From trebor at thing.net Thu Jun 4 15:46:15 2009 From: trebor at thing.net (Trebor Scholz) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:46:15 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: Dear all, What follows is my introduction to the conference "The Internet as Playground and Factory," which will take place November 12-14 at the New School University in NYC. Over the next few months this list will serve as one of the places for discussion in preparation for the event and some of the exchanges that we had on the iDC over the past few years are highly relevant to this debate. These include: Social information overload/time http://is.gd/OaFq User labor http://is.gd/OaqD "Creative labor" http://is.gd/Oaue Labor and value http://is.gd/Oav5 Fan labor http://is.gd/Oaxg Immaterial labor http://is.gd/OayA Enculturation http://is.gd/OaA1 Virtual worlds, education, and labor http://is.gd/OaAI I hope that you'll join this discussion. == The Internet as Playground and Factory -- Introduction Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in economy, labor, and life related to digital media. The purpose of this conference is to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, consumption, and production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to establish commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. Currently, communities that were previously sustained through national newspapers now started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease, tag, detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of their labor, corporations expropriate value. Guests in the virtual world Second Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then consume. What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of digital sociality that it brings into being? What are we doing to ourselves? Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users create and add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. They leave behind innumerable traces that speak to their interests, affiliations, likes and dislikes, and desires. Large corporations then profit from this interaction by collecting and selling this data. Social participation is the oil of the digital economy. Today, communication is a mode of social production facilitated by new capitalist imperatives and it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between play, consumption and production, life and work, labor and non-labor. The revenues of today's social aggregators are promising but their speculative value exceeds billions of dollars. Capital manages to expropriate value from the commons; labor goes beyond the factory, all of society is put to work. Every aspect of life drives the digital economy: sexual desire, boredom, friendship ? and all becomes fodder for speculative profit. We are living in a total labor society and the way in which we are commoditized, racialized, and engendered is profoundly and disturbingly normalized. The complex and troubling set of circumstances we now confront includes the collapse of the conventional opposition between waged and unwaged labor, and is characterized by multiple ?tradeoffs? and ?social costs??such as government and corporate surveillance. While individual instances are certainly exploitative in the most overt sense, the shift in the overall paradigm moves us beyond the explanatory power of the Marxian interpretation of exploitation (which is of limited use here). Free Software and similar practices have provided important alternatives to and critiques of traditional modes of intellectual property to date but user agency is not just a question of content ownership. Users should demand data portability, the right to pack up and leave the walled gardens of institutionalized labor ? la Facebook or StudiVZ. We should ask which rights users have beyond their roles as consumers and citizens. Activists in Egypt have poached Facebook's platform to get their political message out and to organize protests. Google's Image Labeler transforms people?s endless desire for entertainment into work for the company. How much should Google pay them to tag an image? Such payment could easily become more of an insult than a remuneration. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that fit the complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. This conference confronts the urgent need to interrogate what constitutes labor and value in the digital economy and it seeks to inspire proposals for action. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that fit the complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. The Internet as Playground and Factory poses a series of questions about the conundrums surrounding labor (and often the labor of love) in relation to our digital present: Is it possible to acknowledge the moments of ruthless exploitation while not eradicating optimism, inspiration, and the many instances of individual financial and political empowerment? What is labor and where is value produced? Are strategies of refusal an effective response to the expropriation of value from interacting users? How is the global crisis of capitalism linked to the speculative performances of the digital economy? What can we learn from the ?cyber sweatshops? class-action lawsuit against AOL under the Fair Labor Standards Act in the early 1990s? How does this invisible interaction labor affect our bodies? What were key steps in the history of interaction design that managed to mobilize and structure the social participation of bodies and psyches in order to capture value? Most interaction labor, regardless whether it is driven by monetary motivations or not, is taking place on corporate platforms. Where does that leave hopeful projections of a future of non-market peer production? Are transnational unionization or other forms of self-organization workable acts of resistance for what several authors have called the ?virtual proletariat?? Are we witnessing a new friction-free imperialism that allows capital to profit from the unpaid interaction labor of millions of happy volunteers who also help each other? How can we turn these debates into politics? How does the ideology of Web 2.0 work to deflate some of the more radical possibilities of new social media? How can we maintain and enforce the rights to our own gestures, our attention, our content, and our emotional labor? In the near future, where can we, personally, enter political processes that have an impact on these issues? -Trebor Scholz http://digtallabor.org From clk267 at nyu.edu Thu Jun 4 17:10:47 2009 From: clk267 at nyu.edu (Carolyn Kane) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:10:47 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Introduction to elist Message-ID: <5aa8c9840906041010j304372calffde46c76ddfcd2a@mail.gmail.com> Hi All, I wanted to introduce myself to the list: I am a a PhD Candidate in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University where I am currently writing my dissertation on ?Synthetic Color: Electronic Signal Processing & The Reconfiguration of Perception at the End of the Twentieth Century.? My research fields include Critical Theory, Aesthetics, Continental Philosophy, Color Theory, and New Media. For further information please visit the NYU link below. Regards, Carolyn -- Carolyn Lee Kane PhD Candidate Media, Culture, and Communication 239 Greene St. 7th Floor New York University clk267 at nyu.edu https://files.nyu.edu/clk267/public/ Curatorial Fellow Rhizome at the New Museum 235 Bowery New York, NY 10002 carolyn.kane at rhizome.org http://www.rhizome.org From frank.pasquale at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 22:48:42 2009 From: frank.pasquale at gmail.com (Frank Pasquale) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 18:48:42 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7952bc610906051548t455aeadana1348b290b38f9af@mail.gmail.com> Hi List, I?m a law professor (presently visiting at Yale, with a home base at Seton Hall). I am looking forward to the conference.? I want to respond to this question: "Most interaction labor, regardless whether it is driven by monetary motivations or not, is taking place on corporate platforms. Where does that leave hopeful projections of a future of non-market peer production?" We all ?pay attention? (literally and figuratively) at monolithic sites like Google, Facebook, and eBay. ?Promoters of those companies say that our ?return? for that activity is finding sites, staying in touch with friends, finding bargains, etc.? They convert our attention into cash from advertisers and sellers.? Some questions I like to ask are: 1) Is the amount of control and cash the operators of the sites get commensurate with their own contributions to the site?s order and maintenance? 2)?How much of the site?s success is due to its owners? innovative genius?and how much is owed to the activities of users?? For example, when a user thinks of a really good Google search query, has the user ?co-authored? the results that come up??? Not under current copyright law, but there?s a moral case there. Similarly, Google?s supremacy in search may largely be due to its dataset of how people responded to past searches.? If its secret methods of ranking webpages are largely built on analysis of users? actions, don?t users deserve some credit as co-creators?? Or, more plausibly, isn?t the company acting less as a provider of services and more like a cultural voting machine?counting votes as to what?s the ?winner? for billions of search queries?? If so, should there be more accountability?? The German constitutional court recently embraced the principle that vote-counting has to be understood by all. 3)???Maybe it?s inevitable that there would be one dominant search engine, or social network.? David Grewal?s fundamental insight (in the book Network Power) is that the ?individual choice? celebrated in markets (and many other settings) is often simultaneously both ?forced and free.?? For example, ?[T]he network power of English isn?t the result of any intrinsic features of English (for example, ?it?s easy to learn?): it?s purely a result of the number of other people and other networks you can use it to reach.?? Might the same be said of Facebook, eBay, or Google?? If so, what are the implications for their governance or regulation? Some say that platforms like Google and Facebook were always inevitable, and those companies just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Alperovitz & Daly's new book makes this argument generally (at http://www.americabeyondcapitalism.com/UnjustDeserts.html) They ask: "Why should only a tiny fraction of our citizens keep most of the money made off [our technical and cultural] heritage if, in fact, it is [our] common background that gave them their success?" As one reviewer puts it, "Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly [propose] a new way of looking at great wealth. It is not the primary product of luck, they say, nor is it the child of skill. Rather, it is society that allows individuals to achieve great things and earn such magnificent rewards." They give several examples of laureled "innovators" who in fact barely advanced tech beyond other, less celebrated, figures. Both Microsoft Word and the ISO 9000 standards gained power in a self-reinforcing way; as more people adopted them, others anticipated their further adoption and ?fell into line? in promoting the standards. Grewal worries that ?privately owned technological standards not only [threaten] the freedom of users to choose the best standards for their needs . . . [but also result in] . . .a great deal of power [being] handed over to the private owner of that standard.? I have the same worries about the corporate platforms on which much Web 2.0 labor is being conducted. Anyway, I try to provide some commentary on these questions in some blog posts and articles.? I?ll append them after my signature for anyone interested. All best, --Frank PS: For more of my thoughts on the topic, see: Is Web 2.0 an Engine of Inequality?, at http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/03/is_the_new_econ.html Federal Search Commission? (authored with Oren Bracha): http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1002453 Network Power, Forced and Free: http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/05/network_power_f.html#more-11633 Is MySpace Exploiting You?, at http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/04/is_myspace_expl.html Beyond Innovation and Competition: The Case for Transparency at Internet Intermediaries (available on request) On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Trebor Scholz wrote: > > Dear all, > > What follows is my introduction to the conference > "The Internet as Playground and Factory," which will take place > November 12-14 at the New School University in NYC. > > Over the next few months this list will serve as one of the places for > discussion in preparation for the event and some of the exchanges that we > had on the iDC over the past few years are highly relevant to this debate. > > These include: > Social information overload/time http://is.gd/OaFq > User labor http://is.gd/OaqD > "Creative labor" http://is.gd/Oaue > Labor and value http://is.gd/Oav5 > Fan labor http://is.gd/Oaxg > Immaterial labor http://is.gd/OayA > Enculturation ?http://is.gd/OaA1 > Virtual worlds, education, and labor http://is.gd/OaAI > > I hope that you'll join this discussion. > > == > The Internet as Playground and Factory > -- Introduction > Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in economy, > labor, and life related to digital media. The purpose of this conference is > to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, consumption, and > production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to establish > commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. Currently, > communities that were previously sustained through national newspapers now > started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind > televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their > computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease, tag, > detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of their > labor, corporations expropriate value. Guests in the virtual world Second > Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then consume. > What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of digital > sociality that it brings into being? ?What are we doing to ourselves? > > Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users create and > add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. They leave > behind innumerable traces that speak to their interests, affiliations, likes > and dislikes, and desires. Large corporations then profit from this > interaction by collecting and selling this data. ?Social participation is > the oil of the digital economy. Today, communication is a mode of social > production facilitated by new capitalist imperatives and it has become > increasingly difficult to distinguish between play, consumption and > production, life and work, labor and non-labor. > > The revenues of today's social aggregators are promising but their > speculative value exceeds billions of dollars. Capital manages to > expropriate value from the commons; labor goes beyond the factory, all of > society is put to work. Every aspect of life drives the digital economy: > sexual desire, boredom, friendship ? and all becomes fodder for speculative > profit. We are living in a total labor society and the way in which we are > commoditized, racialized, and engendered is profoundly and disturbingly > normalized. The complex and troubling set of circumstances we now confront > includes the collapse of the conventional opposition between waged and > unwaged labor, and is characterized by multiple ?tradeoffs? and ?social > costs??such as government and corporate surveillance. While individual > instances are certainly exploitative in the most overt sense, the shift in > the overall paradigm moves us beyond the explanatory power of the Marxian > interpretation of exploitation (which is of limited use here). > > Free Software and similar practices have provided important alternatives to > and critiques of traditional modes of intellectual property to date but user > agency is not just a question of content ownership. Users should demand data > portability, the right to pack up and leave the walled gardens of > institutionalized labor ? la Facebook or StudiVZ. We should ask which rights > users have beyond their roles as consumers and citizens. Activists in Egypt > have poached Facebook's platform to get their political message out and to > organize protests. Google's Image Labeler transforms people?s endless desire > for entertainment into work for the company. How much should Google pay them > to tag an image? Such payment could easily become more of an insult than a > remuneration. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that > fit the complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. > > This conference confronts the urgent need to interrogate what constitutes > labor and value in the digital economy and it seeks to inspire proposals for > action. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that fit the > complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. The Internet as Playground > and Factory poses a series of questions about the conundrums surrounding > labor (and often the labor of love) in relation to our digital present: > > Is it possible to acknowledge the moments of ruthless exploitation while not > eradicating optimism, inspiration, and the many instances of individual > financial and political empowerment? > > What is labor and where is value produced? > > Are strategies of refusal an effective response to the expropriation of > value from interacting users? > > How is the global crisis of capitalism linked to the speculative > performances of the digital economy? > > What can we learn from the ?cyber sweatshops? class-action lawsuit against > AOL under the Fair Labor Standards Act in the early 1990s? > > How does this invisible interaction labor affect our bodies? What were key > steps in the history of interaction design that managed to mobilize and > structure the social participation of bodies and psyches in order to capture > value? > > Most interaction labor, regardless whether it is driven by monetary > motivations or not, is taking place on corporate platforms. Where does that > leave hopeful projections of a future of non-market peer production? > > Are transnational unionization or other forms of self-organization workable > acts of resistance for what several authors have called the ?virtual > proletariat?? > > Are we witnessing a new friction-free imperialism that allows capital to > profit from the unpaid interaction labor of millions of happy volunteers who > also help each other? How can we turn these debates into politics? > > How does the ideology of Web 2.0 work to deflate some of the more radical > possibilities of new social media? > > How can we maintain and enforce the rights to our own gestures, our > attention, our content, and our emotional labor? In the near future, where > can we, personally, enter political processes that have an impact on these > issues? > > -Trebor Scholz > http://digtallabor.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From howard at rheingold.com Fri Jun 5 21:11:26 2009 From: howard at rheingold.com (Howard Rheingold) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 14:11:26 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Introduction re: "The Internet as Playground and Factory" Message-ID: Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and "Smart Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com . I teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital Journalism" at Stanford. I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr. It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a place where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look closely at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long as I can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means that I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have to testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives away search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, the cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and other paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for any question in seconds. How many times a day were YOU exploited by searching for something without paying a charge for the service? Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on who is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I would never argue that people should refrain from witholding their labor, if that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read "What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for free." Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com http://twitter.com/hrheingold http://www.rheingold.com http://www.smartmobs.com http://vlog.rheingold.com what it is ---> is --->up to us From rmitch at duke.edu Sat Jun 6 12:25:41 2009 From: rmitch at duke.edu (Rob Mitchell) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 07:25:41 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Introduction re: "The Internet as Playground and Factory" Message-ID: <4A2A6045.1020904@duke.edu> Hi all - Trebor has also asked me to introduce myself: While my day job is as a literary criticism of Romanticism, I've also been working for some time on the more contemporary topic of the relationship between information technologies and the human body. Relevant to that topic, I am co-author (along with Catherine Waldby) of _Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs, and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism (Duke UP, 2006); co-author (along with Helen Burgess and Phillip Thurtle) of an interactive DVD-ROM entitled _Biofutures: Information and the Human Body_ (U Penn Press, 2008); and co-editor (along with Phillip Thurtle) of _Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information_ (Routledge, 2004). Re: the conference, I'm interested in the ways in which both web-based genomic and medical resources, as well as more "private" medical databases (e.g., electronic patient records) are being used--or at least, set up to be used--in order to create economic value from what Waldby and Cooper have described as "clinical labor": i.e., one goes into a clinic for some particular medical need, but ends up also contributing information to databases that are then used to create economic value for for-profit medical groups. (The dynamic is essentially the same as what happens on Amazon; through grocery store scanners; etc.) Though this example is less oriented toward the entertainment and/or participatory democracy uses that one often associates with digital labor, it also highlights in particularly concrete fashion the embodied effects of many of these practices. Best, Rob Robert Mitchell, Associate Professor Department of English, Box 90015 Duke University Durham, NC 27708 rmitch at duke.edu 919-668-2547 http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/English/faculty/rmitch From trebor at thing.net Sat Jun 6 14:27:11 2009 From: trebor at thing.net (Trebor Scholz) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:27:11 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introductions Message-ID: Thanks for your introductions, Frank, Howard, and Rob. Frank Pascale asks if the amount of control and cash that the operators get is commensurate with their own contributions to the site?s order and maintenance? This mutually beneficial tradeoff is not merely an exchange between pleasure or social utility and profit. When millions of people are concentrated in one experiential nexus, then the potential for control is vast and not unrelated to the ideological effects of cinema. The 'free service' comes at a price that goes beyond our conscious or involuntary 'cyber service' and the social cost of corporate and governmental surveillance. In a sense, we are paying with our life by committing ourselves, our navigational tracks, our bodies, our relationships, our time, our knowledge, our attention, and affect. What are we doing to ourselves? The most important thing to understand is that the goal for any for-profit organization is to earn a profit. Despite the tension between continuous speculation and actual revenues the operators that we discussed are profitable and a quick look at the numbers shows that: Facebook hopes to make $300 million this year but its speculative value is at least $10 billion. In 2006, MySpace?s annual operating budget was $40 million. In 2008 alone, the company made more than $700 million from advertising. Howard Rheingold suggests that it is time to closely look at the way profit motives have made available useful public goods. Sure, most of the 'interaction labor' that is performed online is mutually beneficial for users and service providers. I think of it as a triadic mix of self-interest, network value, and corporate profit. Then there are the black swans, the exceptions, where corporate profit does not come into the picture (i.e., Wikipedia, SETI at Home, etc). And finally, there absolutely are fairly isolated examples of clear cut exploitation in the most technical sense!! Trebor = Trebor Scholz