list could go on and on. Many early experiments have been absorbed into 
the mainstream. I don't mean that they have been copted, no, they have 
turned out to be intelligent tactics of acting in media environments. 

So, what can you do? Things have become much bigger, much more complicated, 
but alsol, much more relevant. The old avant-garde sticl no longer works. 

One option is to retire. Lots of people have done that and moved on to 
other things.

Another option is to really engange the beast, which, in one way or the 
other, means professionalizing. Rhizome has done that in respects to the 
art world. transmediale has done that in respects to various levels of 
government who are funding it. Others have done by becoming academics or 
whatever. 

For nettime, really, has resisted this trend. 


----http://felix.openflows.org------------------------------ out now:
*|Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society. Polity, 2006 
*|Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks. Ed. Futura/Revolver, 2005 


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