Geert Lovink Research Articles

Dialogues Carried Out in Silence: An E-mail Exchange

October 01 2008 Dialogues Carried Out in Silence: An E-mail Exchange Alexander R. Galloway, Alexander R. Galloway Alexander R. Galloway is the author of Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2006), Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization (MIT Press, 2004), and coauthor with Eugene Thacker of The Exploit: A Theory of Networks (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). He is a founding member of RSG and teaches at New York University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Geert Lovink, Geert Lovink Geert Lovink is the author of Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture (Routledge, 2007), Uncanny Networks (MIT Press, 2002), Dark Fiber (MIT Press, 2000), and My First Recession (V2, 2003). He has worked with Adilkno and is the former editor of Mediamatic. He is founder of the Institute of Network Cultures and teaches at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Eugene Thacker Eugene Thacker Eugene Thacker is the author of Biomedia (University of Minnesota Press, 2004), The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture (MIT Press, 2005), and coauthor with Alexander Galloway of The Exploit: A Theory of Networks (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). He has collaborated with Biotech Hobbyist and teaches at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Alexander R. Galloway Alexander R. Galloway is the author of Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2006), Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization (MIT Press, 2004), and coauthor with Eugene Thacker of The Exploit: A Theory of Networks (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). He is a founding member of RSG and teaches at New York University. Geert Lovink Geert Lovink is the author of Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture (Routledge, 2007), Uncanny Networks (MIT Press, 2002), Dark Fiber (MIT Press, 2000), and My First Recession (V2, 2003). He has worked with Adilkno and is the former editor of Mediamatic. He is founder of the Institute of Network Cultures and teaches at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Eugene Thacker Eugene Thacker is the author of Biomedia (University of Minnesota Press, 2004), The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture (MIT Press, 2005), and coauthor with Alexander Galloway of The Exploit: A Theory of Networks (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). He has collaborated with Biotech Hobbyist and teaches at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Online Issn: 1536-0105 Print Issn: 1526-3819 © 2008 by Grey Room, Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.2008 Grey Room (2008) (33): 96–112. https://doi.org/10.1162/grey.2008.1.33.96 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Alexander R. Galloway, Geert Lovink, Eugene Thacker; Dialogues Carried Out in Silence: An E-mail Exchange. Grey Room 2008; (33): 96–112. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/grey.2008.1.33.96 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAll JournalsGrey Room Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2008 by Grey Room, Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.2008 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software (review)

Reviewed by: Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software Michael Truscello (bio) Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software by Matthew FullerAutonomedia, 2003 Matthew Fuller's Behind The Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software is essential reading for anyone interested in the application of cultural theory to the study of software. At times uneven, and occasionally with object texts that are somewhat dated, Behind The Blip still manages to condense a surprising number of insights into 165 pages. Fuller plies his trade in the emerging field of "software studies," an unaffiliated, interdisciplinary cadre of academics, net artists, and activists. The focus of Fuller's text, like the focus of much cultural theory concerned with software, is the conglomeration of people and artifacts around software, that is, not the way software is received by users, based on its functionality, but the reciprocal relationship between the production of software and its reception, and the modes of becoming that intersect therein. Software is more than just a programmable tool: it is a materialization of disparate modalities, a conjunction of multiple and heterogeneous processes and discourses, an "assemblage," to use the term Fuller borrows from Deleuze and Guattari. Much as Howard Rheingold suggests in Smart Mobs the next "killer app" might not be a technical innovation but social practices, the next flashpoint for cultural studies may be the culture of software. Characterized by the work of Fuller, Geert Lovink, and Lev Manovich, software studies is an evolving interdisciplinary field with antecedents in human-computer interaction (Donald A. Norman), sociology (Manuel Castells, Steve Woolgar), law (Lawrence Lessig), literary theory (N. Katherine Hayles), literature (Neal Stephenson, Ellen Ullman), and media theory (Friedrich Kittler). Software studies theorizes the "turn to computer science" in everyday life by examining [End Page 182] the "new terms, categories, and operations that characterize media that became programmable" (Manovich, 48). Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, assistant professor of English and digital studies at the University of Maryland, blogs: Software studies is what media theory becomes after the bubble bursts. . . . Software studies is, or can be, the work of fashioning documentary methods for recognizing and recovering digital histories, and the cultivation of the critical discipline to parse those histories against the material matrix of the present. Kirschenbaum's sense that the historicization of digital objects begins with the bursting of the "bubble" in media theory—that is, with the concomitant divestiture of naive media-theory utopianism and overvalued technology stocks—shares an affinity with Lovink's call to "liberate the Internet from its engineering history" (10). Both Kirschenbaum and Lovink, among others, want to inject history and culture into the debate over the production of software and its materiality, a debate that thus far has focused on reception. And both theorists express a feeling of critical sobriety in the wake of dotcom mania: "What happens," asks Lovink, "when the party is over, when you run up against the borders of commonly used software standards and group dynamics, when the cyber-spectacle fades away and the everyday, with its dirty politics, takes command?" (29). The dotbomb crash may symbolize the growing familiarity of digital objects: no longer objects of fetish, they are becoming invisible and routine. This transitional moment, from unknown to unnoticed, marks the emergence of software studies. Manovich, Lovink, and Fuller have produced accounts of the culture of software with widely varying methodologies: Manovich's formalist approach in The Language of New Media identifies the principles of a culture that has become programmable through decades of "transcoding" and attempts to create a media archaeology that posits the origins of the contemporary computer interface in the visual culture of modernism; Lovink's project in My First Recession is driven by a post-Marxist notion of "the political" and investigates "possibilities for advancing the social 'settings' within software and network architectures in order to experiment with a pluriform and agonistic 'post-geek' form of hegemony" (24); and Fuller's exploration of software [End Page 183] culture employs Deleuze and Guattari to imagine a "digital subjectivity" (28) that interrogates a "dimension of relationality rather than of territoriality" in the "implicit politics" of software (31). To interrogate the "implicit politics" of software, Fuller proposes...

