<nettime> Re: An Early History of 90s Cyberculture [wark, scotartt, garrin]

["nettime's_retrospective_system" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Re: <nettime> An Early History of 90s Cyberculture
          McKenzie Wark <mw35@is6.nyu.edu>
          "scotartt" <scot@systemx.autonomous.org>
          Paul Garrin <pg@lokmail.net>

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Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 08:29:08 -0500 (EST)
From: McKenzie Wark <mw35@is6.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: <nettime> An Early History of 90s Cyberculture


It's a depressingly accurate assessment, but only if you take
for granted the premise of the early cyberculture, namely that
the tool is the thing. The tools promised so much, but then
"they" got hold of the tools and took them away from us and
made all this, all this shit, with them. But what if it isn't
about tools, or rathr isn't about investing hope always in the
latest tool the new tool. Rather, a question of looking for 
parts to put together eccentric machines, maybe made out of
some knowledge, and some love, and some paper, and some air
travel, and, yes, some email, and a web page, but also out
of talk, and maybe vodka, too. "I have to dance my way, outta
this constriction", as Bootzilla says. Maybe, for example, 
if cyber*space* is too constricted, its time to work on 
cybertime, on the archive, on the past as a resource, once
again. Too much modernism in cyberhype, whether early or
late 90s, too much faith in the tool, but also in the present,
in the conquest of the present through the tool. Maybe its
time for cyberculture's own postmodern moment, its rediscovery
of history, of irony, of dance.

k

______________________________________
McKenzie Wark  http://www.mcs.mq.edu.au/~mwark
Visiting Professor, American Studies Program, New York University
"We no longer have origins we have terminals"

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From: "scotartt" <scot@systemx.autonomous.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Re: An Early History of 90s Cyberculture
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 23:24:55 +1100


> There is a lot I agree with here, but there is also the broad way that the
> Net is following, say, early (1925-44) television in terms of corporate
> foreclosure; tv was hampered to a greater degree by channel allotment -
> miniscule compared to domain names. One might also look at the early his-
> tory of the novel; in media there's very often an early flash-point of
> self-reflexivity / conceptualism, followed by distributive (corporate,
> etc.) swamping.

The development of the Internet has a very neat prior model in radio,
moreso than television. The economic models of TV were more-or-less
standarised by radio 20 years before it; the corporate structure, frequency
allocation, 'free' to recieve, advertising, game shows, soap opera. Radio
tried various ways of organising; at first radios were sold to
'enthusiasts' - often stations where run by the company that sold the
radios; but really just as an adjunct to selling the radios. This system
slowly standardised into tunable sets with radio stations run as separate
entities. The model where the state and others might use radio to 'improve'
the population with news and education really got pushed to one side by
commercial-driven interests. Literally 'commercial' because thats the
system that got frozen into the media at that point.  Radio also had its
mystic believers, hearing ghosts and overworldly voices in the static (many
Theosophists were into this a major way). One of Sydney's still surviving
radio stations is 2GB - GB for Giodarno Bruno. Anyway TV came along and
inherited this structure adding new features with the medium's new vectors.
The nets have merged these media with the former print medium also adding
obviously and non-obviously new features. However as a medium it has I
think, undergone a very similar developmental path to radio, as it did to
the novel, as you mention. Obviously we are establishing a pattern here ...

scot.

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From: Paul Garrin <pg@lokmail.net>
Subject: Re: <nettime> An Early History of 90s Cyberculture
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 01:35:21 -0500

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While insightful in many ways, I don't agree with your
eulogy for counter culture.

Rather than romanticize and swoon in the "victim culture" and
withdraw into complacency, there is still aple opportunity for
proactive engagements and self-organization to enliven non-
commercial, progressive, or alternately commercial spaces
and content in the new mediaverse.

It's true that freedoms are being negotiated away by commercial
contracts.  The writing was on the wall for a long time.  Access
must be bought and paid for, and remains subject to the terms of a
commercial agreement.   Constitutional freedoms are not an
issue here in commercial space; there is no free speech, only
contractual terms.

Autonomy need not be "temporary", and whatever its state, 
it can not be achieved through romanticism and inaction--it
requires work, committment, strategy and risk.

The net is still the great equalizer since barriers to entry
remain low, and it's horizontal nature presents exciting
economic opportunities on all scales.  There is an economy
of scale in the "TAZ" or "post radikalville" it's just time to
organize and build, not retreat and hide, or be assimilated
into the commercial mainstream.

Without being a starry-eyed, euphoric cyberyuppie with 
a "plan" or a dazed out california ideoit on IPO steroids,
it is still possible to build economically sustainable
autonomous zones of culture, media, and freedom. It
can't be done by sitting back and complaining about it.

I thought "victim culture" was already out in the 80's.
It may be more appropriate if your obituary were for VC!

- --Paul Garrin

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