www.networkcultures.org/wiki | 11-12 May, 2006 | Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin

Networks are dynamic, relational environments that are hard to capture. They cannot be known by or thought of as static images. The ‘distributed aesthetics’ concept does not concern itself with ‘eternal beauty’. Nor would does it define ‘aesthesis’ as perception of the eyes. It’s not about using ‘screen culture’ as a way to talk about painting, film, and television.Rather, it is the conceptual, the unseen, and the immanent that the ‘distributed’ brings into play. Network theorisation (as opposed to direct network visualization) must struggle with the abstraction of dispersed elements. In this way it is curious to note that ‘mapping’ is such a dominant activity in network cultures. How can a theory of ‘distributed aesthetics’ be developedthat is up to the job to understand – and shape – today’s ‘networked condition’?

Distributed aesthetics is a concept that emerged within the Australian fibreculture group. Geert Lovink and Anna Munster further developed the concept, which formed the basis of the Distributed Aesthetics workshop in May 2006 at the Wissenschaftskolleg – the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin.

participants: Giselle Beiguelmann, Brian Holmes, Richard Rogers, Warren Sack, Mercedes Bunz, Sebastian Lütgert, Nils Röller, Judith Rodenbeck, Clara Völker, Sabine Niederer, Linda Wallace, Trebor Scholz and Olga Goriunova.

credits: The workshop was organised by Geert Lovink and Anna Munster. Supported by the Institute for Network Cultures and Wissenschaftskolleg – the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin.