http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/zkp/notes.txt

Short Notes




from: pit@contrib.de
date: January 1996

 	 Short note#4: what is net criticism? first a kind of tension 
between two mediations of text. Even if the different platforms or 
genres we present here interfere in more than a binary sense, they 
function with 'an enemy': The future of a future we just can't 
trust, but we have to follow according to the rhetorics of 
'cyberology'. The 'Californian ideologies' of a new 'virtual class' 
functions here as something to get rid off, in text, in action, in 
attitude. The desire to not get wired in such a way is based on the 
insight that it is not the question to resist technology as a whole 
but to disrespect some ways it is used especially as a humourless 
power ideology.The following texts are collected partly from the 
internet, they protocol a potlatch culture of information exchange, 
as they are also part of a 'little practise' which tries to avoid 
the pathos of the giants, in face of immense streams of dirty data 
trash, and look sideways for examples of an art of living in the 
nets.


from :pit@contrib.de
date: december 1995
	
	Short note#3.: A Computer Aided Subjectivity should amplify not 
the processes of individualisation but the collectivation of 
conflict zones, not exporting the disturbance to the fringes of 
society or territory, or neutralizing it trough the traditional 
discourse machines. 'net criticism' could function as another way 
of dealing with the schizophrenia of capitalism, it's seducing, 
integrating and destructive forces, and newest tool, The Net. 
Beyond the dualism of the philoes and phobies, driven by 'the 
desire to not get wired in such a way' there are still some hidden 
opportunities to disturb the networks of power with pure pleasure. 
Desiring machines are not made to function. 



from:pit@contrib.de
date: december 1995

 		1995- the year of the net hype. During several conferences it 
became obvious that the good old times of internet were over. 
Califorian libertarian idealism turned into postcapitalistic 
hardcore liberalism. Main discourse formatters like Wired Mag are 
now distributing nationalistic propaganda of a 'virtual america'. 
Webvertisment fills our harddisks and visual channels, netscape 
starts to be the next microsoft. 'lessons in modesty'. 
	Following an old european tradition first there is theory and 
then there comes practise, but this time it's different. Culture, 
politics, technology, economy fall together in the global dynamics 
of an ongoing 'shift' where _The Net_ plays a uncertain role and 
external observing seems impossible. The self definition of the 
'critical intellectual' transforms. Textual theory, the concept of 
humanity, institutional based belief systems are in a crisis. 
Everthing which resists getting connected to the circulatory 
systems of info-capitalism becomes endangered. Let's define 'net 
criticism' as the desire to not get wired in such a way. It means 
that one has to find tools and methods and 'an other collective 
subjectivity' to deal with the alienating 'market forces' 
distributed via the new networks of power. Meanwhile social 
imbalance and the reactivation of reactionary believe models gets 
more popular and old systems of idendity-construction are loosing 
ground by a simple lack of efficience. The different time zones of 
the 'third wave' and third world may lead to new conflict lines. 
	The ZK proceedings of this year, were little meetings beside 
bigger meetings, parasites of cultural centralisation, where we 
tried to develop a fuzzy idea how to find a position behond 
dualism, materialism, technofetishism, dandyism... more a process 
than a product. But now, after this year of 'hype and backlash', it 
seems obvious that the big institutional machines, government, 
science, commerce and corporate culture (forget about art), 
appropriating the dynamics of the net, to make history out of it. 
 	The 'ZK proceedings 95' are a trial to write our own 'paper 
version', of course the better and more dynamic one, more 
directly bound to a deep intimacy with the net, heterogenous, 
fast, contraditionary, vague, massive, wild, and your 
contribution should be part of it.

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