New School University November 12-14 http://www.digitallabor.org/ Twitter hash tag #lc09 From tterra at fastwebnet.it Sat Jun 6 15:13:35 2009 From: tterra at fastwebnet.it (tiziana) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:13:35 +0200 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2A879F.3080602@fastwebnet.it> Dear all, Trebor has kindly invited me to launch the discussion. Unfortunately, it has been a bit of bad timing, since I will have to be off email for a few days. Still, I will be back online by next friday and maybe I could still contribute by starting this discussion and picking it up again when I re-connect. The reason why Trebor has invited me to this discussion is an essay I published in 2000 in Social Text, called 'Free Labor: producing culture for the digital economy' (http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/social_text/v018/18.2terranova.html). The essay was the main output of a two-year research project into the 'future of the internet' sponsored by the research programme 'The Virtual Society? (economic and social research council, UK). The essay was written in the years 1998/1999 and argued that one of the most powerful lines of future development of the Internet was the increasingly reliance by commercial and noncommercial actors on the 'free labor' of users to provide the content and even the software which keeps the Internet a lively and vibrant reality. Free labor had also a theoretical argument that was based on the work of Italian post-workerist Marxists. The reason for choosing a Marxist perspective was the conviction that the 'economy' cannot be reduced to the interaction of free economic agents, that there exists an a-symmetry, that is a political relation, between those who perform the actual labor (workers) and those who pay for it and make a profit out of it (capitalists). Furthermore, I agree with Marxists when they claim that the process of accumulation of capital is not the automatic and beneficial result of the entrepreneur's activity, but a constitutive part of economic processes in societies that perpetuate and increase various kinds of inequalities and injustices. The interest of post-workerist theorists was that unlike much orthodox Marxist economic theory they did not see the evolution of capitalist economies as an endless ripetition of the same old mechanisms of exploitation, inevitably resulting in the ultimate crisis of capital and correlate triumph of socialism. On the contrary, they argued that it was the desire of living labor to free itself from the command of capital and to re-appropriate the social wealth that it produced that drove processes of economic re-invention. In this sense, the process by which the 'new economy' corporate actors started to increasingly rely on the free labor of users is the answer of capitalist organization to the desire of such labor for producing and sharing those products of the cultural economy which they had mainly consumed in the 'broadcasting' model. The essay is quite old now, considering all that has happened since, but also in the light of the subsequent popularity of post-workerist theorists and new publications in the field. As trebor rightly argued, the whole notion of 'labor', but also of that classic marxist category such as 'exploitation' needs some rethinking. Taking for granted that the contribution of users to the web 2.0 is productive of social wealth, common culture and monetary value, what are the reason for hanging on to the notion of 'labor' to describe such activity? One of the authors I followed in writing the essay, Maurizio Lazzarato, has since produced some very interesting critique of the concept of 'labor' in classical, neoclassical and Marxist political economy, arguing that the term carry the connotation of the division of labor of fordist work (Adam Smith's pin factory), and is thus misleading when applied to 'sympathetic cooperation of brains'. The whole idea of exploitation does not take into account other modalities of power relation in the space of cooperation, which might be more appropriate in describing the dynamics of the social web, for example. To summarize, the notion of labor implies necessity and command. One works because one must make a living, and when one works one must exchange one's freedom and power to an external agent which dictates its rhythms and its conditions of production. This is still the condition within which waged labour operates, whether it is cognitive or manual, or both. Labour is measured by means of working time and/or output and is subject to external command. Some of the questions that rise from these developments and ideas are then: what is the relationship between waged work and 'free labor' when the same subject is most likely participating in both forms of production? If the users' activity which goes into producing the social wealth and economic value of the web economy is misrepresented as labor, what would be a better way to describe it? Is it possible to 'relativize' the notion of labor without succumbing to the idea that we are all 'free' to produce, share and contribute, and hence all is fine with the Internet economy which in this way becomes an economic Eden separated from the rest? What is it exactly that is produced, shared and accumulated by the cognitive, social and cultural expenditures of users' time (memory, attention etc) that is central to the operation of the social web? What are the limits imposed by proprietary structures to the freedom of users on the web? What are the strategies by which the social web and in general free cooperation are turned into new means of capital accumulation? What are the specific ways in which the activity of users is turned into countable units of value, that is money? Can this new kind of production be turned into a way to free its users from the dictatorship of work, for example by means of an organization which would spread the money-making capacity of the Internet across the population of its users rather than concentrating it in the bank accounts and stock holdings of a few corporate giants? Could this be a model for another organization of the distribution of wealth which could free the current global working population from the necessity to work and hence obey and comply? too many questions then, I hope for a good discussion... tiziana terranova universit? degli studi di napoli 'l'orientale' Trebor Scholz wrote: >Dear all, > >What follows is my introduction to the conference >"The Internet as Playground and Factory," which will take place >November 12-14 at the New School University in NYC. > >Over the next few months this list will serve as one of the places for >discussion in preparation for the event and some of the exchanges that we >had on the iDC over the past few years are highly relevant to this debate. > >These include: >Social information overload/time http://is.gd/OaFq >User labor http://is.gd/OaqD >"Creative labor" http://is.gd/Oaue >Labor and value http://is.gd/Oav5 >Fan labor http://is.gd/Oaxg >Immaterial labor http://is.gd/OayA >Enculturation http://is.gd/OaA1 >Virtual worlds, education, and labor http://is.gd/OaAI > >I hope that you'll join this discussion. > >== >The Internet as Playground and Factory >-- Introduction >Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in economy, >labor, and life related to digital media. The purpose of this conference is >to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, consumption, and >production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to establish >commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. Currently, >communities that were previously sustained through national newspapers now >started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind >televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their >computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease, tag, >detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of their >labor, corporations expropriate value. Guests in the virtual world Second >Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then consume. >What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of digital >sociality that it brings into being? What are we doing to ourselves? > >Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users create and >add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. They leave >behind innumerable traces that speak to their interests, affiliations, likes >and dislikes, and desires. Large corporations then profit from this >interaction by collecting and selling this data. Social participation is >the oil of the digital economy. Today, communication is a mode of social >production facilitated by new capitalist imperatives and it has become >increasingly difficult to distinguish between play, consumption and >production, life and work, labor and non-labor. > >The revenues of today's social aggregators are promising but their >speculative value exceeds billions of dollars. Capital manages to >expropriate value from the commons; labor goes beyond the factory, all of >society is put to work. Every aspect of life drives the digital economy: >sexual desire, boredom, friendship ? and all becomes fodder for speculative >profit. We are living in a total labor society and the way in which we are >commoditized, racialized, and engendered is profoundly and disturbingly >normalized. The complex and troubling set of circumstances we now confront >includes the collapse of the conventional opposition between waged and >unwaged labor, and is characterized by multiple ?tradeoffs? and ?social >costs??such as government and corporate surveillance. While individual >instances are certainly exploitative in the most overt sense, the shift in >the overall paradigm moves us beyond the explanatory power of the Marxian >interpretation of exploitation (which is of limited use here). > >Free Software and similar practices have provided important alternatives to >and critiques of traditional modes of intellectual property to date but user >agency is not just a question of content ownership. Users should demand data >portability, the right to pack up and leave the walled gardens of >institutionalized labor ? la Facebook or StudiVZ. We should ask which rights >users have beyond their roles as consumers and citizens. Activists in Egypt >have poached Facebook's platform to get their political message out and to >organize protests. Google's Image Labeler transforms people?s endless desire >for entertainment into work for the company. How much should Google pay them >to tag an image? Such payment could easily become more of an insult than a >remuneration. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that >fit the complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. > >This conference confronts the urgent need to interrogate what constitutes >labor and value in the digital economy and it seeks to inspire proposals for >action. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that fit the >complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. The Internet as Playground >and Factory poses a series of questions about the conundrums surrounding >labor (and often the labor of love) in relation to our digital present: > >Is it possible to acknowledge the moments of ruthless exploitation while not >eradicating optimism, inspiration, and the many instances of individual >financial and political empowerment? > >What is labor and where is value produced? > >Are strategies of refusal an effective response to the expropriation of >value from interacting users? > >How is the global crisis of capitalism linked to the speculative >performances of the digital economy? > >What can we learn from the ?cyber sweatshops? class-action lawsuit against >AOL under the Fair Labor Standards Act in the early 1990s? > >How does this invisible interaction labor affect our bodies? What were key >steps in the history of interaction design that managed to mobilize and >structure the social participation of bodies and psyches in order to capture >value? > >Most interaction labor, regardless whether it is driven by monetary >motivations or not, is taking place on corporate platforms. Where does that >leave hopeful projections of a future of non-market peer production? > >Are transnational unionization or other forms of self-organization workable >acts of resistance for what several authors have called the ?virtual >proletariat?? > >Are we witnessing a new friction-free imperialism that allows capital to >profit from the unpaid interaction labor of millions of happy volunteers who >also help each other? How can we turn these debates into politics? > >How does the ideology of Web 2.0 work to deflate some of the more radical >possibilities of new social media? > >How can we maintain and enforce the rights to our own gestures, our >attention, our content, and our emotional labor? In the near future, where >can we, personally, enter political processes that have an impact on these >issues? > >-Trebor Scholz >http://digtallabor.org > > > >_______________________________________________ >iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) >iDC at mailman.thing.net >https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > >List Archive: >http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > >iDC Photo Stream: >http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > >RSS feed: >http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > >iDC Chat on Facebook: >http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > >Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > From HalpernO at newschool.edu Sat Jun 6 16:41:23 2009 From: HalpernO at newschool.edu (Orit Halpern) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:41:23 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction Message-ID: <4A2A9C33.8050802@newschool.edu> Hello! I just wanted to introduce myself to the list. My name is Orit Halpern and I am a historian of science at Eugene Lang and New School for Social Research. I work on histories of perception, representation, and digital media. My current book is a historical and philosophical excavation into the relationship between the archive, memory, and perception in digital systems. Using the post-war science of cybernetics?the study of communication and control?as a point of departure, I trace out how early engineers and architects of human-machine interaction, such as Norbert Wiener and Warren McCulloch, were informed by, and reformulated, different theoretical and technical practices from 19th and early 20th century film, psychology, psychoanalysis, design, and philosophy. Through this practice, I chart the relationship between contemporary obsessions with archiving and interactivity in digital systems to previous modernist concerns with temporality, representation, and memory. While labor is not a central term in my work, I am hoping to contribute by situating our contemporary modes of perception. I hope to start a discussion linking transformations in governmentality, subjectivity, and representation to those in economy. I look forward to more. --- www.orithalpern.net From info at pan-o-matic.com Sat Jun 6 18:14:36 2009 From: info at pan-o-matic.com (Stephanie Rothenberg) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:14:36 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction re: "The Internet as Playground and Factory" Message-ID: Hello all, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm a professor at SUNY Buffalo in the Dept of Visual Studies. I have been mucking about in Second Life and digital games for the past few years creating my own projects as well as using it in the classroom. I co-created a virtual designer jeans sweatshop with Jeff Crouse that lets real world customers order actual, wearable jeans and watch them be made virtually in the Second Life factory. As a mixed reality performative project in the physical world and the virtual, it intends to pose questions around both the "fruits" of progress and the potential for exploitation through new models of outsourced capitalist production involving forms of telematic labor. www.doublehappinessjeans.com http://blip.tv/file/779038 I've also been quite intrigued with the evolution of the industrial training film as a vehicle for social engineering into what I believe to be one of its more current incarnation's ? online education and most often edutainment through the production of play. Specifically in terms of the global workplace and in countries that are transitioning from manual labor to more information-based economies. I recently created my own instructional training program that reflects on this topic and the notion of physical labor for virtual gain (www.perpetualtraining.com ). I am interested in how this convergence becomes a transference and translation of not only the worker's physical skills but the values, behaviors and ideologies of one's physical labor into more cognitive forms. Much of this has been theorized in relation to the history of hobbies with regards to makers/DIY and collectors, and how hobbies have been instrumentalized wtihin capital's struggle against idleness and now into free virtual labor. I am curious as to how this convergence affects millions of workers living in transitioning economies that are not web savvy as well as how it will affect the increasing numbers of unemployed manual workers in the US ? the 20,000 supposedly being laid off by GM's bankruptcy would be a good example. Do we run the risk of an Alex Rivera "Sleep Dealer" scenario of telematic production or are there junctures of intervention within the training format for this emerging virtual working class? And furthermore how do we define class since the old labels of blue/white/manual/unskilled don't quite make sense anymore. I'm currently spending a great deal of my waking hours (and now I think my dream time which is kinda sorta scary) in Second Life "playing" Barbara Ehrenreich works the metaverse. If you are working both worlds in which your real world job and virtual job intersect in any which way whatever, I'd really really love to hear from you! Best, Stephanie (aka Doctor Rodenberger in Second Life ) Stephanie Rothenberg Assistant Professor Department of Visual Studies University at Buffalo ************************ stephanie at pan-o-matic.com www.pan-o-matic.com ************************ From joe.edelman at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 21:29:42 2009 From: joe.edelman at gmail.com (Joe Edelman) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 17:29:42 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <7952bc610906051548t455aeadana1348b290b38f9af@mail.gmail.com> References: <7952bc610906051548t455aeadana1348b290b38f9af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <74DF5DEB-A47E-4227-BEFF-14F592B29169@gmail.com> I thought I'd chime in a response to Frank, Trebor, and Howard about this stuff. For me, it's about power. Are these corporations giving private individuals, especially the disempowered in society, more power to change their communities and circumstances, or are they taking it away. And how do these power dynamics compare to what governments, nonprofits, art projects, universities, and other non-commerce organizations are doing? While this Web 2.0 stuff is certainly not a panacea, it's clear to me that social websites are having a profound and positive effect on personal empowerment. Universities, who have long claimed to elevate and connect through scholarships and the like, are closed to most participants, and can take six years and a great deal of expense to effect the same power shift that can be accomplished by a disempowered group on facebook or twitter in a few weeks. The U.S. government this year is distributing more economic power via grants than usual, but it is hard to see exactly how this is panning out and who is benefiting. Art projects sometimes pretend to talk about power but very seldom do anything to shift or expand it. Cautiously, I have to admin these corporate endeavors are doing better than most social justice related nonprofits, and better than the public school system, at slowly leveling the playing field. We have seen the ubiquitous availability of information, and the empowerment that that brought, and we are now moving slowly toward the ubiquitous availability of social connection. I won't rest until we get to the ubiquitous availability of physical resources like cars and trucks, the availability of labor and in-person expertise, and ultimately the availability of cash... to those who do not presently have access to these things. In the end, such an empowered, connected citizenry may well be bad news for the advertising sector and for large corporations: certainly a lot of advertising and consumerism prays on isolation and disempowerment. But that's not going to stop internet companies, many of them funded by advertising, from bringing us that future. Indeed, it seems well on it's way, and I'm doing my part to keep it going in that direction. -- J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 On Jun 5, 2009, at 6:48 PM, Frank Pasquale wrote: > Hi List, > > I?m a law professor (presently visiting at Yale, with a home base at > Seton Hall). I am looking forward to the conference. I want to > respond to this question: > > "Most interaction labor, regardless whether it is driven by monetary > motivations or not, is taking place on corporate platforms. Where does > that leave hopeful projections of a future of non-market peer > production?" > > We all ?pay attention? (literally and figuratively) at monolithic > sites like Google, Facebook, and eBay. Promoters of those companies > say that our ?return? for that activity is finding sites, staying in > touch with friends, finding bargains, etc. They convert our attention > into cash from advertisers and sellers. Some questions I like to ask > are: > > 1) Is the amount of control and cash the operators of the sites get > commensurate with their own contributions to the site?s order and > maintenance? > > 2) How much of the site?s success is due to its owners? innovative > genius?and how much is owed to the activities of users? For example, > when a user thinks of a really good Google search query, has the user > ?co-authored? the results that come up? Not under current copyright > law, but there?s a moral case there. > > Similarly, Google?s supremacy in search may largely be due to its > dataset of how people responded to past searches. If its secret > methods of ranking webpages are largely built on analysis of users? > actions, don?t users deserve some credit as co-creators? Or, more > plausibly, isn?t the company acting less as a provider of services and > more like a cultural voting machine?counting votes as to what?s the > ?winner? for billions of search queries? If so, should there be more > accountability? The German constitutional court recently embraced the > principle that vote-counting has to be understood by all. > > 3) Maybe it?s inevitable that there would be one dominant search > engine, or social network. David Grewal?s fundamental insight (in the > book Network Power) is that the ?individual choice? celebrated in > markets (and many other settings) is often simultaneously both ?forced > and free.? For example, ?