Date/Time
Date(s) - 24/06/2026 - 26/06/2026
All Day
Location
OT301
Categories
This is the announcement of the two+ day conference plus party to celebrate the departure of our 22 year-old centre from the HvA polytech to become an autonomous centre/NGO/orgnet/cultural organization. The move was instigated by the (forced) retirement at 67 on September 1, 2026, of its founder, Geert Lovink. Instead of running the (real) risk of being taken over by outsiders with a radically different agenda, facing more budget cuts, forced to work on AI ethics etc. which will would take our precious legacy in an unwanted direction, the team decided to ‘transition’ into an open, yet uncertain, future in which will look for new partners and coalitions/funding to continue our ever-changing critical research and speculative experimentation in the field of platform critique and critical network cultures.
On June 24/25/26, 2026, we will gather in the former Amsterdam squat OT 301 for a two day conference plus additional programs such as a book fair, a closing party on Friday night. This is a zero version draft of the program:
Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 20.00-21.30 SPUI25
University of Amsterdam event, organized by Marc Tuters a.o., Mediastudies,
Neither Good, Nor Bad, Nor Neutral: Power, Participation and Critique in Media Environments
With: Ned Rossiter, Tiziana Terranova, Yuk Hui and Anna-Verena Nosthoff. Chair: Michael Dieter (all confirmed). Coordination by August Sundgaard
Media have always shaped social life. What feels different today is how total, inescapable, and corporately owned media environments have become. Public life increasingly unfolds inside systems designed for the capture of attention, data, and participation. Starting from the claim that media are neither good nor bad, nor neutral, this panel asks a hard question: what does critique mean when there is no outside to media? How do publics form, conflicts unfold, and political action remain possible when the conditions of participation are set by private infrastructures?
These questions are especially pressing in a European context, where new forms of democratic oversight and regulation are being debated as responses to platform power. At the same time, trust in institutions and expertise is eroding — including trust in experts themselves. The thinkers brought together here operate deliberately in para-academic spaces, at the edges of academia where theory, critique, and public engagement intersect. Together, they confront what it means to live, act, and think inside media environments that increasingly define the conditions of collective life, and ask what kinds of trust, critique, and democratic imagination remain possible under such conditions.
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Day 1
Thursday, June 25, 2026, OT301
10.00 – 10.15 Introduction
10.15-12.30 (Studio) Central opening session: Mapping the Current Net Culture Condition
12.30-13:30 Lunch
13.30-15.00 (Studio) Parallel session 1: Expanded Publishing and Future Formats
13.30 – 15.00 (Cinema) Parallel Session 2: Open Mic / Soap Box
15.15-16.45 (Studio) Parallel Session 3: On MoneyLab and Precarity in the Arts
15.15-16.45 (Cinema) Parallel session 4: From VideoVortex to Stream Art Network.
16.45-17:15 Tea break
17.15-18.45 (Studio) INC Plenary Assembly – Future of INC – Activating the INC living archive? About the future of INC, open to members of the Society for Network Cultures and others.
19.00-21.15 dinner (open end)
Day 2
Friday June 26, 2026, OT301
10.00-12.30 (Studio) Central Session 1: Tactical Media Activism
12:30-13:30 Lunch
13.30-15.00 (Studio) Central sesson 2: Unlike Us/Social Media Blues.
15.15-17.00 (Studio) Central Session 3: Internet Core, Understanding Gen Z Aesthetics
17.15-19:00 (Studio) INC Updates Event: Looking forward at the end
13.00-20.30: Cinema closed due to tech build up for performance
—- Dinner Break
20.30-22.30 THE VOID live streaming performances
23.00-03.00 INC Party with DJs and memes/videos
Also: book fair on Friday night
Plus: book launches
Extra: free USB stick for all vistors of the INC Exit Fest with all INC content, including pdfs, photos, audio files, postings on the website, plus bonus arts & humanities goodies,
We will announce more details about speakers and topics of the sessions here soon. Most of it will be central but there will be some parallel sessions as well. The idea is not to look back. We want to address a variety of urgent topics, related to current and future work. Some of our close friends from abroad have already announced their participation. Please contact us at info@networkcultures.org if you want to come and have ideas for the program.