By Adrian Lucas

Th Guardian article Tehran landlords and tenants lock horns in heat of property boom highlights what I consider to be the financial nemesis of our time: capital (=savings+speculation) pouring into property buying, creating dysfunctional property markets throughout the world. The policies to control property speculation are failing (in many countries tax policies perversely incentivize property speculation), with the consequence that, throughout the world, more and more people are spending higher and higher percentages of their income on rent/mortgage payments. No wonder there is no economic growth: how can there be growth if workers have to adjust to the rent/mortgage payment increases by decreasing their discretionary spending?

In the 1960s a working man could pay the rent for a family of 6 persons, and the mother didn't have to work. Increasingly rent/mortgage payments are only payable if 2 of the unit dwellers are breadwinners: and if one loses a job, things immediately get tight. And precisely because there are so many privileged double-income couples (she works for a bank, he works for a university), and triple-income WGs (sugar-daddy students of wealthy), plus wealthy people who can afford the rent/mortgage payments for pied-à-terres in each of 3-6 locations, the dysfunctionality is not coming to an end. And if real-estate prices would ever fall (because policies against speculation eventually bite), then any fall in prices is liable to set off a 2007 crisis: which is precisely why money goes into property: investors know that a policy change would wreck the economy, and which politician would risk that? Hence the famous remarks of the Citigroup President 'we're still dancing': no politician wants to turn off the music. Bernanke is doing everything possible to get US real estate prices to start moving upwards again. Likewise for Britain. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday January 23 2013 INC's Francesca Coluzzi and René König presented at the Brown Bag Lunch sessions of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam.

Graphic Designer and visual artist Francesca Coluzzi from Italy worked on the Out of Ink project for the last 5 months as a research intern at the Institute of Network Cultures. In her presentation at the Brown Bag Lunch she talked about the digital shift in publishing and the role of art and design concerning the book as a medium and the book as a culture. "What will the book look like in the future?" was her main research question. With a lot of artistic examples and interviews with experts she tried to find answers to questions like: 'Do we write and read differently on digital devices', 'what is a 'reading' experience?', and 'can design and art contribute to the development of digital publishing and how?'. The presentation is recorded and can be viewed here. More info about the Out of Ink project is availabe on the website: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/

René König is a sociologist doing PHD researching at Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. For the last couple of months he worked at the Institute of Network Cultures on the Society of the Query project and the planning a second conference later this year on search engines, Google and alternatives. In his presentation for the Brown Bag Lunch he elaborated on different topics concerning search, like personalization & localization, Googlization, law issues, regulations and alternatives to Google, non-Western perspectives to search, and education aspects. His presentation can be viewed here and more information about the Society of the Query can be found on: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/re-search/

'Lovink is one of the most brilliant and original theorists around today. Every word he writes elicits a repsonse.'

Simona Lodi on The Huffington Post: What Happens When Networks Are Without a Cause? Geert Lovink Answers in His Last Book

Read more about Networks without a Cause by Geert Lovink and order the book online and check out the announcement in the new catalog by Polity press, out now:

The flyer of the 9th edition of Video Vortex is out now. Re:assemblies of Video will be held between the 28th of February and the 2nd of March 2013 in Lüneburg, Germany

With more than 175 essays written by over 200 researchers from across the globe, the recently published International Encyclopedia of Media Studies is the most extensive resource at hand for those studying new media. The encyclopedia is divided into six parts. Geert Lovink contributed to the last volume, Media Studies Futures, with two articles.

Media Studies: Diagnostics Of A Failed Merger. 'According to Geert Lovink, there is no such thing as a “visual culture” that connects film, television, video, and new media. In this chapter, he argues that this mistaken belief has led to the naïve notion that we are all working on the same project, “the media.” In fact, Lovink argues, humanities-based “media studies” has never had a grip on new media and Internet education. The idea that media are all about images is contradicted by the reality of computers that run on code. A deep institutional confusion holds that new media are ultimately subordinate to the old content-based broadcasting industries and their outdated revenue models. This essay argues for a long overdue goodbye to the convergence tendencies within media studies departments in favor of full autonomy of new media initiatives. The purpose of critical research into digital technologies is not to rescue the film and broadcasting industries but to develop concepts for the ever-expanding digital realm itself.'

And with Ned Rossiter: In Praise of Concept Production: Formats, Schools, and Nonrepresentational Media Studies. 'In this chapter, Lovink and Rossiter argue that the field of media studies has yet to develop a theory of itself. Audience studies investigated fandom and the production of meaning, textual analysis preoccupied itself with signification processes attached to content, and political economy turned its gaze on institutional power. Medium theory, while close to the authors' own interests, still falls short, they argue, because it never changed the dialectic between old and new media or gave the relation a productive twist. Medium theory established a continuum between old and new media without considering how the media form itself gives rise to the production of new concepts. Media studies desperately needs new concept production, the authors argue, based in both online and face-to-face collaborative efforts. To develop new concepts, media researchers should begin with some reflexive mediation, examining how they use their object of study in the research methodology itself. From there, Lovink and Rossiter advocate moving the agenda beyond the analysis of visual representation to mobile media, miniaturization, smart technologies, and the integration of media into urban environments.'