Talking Race and Cyberspace: An Interview with Lisa Nakamura

Talking Race and Cyberspace:An Interview with Lisa Nakamura Lisa Nakamura (bio) and Geert Lovink (bio) I met Internet scholar Lisa Nakamura at a conference held in Oslo in late 2001, where she showed how techno-utopian dreams reproduced racist patterns. Her analysis was shockingly normal because it once again proved how "the old" gets teleported into the new in a friction-free manner. Nakamura's work shows how the Internet, despite all its claims to the alternative, remains a part of dominant visual culture. This flirting with fluid identities, so common in the roaring nineties, distracted Internet advocates from further investigations, a pattern that has, of course, changed over the past years. A number of conferences have been held, studies have been written and published, and Lisa Nakamura's work stands out within the emerging field of new media studies. I conducted the following e-mail interview after Lisa and I got involved in a debate about the merits of "Internet research." Geert Lovink: Let's start our dialogue with a thesis. If the Internet, in terms of acceptance and user cultures, has reached its phase of "normalization," the logical consequence is that the Net is as racist as the society it stems from. Is there any evidence that this is the case? What do you think of such a "mirror" theory? In your book Cybertypes, you speak of a cyberspace that needs to examine its roots in society. Lisa Nakamura: Certainly the Net is as racist as the societies that it stems from. How could this not be true? Is it not true of all other media forms, including literature, film, and television? Why should the Internet be different? I do, however, think that the Internet does more than "mirror" ideology from the culture at large; distinctive aspects of the Internet as a communication technology are lacking in other media, and its interfaces do as much to create particular kinds of identities as the Internet does to reflect them. I don't think that Cybertypes was the first book to say that cyberspace needs [End Page 60] to examine its roots in society. The second wave of post-utopian backlash, like Sandy Stone's work, did that. I think that it tried to say that the Internet's interfaces made some identity choices unavailable, some unavoidable, and otherwise served to police and limit the kinds of ways that people could define themselves. The Internet hails its audiences in the same ways that texts have intended readers, that films and television shows have intended audiences, and that made environments are intended for particular users. And in its earlier stages the Internet was not hailing people of color; it assumed a normative white user and in fact often still does. GL: Could you tell us where Internet "race" research stands at the moment? I remember that at some point two large U.S. conferences took place. However, as you previously noted, "digital divide" statistics are changing, both within the United States and elsewhere. Asian-Americans can perhaps no longer be classified as disadvantaged. Without much notice, the Chinese have become the second biggest user group, after the Americans. The majority of content on the Net is no longer in English. Nevertheless, certain power relations remain and new inequalities are created. LN: The two events that you refer to are the "Race in Digital Space" conferences, which are cosponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California. These conferences are fantastic, but they are not yet established in the way that other discipline-oriented conferences are. I agree with you about certain power relations—such as institutionalized racism—remaining and new inequalities being created. I think that two of the most striking new inequalities are the division between broadband and dial-up users and the way that some people, such as Asian Americans, who seem to be privileged users of the Internet, are being targeted as markets for Web-based commerce rather than as communities who can organize themselves to get things done. So being on the Internet is not in and of itself an unmitigated good. GL: How do groups like the Association for Internet Research...