[T]he network power of English isn?t the > result of any intrinsic features of English (for example, ?it?s easy > to learn?): it?s purely a result of the number of other people and > other networks you can use it to reach.? Might the same be said of > Facebook, eBay, or Google? If so, what are the implications for their > governance or regulation? > > Some say that platforms like Google and Facebook were always > inevitable, and those companies just happened to be in the right place > at the right time. Alperovitz & Daly's new book makes this argument > generally (at > http://www.americabeyondcapitalism.com/UnjustDeserts.html) > > They ask: "Why should only a tiny fraction of our citizens keep most > of the money made off [our technical and cultural] heritage if, in > fact, it is [our] common background that gave them their success?" As > one reviewer puts it, "Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly [propose] a new way > of looking at great wealth. It is not the primary product of luck, > they say, nor is it the child of skill. Rather, it is society that > allows individuals to achieve great things and earn such magnificent > rewards." They give several examples of laureled "innovators" who in > fact barely advanced tech beyond other, less celebrated, figures. > > Both Microsoft Word and the ISO 9000 standards gained power in a > self-reinforcing way; as more people adopted them, others anticipated > their further adoption and ?fell into line? in promoting the > standards. Grewal worries that ?privately owned technological > standards not only [threaten] the freedom of users to choose the best > standards for their needs . . . [but also result in] . . .a great deal > of power [being] handed over to the private owner of that standard.? > I have the same worries about the corporate platforms on which much > Web 2.0 labor is being conducted. > > Anyway, I try to provide some commentary on these questions in some > blog posts and articles. I?ll append them after my signature for > anyone interested. > > All best, > > --Frank > > PS: For more of my thoughts on the topic, see: > > Is Web 2.0 an Engine of Inequality?, at > http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/03/ > is_the_new_econ.html > > Federal Search Commission? (authored with Oren Bracha): > http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1002453 > > Network Power, Forced and Free: > http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/05/network_power_f.html#more-11633 > > Is MySpace Exploiting You?, at > http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/04/ > is_myspace_expl.html > > Beyond Innovation and Competition: The Case for Transparency at > Internet Intermediaries (available on request) > > On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Trebor Scholz > wrote: >> >> Dear all, >> >> What follows is my introduction to the conference >> "The Internet as Playground and Factory," which will take place >> November 12-14 at the New School University in NYC. >> >> Over the next few months this list will serve as one of the places >> for >> discussion in preparation for the event and some of the exchanges >> that we >> had on the iDC over the past few years are highly relevant to this >> debate. >> >> These include: >> Social information overload/time http://is.gd/OaFq >> User labor http://is.gd/OaqD >> "Creative labor" http://is.gd/Oaue >> Labor and value http://is.gd/Oav5 >> Fan labor http://is.gd/Oaxg >> Immaterial labor http://is.gd/OayA >> Enculturation http://is.gd/OaA1 >> Virtual worlds, education, and labor http://is.gd/OaAI >> >> I hope that you'll join this discussion. >> >> == >> The Internet as Playground and Factory >> -- Introduction >> Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in >> economy, >> labor, and life related to digital media. The purpose of this >> conference is >> to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, >> consumption, and >> production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to >> establish >> commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. >> Currently, >> communities that were previously sustained through national >> newspapers now >> started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind >> televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their >> computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, >> tease, tag, >> detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of >> their >> labor, corporations expropriate value. Guests in the virtual world >> Second >> Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then >> consume. >> What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of >> digital >> sociality that it brings into being? What are we doing to ourselves? >> >> Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users >> create and >> add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. >> They leave >> behind innumerable traces that speak to their interests, >> affiliations, likes >> and dislikes, and desires. Large corporations then profit from this >> interaction by collecting and selling this data. Social >> participation is >> the oil of the digital economy. Today, communication is a mode of >> social >> production facilitated by new capitalist imperatives and it has >> become >> increasingly difficult to distinguish between play, consumption and >> production, life and work, labor and non-labor. >> >> The revenues of today's social aggregators are promising but their >> speculative value exceeds billions of dollars. Capital manages to >> expropriate value from the commons; labor goes beyond the factory, >> all of >> society is put to work. Every aspect of life drives the digital >> economy: >> sexual desire, boredom, friendship ? and all becomes fodder for >> speculative >> profit. We are living in a total labor society and the way in which >> we are >> commoditized, racialized, and engendered is profoundly and >> disturbingly >> normalized. The complex and troubling set of circumstances we now >> confront >> includes the collapse of the conventional opposition between waged >> and >> unwaged labor, and is characterized by multiple ?tradeoffs? and >> ?social >> costs??such as government and corporate surveillance. While >> individual >> instances are certainly exploitative in the most overt sense, the >> shift in >> the overall paradigm moves us beyond the explanatory power of the >> Marxian >> interpretation of exploitation (which is of limited use here). >> >> Free Software and similar practices have provided important >> alternatives to >> and critiques of traditional modes of intellectual property to date >> but user >> agency is not just a question of content ownership. Users should >> demand data >> portability, the right to pack up and leave the walled gardens of >> institutionalized labor ? la Facebook or StudiVZ. We should ask >> which rights >> users have beyond their roles as consumers and citizens. Activists >> in Egypt >> have poached Facebook's platform to get their political message out >> and to >> organize protests. Google's Image Labeler transforms people?s >> endless desire >> for entertainment into work for the company. How much should Google >> pay them >> to tag an image? Such payment could easily become more of an insult >> than a >> remuneration. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of >> labor that >> fit the complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. >> >> This conference confronts the urgent need to interrogate what >> constitutes >> labor and value in the digital economy and it seeks to inspire >> proposals for >> action. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that >> fit the >> complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. The Internet as >> Playground >> and Factory poses a series of questions about the conundrums >> surrounding >> labor (and often the labor of love) in relation to our digital >> present: >> >> Is it possible to acknowledge the moments of ruthless exploitation >> while not >> eradicating optimism, inspiration, and the many instances of >> individual >> financial and political empowerment? >> >> What is labor and where is value produced? >> >> Are strategies of refusal an effective response to the >> expropriation of >> value from interacting users? >> >> How is the global crisis of capitalism linked to the speculative >> performances of the digital economy? >> >> What can we learn from the ?cyber sweatshops? class-action lawsuit >> against >> AOL under the Fair Labor Standards Act in the early 1990s? >> >> How does this invisible interaction labor affect our bodies? What >> were key >> steps in the history of interaction design that managed to mobilize >> and >> structure the social participation of bodies and psyches in order >> to capture >> value? >> >> Most interaction labor, regardless whether it is driven by monetary >> motivations or not, is taking place on corporate platforms. Where >> does that >> leave hopeful projections of a future of non-market peer production? >> >> Are transnational unionization or other forms of self-organization >> workable >> acts of resistance for what several authors have called the ?virtual >> proletariat?? >> >> Are we witnessing a new friction-free imperialism that allows >> capital to >> profit from the unpaid interaction labor of millions of happy >> volunteers who >> also help each other? How can we turn these debates into politics? >> >> How does the ideology of Web 2.0 work to deflate some of the more >> radical >> possibilities of new social media? >> >> How can we maintain and enforce the rights to our own gestures, our >> attention, our content, and our emotional labor? In the near >> future, where >> can we, personally, enter political processes that have an impact >> on these >> issues? >> >> -Trebor Scholz >> http://digtallabor.org >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From biella at nyu.edu Sun Jun 7 12:16:42 2009 From: biella at nyu.edu (Gabriella Coleman) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 08:16:42 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <74DF5DEB-A47E-4227-BEFF-14F592B29169@gmail.com> References: <7952bc610906051548t455aeadana1348b290b38f9af@mail.gmail.com> <74DF5DEB-A47E-4227-BEFF-14F592B29169@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2BAFAA.5040406@nyu.edu> Hi, I thought I would join the train and add some thoughts and questions for the conference. I have introduced myself before to the list, but a short recap: I currently an assistant prof at NYU department of Media, Culture, and Communication. Trained as an anthropologists, I have worked primarily on the ethics and politics of FLOSS. In terms of labor, I am interested in the renaissance of craft within FLOSS and putting it in conversation with other forms of aesthetic impulses (in the case of hacking, Romantic ones). I also examine the intersection of hacking and liberalism as well as the more radical, (though certainly not explicit or purist critique) that FLOSS brings into being, one that speaks to and against the idea of aliened labor often through a practice of pleasure. There are a number of issues/questions I want to raise, but I will limit myself to just a few that follows from Joe's response to others and it has to do with nature of political labor on and through the net today. Whether organizing happens through corporate sites like Facebook, or new, seemingly liberally informed sites like http://www.amazee.com/ or radically anti-capitalist collectives like Riseup (who are furiously hacking away at a new, pretty robust--though not quite ready-- work collaboration site, Crabgrass https://we.riseup.net/crabgrass/about), I am pretty amazed at the depth and ubiquity of online based networked politics. If there is a cause, there is a group. Actually if there is a cause, there are probably multiple ones. That said, I think what concerns me the most is fragmentation. The topography, it seems to me of politics on he web, is one of silos, ponds, and pods. While there is strength in these autonomous nodes, there is also massive competition for attention (a lot seems to boil down to attention when it comes down to it). FLOSS has not fallen to these sorts of problems, or as much, as there are points/sites for centripetal cohesion (large hacker cons like HAR, shared web portals etc etc) and the glue that is cultural mores that also binds. I think it would be interesting to discuss in terms of fragmentation and networked politics how we got here, what the strengths and limits of this fragmented space are and how/what it can be addressed. A second, related line of inquiry has to do with cost and labor of the network. While it is the case, as many have argued, that getting people online and participating and publishing is cheaper/easier than with older broadcast media, the cost/labor is not insignificant. Think of all the servers whirling away in data centers. It requires a lot of a/c, a lot of upkeep, a lot of time. Think of all the plumbers of the Internet, the sys admins (as I like to think of them) who are constantly up-keeping the servers. The labor and cost of networks should also be taken into account. I raise this issue somewhat for selfish reasons as I am looking for citations/work/studies that have uncovered the cost, from electricity to system administration pay, that goes into maintaining part of the network or an organization. I realize that the request is a bit vague but if anyone knows of something that fits that general bill, I would appreciate a heads up. Look forward to the ongoing conversations, Gabriella Joe Edelman wrote: > I thought I'd chime in a response to Frank, Trebor, and Howard about > this stuff. > > For me, it's about power. Are these corporations giving private > individuals, especially the disempowered in society, more power to > change their communities and circumstances, or are they taking it > away. And how do these power dynamics compare to what governments, > nonprofits, art projects, universities, and other non-commerce > organizations are doing? > > While this Web 2.0 stuff is certainly not a panacea, it's clear to me > that social websites are having a profound and positive effect on > personal empowerment. Universities, who have long claimed to elevate > and connect through scholarships and the like, are closed to most > participants, and can take six years and a great deal of expense to > effect the same power shift that can be accomplished by a disempowered > group on facebook or twitter in a few weeks. The U.S. government this > year is distributing more economic power via grants than usual, but it > is hard to see exactly how this is panning out and who is benefiting. > Art projects sometimes pretend to talk about power but very seldom do > anything to shift or expand it. > > Cautiously, I have to admin these corporate endeavors are doing better > than most social justice related nonprofits, and better than the > public school system, at slowly leveling the playing field. We have > seen the ubiquitous availability of information, and the empowerment > that that brought, and we are now moving slowly toward the ubiquitous > availability of social connection. I won't rest until we get to the > ubiquitous availability of physical resources like cars and trucks, > the availability of labor and in-person expertise, and ultimately the > availability of cash... to those who do not presently have access to > these things. > > In the end, such an empowered, connected citizenry may well be bad > news for the advertising sector and for large corporations: certainly > a lot of advertising and consumerism prays on isolation and > disempowerment. But that's not going to stop internet companies, many > of them funded by advertising, from bringing us that future. > > Indeed, it seems well on it's way, and I'm doing my part to keep it > going in that direction. > > -- > J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 > > **************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 7 11:39:59 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 04:39:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction re: netarchical capitalism's underlying social contract In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45105.9798.qm@web50804.mail.re2.yahoo.com> I was asked by Trebor to present myself and to engage with the discussion. The discussion will follow in 2-3 days, here already a basic presentation. The bio, which I'm adding at bottom ?is at http://p2pfoundation.net/Bio?; the bibliography is here at http://p2pfoundation.net/Bibliography_of_Michel_Bauwens There are?a few articles which are closely related to the topic at hand, namely in particular: - The social web and its social contracts. Re-public, . Retrieved from http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=261 Tiziana's interview with me teases out many of these topics as well, see http://p2pfoundation.net/Il_Manifesto_Interview_English_version In this article, I?attempt to squary both the social advances and exploitative nature of what I call netarchical capitalism. For coverage of such topics, see: - http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/P2P-Conflicts - http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Netarchical-Capitalism That's it for today, I'll definitely will engage with the topic in more detail, by answering Trebor's questions. More background links, before the bio and biblio link below are here: Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI Volunteering at the P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net - http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens Bio: "Michel Bauwens is an active writer, researcher and conference speaker on the subject of technology, culture and business innovation. He is the founder of the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives and works in collaboration with a global group of researchers in the exploration of peer production, governance, and property. He has been an analyst for the United States Information Agency, knowledge manager for British Petroleum, eBusiness Strategy Manager for Belgacom, as well as an internet entrepreneur in his home country of Belgium. He has co-produced the 3-hour TV documentary Technocalyps with Frank Theys, and co-edited the two-volume book on anthropology of digital society with Salvino Salvaggio. Michel is currently Primavera Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam and external expert at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (2008). Michel currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand. In February 2009, he joined Dhurakij Pundit University?s International College as Lecturer, assisting with the development of the Asian Foresight Institute." From scubitt at unimelb.edu.au Sun Jun 7 13:33:01 2009 From: scubitt at unimelb.edu.au (Sean Cubitt) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:33:01 +1000 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <74DF5DEB-A47E-4227-BEFF-14F592B29169@gmail.com> Message-ID: This is the nub -- what is a social good? On 7/06/09 7:29 AM, "Joe Edelman" wrote: > I won't rest until we get to the > ubiquitous availability of physical resources like cars and trucks, Cars are not a good. As a lifelong cyclist, I know how dirty, dangerous and anti-social cars are. And as to the ubiquitous availability issue, there are not enough rare earths on the planet for even China to have the density of wasteful duplication of devices we have (even with careful shepherding I have four DVD players in my house) Tye proliferation of consumer goods, and the detouring in desire towards consumerism, is about as utopian as the desire - instinctive I believe - for order when it becomes the fascist manipulation of anxiety towards the terrorised society "Universities, who have long claimed to elevate and connect through scholarships and the like, are closed to most participants, and can take six years and a great deal of expense to effect the same power shift that can be accomplished by a disempowered group on facebook or twitter in a few weeks." The kind of change we bring about in education is rather longer term than what can be achieved on Twitter. We have, admittedly, the luxury of thinking forty years into the future -- the likely working life of a student graduating today.That means we balance between the usual corporate horizon of three to five years (like any other business) and the longer term, which entrepreneurs and corporations cannot afford to thing about. More critically, the more "advanced' capital gets, the more *schools* - by which I mean schooling between 5 and 14 years of age -- become competitive, with the bestschools going to the children of the wealthy Capital is now, as it always has been, a lie founded on a bad pun: the "freedom" of the market has nothing whatever to do with human freedom, any more than the 'survival of the fittest' describes the fit of a species in an ecological niche. Sorry to be argumentative: it's late, I'm tired, and I blew the weekend writing when I shd have been outdoors sean Prof Sean Cubitt scubitt at unimelb.edu.au Director Media and Communications Program Faculty of Arts Room 127?John Medley East The University of Melbourne Parkville VIC 3010 Australia Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667 Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494 M: 0448 304 004 Skype: seancubitt http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/ http://www.digital-light.net.au/ http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/ http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/ http://del.icio.us/seancubitt Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series http://leonardo.info From chapel at strumpette.com Sun Jun 7 16:52:30 2009 From: chapel at strumpette.com (Amanda Chapel) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 11:52:30 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <4A2BAFAA.5040406@nyu.edu> References: <7952bc610906051548t455aeadana1348b290b38f9af@mail.gmail.com> <74DF5DEB-A47E-4227-BEFF-14F592B29169@gmail.com> <4A2BAFAA.5040406@nyu.edu> Message-ID: <000301c9e790$58fd9350$0af8b9f0$@com> Friends, Couple questions: 1. What is the basis of the belief that indiscriminate empowerment is a good thing? Certainly, ANY insurance company can tell you numerous examples where it's not. When is it actually good? 2. What is the basis of the belief that indiscriminate communications is a good thing? Certainly, the opponents of radical transparency seem to make a solid case. 3. What is the basis for the belief that the unleashed unfettered unencumbered social groupings that form online area good thing? What is a system without due process and checks and balances other than capricious favoritism and bloody conflict? 4. What are the economic consequences of a society devoid of the ability to produce scale? I look forward to your thoughts. Sincerely, - Amanda -----Original Message----- From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [mailto:idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net] On Behalf Of Gabriella Coleman Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 7:17 AM To: Joe Edelman Cc: idc at mailman.thing.net Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Hi, I thought I would join the train and add some thoughts and questions for the conference. I have introduced myself before to the list, but a short recap: I currently an assistant prof at NYU department of Media, Culture, and Communication. Trained as an anthropologists, I have worked primarily on the ethics and politics of FLOSS. In terms of labor, I am interested in the renaissance of craft within FLOSS and putting it in conversation with other forms of aesthetic impulses (in the case of hacking, Romantic ones). I also examine the intersection of hacking and liberalism as well as the more radical, (though certainly not explicit or purist critique) that FLOSS brings into being, one that speaks to and against the idea of aliened labor often through a practice of pleasure. There are a number of issues/questions I want to raise, but I will limit myself to just a few that follows from Joe's response to others and it has to do with nature of political labor on and through the net today. Whether organizing happens through corporate sites like Facebook, or new, seemingly liberally informed sites like http://www.amazee.com/ or radically anti-capitalist collectives like Riseup (who are furiously hacking away at a new, pretty robust--though not quite ready-- work collaboration site, Crabgrass https://we.riseup.net/crabgrass/about), I am pretty amazed at the depth and ubiquity of online based networked politics. If there is a cause, there is a group. Actually if there is a cause, there are probably multiple ones. That said, I think what concerns me the most is fragmentation. The topography, it seems to me of politics on he web, is one of silos, ponds, and pods. While there is strength in these autonomous nodes, there is also massive competition for attention (a lot seems to boil down to attention when it comes down to it). FLOSS has not fallen to these sorts of problems, or as much, as there are points/sites for centripetal cohesion (large hacker cons like HAR, shared web portals etc etc) and the glue that is cultural mores that also binds. I think it would be interesting to discuss in terms of fragmentation and networked politics how we got here, what the strengths and limits of this fragmented space are and how/what it can be addressed. A second, related line of inquiry has to do with cost and labor of the network. While it is the case, as many have argued, that getting people online and participating and publishing is cheaper/easier than with older broadcast media, the cost/labor is not insignificant. Think of all the servers whirling away in data centers. It requires a lot of a/c, a lot of upkeep, a lot of time. Think of all the plumbers of the Internet, the sys admins (as I like to think of them) who are constantly up-keeping the servers. The labor and cost of networks should also be taken into account. I raise this issue somewhat for selfish reasons as I am looking for citations/work/studies that have uncovered the cost, from electricity to system administration pay, that goes into maintaining part of the network or an organization. I realize that the request is a bit vague but if anyone knows of something that fits that general bill, I would appreciate a heads up. Look forward to the ongoing conversations, Gabriella Joe Edelman wrote: > I thought I'd chime in a response to Frank, Trebor, and Howard about > this stuff. > > For me, it's about power. Are these corporations giving private > individuals, especially the disempowered in society, more power to > change their communities and circumstances, or are they taking it > away. And how do these power dynamics compare to what governments, > nonprofits, art projects, universities, and other non-commerce > organizations are doing? > > While this Web 2.0 stuff is certainly not a panacea, it's clear to me > that social websites are having a profound and positive effect on > personal empowerment. Universities, who have long claimed to elevate > and connect through scholarships and the like, are closed to most > participants, and can take six years and a great deal of expense to > effect the same power shift that can be accomplished by a disempowered > group on facebook or twitter in a few weeks. The U.S. government this > year is distributing more economic power via grants than usual, but it > is hard to see exactly how this is panning out and who is benefiting. > Art projects sometimes pretend to talk about power but very seldom do > anything to shift or expand it. > > Cautiously, I have to admin these corporate endeavors