Institute of Network Cultures News
The Institute of Network Cultures wishes you a great summer! We are closed from the 22nd of July and back on the 22nd of August.
In this newsletter you can read more about:
Networks Without a Cause, A Critique of Social Media, by Geert Lovink (forthcoming February 2012)
Video Vortex #7, Yogyakarta, Indonesia | 18-21 July 2011
Video Vortex summerschool at University of Split, Academy of Arts | 22-31 August 2011
Theory on Demand research update
Urban Screens, Interactive Public Space, research program
New INC Research Network: Unlike Us – Understanding Social Media Monopolies and their Alternatives | Forthcoming two events | Amsterdam and Cyprus | February 2012
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Networks Without a Cause, A Critique of Social Media, by Geert Lovink
Beginning 2012 Geert’s latest book Networks Without a Cause is expected. It examines our collective obsession with identity and self-management coupled with the fragmentation and information overload endemic to contemporary online culture. With the vast majority of Facebook users caught in a frenzy of friending’, ‘liking’ and ‘commenting’, at what point do we pause to grasp the consequences of our info-saturated lives? What compels us to engage so diligently with social networking systems? With a dearth of theory on the social and cultural ramifications of hugely popular online services, Geert provides a path- breaking critical analysis of our over-hyped, networked world with case studies on search engines, online video, blogging, digital radio, media activism and the WikiLeaks saga.
This book offers a powerful message to media practitioners and theorists: let us collectively unleash our critical capacities to influence technology design and workspaces; otherwise we will disappear into the cloud. Probing but never pessimistic, Geert draws from his long history in media research to offer a critique of the political structures and conceptual powers embedded in the technologies that shape our daily lives.
Publisher: Polity Press 2012 and design: Studio Leon Loes.
Anticipating on the publication of this book, a series of videos have been made where Geert discusses his book. http://www.vimeo.com/album/1626182
Videos produced by Linda Wallace. Camera and editing: Emile Zile. Interviewer: Morgan Currie.
More information:
https://networkcultures.org/blog/2011/06/27/networks-without-a-cause/
Videos:
http://www.vimeo.com/album/1626182
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Video Vortex #7, Yogyakarta, Indonesia | 18-21 July 2011
Indonesia has seen an explosion of video practices and organizations since the arrival of affordable platforms for production and distribution. To date, much vital work has been done – in ground-up networks devoted to art and digital culture, social activism and participatory media – to survey this diverse activity, its growing purchase on the public sphere, and the challenges faced.
But as DV is absorbed into the mainstream media-scape, what are the crucial technical, social and aesthetic strategies for the politics of video going forward? What are the exemplary videos, who are the video-makers, and organizations, and why? And what histories have shaped the medium that has yet to be written into the discussion? This 4 day festival gathers key thinkers from diverse constituencies in Indonesia, and innovative practitioners from abroad, to exchange and discuss the discourse on video in Indonesia beyond overviews.
Project Partners & Hosts: House of Natural Fiber, Yogyakarta [HONF], Video Vortex (Institute of Network Cultures), Amsterdam [VV], Forum Lenteng, Jakarta [FL], KUNCI Cultural Studies Center, Yogyakarta [KUNCI], Indonesian Visual Art Archive, Yogyakarta [IVAA], ruangrupa and OK Video Festival, Jakarta [ruru], Engage Media, Jakarta [EM], Langgeng Art Foundation, Yogyakarta [LAF], Kedai Kebun Forum, Yogyakarta [KKF], Yogyakarta Documentary Film Festival [FFD].
This festival is supported by: Ford Foundation, Goethe-Institut Indonesien and the Institute of Network Cultures from the SIA RAAK program Culture Vortex.
More information:
https://networkcultures.org/videovortex/7-yogyakarta-2
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Video Vortex summerschool at University of Split, Academy of Arts | 22-31 August 2011
We would like to invite you and your students to participate in the Video Vortex summer school Vis, 22-31 August 2011. This is the first year that a summer school is being organized as part of the international Video Vortex network. The aim of the project is to establish a European summer school and future joint study programs in the fields of film, media arts, performance and cultural theory.
The following Universities will be involved: Sint Lucas Art Academy of Gent, Belgium, Sussex University of Brighton, School of Media, Film and Music, UK, University of Nova Gorica, School of Arts, Slovenia, University of Zagreb, Academy of Dramatic Arts, Croatia, University of Rijeka, Academy of Aplied Arts, Croatia, and the University of Split, Academy of Arts, Croatia.