From the back cover: Truly global in scope and covering a diverse range of topics, The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies provides the definitive resource for students, scholars, and faculty in this rapidly evolving and dynamically complex field. The Encyclopedia brings together cutting-edge scholarship from over 200 contributors, arranged thematically across 6 volumes edited by an international team of the world's best scholars and teachers. The volumes explore the history and foundations of the field; production; content and representation; audience and interpretation; media effects and cognition; and the future of the field. Each opens with an accessible introduction that also serves as a stand-alone overview of the particular theme.

Reflecting the diversity of the field, the full breadth of Media Studies’ quantitative and qualitative methodologies is covered within these 175 essays, including the important contributions made by the social scientific paradigm in terms of effects and cognition; humanistic and historical approaches; and the Political Economic paradigm. Rather than pitting these approaches against each other, the encyclopedia includes them in productive conversation with each other and creates a new dimension of understanding. Chapters offer in-depth explorations of the historical background and recent developments, problems and challenges, and future opportunities for research that have evolved within the discipline. The Encyclopedia is also available online on Wiley Online Library, offering you 24/7 access, downloadable chapters, and powerful browsing and searching functionality. Visit www.encyclopediaofmediastudies.com.

Screening / Networks

Conference/Networks
THU 31.01.2013 - 19:00 AUDITORIUM HKW
Social Media: From Complaints to Alternative Tools

This presentation gives a strategic overview of the philosophical underpinnings of the Unlike Us project, a network of designers, geeks, activists and researchers that investigates both critique and alternatives in social media. Many believe that we should not get stuck in our culture of complaint about privacy and do something about it instead. Unlike Us was founded in July 2011 and has, thus far, been coordinated mainly by the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam. Unlike Us has an active list of 700 members, a blog, and has produced a reader, two conferences in Cyprus and Amsterdam (and a third on March 22-23, 2013) and has hosted workshops in Berlin and elsewhere. The central aim of Unlike Us is to discuss the very concepts of alternative network architectures. Whereas some believe that we should not underestimate the efficiency of centralized infrastructure, others have pointed at the real-existing utopia of decentralized and distributed initiatives (for instance in peer-to-peer and mesh networks). In contrast, what is this buzz around a “federated Web”? Are these ideas simply coming too late or is it still possible to deconstruct power structures? It is time to emphasize the tool character of apps (from “making things” to causing revolutions). It is time to disrupt the flow of updates. The idea is not to design the Ultimate Facebook Competitor. Unlike Us discusses efforts to inscribe alternative social relations into Internet protocol itself and what we can learn from existing activist platforms such as Lorea.

More information over the event can be found here: http://www.transmediale.de/content/bwpwap-networks-geert-lovink
More information about Unlike Us can be found here:
http://networkcultures.org/unlikeus

Video Vortex #9
28 Feb. – 2 March 2013
Lüneburg, Germany
Centre for Digital Cultures
Leuphana University

Networked video has entered a new phase and become part of major configurations. The days of pioneers and amateurs seem to be over, as do the old worlds of professional broadcasting networks: Digital technologies have professionalized production, and do-it-yourself skills have established new styles and formats. Tubes, channels and domains for mobile video are part of our everyday digital life. These tectonic shifts – from amateur and professional to an assemblage of media creators, from spectators to participants, and from a single viewpoint to parallax perspectives – have given rise to effects of a geographical and generational scope yet to be determined. The ninth edition of Video Vortex proposes that now is a time to re-engage with a structural and contextual analysis of online video culture.

Two keynotes will extend the discursive field of Video Vortex #9: Beth Coleman will re-engage local affairs with visions of networked activism, and Nishant Shah will unpack video at the digital turn as object, as process, and as a symptom of the transnational flow of ideology, ideas and infrastructure, especially in emerging information societies in the uneven landscape of globalization.

VV9 also features a number of performative lectures and thematic workshops dealing with video realities. We will follow up on the long tails of rebellion with Mosireen Collective in Cairo and Margarita Tsomou in Athens. Boris Traue and Achim Kredelbach, aka Jo Cognito, will discuss YouTube’s recent forays into televisual terrain and its delegation of organizing power to commercial “networks” and media agencies. Boaz Levin will look at the way media gravitates towards im-mediating events, and Miya Yoshida will critically question familiar terminologies from “amateur” and “user” to “prosumer” and “citizen reporter.”