are doing better > than most social justice related nonprofits, and better than the > public school system, at slowly leveling the playing field. We have > seen the ubiquitous availability of information, and the empowerment > that that brought, and we are now moving slowly toward the ubiquitous > availability of social connection. I won't rest until we get to the > ubiquitous availability of physical resources like cars and trucks, > the availability of labor and in-person expertise, and ultimately the > availability of cash... to those who do not presently have access to > these things. > > In the end, such an empowered, connected citizenry may well be bad > news for the advertising sector and for large corporations: certainly > a lot of advertising and consumerism prays on isolation and > disempowerment. But that's not going to stop internet companies, many > of them funded by advertising, from bringing us that future. > > Indeed, it seems well on it's way, and I'm doing my part to keep it > going in that direction. > > -- > J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 > > **************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman _______________________________________________ iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) iDC at mailman.thing.net https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc List Archive: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ iDC Photo Stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ RSS feed: http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc iDC Chat on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From playethical at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 17:49:14 2009 From: playethical at gmail.com (pat kane) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 18:49:14 +0100 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi all, I'm Pat Kane, I've also been invited by Trebor to kick off and develop some of the discussions arount the nature, pleasure and pains of "digital labor", leading up to the NY conference in November. I'm a rights-holding musician, writer and consultant, and author of The Play Ethic (http://www.theplayethic.com). In terms of a debate about whether users' interactivity with net platforms is a form of exploitation of labor (in the Marxist sense), I'm aware that I might be living a somewhat schizophrenic life. In one domain, I'm a working musician who is part of a UK "legacy" act from the 80's, Hue And Cry. Since our relaunch in late 2008, our strategy has been to use the enthusiasm of online fandom to reanimate our "brand", by using flexible and media-rich social networks (particularly Ning) to capture the passions raised both by our live performance, and other traditional outlets of media exposure (radio, TV, press). In these sites ? particularly the Music Club, at http:// hueandcry.ning.com - we actively encourage and facilitate all kinds of 'fan labor' (cultural note: our biggest hit was called "Labour of Love" in 1987, more inspired by Gramsci than Bateson). This can include: cam-phone audio-visual recording from gigs; giving fans the opportunity to suggest and vote on songs they'd like us to perform and record; allowing fans to upload their own covers of our songs. But this doesn't include a lot of emergent, spontaneous activity that comes from the users' own ability to generate sub-networks and forums of their own, within the Hue And Cry Music Club site. We don't charge subscription fees to the site (like many other bands), and we have a programme of regular updates of audio-visual content produced by my musical partner and I ? again, freely streamed. There's much to say about this experience ? which I hope to share at the NY conference in November. But in terms of kicking off this debate, the core point might be that our presumption has been that we're dealing with a radically counter-commercial audience and environment ? one in which digital networked distribution of music has driven its price point to effectively zero, and in which that music has almost become a kind of 'community currency'. By that I mean a system of exchange whose value accumulation is fan enthusiasm and commitment, rather than straightforward monetary rent from IP- identified saleable objects. (Although as Spotify, Last.fm and other outfits show, a licensing system may be a possible recommodifier of music consuming habits, though with the pressure of 'free' keeping overall revenue much lower than the heydays of CD sales). So in terms of making a living, we have fallen upon the maxim "use what is ubiquitous to drive people to what is scarce" ? ie use the ubiquity and free circulation of digital content to raise awareness about those real-world moments of spatio-temporal enclosure (the gig, the meet'n'greet, the music workshop) whose boundaries can be controlled, and thus commodified. (Our refinement on that is to create our own 'ubiquitous' commons of Hue And Cry music within the Music Club ? 'reterritorialising', to no doubt misuse Deleuze, the deterritorialised flows of digital culture). It's not that we don't try to sell recordings anymore ? we do, and we are doing so, though the objects these recordings are attached to are way beyond the old CD, and are more lifestyle/luxury products with music inserted, an extension of our "brand" across non-musical physical objects. But our working presumption is that recorded music, because of digitisation, networks and their innovations, is always under a huge gravitational force dragging it towards free usage. And just to be clear, I come at the question of what value is being realised by commercial platform owners by the free labor of users from a small-business perspective ? as artists seeking some kind of income from our endeavours and enterprises. We are rights-holders in our own small company, who seek to use non-commercial, part- commercial (the usual social platforms) and fully-commercial (ie larger distributors and syndicators) networks to promote our music, both recorded and performed. Commercially, I should be agnostic-ironic about what networks are best for that purpose. But civically, I'm a supporter of the 'innovation commons' of the Net a la Lessig, and would resist any attempt to tamper with the basic end-to-end architecture of the Web (ie, to create tiers of net access with protocols restricted, for whatever reason). I guess I have to stake out my petit-bourgeois, mixed-economy, social-democrat traders' identity at the beginning. And what I'm looking for from a conference/discussion on 'the internet and playground and factory' is a new political economy of the Net that can find a place for creative and sustainable cultural enterprise, within this complex landscape (as Yochai Benkler says in the Wealth of Networks) of market, state and 'sharing' economies. I feel that the answers may lie as much in welfare and social policy. That is, what kind of social provisions and support can be made for a 'general intellect' now active throughout society, as the Italian Marxists say? Does a four day week or a citizens' income more effectively answer our anxieties about our affective and cognitive 'lives' pouring into these networks, than a discourse about how our free labor benefits Google's bottom line? Pat Kane http://theplayethic.com/patkane Twitter: theplayethic Ideas: http://www.theplayethic.com http://delicious.com/theplayethic http://www.softpowernetwork.com Music: http://www.hueandcry.co.uk http://hueandcry.ning.com http://theplayethic.com/patkane All mail to: playethical at gmail.com The idea is all there is. Trust me. - Ornette Coleman http://bit.ly/2VDLPI On 4 Jun 2009, at 16:46, Trebor Scholz wrote: > Dear all, > > What follows is my introduction to the conference > "The Internet as Playground and Factory," which will take place > November 12-14 at the New School University in NYC. > > Over the next few months this list will serve as one of the places for > discussion in preparation for the event and some of the exchanges > that we > had on the iDC over the past few years are highly relevant to this > debate. > > These include: > Social information overload/time http://is.gd/OaFq > User labor http://is.gd/OaqD > "Creative labor" http://is.gd/Oaue > Labor and value http://is.gd/Oav5 > Fan labor http://is.gd/Oaxg > Immaterial labor http://is.gd/OayA > Enculturation http://is.gd/OaA1 > Virtual worlds, education, and labor http://is.gd/OaAI > > I hope that you'll join this discussion. > > == > The Internet as Playground and Factory > -- Introduction > Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in > economy, > labor, and life related to digital media. The purpose of this > conference is > to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, > consumption, and > production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to > establish > commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. > Currently, > communities that were previously sustained through national > newspapers now > started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind > televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their > computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, > tease, tag, > detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of > their > labor, corporations expropriate value. Guests in the virtual world > Second > Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then > consume. > What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of > digital > sociality that it brings into being? What are we doing to ourselves? > > Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users > create and > add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. > They leave > behind innumerable traces that speak to their interests, > affiliations, likes > and dislikes, and desires. Large corporations then profit from this > interaction by collecting and selling this data. Social > participation is > the oil of the digital economy. Today, communication is a mode of > social > production facilitated by new capitalist imperatives and it has become > increasingly difficult to distinguish between play, consumption and > production, life and work, labor and non-labor. > > The revenues of today's social aggregators are promising but their > speculative value exceeds billions of dollars. Capital manages to > expropriate value from the commons; labor goes beyond the factory, > all of > society is put to work. Every aspect of life drives the digital > economy: > sexual desire, boredom, friendship ? and all becomes fodder for > speculative > profit. We are living in a total labor society and the way in which > we are > commoditized, racialized, and engendered is profoundly and > disturbingly > normalized. The complex and troubling set of circumstances we now > confront > includes the collapse of the conventional opposition between waged and > unwaged labor, and is characterized by multiple ?tradeoffs? and > ?social > costs??such as government and corporate surveillance. While individual > instances are certainly exploitative in the most overt sense, the > shift in > the overall paradigm moves us beyond the explanatory power of the > Marxian > interpretation of exploitation (which is of limited use here). > > Free Software and similar practices have provided important > alternatives to > and critiques of traditional modes of intellectual property to date > but user > agency is not just a question of content ownership. Users should > demand data > portability, the right to pack up and leave the walled gardens of > institutionalized labor ? la Facebook or StudiVZ. We should ask > which rights > users have beyond their roles as consumers and citizens. Activists > in Egypt > have poached Facebook's platform to get their political message out > and to > organize protests. Google's Image Labeler transforms people?s > endless desire > for entertainment into work for the company. How much should Google > pay them > to tag an image? Such payment could easily become more of an insult > than a > remuneration. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of > labor that > fit the complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. > > This conference confronts the urgent need to interrogate what > constitutes > labor and value in the digital economy and it seeks to inspire > proposals for > action. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that > fit the > complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. The Internet as > Playground > and Factory poses a series of questions about the conundrums > surrounding > labor (and often the labor of love) in relation to our digital > present: > > Is it possible to acknowledge the moments of ruthless exploitation > while not > eradicating optimism, inspiration, and the many instances of > individual > financial and political empowerment? > > What is labor and where is value produced? > > Are strategies of refusal an effective response to the > expropriation of > value from interacting users? > > How is the global crisis of capitalism linked to the speculative > performances of the digital economy? > > What can we learn from the ?cyber sweatshops? class-action lawsuit > against > AOL under the Fair Labor Standards Act in the early 1990s? > > How does this invisible interaction labor affect our bodies? What > were key > steps in the history of interaction design that managed to mobilize > and > structure the social participation of bodies and psyches in order > to capture > value? > > Most interaction labor, regardless whether it is driven by monetary > motivations or not, is taking place on corporate platforms. Where > does that > leave hopeful projections of a future of non-market peer production? > > Are transnational unionization or other forms of self-organization > workable > acts of resistance for what several authors have called the ?virtual > proletariat?? > > Are we witnessing a new friction-free imperialism that allows > capital to > profit from the unpaid interaction labor of millions of happy > volunteers who > also help each other? How can we turn these debates into politics? > > How does the ideology of Web 2.0 work to deflate some of the more > radical > possibilities of new social media? > > How can we maintain and enforce the rights to our own gestures, our > attention, our content, and our emotional labor? In the near > future, where > can we, personally, enter political processes that have an impact > on these > issues? > > -Trebor Scholz > http://digtallabor.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From gwythoff at princeton.edu Sun Jun 7 18:22:16 2009 From: gwythoff at princeton.edu (Grant Wythoff) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 14:22:16 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: Hi All- My name is Grant Wythoff, and I'm currently a PhD candidate in the Department of English and the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton. My work is situated at the intersections of media theory and science fiction, exploring the various types of worldbuilding, estrangement, and utopianism that bubble up from moments of epistemic shifts in media technologies. Other areas of interest include new media culture and the rhetoric of "content," television studies, media archaeology, 20th century American theater and film, and Frankfurt school aesthetics. As Howard pointed out, we are in a situation in which we must entirely redefine our notions of labor and play, and I think this conference will be a really exciting forum to begin thinking along these lines. One can go as far back as Benjamin in locating an alignment of labor and play within industrial apparatus--his notion of "Spielraum" (playspace / room for play) seems particularly apt in our own context as it gets at the truly revolutionary (if not utopian) possibilities opened up for new fields of action within the very same profit motives of commercial agents. Yes, information aggregators have proved immensely powerful tools of cognitive mapping through both graphic means--witness Google's flu trends or twitscoop--as well as good old fashioned research methodologies--i.e. wikipedia and wikileaks. But at the same time, we are left with an incredibly difficult set of questions, since the space for play the media opens for us has almost always been one that fundamentally does not belong to us. And here I can't help quoting the old Playstation motto, "live in your world, play in ours." Perhaps we can come back to this topic of profit motives intersecting with useful "public" goods and enjoyable "private" behavior raised by Howard and taken up by Trebor--and here I will just briefly jump across a few interrelated ideas. To take a case study, Eric Schmidt swears that things like flu trends, google maps, and semantic searching are the primary business of Google while the harvested clickwork of their targeted ads is only a necessary evil, the fuel powering these larger ambitions. For argument's sake, what if (and this is a big 'what if,' used only for the purposes of a productive science fictional tension with the real) what if through some process of natural selection the "private" profit motives of web 2.0 companies and the creative industries are gradually replaced (displaced? superseded?) by their useful "public" functions? In other words, what kind of *value* does the public at large attribute to the information economy? In business circles, web 2.0 is spoken of as being a failure since it "has no business model," since there is no way to monetize it on a large scale. To take a second case study, we are at a crucial juncture in the information economy, with widely publicized talk of new agglomerations of news media (spearheaded by the AP) and new forms of control over "content." But this talk of "monetizing" freely linked, traded, and read online news content (a discussion that has been disseminated through the tubes of the media themselves) has revealed in so may fascinating ways just how regressive such proposals are. The sense of disbelief everyone feels--grounded in their everyday techniques of screen reading, their presence online--I believe is evidence that we have the tools and experiences at our disposal to entirely rethink the circulation and standard of money as well as the value of work with the digital realm. The question of newspapers and the loss of local voices is of course one to be taken up by a different thread. Leaving this aside and turning to the topic of properly digital labor: our work is unpaid. But do we want remuneration? If the biggest challenge to a critique of digital labor is the fact that the mass of clickworkers simply doesn't care, that they enjoy their free labor (let's face it, who doesn't)--then perhaps a possible secondary line of inquiry would bring us into the potentialities of digital networks foreclosed by their current configurations. Television always promised a world represented as system--channels, flow, live feed, etc--a rhetoric which has been notoriously difficult for cultural critics to satisfactorily engage with. In what ways has our image of the world evolved from that given to us by television? In what ways is the potential for political critique and "pleasurable learning, cheerful and militant learning" (Brecht) foreclosed by the current, digital configuration of the world picture? Further, in what ways is this foreclosure itself representable (on a mass or systemic scale) within the digital networks themselves? (The February flare up over Facebook's new terms of service provides somewhat of an illustration). Rambling first thoughts. But I'm eager to see these and others bounced around. Best- Grant -- Grant Wythoff http://twitter.com/gwijthoff Princeton University Department of English McCosh 22 Princeton, NJ 08544 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090607/54720db2/attachment.htm From chapel at strumpette.com Sun Jun 7 19:47:55 2009 From: chapel at strumpette.com (Amanda Chapel) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 14:47:55 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001201c9e7a8$dadae3b0$9090ab10$@com> Grant, "I believe is evidence that we have the tools and experiences at our disposal to entirely rethink the circulation and standard of money as well as the value of work with the digital realm." The mortgage is due the first of the month. what do you envision? - Amanda From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [mailto:idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net] On Behalf Of Grant Wythoff Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 1:22 PM To: idc at mailman.thing.net Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Hi All- My name is Grant Wythoff, and I'm currently a PhD candidate in the Department of English and the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton. My work is situated at the intersections of media theory and science fiction, exploring the various types of worldbuilding, estrangement, and utopianism that bubble up from moments of epistemic shifts in media technologies. Other areas of interest include new media culture and the rhetoric of "content," television studies, media archaeology, 20th century American theater and film, and Frankfurt school aesthetics. As Howard pointed out, we are in a situation in which we must entirely redefine our notions of labor and play, and I think this conference will be a really exciting forum to begin thinking along these lines. One can go as far back as Benjamin in locating an alignment of labor and play within industrial apparatus--his notion of "Spielraum" (playspace / room for play) seems particularly apt in our own context as it gets at the truly revolutionary (if not utopian) possibilities opened up for new fields of action within the very same profit motives of commercial agents. Yes, information aggregators have proved immensely powerful tools of cognitive mapping through both graphic means--witness Google's flu trends or twitscoop--as well as good old fashioned research methodologies--i.e. wikipedia and wikileaks. But at the same time, we are left with an incredibly difficult set of questions, since the space for play the media opens for us has almost always been one that fundamentally does not belong to us. And here I can't help quoting the old Playstation motto, "live in your world, play in ours." Perhaps we can come back to this topic of profit motives intersecting with useful "public" goods and enjoyable "private" behavior raised by Howard and taken up by Trebor--and here I will just briefly jump across a few interrelated ideas. To take a case study, Eric Schmidt swears that things like flu trends, google maps, and semantic searching are the primary business of Google while the harvested clickwork of their targeted ads is only a necessary evil, the fuel powering these larger ambitions. For argument's sake, what if (and this is a big 'what if,' used only for the purposes of a productive science fictional tension with the real) what if through some process of natural selection the "private" profit motives of web 2.0 companies and the creative industries are gradually replaced (displaced? superseded?) by their useful "public" functions? In other words, what kind of *value* does the public at large attribute to the information economy? In business circles, web 2.0 is spoken of as being a failure since it "has no business model," since there is no way to monetize it on a large scale. To take a second case study, we are at a crucial juncture in the information economy, with widely publicized talk of new agglomerations of news media (spearheaded by the AP) and new forms of control over "content." But this talk of "monetizing" freely linked, traded, and read online news content (a discussion that has been disseminated through the tubes of the media themselves) has revealed in so may fascinating ways just how regressive such proposals are. The sense of disbelief everyone feels--grounded in their everyday techniques of screen reading, their presence online--I believe is evidence that we have the tools and experiences at our disposal to entirely rethink the circulation and standard of money as well as the value of work with the digital realm. The question of newspapers and the loss of local voices is of course one to be taken up by a different thread. Leaving this aside and turning to the topic of properly digital labor: our work is unpaid. But do we want remuneration? If the biggest challenge to a critique of digital labor is the fact that the mass of clickworkers simply doesn't care, that they enjoy their free labor (let's face it, who doesn't)--then perhaps a possible secondary line of inquiry would bring us into the potentialities of digital networks foreclosed by their current configurations. Television always promised a world represented as system--channels, flow, live feed, etc--a rhetoric which has been notoriously difficult for cultural critics to satisfactorily engage with. In what ways has our image of the world evolved from that given to us by television? In what ways is the potential for political critique and "pleasurable learning, cheerful and militant learning" (Brecht) foreclosed by the current, digital configuration of the world picture? Further, in what ways is this foreclosure itself representable (on a mass or systemic scale) within the digital networks themselves? (The February flare up over Facebook's new terms of service provides somewhat of an illustration). Rambling first thoughts. But I'm eager to see these and others bounced around. Best- Grant -- Grant Wythoff http://twitter.com/gwijthoff Princeton University Department of English McCosh 22 Princeton, NJ 08544 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090607/5fa1643a/attachment.htm From gwythoff at princeton.edu Sun Jun 7 20:37:40 2009 From: gwythoff at princeton.edu (Grant Wythoff) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 16:37:40 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <001201c9e7a8$dadae3b0$9090ab10$@com> References: <001201c9e7a8$dadae3b0$9090ab10$@com> Message-ID: Amanda- One would think that with the events of the past year, "money" would not be so easily equated with mortgage debt. A first step in thinking through the new tools and practices I referred to is to consider how we can stop equating "money" with its contemporary modalities. Late 19th, early 20th century utopias proposed replacing money with "credit" (esp. Bellamy's "Looking Backward"), a proposal which should of course seem laughable today. But neither can money be a valuable object or substance in itself, since it serves as a token for exchange. Money is and has always been an abstraction of value. What I was getting at is that practices of production, exchange, and consumption have developed on a mass scale *within the specific context of digital networks* that currently cannot be ported back into or reconciled with the traditional money economy. These practices are the subject of this conference, and what I think we all should be considering is what models, alternatives, reflections the production of value within the information economy provides in the current economic climate. It's beyond my expertise to fully "envision" any solutions, but for one of the most, I think, productive examples, check out Charlie Stross on 'venture altruism' in the novel Accelerando. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando_(book) -Grant On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Amanda Chapel wrote: > Grant, > > > > "I believe is evidence that we have the tools and experiences at our > disposal to entirely rethink the circulation and standard of money as well > as the value of work with the digital realm." > > > > The mortgage is due the first of the month? what do you envision? > > > > - Amanda > > > > *From:* idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [mailto: > idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net] *On Behalf Of *Grant Wythoff > *Sent:* Sunday, June 07, 2009 1:22 PM > *To:* idc at mailman.thing.net > *Subject:* [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > > > > Hi All- > > My name is Grant Wythoff, and I'm currently a PhD candidate in the > Department of English and the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton. > My work is situated at the intersections of media theory and science > fiction, exploring the various types of worldbuilding, estrangement, and > utopianism that bubble up from moments of epistemic shifts in media > technologies. Other areas of interest include new media culture and the > rhetoric of "content," television studies, media archaeology, 20th century > American theater and film, and Frankfurt school aesthetics. > > As Howard pointed out, we are in a situation in which we must entirely > redefine our notions of labor and play, and I think this conference will be > a really exciting forum to begin thinking along these lines. One can go as > far back as Benjamin in locating an alignment of labor and play within > industrial apparatus--his notion of "Spielraum" (playspace / room for play) > seems particularly apt in our own context as it gets at the truly > revolutionary (if not utopian) possibilities opened up for new fields of > action within the very same profit motives of commercial agents. Yes, > information aggregators have proved immensely powerful tools of cognitive > mapping through both graphic means--witness Google's flu trends or > twitscoop--as well as good old fashioned research methodologies--i.e. > wikipedia and wikileaks. But at the same time, we are left with an > incredibly difficult set of questions, since the space for play the media > opens for us has almost always been one that fundamentally does not belong > to us. And here I can't help quoting the old Playstation motto, "live in > your world, play in ours." > > Perhaps we can come back to this topic of profit motives intersecting with > useful "public" goods and enjoyable "private" behavior raised by Howard and > taken up by Trebor--and here I will just briefly jump across a few > interrelated ideas. > > To take a case study, Eric Schmidt swears that things like flu trends, > google maps, and semantic searching are the primary business of Google while > the harvested clickwork of their targeted ads is only a necessary evil, the > fuel powering these larger ambitions. For argument's sake, what if (and > this is a big 'what if,' used only for the purposes of a productive science > fictional tension with the real) what if through some process of natural > selection the "private" profit motives of web 2.0 companies and the creative > industries are gradually replaced (displaced? superseded?) by their useful > "public" functions? In other words, what kind of *value* does the public at > large attribute to the information economy? > > In business circles, web 2.0 is spoken of as being a failure since it "has > no business model," since there is no way to monetize it on a large scale. > To take a second case study, we are at a crucial juncture in the information > economy, with widely publicized talk of new agglomerations of news media > (spearheaded by the AP) and new forms of control over "content." But this > talk of "monetizing" freely linked, traded, and read online news content (a > discussion that has been disseminated through the tubes of the media > themselves) has revealed in so may fascinating ways just how regressive such > proposals are. The sense of disbelief everyone feels--grounded in their > everyday techniques of screen reading, their presence online--I believe is > evidence that we have the tools and experiences at our disposal to entirely > rethink the circulation and standard of money as well as the value of work > with the digital realm. > > The question of newspapers and the loss of local voices is of course one to > be taken up by a different thread. Leaving this aside and turning to the > topic of properly digital labor: our work is unpaid. But do we want > remuneration? > > If the biggest challenge to a critique of digital labor is the fact that > the mass of clickworkers simply doesn't care, that they enjoy their free > labor (let's face it, who doesn't)--then perhaps a possible secondary line > of inquiry would bring us into the potentialities of digital networks > foreclosed by their current configurations. Television always promised a > world represented as system--channels, flow, live feed, etc--a rhetoric > which has been notoriously difficult for cultural critics to satisfactorily > engage with. In what ways has our image of the world evolved from that > given to us by television? In what ways is the potential for political > critique and "pleasurable learning, cheerful and militant learning" (Brecht) > foreclosed by the current, digital configuration of the world picture? > Further, in what ways is this foreclosure itself representable (on a mass or > systemic scale) within the digital networks themselves? (The February flare > up over Facebook's new terms of service provides somewhat of an > illustration). > > Rambling first thoughts. But I'm eager to see these and others bounced > around. > > Best- > Grant > > > -- > Grant Wythoff > http://twitter.com/gwijthoff > > Princeton University > Department of English > McCosh 22 > Princeton, NJ 08544 > -- Grant Wythoff Princeton University Department of English McCosh 22 Princeton, NJ 08544 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090607/0c7d60ac/attachment-0001.htm From jean at creativitymachine.net Mon Jun 8 10:43:19 2009 From: jean at creativitymachine.net (Jean Burgess) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:43:19 +1000 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You're right, Sean - this is the nub - cars looked great until everyone got them. Some of the most radical developments in the population-wide extension of access to online communication in the last 10 years are also the most aggressively commercial (even if, as in the case of YouTube, they make no money). This moment raises questions without easy answers (unless one just already hates the masses and/or "capitalism" in which case it is very easy), and I am not yet convinced either by the banal celebrations or any available critique. We live in interesting times. On 07/06/2009, at 23:33, Sean Cubitt wrote: > This is the nub -- what is a social good? > > > On 7/06/09 7:29 AM, "Joe Edelman" wrote: > >> I won't rest until we get to the >> ubiquitous availability of physical resources like cars and trucks, > > Cars are not a good. As a lifelong cyclist, I know how dirty, > dangerous and > anti-social cars are. And as to the ubiquitous availability issue, > there are > not enough rare earths on the planet for even China to have the > density of > wasteful duplication of devices we have (even with careful > shepherding I > have four DVD players in my house) > > Tye proliferation of consumer goods, and the detouring in desire > towards > consumerism, is about as utopian as the desire - instinctive I > believe - for > order when it becomes the fascist manipulation of anxiety towards the > terrorised society > > > "Universities, who have long claimed to elevate > and connect through scholarships and the like, are closed to most > participants, and can take six years and a great deal of expense to > effect the same power shift that can be accomplished by a disempowered > group on facebook or twitter in a few weeks." > > The kind of change we bring about in education is rather longer term > than > what can be achieved on Twitter. We have, admittedly, the luxury of > thinking > forty years into the future -- the likely working life of a student > graduating today.That means we balance between the usual corporate > horizon > of three to five years (like any other business) and the longer > term, which > entrepreneurs and corporations cannot afford to thing about. More > critically, the more "advanced' capital gets, the more *schools* - > by which > I mean schooling between 5 and 14 years of age -- become > competitive, with > the bestschools going to the children of the wealthy > > Capital is now, as it always has been, a lie founded on a bad pun: the > "freedom" of the market has nothing whatever to do with human > freedom, any > more than the 'survival of the fittest' describes the fit of a > species in an > ecological niche. > > Sorry to be argumentative: it's late, I'm tired, and I blew the > weekend > writing when I shd have been outdoors > > sean > > Prof Sean Cubitt > scubitt at unimelb.edu.au > Director > Media and Communications Program > Faculty of Arts > Room 127 John Medley East > The University of Melbourne > Parkville VIC 3010 > Australia > > Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667 > Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494 > M: 0448 304 004 > Skype: seancubitt > http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/ > http://www.digital-light.net.au/ > http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/ > http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/ > http://del.icio.us/seancubitt > > Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series > http://leonardo.info > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From chapel at strumpette.com Sun Jun 7 23:30:05 2009 From: chapel at strumpette.com (Amanda Chapel) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 18:30:05 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: <001201c9e7a8$dadae3b0$9090ab10$@com> Message-ID: <001c01c9e7c7$e3f60870$abe21950$@com> Grant, Respectfully, your proposal - without the "expertise to envision any solutions" - is disconcerting. Money is the global medium/vehicle for the accounting of obligation. It's ubiquitous. As such, in effect, you are proposing to globally alter obligation. Easy, only if you don't have any and don't care for eating. That aside, you do make an important point: the Internet zeitgeist is fundamentally anti capitalist and anti market economy. Regrettably, this is NOT an extension of our current global system. It's a contradiction and a dangerous one at that. Anyway, before we rationalize the failure of money and the negation of obligation, let's please understand the consequences. - Amanda From: grant.wythoff at gmail.com [mailto:grant.wythoff at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Grant Wythoff Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 3:38 PM To: Amanda Chapel Cc: idc at mailman.thing.net Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Amanda- One would think that with the events of the past year, "money" would not be so easily equated with mortgage debt. A first step in thinking through the new tools and practices I referred to is to consider how we can stop equating "money" with its contemporary modalities. Late 19th, early 20th century utopias proposed replacing money with "credit" (esp. Bellamy's "Looking Backward"), a proposal which should of course seem laughable today. But neither can money be a valuable object or substance in itself, since it serves as a token for exchange. Money is and has always been an abstraction of value. What I was getting at is that practices of production, exchange, and consumption have developed on a mass scale *within the specific context of digital networks* that currently cannot be ported back into or reconciled with the traditional money economy. These practices are the subject of this conference, and what I think we all should be considering is what models, alternatives, reflections the production of value within the information economy provides in the current economic climate. It's beyond my expertise to fully "envision" any solutions, but for one of the most, I think, productive examples, check out Charlie Stross on 'venture altruism' in the novel Accelerando. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando_(book) -Grant On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Amanda Chapel wrote: Grant, "I believe is evidence that we have the tools and experiences at our disposal to entirely rethink the circulation and standard of money as well as the value of work with the digital realm." The mortgage is due the first of the month. what do you envision? - Amanda From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [mailto:idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net] On Behalf Of Grant Wythoff Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 1:22 PM To: idc at mailman.thing.net Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Hi All- My name is Grant Wythoff, and I'm currently a PhD candidate in the Department of English and the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton. My work is situated at the intersections of media theory and science fiction, exploring the various types of worldbuilding, estrangement, and utopianism that bubble up from moments of epistemic shifts in media technologies. Other areas of interest include new media culture and the rhetoric of "content," television studies, media archaeology, 20th century American theater and film, and Frankfurt school aesthetics. As Howard pointed out, we are in a situation in which we must entirely redefine our notions of labor and play, and I think this conference will be a really exciting forum to begin thinking along these lines. One can go as far back as Benjamin in locating an alignment of labor and play within industrial apparatus--his notion of "Spielraum" (playspace / room for play) seems particularly apt in our own context as it gets at the truly revolutionary (if not utopian) possibilities opened up for new fields of action within the very same profit motives of commercial agents. Yes, information aggregators have proved immensely powerful tools of cognitive mapping through both graphic means--witness Google's flu trends or twitscoop--as well as good old fashioned research methodologies--i.e. wikipedia and wikileaks. But at the same time, we are left with an incredibly difficult set of questions, since the space for play the media opens for us has almost always been one that fundamentally does not belong to us. And here I can't help quoting the old Playstation motto, "live in your world, play in ours." Perhaps we can come back to this topic of profit motives intersecting with useful "public" goods and enjoyable "private" behavior raised by Howard and taken up by Trebor--and here I will just briefly jump across a few interrelated ideas. To take a case study, Eric Schmidt swears that things like flu trends, google maps, and semantic searching are the primary business of Google while the harvested clickwork of their targeted ads is only a necessary evil, the fuel powering these larger ambitions. For argument's sake, what if (and this is a big 'what if,' used only for the purposes of a productive science fictional tension with the real) what if through some process of natural selection the "private" profit motives of web 2.0 companies and the creative industries are gradually replaced (displaced? superseded?) by their useful "public" functions? In other words, what kind of *value* does the public at large attribute to the information economy? In business circles, web 2.0 is spoken of as being a failure since it "has no business model," since there is no way to monetize it on a large scale. To take a second case study, we are at a crucial juncture in the information economy, with widely publicized talk of new agglomerations of news media (spearheaded by the AP) and new forms of control over "content." But this talk of "monetizing" freely linked, traded, and read online news content (a discussion that has been disseminated through the tubes of the media themselves) has revealed in so may fascinating ways just how regressive such proposals are. The sense of disbelief everyone feels--grounded in their everyday techniques of screen reading, their presence online--I believe is evidence that we have the tools and experiences at our disposal to entirely rethink the circulation and standard of money as well as the value of work with the digital realm. The question of newspapers and the loss of local voices is of course one to be taken up by a different thread. Leaving this aside and turning to the topic of properly digital labor: our work is unpaid. But do we want remuneration? If the biggest challenge to a critique of digital labor is the fact that the mass of clickworkers simply doesn't care, that they enjoy their free labor (let's face it, who doesn't)--then perhaps a possible secondary line of inquiry would bring us into the potentialities of digital networks foreclosed by their current configurations. Television always promised a world represented as system--channels, flow, live feed, etc--a rhetoric which has been notoriously difficult for cultural critics to satisfactorily engage with. In what ways has our image of the world evolved from that given to us by television? In what ways is the potential for political critique and "pleasurable learning, cheerful and militant learning" (Brecht) foreclosed by the current, digital configuration of the world picture? Further, in what ways is this foreclosure itself representable (on a mass or systemic scale) within the digital networks themselves? (The February flare up over Facebook's new terms of service provides somewhat of an illustration). Rambling first thoughts. But I'm eager to see these and others bounced around. Best- Grant -- Grant Wythoff http://twitter.com/gwijthoff Princeton University Department of English McCosh 22 Princeton, NJ 08544 -- Grant Wythoff Princeton University Department of English McCosh 22 Princeton, NJ 08544 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090607/65d862b7/attachment.htm From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 8 07:32:55 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 00:32:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <939074.15324.qm@web50802.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Dear Pat, Trebor et al. I find myself echoing Pat's suggestion that rather than debating about whether Google exploit us or not, it is more fruitful to search for solutions that enhance the possibilities for a maximum number of people to engage in passionate pursuits, while at the same time being able to sustain their livelyhoods. The ideal image that comes to my mind is the situation in the Middle Ages, but more precisely in Southeast Asia, where socities found ways to support a large number of their members to engage in spiritual pursuits, by allowing a flexible and temporary engagement with the Sangha. Today, such an engagement would involve a basic income, but which I believe is not a realistic achievement in the short term. So it seems to me that an ideal transitory regime would work on the basis of the existing social practices as they have been developed by free software, free culture, and open design movements, i.e. the triarchichal set of institutions that I have described in: Business Models for Peer Production. Open Source Business Resource, January 2008. Retrieved from http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/view/494/458 In summary, this model combines: - a self-aggregating community of producers, peer governing their productive processes (augmented by paid developers which nevertheless offer their output to the commons) - a for-benefit association managing and finding funds for the infrastructure of cooperation - a set of businesses that work on the basis of the commons and balances out its use by practicing benefit sharing to the for-benefit association as well as hiring developers from the pool of the commons, thereby sustaining the commons in this dual way While this model presently operates on a sectoral basis, there's a lot that public authorities could do to sustain the overall balance and development of this mode. In this context: David Bollier gave a great speech in April 2008 about commons-based value creation and what public authorities could do to stimulate it, by focusing on a fourfold strategy framework. Bollier wrote that: ?Government should actively support the commons, just as it supports the market. Government does all sorts of things to help markets function well. It builds infrastructure, pays for courts, provides legal protections, promotes trade, and gives out subsidies, among other benefits. Why shouldn?t government provide similar support to help the commons work well? If the commons can produce value efficiently, in a socially constructive manner, and with benefits to future generations of creators, it certainly deserves as much government support as markets.? But how exactly can such policies be institutionalized? Here?s my proposal, a set of 3 interlocking institutions, each with its own complementary mission and objectives: 1) Institute for the Protection and Development of the Commons This is an institution that effectively supports the creation and maintenance of the commons, A) by diffusing knowledge about the legal and institutional means of creating and protecting them. B) by creating a supportive infrastructure of cooperation that facilitates the creation of commons-oriented initiatives by those who have more difficulties accessing such necessary infrastructure Example: the policies of the French city of Brest, led by Michel Briand C) by maintaining relations with, and supporting the operation and maintenance of the for-benefits institutions that are most often associated with commons oriented initiatives 2) Institute for Open Business This institution supports the creation of market value in cooperation with the Commons, in ways that are compatible and do not deplete commons-based value creation. Typically, this is the kind of Institution that would support open source software businesses, open textbook publishers, etc.. and support young and starting enterpreneurs who want to engage in such. Example: the OSBR.Ca in Toronto 3) Institute for Benefit-Sharing and Commons Recognition This institution focuses on patronage and various forms of support that do not destroy the peer to peer logic of voluntary contributions. A) It creates a priori prizes, awards, bounties to support individuals involved in commons-based value-creation B) in cooperation with the companies (stimulated by previous open business institute), it stimulates benefit-sharing practices from companies that profit from commons created value. It acts as a meta-regular for such practices, identifying weak spots and stimulating solutions for them. C) it creates a posteriori patronage arrangements for individuals with a proven record in commons-based value creation D) it studies and proposes policies for the overall stimulation of commons-based value creation ----- Original Message ---- > From: pat kane > To: Trebor Scholz > Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net" > Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 12:49:14 AM > Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > > Hi all, > > I'm Pat Kane, I've also been invited by Trebor to kick off and > develop some of the discussions arount the nature, pleasure and pains > of "digital labor", leading up to the NY conference in November. I'm > a rights-holding musician, writer and consultant, and author of The > Play Ethic (http://www.theplayethic.com). > > In terms of a debate about whether users' interactivity with net > platforms is a form of exploitation of labor (in the Marxist sense), > I'm aware that I might be living a somewhat schizophrenic life. In > one domain, I'm a working musician who is part of a UK "legacy" act > from the 80's, Hue And Cry. Since our relaunch in late 2008, our > strategy has been to use the enthusiasm of online fandom to reanimate > our "brand", by using flexible and media-rich social networks > (particularly Ning) to capture the passions raised both by our live > performance, and other traditional outlets of media exposure (radio, > TV, press). > > In these sites ? particularly the Music Club, at http:// > hueandcry.ning.com - we actively encourage and facilitate all kinds > of 'fan labor' (cultural note: our biggest hit was called "Labour of > Love" in 1987, more inspired by Gramsci than Bateson). This can > include: cam-phone audio-visual recording from gigs; giving fans the > opportunity to suggest and vote on songs they'd like us to perform > and record; allowing fans to upload their own covers of our songs. > But this doesn't include a lot of emergent, spontaneous activity that > comes from the users' own ability to generate sub-networks and forums > of their own, within the Hue And Cry Music Club site. We don't charge > subscription fees to the site (like many other bands), and we have a > programme of regular updates of audio-visual content produced by my > musical partner and I ? again, freely streamed. > > There's much to say about this experience ? which I hope to share at > the NY conference in November. But in terms of kicking off this > debate, the core point might be that our presumption has been that > we're dealing with a radically counter-commercial audience and > environment ? one in which digital networked distribution of music > has driven its price point to effectively zero, and in which that > music has almost become a kind of 'community currency'. By that I > mean a system of exchange whose value accumulation is fan enthusiasm > and commitment, rather than straightforward monetary rent from IP- > identified saleable objects. (Although as Spotify, Last.fm and other > outfits show, a licensing system may be a possible recommodifier of > music consuming habits, though with the pressure of 'free' keeping > overall revenue much lower than the heydays of CD sales). > > So in terms of making a living, we have fallen upon the maxim "use > what is ubiquitous to drive people to what is scarce" ? ie use the > ubiquity and free circulation of digital content to raise awareness > about those real-world moments of spatio-temporal enclosure (the gig, > the meet'n'greet, the music workshop) whose boundaries can be > controlled, and thus commodified. (Our refinement on that is to > create our own 'ubiquitous' commons of Hue And Cry music within the > Music Club ? 