We expect to have 2-4 students from each university. All together, around 20 students and 10 teachers are expected. The invited teachers should select some of their students to participate in the workshop. Structure of the workshop is that students work in couples of groups. For example, one group will be working in the field as a mobile film-media crew and another group will be assembling and editing materials and/or putting it online. Other groups or individuals can develop their own work methods or they can work exclusively with online moving image. There will also be a small film set and the production of a couple of scenes for a feature film will be taking place. We will have underwater cameras and motion capture control, lighting and sound equipment. Each day there will be a conceptual round table centered on planning the next day of production. Each evening we will also have one presentation or lecture by one of the teachers. At the end of the workshop we will have presentations in the local cinema and on about 10 plasma televisions placed around the town of Komiza.
More information:
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Theory on Demand research update
During the last two months several implementations took place at the INC. All the readers are now available both on Issuu and Scribd. The two platforms gave great results in terms of reading and downloading: since the half of June the publications were read more than 3.000 on Scribd, while more than 2.700 on Issuu. Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader, the most recent INC publication, was downloaded 58 times from Scribd.
Also, in order to adopt open standards, we began to test EPUB format. One result is the INC publications’ overview which is downloadable from our main website. Those experiments are a starting point to define the problematics of the EPUB format for non-fiction texts. Some of these reflections are reported on the Theory on Demand’s blog.
Another mean of DIY publishing was tried: the Espresso Book Machine. Employing this system, all the printing and binding operations take less than half an hour. A copy of the TOD no. 7 (Image, Time and Motion: New Media Critique from Turkey) was produced and all the process was documented in a little video.
Meanwhile, a new project called Out of Ink: Future Publishing Industries started. The project will firstly investigate the developments of the Dutch publishing houses -especially the ones involved in academic and art/design fields- considering the current digital opportunities. A website with a dedicated visual identity is under development and it will be ready in the next few weeks. It will employ open source typography and web architecture.
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Urban Screens, Interactive Public Space, research program
INC is already for years involved in Urban Screens. In 2009 it issued the the Urban Screens Reader. From early September, a collaboration will take place within the researchgroup Interactive Public Space from Mettina Veenstra. The aim of this researchproject is to create outdoor media with an added value for the public space. The role of public screens will be examined in supporting the needs and activities of individuals and organizations in public space. From INC, Sabine Niederer, Matthijs ten Berge and Denisse Iglesias will be invloved within this researchgroup. More information will available from early September on.
Sabine and Mattijs are both representatives in the Internationl Urban Screens Association.
More information:
https://networkcultures.org/urbanscreens/
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New INC Research Network: Unlike Us – Understanding Social Media Monopolies and their Alternatives | Forthcoming two events | Amsterdam and Cyprus | February 2012
The aim of this proposal is to establish a research network of artists, designers, scholars, activists and programmers who work on ‘alternatives in social media’. Through workshops, conferences, online dialogues and publications, Unlike Us intends to both analyze the economic and cultural aspects of dominant social media platforms and to propagate the further development and proliferation of alternative, decentralized social media software.
If you want to join the Unlike Us network, start your own initiatives in this field or hook up what you have already been doing for ages, subscribe to the mailinglist (see under). Traffic will be modest. Soon there will be a special page/blog for the initiative on the INC website. Also an independent social network will be installed shortly, using alternative software.
Whether or not we are in the midst of Internet bubble 2.0, we can all agree that social media dominate Internet and mobile use. The emergence of web-based user-to-user services, driven by an explosion of informal dialogues, continuous uploads, and user generated content have greatly empowered the rise of participatory culture. At the same time, monopoly power, commercialization and commodification are also on the rise with just a handful of social media platforms dominating the social Web. These two contradictory processes – the facilitation and the commercial exploitation of social relationships and communications – seem to lie at the heart of contemporary capitalism. On the one hand new media create and expand the social spaces we interact, play and even politicize ourselves through; on the other hand they are literally owned by three or four companies that potentially have phenomenal power to shape such interaction. Whereas the hegemonic Internet ideology promises open, decentralized systems, why do we, time and again, find ourselves locked into closed familiar corporate environments? Why are individual users so easily charmed by these ‘walled gardens’? Do we understand the long-term costs that society will pay for the ease of use, simple interfaces of their beloved ‘free’ services?
Forthcoming; two events in Amsterdam and Cyprus in collaboration with the Cyprus University of Technology, Lemasol.
Unlike Us is an initiative from Geert Lovink and Korinna Patelis (Cyprus University if Technology, Lemasol).
More information:
Subscribe to the Unlike Us mailingslist to discuss and stay updated:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/unlike-us_listcultures.org
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Geert Lovink’s Net critique blog
https://networkcultures.org/geert/
Institute of Network Cultures
Amsterdam New Media Research Centre