Geert Lovink: Uncanny Networks: Dialogs with the Virtual Intelligentsia

Geert Lovink: Uncanny Networks: Dialogs with the Virtual Intelligentsia

Dialectics of a Digital Present

A review of: Brown, Hugh, Geert Lovink, Helen Merrick, Ned Rossiter, David Teh, and Michele Willson, eds. 2002. Politics of a Digital Present: An Inventory of Australian Net Culture, Criticism, and Theory. Sydney: Fibreculture Publications.

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Creative Industries and the Limits of Critique from

Creative Industries and the Limits of Critique from

Voiceover

Essay| August 01 2002 Voiceover Trebor Scholz, Trebor Scholz Trebor Scholzis an East-Berlin-born, Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist and curator who studied at the Whitney Independent Study Program. He exhibits, lectures and curates widely in Europe and the Americas. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Geert Lovink, Geert Lovink Geert Lovinkis a Dutch media theorist and Internet critic, based in Sydney, Australia. He is co-founder of numerous Internet projects, amongst the community server The Digital City and the nettime mailinglist. In 2002 The MIT Press will publish Dark Fiber, his collected essays on Internet culture, and Uncanny Network, interviews with media theorists and artists. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Josephine Bosma Josephine Bosma Josephine Bosmais a critic and journalist in the field of art and new media. She has written and lectured about streaming media, net art and new media cultures. In 2001 she initiated the newsletter on net art criticism Cream, www.laudanum.net/cream Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2002) 30 (1): 20. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2002.30.1.20 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Trebor Scholz, Geert Lovink, Josephine Bosma; Voiceover. Afterimage 1 August 2002; 30 (1): 20. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2002.30.1.20 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAfterimage Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2002 by The Regents of the University of California2002 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

M/C Event: Directions for Cyberculture in the New Economy

An M/C Event held in the Conference Room of the University of Queensland Library on 12 May 2000 The early, mythological phase of digital culture is now rapidly running out of its utopian energies. Law and order are taking command over the last pockets of digital wilderness. The taming of the cyberculture by "click 'n mortar" businesses and their willing government executors took only a few years. The time of institutionalization, mega mergers and security paranoia has arrived. These new conditions, driven by the current hyper-growth, have an as yet invisible effect on the cultural new media sector (arts, design, education), which had perceived itself for so long as "ahead of the wave". To prevent Internet from turning into a nightmare (from which it then has to awake), neither the utopian vision has to be eliminated, nor do we need to withdraw to the apocalyptic pole, which states that the world and its network will collapse anyhow -- with or without our interference. The conflict between utopia and negativism needs to be played out. The deeper we are drawn into the Virtual, the more there is a need to stage its inherent paradoxes and contradictions. But how ? The recordings from this event are available in RealAudio and Windows Media streaming audio formats. "Directions for Cyberculture in the New Economy" Geert Lovink, Media Scholar and Activist Responses by Greg Hearn and David Marshall M/C Event University of Queensland 12 May 2000 Introduction and Acknowledgements Axel Bruns 28k 56k 28k 56k "Directions for Cyberculture in the New Economy" Geert Lovink 28k 56k 28k 56k First Response Greg Hearn 28k 56k 28k 56k Second Response David Marshall 28k 56k 28k 56k Reply to Respondents Geert Lovink 28k 56k 28k 56k Audience Questions & Answers - Part 1 Geert Lovink Greg Hearn David Marshall 28k 56k 28k 56k Audience Questions & Answers - Part 2 Geert Lovink Greg Hearn David Marshall 28k 56k 28k 56k Acknowledgements Geert Lovink visited Brisbane as a participant in Alchemy, an International Masterclass for New Media Artists and Curators, which was organised by the Australian Network for Art and Technology in association with the Brisbane Powerhouse - Centre for the Live Arts from 8 May to 9 June 2000. M/C and the Media and Cultural Studies Centre are highly grateful to ANAT and Geert Lovink as well as the Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy for making this event possible. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Geert Lovink, with Greg Hearn and David Marshall. "Directions for Cyberculture in the New Economy." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.3 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0006/cyberculture.php>. Chicago style: Geert Lovink, with Greg Hearn and David Marshall, "Directions for Cyberculture in the New Economy," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 3 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0006/cyberculture.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Geert Lovink, with Greg Hearn and David Marshall. (2000) Directions for cyberculture in the new economy. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(3). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0006/cyberculture.php> ([your date of access]).

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Digital constructivism: What is European software? An exchange between Lev Manovich and Geert Lovink

Digital constructivism: What is European software? An exchange between Lev Manovich and Geert Lovink