'reterritorialising', to no doubt misuse Deleuze, the > deterritorialised flows of digital culture). It's not that we don't > try to sell recordings anymore ? we do, and we are doing so, though > the objects these recordings are attached to are way beyond the old > CD, and are more lifestyle/luxury products with music inserted, an > extension of our "brand" across non-musical physical objects. But our > working presumption is that recorded music, because of digitisation, > networks and their innovations, is always under a huge gravitational > force dragging it towards free usage. > > And just to be clear, I come at the question of what value is being > realised by commercial platform owners by the free labor of users > from a small-business perspective ? as artists seeking some kind of > income from our endeavours and enterprises. We are rights-holders in > our own small company, who seek to use non-commercial, part- > commercial (the usual social platforms) and fully-commercial (ie > larger distributors and syndicators) networks to promote our music, > both recorded and performed. > > Commercially, I should be agnostic-ironic about what networks are > best for that purpose. But civically, I'm a supporter of the > 'innovation commons' of the Net a la Lessig, and would resist any > attempt to tamper with the basic end-to-end architecture of the Web > (ie, to create tiers of net access with protocols restricted, for > whatever reason). I guess I have to stake out my petit-bourgeois, > mixed-economy, social-democrat traders' identity at the beginning. > And what I'm looking for from a conference/discussion on 'the > internet and playground and factory' is a new political economy of > the Net that can find a place for creative and sustainable cultural > enterprise, within this complex landscape (as Yochai Benkler says in > the Wealth of Networks) of market, state and 'sharing' economies. I > feel that the answers may lie as much in welfare and social policy. > That is, what kind of social provisions and support can be made for a > 'general intellect' now active throughout society, as the Italian > Marxists say? Does a four day week or a citizens' income more > effectively answer our anxieties about our affective and cognitive > 'lives' pouring into these networks, than a discourse about how our > free labor benefits Google's bottom line? > > > Pat Kane > http://theplayethic.com/patkane > Twitter: theplayethic From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 8 08:35:50 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 01:35:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: <001201c9e7a8$dadae3b0$9090ab10$@com> Message-ID: <819476.89780.qm@web50810.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Grant, (sorry for the link bombardement, I just happen to be collecting info for our open money week at the p2p blog, which started this Monday) I have forgotten the content of Bellamy's book, but it seems to me that contemporary reformers are pretty much thinking also in reviving mutual credit systems, so it may not be as laughable as we think. The existing mutual credit banks for example (WIR in Switzerland, Jak Bank in Sweden, islamic banking, mutual housing assn. in the UK), have resisted much more successfully to the current meltdown. I'm thinking of proposals from people like Bernard Lietaer, Margrit Kennedy, Thomas Greco and many many others, which all include strong mutual credit elements. My thinking is that just as the shareholder company succeeded the earlier joint stock company because it was more inclusive, peer to peer financing systems will start replacing shareholder finance because of its ability to access broader and deeper financial reserves (as shown by Obama's election campaign). Greco's last book, the end of money, has 2 interesting chapters: http://p2pfoundation.net/End_of_Money_and_the_Future_of_Civilization ; http://p2pfoundation.net/Why_Exchange_Alternatives_Fail_to_Thrive; http://p2pfoundation.net/Towards_A_Complete_Web-Based_Trading_Platform There is quite a bit of happening in the field of digital currencies, see for example http://p2pfoundation.net/Loom, which allows any community (including the Scouts with their Scouts Hours) to create their own currencies, and exchange them with other groups, as long as they use a common standard (which can be work hours, silver/gold, energy-backed ..). Open design communities have started to implement their own alternative financing systems such as for example the Arduino community with the http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Source_Hardware_Bank; you probably heard of Twollars as well, which allows payments to nonprofits. For intro's/overviews to this new field, see http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Money ; and http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/P2P-Money The emergence of global and local exchanges foregoing the use of currency, see http://p2pfoundation.net/Global_Resource_Exchange_Groups and http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer_to_Peer_Exchanges, points to the need of developing new types of metrics (http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P-Metrics), that allow us to acknowledge wealth (http://p2pfoundation.net/Wealth_Typology) that is not readily measurable with currencies, through alternative acknowledgement systems, http://p2pfoundation.net/Wealth_Acknowledgment_Systems The most promising and comprehensive metaplatform for this may well be http://p2pfoundation.net/Metacurrency_Project, its developers are promising it will function as the tcp/ip of money, Michel ________________________________ From: Grant Wythoff To: Amanda Chapel Cc: idc at mailman.thing.net Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 3:37:40 AM Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Amanda- One would think that with the events of the past year, "money" would not be so easily equated with mortgage debt. A first step in thinking through the new tools and practices I referred to is to consider how we can stop equating "money" with its contemporary modalities. Late 19th, early 20th century utopias proposed replacing money with "credit" (esp. Bellamy's "Looking Backward"), a proposal which should of course seem laughable today. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090608/dd352ed9/attachment.htm From scubitt at unimelb.edu.au Mon Jun 8 12:57:07 2009 From: scubitt at unimelb.edu.au (Sean Cubitt) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:57:07 +1000 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There's a kind of pay-off with democratisation: what we "all" get is always less than the haute bourgeoisie had (fashion, art, comfort, privacy . . . ). I posted the following to on the problem -- it isn't just about the environmental imprint of the internet (far from weightless) but about the necessity to Keep Going Sean Until the dot.com crash of 2001, the web was one of the longest-lived Temporary Autonomous Zones our generation ever knew. Capital failed to understand. Not until the years after 2001 did it begin to build business models based in the Web rather than imported from magazine publishing and the broadcast industry. Marx had established the principles in the famous Fragment on Machines (pp 690 ff) in Grundrisse: the social intellect / general intellect is manifest in two processes. In one, the skill developed over generations in making things is ossified into machinery and turned to purposes of exploitation. In the second, the ways workers organise themselves in factories so they can get longer breaks or leave earlier are systematised by Capital. But as Virno argues in Grammar of the Multitude, this innovative power to make new systems is no longer a side benefit of employing workers: it is written into our contracts. The risk capital always runs is that the endless revolutions in the means of production (machinery, organisation) constantly run ahead of capital's ability to assimilate them. This is what happened when the Web turned the internet into a mass medium. Capital had no idea how to respond, and the result was a fantastic flowering of creativity, of new kinds of cultural practice, new types of service, now modes of organisation, among which perhaps the Battle of Seattle can stand as a decent monument. Now of course with Web 2.0, capital has finally managed to catch up and turn that innovatory impetus into a profit-making enterprise, although it damn near blew itself up in the inflationary vapourware moment of the early 2000s. What is left of the revolutionary Web is marked by nostalgia, as people have been suggesting on nettime lately (Political Work in the Aftermath of the New Media Arts Crisis). But that is no reason to give up fighting for a piece of it; or to build alternatives inside the belly of the whale. Nor is it a reason not to pursue alternatives to the monetarised Web, in particular FLOSS and P2P. The mysterious, fluid, granular "we" can no more afford to give up the struggle for the Web than we can afford to give up struggling to find new alternatives to it. There are huge risks involved: the slow but certain approach of IPv6 might flag the splitting of the Web into two, and if two why not many more. I find that thought frightening. Other scenarios involve freeing more radio spectrum from the dominance of TV signals, making wireless the new terrain, probably a more hopeful variant. But for now we have to admit the battle of the internet is over and capital won. The question is how do we operate now: Tactically? Strategically? And how do we minimise or at least delay the assimilation of whatever we invent into the reproduction of capital? (and to pre-empt discussion, a) call it biopower if you prefer and b) the market is neither inevitable nor beneficial: the sixty years since Bretton Woods have failed abjectly to provide even survival levels for the majority of the world's population) On 8/06/09 8:43 PM, "Jean Burgess" wrote: > You're right, Sean - this is the nub - cars looked great until > everyone got them. > > Some of the most radical developments in the population-wide > extension of access to online communication in the last 10 years are > also the most aggressively commercial (even if, as in the case of > YouTube, they make no money). > > This moment raises questions without easy answers (unless one just > already hates the masses and/or "capitalism" in which case it is very > easy), and I am not yet convinced either by the banal celebrations or > any available critique. > > We live in interesting times. > > On 07/06/2009, at 23:33, Sean Cubitt wrote: > >> This is the nub -- what is a social good? >> >> >> On 7/06/09 7:29 AM, "Joe Edelman" wrote: >> >>> I won't rest until we get to the >>> ubiquitous availability of physical resources like cars and trucks, >> >> Cars are not a good. As a lifelong cyclist, I know how dirty, >> dangerous and >> anti-social cars are. And as to the ubiquitous availability issue, >> there are >> not enough rare earths on the planet for even China to have the >> density of >> wasteful duplication of devices we have (even with careful >> shepherding I >> have four DVD players in my house) >> >> Tye proliferation of consumer goods, and the detouring in desire >> towards >> consumerism, is about as utopian as the desire - instinctive I >> believe - for >> order when it becomes the fascist manipulation of anxiety towards the >> terrorised society >> >> >> "Universities, who have long claimed to elevate >> and connect through scholarships and the like, are closed to most >> participants, and can take six years and a great deal of expense to >> effect the same power shift that can be accomplished by a disempowered >> group on facebook or twitter in a few weeks." >> >> The kind of change we bring about in education is rather longer term >> than >> what can be achieved on Twitter. We have, admittedly, the luxury of >> thinking >> forty years into the future -- the likely working life of a student >> graduating today.That means we balance between the usual corporate >> horizon >> of three to five years (like any other business) and the longer >> term, which >> entrepreneurs and corporations cannot afford to thing about. More >> critically, the more "advanced' capital gets, the more *schools* - >> by which >> I mean schooling between 5 and 14 years of age -- become >> competitive, with >> the bestschools going to the children of the wealthy >> >> Capital is now, as it always has been, a lie founded on a bad pun: the >> "freedom" of the market has nothing whatever to do with human >> freedom, any >> more than the 'survival of the fittest' describes the fit of a >> species in an >> ecological niche. >> >> Sorry to be argumentative: it's late, I'm tired, and I blew the >> weekend >> writing when I shd have been outdoors >> >> sean >> >> Prof Sean Cubitt >> scubitt at unimelb.edu.au >> Director >> Media and Communications Program >> Faculty of Arts >> Room 127 John Medley East >> The University of Melbourne >> Parkville VIC 3010 >> Australia >> >> Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667 >> Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494 >> M: 0448 304 004 >> Skype: seancubitt >> http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/ >> http://www.digital-light.net.au/ >> http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/ >> http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/ >> http://del.icio.us/seancubitt >> >> Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series >> http://leonardo.info >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref Prof Sean Cubitt scubitt at unimelb.edu.au Director Media and Communications Program Faculty of Arts Room 127?John Medley East The University of Melbourne Parkville VIC 3010 Australia Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667 Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494 M: 0448 304 004 Skype: seancubitt http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/ http://www.digital-light.net.au/ http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/ http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/ http://del.icio.us/seancubitt Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series http://leonardo.info From trebor at thing.net Mon Jun 8 13:41:10 2009 From: trebor at thing.net (trebor at thing.net) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 09:41:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: <56010.173.2.143.75.1244468470.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> Good morning all, Life is not all about labor in the traditional sense but what creates economic value is continuously changing and expanding. Jonathan Beller describes this as the financialization of everyday life (our attention, imagination, creativity, and faith). This financialization applies as much to the mortgage that Amanda mentioned as it does to the current economic shakedown, the dotcom crash, and to what happens when we log on. The value of new social media, speculative and "real" (in terms of actual revenue) is created through advertising and the digital traces of our attention. Driven much more by the desire for praise than remuneration, people participate and this social participation has become the oil of the digital economy. In 1928, Bertolt Brecht wrote his poem Questions from A Worker Who Reads, where he points to the labor of the cooks, soldiers, and masons, which cannot be found in history books. Today, Burak Arikan's Meta Markets draws attention to user labor by creating a stock market for trading "socially networked creative products" (http://meta-markets.com). Tracks of our behavior, the public management of our relationships with others are recorded, sorted, analyzed and sold while we are enjoying ourselves and benefit in many ways. IPv6 comes into this discussion. It's really all quite frictionless despite Digg's Boston Digital Party and the complaints of Facebook users starting in September 2006. For me, these events are spectacles of Internet democracy; they are consumer feedback loops. We are negotiating a product that we are co-producing. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Diderot and d'Alembert published Encyclop?die, which celebrated the virtues of labor. Throughout its twenty-seven volumes, articles dealt with everything from baking bread to making nails. What would Diderot include in his revised edition today? A few places to start-- virtual volunteering (i.e., ? if handled adeptly, [unpaid Verizon volunteers] hold considerable promise" http://is.gd/T6Q6) creating meta data (i.e., Flickr Commons) uploading and/or watching/looking at photos and videos socializing (playful acts of reciprocity) paying attention to advertising micro-blogging (status updates, Twitter) co-innovating (i.e., bicycles, mountain bikes, skate boards, cars, etc) posting blog entries and comments (i.e., the bloggers who work for Huffington Post) performing emotional work (presenting a personality that ?fits in?) posting news stories referring (i.e., Digg.com) creating virtual objects (i.e., Second Life) beta testing (i.e, Netscape Navigator 1998) providing feedback consuming media (i.e., watching videos) consuming advertisement data work (i.e., filling in forms, profiles etc) viral marketing by super-users artistic work (i.e., video mashups, DeviantArt, Learning to Love You More) Most of this about pleasure, play, personal benefit, and profit-- all at the same time. It's fun, sure, and the price we pay for the "free services" is complex. Michael Warner is a good place to start thinking about that: "Our lives are minutely administered and recorded to a degree unprecedented in history;" as Warner put it, "We navigate a world of corporate agents that do not respond or act as people do. Our personal capacities, such as credit, turn out on reflection to be expressions of corporate agency." (Publics and Counterpublics, p52) For now, Trebor = R. Trebor Scholz The New School University Re: Remuneration "A Fine Is a Price" http://www.citeulike.org/user/yoav/article/1953151 From eichhorc at newschool.edu Mon Jun 8 14:06:27 2009 From: eichhorc at newschool.edu (Kate Eichhorn) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:06:27 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear all, My name is Kate Eichhorn. I'm an Assistant Professor in the Media and Culture Department at The New School and Adjunct Professor of Communication and Culture at York University. My research focuses on book and media history and contemporary innovative writing. I?m currently completing a book on archival genres, which include everything from Renaissance commonplace books to various contemporary platforms. I?m interested in how archival practices have and continue to structure compositional practices, as well as how they provide a way to think about some of the continuities linking communication practices from the incunabula to the present. Understanding the archive as a practice of everyday life, most of this book focuses on texts and objects made by anonymous or at least unknown creators (fortunately, this means that I can bid for many of my research materials on eBay and as I?ve discovered, I?m not the only researcher doing this). It?s worth noting here that most of the texts I write about, including those from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, were user generated and the product of very complex relationships with commercial printers and news services. Commonplace books and other encyclopedic forms in the 16th century would regularly go through multiple editions, often with substantial additions and corrections provided to printers by readers/users. Reflecting on how readers/users were directly involved in generating content for printed commonplace books, encyclopedias, scrapbooks etc. in previous eras also seems essential to understanding ?interaction labor? in the present. Of course, labor and capital were understood along completely different lines in the 16th century so one needs to avoid any simplistic analogues here, but I do think that print culture?s collaborative genres are relevant to this discussion. I?d argue that interaction labor is not new but simply happening on a different scale in our current economy. For this conference, I?ll be present as a curator. I?m proposing to organize a reading/performance/panel with three or four contemporary writers who are using commercial platforms, such as Facebook, SL, Google and Amazon, in their creative practices. I know many poets in the avant-garde community who work with these platforms, but Trebor and I were wondering whether any poets or conceptual fiction writers are using Yelp, eBay or Wiki? I?ve put the word out on the poetics list but if anyone here has interesting examples of writers deploying these platforms to produce digital or print-based works, I?d love to hear about them. Look forward to more here. Best, Kate Kate Eichhorn Assistant Professor Culture and Media The New School 65 W. 11th St., New York, NY, 10011 eichhorc at newschool.edu >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090608/94eec3d8/attachment.htm From biella at nyu.edu Mon Jun 8 13:54:04 2009 From: biella at nyu.edu (Gabriella Coleman) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:54:04 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <56010.173.2.143.75.1244468470.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> References: <56010.173.2.143.75.1244468470.