In times of rapid growth of new media as an economic factor, the danger of creating a stagnating cultural ghetto is immediate. The aim of Tulipomania was not to express “Schadensfreude” towards all those who gambled – and lost, nor to mobilize resentment towards the steadily growing number of Internet millionaires. The conference was neither organised to call for state-lead interventionism against the monopolizing tendencies of the narrow ‘winner-takes-all’ business model promoted through the DotCom hype. There is enough (self)confidence to leave these easy anxieties aside and appeal to a much more powerful, temporary, networked collaborative imagination. Technical skills are no longer enough. Unlike perhaps five or ten years ago, we need a firm, broad, critical, compassionate knowledge of the Internet economy, one in which analysis opens a multitude of possibilities for involvement.
Published July, 2000.
Tulipomania Editorial Team:
Ted Byfield (New York), Menno Hurenkamp (De Balie), Andreas Kallfelz (Frankfurt), Eric Kluitenberg (De Balie), Geert Lovink
Advisory Board:
David Hudson (Berlin), Michael van Eden (Amsterdam), David Mandl (New York), Korinna Patelis (Athens), Patrice Riemens (Amsterdam), Felix Stalder (Toronto)
Colophon: Editors: Geert Lovink and Eric Kluitenberg. Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2000.