In the run-up to the actual Video Vortex event, international video correspondents have been investigating phenomenologies of video online. After 10 joyful years of global ubiquity, the conference will also engage with reinventions of the local under conditions of digital culture. A collaboration with the local video activist collective Graswurzel.tv, whose activities are linked with antinuclear protests in Wendland (near Lüneburg), will explore mobile video in (alternative) news journalism. Artist Stephanie Hough will join with local participants to oppose tracking and other incursions into our screen lives by turning a public square into a stage for a mass lip-sync.

The future of film as it fuses with video in the digital realm, and the reconfiguration of its aesthetics, interfaces, production and distribution, will be discussed with Thomas Østbye and Edwin, the directors behind the participatory film project 17,000 Islands, and explored by Seth Keen in the domain of interactive documentary on the web. Alejo Duque and Robert Ochshorn will analyze the technological appearances and travesties of video, the soft power of codecs and compression in the information complex, and how to “interface.”

A liquid publication will go live as a sourcebook shortly before VV9 and continue to expand during collaborative editing sessions at the event in Lüneburg, ultimately living on as a multifaceted publication.

The full program will be published shortly on videovortex9.net

Please register for the conference and workshops here: http://bit.ly/SGtT86

If you plan to attend Video Vortex #9, we recommend you book your hotel early or contact us for help.

VV9 is organized by Leuphana University’s Moving Image Lab and Post-Media Lab. A portion of VV9 also constitutes the first part of the ANALOG event series, sponsored by the university’s Centre for Digital Cultures.

VV9 is funded through Innovation Incubator, a major EU project financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the federal state of Lower Saxony.

Facebook continues to anger its users. Last week timelines flooded with people claiming their copyright over their profile with a single status update - as if they never agreed to Facebook policy. (Half a day later the other half of the timeline flooded with Batman cartoons punching the silly copyright-believers in the face. Both were probably equally annoying in their uniformity of response.)

About a month ago Dangerous Minds already claimed in a very good read: Facebook I Want My Friends Back!

You could also try and take Facebook to court. Facebook privacy targeted by Austrian law student, but 'to carry on his war against Facebook, Max Schrems figures he needs at least 200,000 euros'.

On the other hand, are we overestimating Facebook's and Twitter's importance? Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong. Alexis Madrigal claims most sharing is done via dark social means like email, not 'social media'.

The Berliner Gazette held the conference Digital Backyards and put a lot of documentation online as a result: What are (European) alternatives to Google and Facebook?

Mark Cuban on the Huffingpost Post: What I Really Think About Facebook. 'At the core of the issues I have with Facebook is how it thinks about itself.'

Fears for civil liberties as Apple patents technology that could remotely disable protesters' smartphones. 'Civil liberties campaigners fear it could be misused by the authorities to silence 'awkward citizens'.'

Could it be imaginable, let alone a reality? And apart from completion, does Wikipedia show the quality we desire? Surmounting the Insurmountable: Wikipedia Is Nearing Completion, in a Sense

Wikipedia vs. Bitcoin: The Full Faith and Credit of Wikipedia

Check out the blog Culture Digitally, with for example a post on The Materiality of Algorithms and The Relevance of Algorithms

Media and expression: theses in tweetform. Nicholas Carr expresses his views in 20 tweets

'Computers are getting invisible. They shrink and hide. They lurk under
the skin and dissolve in the cloud.' Read the essay Invisible and Very Busy by Olia Lialina about users here.

Another long read, already old in the online age, but still woth mentioning: Inside the Mansion - and Mind - of Kim Dotcom, the Most Wanted Man on the Net

So, what is The New Aesthetic? It’s a buzzword for sure, but no one seems to be able to define it. Even the question whether it refers to an art movement, a style in design, or just simply a Tumblr-blog isn’t easily answered. SETUP Utrecht put together a small exhibition around this phenomenon and invited three speakers to help clear the picture. After an introduction by Tijmen Schep of SETUP, it was up to artist Darko Fritz, designer Frank Kloos, and researcher David M. Berry to get the discussion going.

It all started with James Bridle’s Tumblr, followed by a much-discussed essay by Bruce Sterling. Think of portraits made out of pixels (or sculptures even), #iseefaces, but also soundscapes constructed through algorithmic software. No wait, actually it started in the 60’s, as Darko Fritz showed. The first computer art was made; multidisciplinary artists used biology, artificial intelligence and well, art, to create a new vision of reality. Now this ‘computer art’ has exploded into the new aesthetic, boasting neon colour, freaky videos and retweets. How does the computer see the world? How does it recognize humans? Interpret patterns? And how do we in turn respond to that? Tijmen Schep called it ‘painting the black box colourful again’ (but also asking whether it would not be better to actually open it) – which resonated nicely with Frank Kloos proclaiming Malevich Black Square the first (and most radical) pixel painting ever. Read the rest of this entry »