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> Message-ID: <4A2D17FC.8000407@nyu.edu> > > vi > data work (i.e., filling in forms, profiles etc) > > viral marketing by super-users > > artistic work (i.e., video mashups, DeviantArt, Learning to Love You More) How about "piracy" (and it looks like book piracy is seriously taking off right now). > > Most of this about pleasure, play, personal benefit, and profit-- all at > the same time. It's fun, sure, and the price we pay for the "free > services" is complex. Michael Warner is a good place to start thinking > about that: > > "Our lives are minutely administered and recorded to a degree > unprecedented in history;" as Warner put it, "We navigate a world of > corporate agents that do not respond or act as people do. Our personal > capacities, such as credit, turn out on reflection to be expressions of > corporate agency." > (Publics and Counterpublics, p52) Indeed, but we also have to remember that which follows this passage and really is the whole point of the chapter (I don't have the book on me ;-and can't seem to find a pirate copy of it despite what I just noted.) But it is about the need to recgonize the relative autonomy (or more or much less autonomous) form of publics and counterpublics, a social form that he traces back to the rise of the reading public. Today while mainstream public have been fully colonized by capital, some publics have seen a revitalization in certain quarters as well (the argument of Kelty's recurive public, comes to mind). Biella > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -- **************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman From aschiffler at ferzkopp.net Mon Jun 8 15:33:35 2009 From: aschiffler at ferzkopp.net (Andreas Schiffler) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:33:35 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Piratpartiet Message-ID: <4A2D2F4F.1040909@ferzkopp.net> http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-wins-and-enters-the-european-parliament-090607/ And so the backlash against "the older politicians" begins. Or does it? I suspect some "fizzling out" will occur as the majority of "users" will get complacent for a variety of reasons, be it for the availability of an unprecedented glut of cheap media or due to their desensitization to a surveillance culture often found at workplaces operating under economic or political pressures. --Andreas -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: aschiffler.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 135 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090608/7aeac899/attachment-0001.vcf From davinheckman at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 15:47:52 2009 From: davinheckman at gmail.com (davin heckman) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:47:52 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I was at a barbecue about a week ago, chatting with my brother-in-law, who's a labor organizer. He's less concerned with swelling the ranks of a particular union than he is with talking to working people about how they can, by talking with each other, improve their situation. As a teacher, I was interested in picking his brain on how I could use some of his work to help my students talk about their lives, formulate their responses, and organize themselves around issues that matter to them. Naturally, the talk turned to social media as a possibility and an obstacle for such organization. His advice to me, based on anecdotal evidence, was to advise students against using social media for organizing until they had strong face-to-face relationships. And then, only use it sparingly, as a tool. His experience, based on work with 20-50 year old working folks was that attitudes quickly devolve into patterns consistent with the consumption of entertainment--you do it when you have time, when it is fun, and with the multitude of available channels of information it is too easy to avoid bare-knuckle conflicts (even when exchanges become hot). In his view, the contexts which require organizing the most are those which are going to be risky--where you might lose your job, face retaliation, and, in some cases, get beaten. And so, you need a tight social relationship in which people are willing to sacrifice for each other. His efforts at organizing online were weak... they generated good talk among those who participated... but they did not translate into a strong group, unless the group was rooted in face-to-face relationships. The view he articulated to me was basically the one that I had been moving more closely to over the years--watching students organize an organization with 200 members on facebook, and then showing up to an empty meeting. On the other hand, groups with no online presence can have very active meetings. Part of me wonders if there is a divide between social media use in large metropolitan areas, where there are lots of things going on... versus life in smaller cities and towns, where people have more limited activities to choose from and less money to spend on entertainment. Maybe in big cities or among certain demographic groups, social media "works" better. Where I live and teach, it tends to fall flat. If I want someone to help out with something, I have to put in face-to-face time. I've lived in places where you could choose from several Critical Mass bike rides to attend... but then there are huge swaths of territory where people say, "Critical Mass? What's that?" And then, when you explain, they say, "Why would you want to do that?" To finally get to my point, and I'm not trying to say there is anything wrong with Web 2.0 stuff, but I do think in terms of social potential it requires the user to approach it with a certain set of priorities, a certain consciousness, and a learned orientation. IF the learned orientation is geared towards a rudimentary form of consumption, the space is going to be filled with similar priorities, perhaps with a bit more detail and elaboration. But it does not inevitably lead towards anything utopian, except in the kind of watered-down neoliberal sense where we call fun "utopia." On the other hand, if people habitually have robust relationships that are tied to consequence, they are more likely to place those expectations onto any medium that they are invested in. Even if consumers become "green consumers" or "hipsters" (or whatever the thing to do is)... as long as "the good" is framed primarily as an enlightened approach to individual consumer choices... it will be hard to respond to employers and corporations who coordinate their decision-making in an integrated way, facilitated by market research, lobbying, finance, etc. In general, contemporary critical theory is frightened of tackling concepts like guilt, sacrifice, duty, responsibility, etc. Such concepts are toxic to neoliberalism (except in those cases when they can be exploited, like when neglected children learn to nag their overworked parents into buying shit to make up for their absence), and consequently, generations of people are afraid of these feelings. But, if social media is going to work, it needs to be able to carry consequences in proportion to risks. If they are going to translate into material effects, the virtual actions must be tied to embodied responses. How do we do this? Well... my brother-in-law does a great job organizing people. Educators have an opportunity to connect students to this reality. And, artists can do this in their work. Unfortunately, there aren't enough organizers, artists, and educators doing this. It requires active effort and hard work by people who are conscious of the problem. More importantly, we need to imagine an entire education which is geared towards fostering an ethical view that is capable of seeing systems of power beyond individual decisions. If the Internet is a factory, then maybe we should follow the model of past efforts of successful organizing.... And this usually takes place when the workers are off the clock, when they can have candid discussions, and when they can get to know each other personally and intimately. Especially in the case of the web, where people can get so caught up in posturing and image-management, it might be doubly powerful to be cared for and accepted in the flesh, where we feel a little flabbier and look a bit more blemished, where there is no backspace to filter out a personality flaw. Peace! Davin Heckman From jhuns at vt.edu Mon Jun 8 16:25:11 2009 From: jhuns at vt.edu (jeremy hunsinger) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 12:25:11 -0400 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> > > Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in > economy, > labor, and life related to digital media. I wonder if we are, and if we are, is it massive, and what then is the mass? To what are we referring to when we consider massive in relation to economy; people, money, institutions, collective ideological functions, conventions? surely if there is a change on a scale we'd be able to see it in some manner, and personally I've not seen it. I see huge demographic changes, that's true, but not really huge cultural changes. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my students at UIC weren't that into technology, they were very into paying bills and getting by, they used things like facebook, but then my mom is on facebook, I'm sort of surprised my grandmother isn't on it, but I suspect she is by proxy through her great grand-daughter. However, when I look at their everyday lives they are not significantly different from what they were when I was a kid, 25-30 years ago. Perhaps the massive change is not there, and if it isn't... what is there? what is changing? Demographics are changing, and with that the tax burden is changing, and with that the mode of production is changing, but then the mode of production has been in transformation my whole life. It is probably that categorically... if the mode of production doesn't change and adapt, it disappears. > The purpose of this conference is > to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, > consumption, and > production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to > establish > commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. I wonder if this is true. I've seen the thesis, but... it was in the 60's that Baudrillard and others said it was a fiction. It is a metanarrative, we tried to describe the new commonalities and promote them. It seems like a story we tell, much like the stories we tell about all people in NYC being the same in some respect. But having lived there, I can say... no, the commonalities are less common though more everyday, like most new yorkers that i knew had never been as far north as columbia university and even more had never been Astoria, in Queens, but they had all been past the Empire State Building. I'm wondering if these commonalities are sort of like that... 'having walked past, driven past, etc. the Empire State Building. Sort of like.. 'watching Archie Bunker'. The 'mass audience' though based on common experience I think is somewhat of a misconception, and to think that television actually provided those shared commonalities I think is worrisome because it really isn't a very strong medium of distributed cognition. As several people on this list can argue, when you watch Television with me, we have profoundly different experiences of what is going on, we might share a central narrative, but there is divergence in what we find important and interesting and how we react to that. > Currently, > communities that were previously sustained through national > newspapers now > started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind > televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their > computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease, > tag, > detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of > their > labor, corporations expropriate value. I'm wondering how this is different from the proliferation of men's and women's clubs in the 50's. I'd say that socializing is a human process and communication is also, so we use whatever we have available, no? > Guests in the virtual world Second > Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then > consume. > What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of > digital > sociality that it brings into being? What are we doing to ourselves? > Is it the labor of ergodic literature? is it the labor of consumption like Baudrillard's Consummativity? Is it the labor of non-knowledge/ general economy from Bataille, or the labor of play from Homo Ludens? Here I think the term labor needs context no? is that just me? Labor, as a recent critique of recent marxisms, has it.... has become as a part of discourse merely nominative, that is... it is a naming. I'd argue that labor is not a catch-all name. Some things humans do are labor and laborious. We need more context to understand what people are referring to when they say labor, because right now, either everything is labor... or nothing is. > Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users > create and > add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. do they? I've seen the estimates at approximately 25 million active contributors worldwide and around 10x that for followers. You might argue that there are more, but I think we'd need some definitions. Given a global capitalist market of around 1 billion these days, that is an estimate of the number of people who make more than around 2000 u.s. dollars per year, meaning that they have expendable income beyond food, clothing, shelter. To me that seems we are talking of a very small minority in a world of almost 7 billion people where unesco says there are at least 1 billion children living in abject poverty. I mean we're talking about a very small global elite. Even if you increase the estimates of producers and consumers by an order of magnitude, you still have a global minority. So I'm guessing that most people aren't paying attention at all. I'm currently working on, amongst many other projects, a conceptualization of 'the unconnected'.... that is. the people who choose not to participate, who have participated online, performed online labor, and then left. I'm thinking that this population might help us to see what is really going on a bit better. Depending on where you are in the developed world up to 20% of internet users have stopped using the internet and went to other media/modes of communication. I see this with email all the time. People get really upset with email and give up, or blame other people, etc. Eventually some just quit. Same thing happens in games, in second life, in facebook, etc. etc. I ask... why do people leave? What is really going on here? some move on to other systems, others just stop participating.... why do they choose to disconnect. I have an intuition that it is because of my first set of comments. That is... people are trying to live their life and are just trying to get by, pay rent, etc. They have friends, colleagues, in real life that they interact with and spend their time doing that. The question then is one of whether there is... for most people, any transformation at all. I suspect there is a dabbling, but it is no where near as profound as we often attempt to make it, nor as profound as the economic speculation would have it. The latter seems to becoming more true as facebook and myspace are being revalued as their growth seems to have been attenuated. Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Information Ethics Fellow Center for Information Policy Research Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. -Jules de Gaultier () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments From trebor at thing.net Mon Jun 8 16:55:01 2009 From: trebor at thing.net (Trebor Scholz) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:55:01 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: Sure, Biella, add piracy to that list. I hope that the conference and this discussion will contribute a positive critique that also points to "lived alternatives." In addition to piracy, this is where I'd start: Profit sharing (i.e., YouTube's Partner Program, Google's Adsense, Amazon's Affiliate Program) Greed-free businesses (i.e., Craig's List and perhaps Etsy) Peer-to-peer projects Modes of cooperation and collaboration cultivated by Free software groups Various forms of self-organization (unionization?) Sabotage and protest Art (i.e., Chris Barr's Work Place Interruptions http://interruptions.org) Projects that support user rights (i.e., http://dataportability.org) Future public media (i.e., Ellen Goodman's work http://is.gd/TkIz) -The refusal to participate is not on my list.- >But it is about the need to recgonize the relative autonomy (or more or >much less autonomous) form of publics and counterpublics, a social form >that he traces back to the rise of the reading public. Today while >mainstream public have been fully colonized by capital, some publics >have seen a revitalization in certain quarters as well (the argument of >Kelty's recurive public, comes to mind). There are small and important niches of (more or less) autonomous publics but the Web is thoroughly colonized by capital and most sociality -- including that of many activist groups-- takes place on privately owned 'platforms.' Trebor From abeffel at me.com Mon Jun 8 16:58:23 2009 From: abeffel at me.com (Anne Beffel) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:58:23 -0400 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> Message-ID: <0B666F13-09A1-4E56-AB98-118A24C882DF@me.com> I've noticed a huge shift in how my students at Syracuse University relate to their worlds in social and physical terms, which I believe impact what they value, and ultimately shape the dominant cultural values. Namely, they are constantly checking facebook other social networking sites to remain "connected" and feel validated. Many of them talk about it as an addiction. Cultural shifts are hard to define, but the majority of my students' appreciation for being present in the moment without some kind of technological interface has definitely decreased. With this decrease in appreciation comes a decrease in the ability to consciously place their attention on anything for a sustained amount of time without checking their technological interfaces. -Anne Beffel Associate Professor of Art Time Arts/ Foundation Syracuse University On Jun 8, 2009, at 12:25 PM, jeremy hunsinger wrote: >> >> Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in >> economy, >> labor, and life related to digital media. > > > > I wonder if we are, and if we are, is it massive, and what then is the > mass? To what are we referring to when we consider massive in > relation to economy; people, money, institutions, collective > ideological functions, conventions? surely if there is a change on a > scale we'd be able to see it in some manner, and personally I've not > seen it. I see huge demographic changes, that's true, but not really > huge cultural changes. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my students at UIC > weren't that into technology, they were very into paying bills and > getting by, they used things like facebook, but then my mom is on > facebook, I'm sort of surprised my grandmother isn't on it, but I > suspect she is by proxy through her great grand-daughter. However, > when I look at their everyday lives they are not significantly > different from what they were when I was a kid, 25-30 years ago. > > Perhaps the massive change is not there, and if it isn't... what is > there? what is changing? Demographics are changing, and with that > the tax burden is changing, and with that the mode of production is > changing, but then the mode of production has been in transformation > my whole life. It is probably that categorically... if the mode of > production doesn't change and adapt, it disappears. > > > >> The purpose of this conference is >> to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, >> consumption, and >> production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to >> establish >> commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. > > I wonder if this is true. I've seen the thesis, but... it was in the > 60's that Baudrillard and others said it was a fiction. It is a > metanarrative, we tried to describe the new commonalities and promote > them. It seems like a story we tell, much like the stories we tell > about all people in NYC being the same in some respect. But having > lived there, I can say... no, the commonalities are less common though > more everyday, like most new yorkers that i knew had never been as far > north as columbia university and even more had never been Astoria, in > Queens, but they had all been past the Empire State Building. I'm > wondering if these commonalities are sort of like that... 'having > walked past, driven past, etc. the Empire State Building. Sort of > like.. 'watching Archie Bunker'. The 'mass audience' though based on > common experience I think is somewhat of a misconception, and to think > that television actually provided those shared commonalities I think > is worrisome because it really isn't a very strong medium of > distributed cognition. As several people on this list can argue, when > you watch Television with me, we have profoundly different experiences > of what is going on, we might share a central narrative, but there is > divergence in what we find important and interesting and how we react > to that. > > >> Currently, >> communities that were previously sustained through national >> newspapers now >> started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind >> televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their >> computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease, >> tag, >> detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of >> their >> labor, corporations expropriate value. > > I'm wondering how this is different from the proliferation of men's > and women's clubs in the 50's. I'd say that socializing is a human > process and communication is also, so we use whatever we have > available, no? > >> Guests in the virtual world Second >> Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then >> consume. > >> What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of >> digital >> sociality that it brings into being? What are we doing to ourselves? >> > Is it the labor of ergodic literature? is it the labor of consumption > like Baudrillard's Consummativity? Is it the labor of non-knowledge/ > general economy from Bataille, or the labor of play from Homo Ludens? > Here I think the term labor needs context no? is that just me? > Labor, as a recent critique of recent marxisms, has it.... has become > as a part of discourse merely nominative, that is... it is a naming. > I'd argue that labor is not a catch-all name. Some things humans do > are labor and laborious. We need more context to understand what > people are referring to when they say labor, because right now, either > everything is labor... or nothing is. > > >> Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users >> create and >> add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. > > do they? I've seen the estimates at approximately 25 million active > contributors worldwide and around 10x that for followers. You might > argue that there are more, but I think we'd need some definitions. > Given a global capitalist market of around 1 billion these days, that > is an estimate of the number of people who make more than around 2000 > u.s. dollars per year, meaning that they have expendable income beyond > food, clothing, shelter. To me that seems we are talking of a very > small minority in a world of almost 7 billion people where unesco says > there are at least 1 billion children living in abject poverty. I > mean we're talking about a very small global elite. Even if you > increase the estimates of producers and consumers by an order of > magnitude, you still have a global minority. > > > So I'm guessing that most people aren't paying attention at all. > > I'm currently working on, amongst many other projects, a > conceptualization of 'the unconnected'.... that is. the people who > choose not to participate, who have participated online, performed > online labor, and then left. I'm thinking that this population might > help us to see what is really going on a bit better. Depending on > where you are in the developed world up to 20% of internet users have > stopped using the internet and went to other media/modes of > communication. I see this with email all the time. People get > really upset with email and give up, or blame other people, etc. > Eventually some just quit. Same thing happens in games, in second > life, in facebook, etc. etc. I ask... why do people leave? What is > really going on here? some move on to other systems, others just stop > participating.... why do they choose to disconnect. I have an > intuition that it is because of my first set of comments. That is... > people are trying to live their life and are just trying to get by, > pay rent, etc. They have friends, colleagues, in real life that they > interact with and spend their time doing that. > > The question then is one of whether there is... for most people, any > transformation at all. I suspect there is a dabbling, but it is no > where near as profound as we often attempt to make it, nor as profound > as the economic speculation would have it. The latter seems to > becoming more true as facebook and myspace are being revalued as their > growth seems to have been attenuated. > > > > Jeremy Hunsinger > Center for Digital Discourse and Culture > Virginia Tech > Information Ethics Fellow > Center for Information Policy Research > > > Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. > -Jules de Gaultier > > () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail > /\ - against microsoft attachments > > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From ckelty at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 18:16:36 2009 From: ckelty at gmail.com (Christopher Kelty) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:16:36 -0700 Subject: [iDC] playgrounds, factories, clinics, homes Message-ID: <1bb39ac50906081116v54407ef9g127ae379f368a258@mail.gmail.com> dear all, trebor kindly invited me to re-introduce myself here as part of the discussion. I am a cultural anthropologist/historian trained in science studies and currently working at UCLA in the department of Information studies and the Center for Society and Genetics. My book Two Bits ( http://twobits.net/) is about Free Software. Much of the theoretical work revolves around the concept of the "recursive public," which was my attempt to think about the distinctiveness of Free Software amongst all the other things taking place on and through the Internet. The book is both intended to clarify what Free Software is and how it works, and to be used as a kind of "diagonostic" tool for looking at other phenomena claiming to be open, free, social, peer to peer, or otherwise interneterrific. I've also just been to Spain, which is my new favorite place for thinking about these issues: http://www.publico.es/ciencias/230612/google/proximo/monopolio I lament that I may not be able to participate fully in the conversation this week, and for reasons not unrelated to the topic of the conference: I have been busy reproducing (the original labor), taking out an enormous mortgage on a house (part of the problem, not part of the solution), and I cannot get Time Warner (a monopoly) to install any internets in my house before June 15th, so I am reduced to wandering the neighborhood looking for "linksys" and hoping for laziness (an important component of any theory of labor). Regardless, I will do my best to keep up. ck -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090608/72f433f6/attachment.htm From cpr at mindspring.com Mon Jun 8 18:03:52 2009 From: cpr at mindspring.com (Christiane Robbins) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:03:52 -0700 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: <0B666F13-09A1-4E56-AB98-118A24C882DF@me.com> References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> <0B666F13-09A1-4E56-AB98-118A24C882DF@me.com> Message-ID: <84275871-18F9-4984-B4F9-6628500239B7@mindspring.com> This is not only commonplace within the frame of students in the classroom..... been at any meetings with your colleagues lately .... how about any dinners ( aka the feed ) with the "family and friends " where often its a more effective mode of communication to send a text message rather than have a in-person verbal conversation? The seduction of mediation ... the (non) recognition of the covert / overt mediator ... is an issue of begging address. Chris On Jun 8, 2009, at 9:58 AM, Anne Beffel wrote: > I've noticed a huge shift in how my students at Syracuse University > relate to their worlds in social and physical terms, which I believe > impact what they value, and ultimately shape the dominant cultural > values. Namely, they are constantly checking facebook other social > networking sites to remain "connected" and feel validated. Many of > them talk about it as an addiction. > > Cultural shifts are hard to define, but the majority of my students' > appreciation for being present in the moment without some kind of > technological interface has definitely decreased. With this decrease > in appreciation comes a decrease in the ability to consciously place > their attention on anything for a sustained amount of time without > checking their technological interfaces. > -Anne Beffel > Associate Professor of Art > Time Arts/ Foundation > Syracuse University > > On Jun 8, 2009, at 12:25 PM, jeremy hunsinger wrote: > >>> >>> Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in >>> economy, >>> labor, and life related to digital media. >> >> >> >> I wonder if we are, and if we are, is it massive, and what then is >> the >> mass? To what are we referring to when we consider massive in >> relation to economy; people, money, institutions, collective >> ideological functions, conventions? surely if there is a change on a >> scale we'd be able to see it in some manner, and personally I've not >> seen it. I see huge demographic changes, that's true, but not really >> huge cultural changes. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my students at UIC >> weren't that into technology, they were very into paying bills and >> getting by, they used things like facebook, but then my mom is on >> facebook, I'm sort of surprised my grandmother isn't on it, but I >> suspect she is by proxy through her great grand-daughter. However, >> when I look at their everyday lives they are not significantly >> different from what they were when I was a kid, 25-30 years ago. >> >> Perhaps the massive change is not there, and if it isn't... what is >> there? what is changing? Demographics are changing, and with that >> the tax burden is changing, and with that the mode of production is >> changing, but then the mode of production has been in transformation >> my whole life. It is probably that categorically... if the mode of >> production doesn't change and adapt, it disappears. >> >> >> >>> The purpose of this conference is >>> to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, >>> consumption, and >>> production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to >>> establish >>> commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. >> >> I wonder if this is true. I've seen the thesis, but... it was in the >> 60's that Baudrillard and others said it was a fiction. It is a >> metanarrative, we tried to describe the new commonalities and promote >> them. It seems like a story we tell, much like the stories we tell >> about all people in NYC being the same in some respect. But having >> lived there, I can say... no, the commonalities are less common >> though >> more everyday, like most new yorkers that i knew had never been as >> far >> north as columbia university and even more had never been Astoria, in >> Queens, but they had all been past the Empire State Building. I'm >> wondering if these commonalities are sort of like that... 'having >> walked past, driven past, etc. the Empire State Building. Sort of >> like.. 'watching Archie Bunker'. The 'mass audience' though based on >> common experience I think is somewhat of a misconception, and to >> think >> that television actually provided those shared commonalities I think >> is worrisome because it really isn't a very strong medium of >> distributed cognition. As several people on this list can argue, >> when >> you watch Television with me, we have profoundly different >> experiences >> of what is going on, we might share a central narrative, but there is >> divergence in what we find important and interesting and how we react >> to that. >> >> >>> Currently, >>> communities that were previously sustained through national >>> newspapers now >>> started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind >>> televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their >>> computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease, >>> tag, >>> detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of >>> their >>> labor, corporations expropriate value. >> >> I'm wondering how this is different from the proliferation of men's >> and women's clubs in the 50's. I'd say that socializing is a human >> process and communication is also, so we use whatever we have >> available, no? >> >>> Guests in the virtual world Second >>> Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then >>> consume. >> >>> What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of >>> digital >>> sociality that it brings into being? What are we doing to >>> ourselves? >>> >> Is it the labor of ergodic literature? is it the labor of >> consumption >> like Baudrillard's Consummativity? Is it the labor of non-knowledge/ >> general economy from Bataille, or the labor of play from Homo Ludens? >> Here I think the term labor needs context no? is that just me? >> Labor, as a recent critique of recent marxisms, has it.... has become >> as a part of discourse merely nominative, that is... it is a naming. >> I'd argue that labor is not a catch-all name. Some things humans do >> are labor and laborious. We need more context to understand what >> people are referring to when they say labor, because right now, >> either >> everything is labor... or nothing is. >> >> >>> Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users >>> create and >>> add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. >> >> do they? I've seen the estimates at approximately 25 million active >> contributors worldwide and around 10x that for followers. You might >> argue that there are more, but I think we'd need some definitions. >> Given a global capitalist market of around 1 billion these days, that >> is an estimate of the number of people who make more than around 2000 >> u.s. dollars per year, meaning that they have expendable income >> beyond >> food, clothing, shelter. To me that seems we are talking of a very >> small minority in a world of almost 7 billion people where unesco >> says >> there are at least 1 billion children living in abject poverty. I >> mean we're talking about a very small global elite. Even if you >> increase the estimates of producers and consumers by an order of >> magnitude, you still have a global minority. >> >> >> So I'm guessing that most people aren't paying attention at all. >> >> I'm currently working on, amongst many other projects, a >> conceptualization of 'the unconnected'.... that is. the people who >> choose not to participate, who have participated online, performed >> online labor, and then left. I'm thinking that this population might >> help us to see what is really going on a bit better. Depending on >> where you are in the developed world up to 20% of internet users have >> stopped using the internet and went to other media/modes of >> communication. I see this with email all the time. People get >> really upset with email and give up, or blame other people, etc. >> Eventually some just quit. Same thing happens in games, in second >> life, in facebook, etc. etc. I ask... why do people leave? What is >> really going on here? some move on to other systems, others just >> stop >> participating.... why do they choose to disconnect. I have an >> intuition that it is because of my first set of comments. That is... >> people are trying to live their life and are just trying to get by, >> pay rent, etc. They have friends, colleagues, in real life that >> they >> interact with and spend their time doing that. >> >> The question then is one of whether there is... for most people, any >> transformation at all. I suspect there is a dabbling, but it is no >> where near as profound as we often attempt to make it, nor as >> profound >> as the economic speculation would have it. The latter seems to >> becoming more true as facebook and myspace are being revalued as >> their >> growth seems to have been attenuated. >> >> >> >> Jeremy Hunsinger >> Center for Digital Discourse and Culture >> Virginia Tech >> Information Ethics Fellow >> Center for Information Policy Research >> >> >> Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. >> -Jules de Gaultier >> >> () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail >> /\ - against microsoft attachments >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref C h r i s t i a n e R o b b i n s - JETZTZEIT - ... the space between zero and one ... Walter Benjamin LOS ANGELES I SAN FRANCISCO The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-1872, http://www.jetztzeit.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090608/0255d1bf/attachment-0001.htm From jhuns at vt.edu Mon Jun 8 17:11:55 2009 From: jhuns at vt.edu (jeremy hunsinger) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 13:11:55 -0400 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: <0B666F13-09A1-4E56-AB98-118A24C882DF@me.com> References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> <0B666F13-09A1-4E56-AB98-118A24C882DF@me.com> Message-ID: <4096FD14-1865-46B9-B621-F7AEA754509F@vt.edu> On Jun 8, 2009, at 12:58 PM, Anne Beffel wrote: > I've noticed a huge shift in how my students at Syracuse University > relate to their worlds in social and physical terms, which I believe > impact what they value, and ultimately shape the dominant cultural > values. Namely, they are constantly checking facebook other social > networking sites to remain "connected" and feel validated. Many of > them talk about it as an addiction. I see some students doing this, but not that many. I see students in many more social settings than I see them in classrooms these days though. I'm usually the only one with my mobile device going full bore in most social settings. I suspect there may be a different kind of student or different population of student from the last two schools I've taught which was a library school in nyc and UIC. Both of those sets of students were very grounded in everyday life and less into media. I suppose some where, the 10-12 out of the 250 or so that became my facebook friends, etc. But this makes me wary of universalizing the experiences, conventions, or categories of our shared existences. It might be thus a more of a local shift, or a generational shift, I'm not sure, might be your students, or it could be all students, but i've not experienced it yet. > > Cultural shifts are hard to define, but the majority of my students' > appreciation for being present in the moment without some kind of > technological interface has definitely decreased. With this decrease > in appreciation comes a decrease in the ability to consciously place > their attention on anything for a sustained amount of time without > checking their technological interfaces. I wonder there what you mean by being present in the moment and having an appreciation of it. Because if you talk to me, and I find if you talk to most professors and graduate students, we frequently move off into our own thoughts in perhaps similar, if less technologically enhanced ways. I see people doing this in all kinds of ways all the time, sometimes it is checking their watch, some people it is reading what they've been writing on legal pads. Perhaps the construction of shared mediation is different, but then i wonder about things like... faculty meetings and perhaps they were constructed to do the same sorts of things, same 'labors'. Though that likely varies also amongst populations. > -Anne Beffel > Associate Professor of Art > Time Arts/ Foundation > Syracuse University > > On Jun 8, 2009, at 12:25 PM, jeremy hunsinger wrote: >> > From gurstein at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 17:14:35 2009 From: gurstein at gmail.com (Michael Gurstein) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 10:14:35 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm very interested in Davin Heckman's observations but from a somewhat different angle. I've worked quite extensively with aboriginal/indigenous people in various parts of the world who in very many cases are seeing Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) as a powerful new instrument for supporting their various initiatives to, for example retain land rights, overcome the externally imposed artificial barriers of national boundaries, support them in developing place-anchored services such as education and health care particularly in remote and rural areas and so on. Additionally, there are a number of instances of strongly (socially) integrated place based communities particularly in Less Developed Countries which are using ICTs as resources for developing local autonomy/empowerment and to support local social and economic development. In fact, I and others, working within the broad framework of what is coming to be known as "community informatics" argue that these types of applications and uses are among the most significant forms of "resistance" in an Information Society and should be understood as in dialectical opposition to the technological determinism towards the "networked individualism" of Barry Wellman and other commentators on technology and culture in modern urban societies. My own take on this discussion can be found in http://eprints.rclis.org/12372/1/WHAT_IS_COMMUNITY_INFORMATICS_reading.pdf and the overall discussion and related researech can be found in various of the articles published in the Journal of Community Informatics http://ci-journal.net. Best, MBG Michael Gurstein, Ph.D. Director: Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training Vancouver, CANADA http://www.communityinformatics.net CA tel. +1-604-602-0624 -----Original Message----- From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [mailto:idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net] On Behalf Of davin heckman Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 8:48 AM To: idc at mailman.thing.net Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory I was at a barbecue about a week ago, chatting with my brother-in-law, who's a labor organizer. He's less concerned with swelling the ranks of a particular union than he is with talking to working people about how they can, by talking with each other, improve their situation. As a teacher, I was interested in picking his brain on how I could use some of his work to help my students talk about their lives, formulate their responses, and organize themselves around issues that matter to them. Naturally, the talk turned to social media as a possibility and an obstacle for such organization. His advice to me, based on anecdotal evidence, was to advise students against using social media for organizing until they had strong face-to-face relationships. And then, only use it sparingly, as a tool. His experience, based on work with 20-50 year old working folks was that attitudes quickly devolve into patterns consistent with the consumption of entertainment--you do it when you have time, when it is fun, and with the multitude of available channels of information it is too easy to avoid bare-knuckle conflicts (even when exchanges become hot). In his view, the contexts which require organizing the most are those which are going to be risky--where you might lose your job, face retaliation, and, in some cases, get beaten. And so, you need a tight social relationship in which people are willing to sacrifice for each other. His efforts at organizing online were weak... they generated good talk among those who participated... but they did not translate into a strong group, unless the group was rooted in face-to-face relationships. The view he articulated to me was basically the one that I had been moving more closely to over the years--watching students organize an organization with 200 members on facebook, and then showing up to an empty meeting. On the other hand, groups with no online presence can have very active meetings. Part of me wonders if there is a divide between social media use in large metropolitan areas, where there are lots of things going on... versus life in smaller cities and towns, where people have more limited activities to choose from and less money to spend on entertainment. Maybe in big cities or among certain demographic groups, social media "works" better. Where I live and teach, it tends to fall flat. If I want someone to help out with something, I have to put in face-to-face time. I've lived in places where you could choose from several Critical Mass bike rides to attend... but then there are huge swaths of territory where people say, "Critical Mass? What's that?" And then, when you explain, they say, "Why would you want to do that?" To finally get to my point, and I'm not trying to say there is anything wrong with Web 2.0 stuff, but I do think in terms of social potential it requires the user to approach it with a certain set of priorities, a certain consciousness, and a learned orientation. IF the learned orientation is geared towards a rudimentary form of consumption, the space is going to be filled with similar priorities, perhaps with a bit more detail and elaboration. But it does not inevitably lead towards anything utopian, except in the kind of watered-down neoliberal sense where we call fun "utopia." On the other hand, if people habitually have robust relationships that are tied to consequence, they are more likely to place those expectations onto any medium that they are invested in. Even if consumers become "green consumers" or "hipsters" (or whatever the thing to do is)... as long as "the good" is framed primarily as an enlightened approach to individual consumer choices... it will be hard to respond to employers and corporations who coordinate their decision-making in an integrated way, facilitated by market research, lobbying, finance, etc. In general, contemporary critical theory is frightened of tackling concepts like guilt, sacrifice, duty, responsibility, etc. Such concepts are toxic to neoliberalism (except in those cases when they can be exploited, like when neglected children learn to nag their overworked parents into buying shit to make up for their absence), and consequently, generations of people are afraid of these feelings. But, if social media is going to work, it needs to be able to carry consequences in proportion to risks. If they are going to translate into material effects, the virtual actions must be tied to embodied responses. How do we do this? Well... my brother-in-law does a great job organizing people. Educators have an opportunity to connect students to this reality. And, artists can do this in their work. Unfortunately, there aren't enough organizers, artists, and educators doing this. It requires active effort and hard work by people who are conscious of the problem. More importantly, we need to imagine an entire education which is geared towards fostering an ethical view that is capable of seeing systems of power beyond individual decisions. If the Internet is a factory, then maybe we should follow the model of past efforts of successful organizing.... And this usually takes place when the workers are off the clock, when they can have candid discussions, and when they can get to know each other personally and intimately. Especially in the case of the web, where people can get so caught up in posturing and image-management, it might be doubly powerful to be cared for and accepted in the flesh, where we feel a little flabbier and look a bit more blemished, where there is no backspace to filter out a personality flaw. Peace! Davin Heckman _______________________________________________ iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) iDC at mailman.thing.net https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc List Archive: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ iDC Photo Stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ RSS feed: http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc iDC Chat on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From julian at kuecklich.de Mon Jun 8 21:05:06 2009 From: julian at kuecklich.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julian_K=FCcklich?=) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 22:05:06 +0100 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <56010.173.2.143.75.1244468470.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> References: <56010.173.2.143.75.1244468470.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> Message-ID: <7d9726080906081405q20dc3765jfdf9d8b9ee1203c5@mail.gmail.com> Hi all, I have been encouraged by Trebor and Biella to chime in on what is already quite an impressive discussion about play and labour on the interwebz, and I also feel compelled to add my two cents to the stakes because I've written a few bits and pieces on what I call playbour --- mostly within the digital games production nexus, but also in other pockets of post-productive living (I am painfully aware that the most extensive piece of writing that I refer to above, my dissertation on deludology, is still not available to public scrutiny, which I will rectify at the earliest convenience --- meanwhile, if you like, take a look at playability.de/pub for some of the published extracts from that). But let me unpack. The transformation that Trebor refers to in his introductory piece may have its roots online but it is quite evident to all of us that it has now spilled over the confines of the virtual and seeped into the very fabric of the actual, the material, the tangible. Everywhere we look --- be it journalism, the wretched creative industries (which encompass everything from designing bubble gum wrappers to making new drugs), the financial markets, or the production of physical goods, it seems increasingly ludicrous to pay people for their productive labour when production has become almost entirely autonomous of the economic and political contexts in which it appeared to be so firmly inscribed. The latest crisis is just a symptom of a loss of orientation in a world where the established models provided by Marx, Weber and Smith do not provide guidance anymore. So it's not just a question of value, but also a question of values, a distinction that is increasingly difficult to uphold in a world where the value of a product or a company is determined by how compatible it is to the values of its users (think facebook, or twitter). It seems to me that what was of value in the pre-digital age was the discrete, packaged and self-contained product, often manufactured through a process that could itself be broken down into discrete, packaged and self-contained steps. In the post-productive age value has shifted to the stream, the continuous, the Flood (a metaphor borrowed from the video game Halo), and these streams are itself generated through messy, continuous, excessive (call them biopolitical, if you will) processes. And I am not just talking about the snorting-coke-off-a-naked-hookers-ass world of advertising and design here, but also about software production, clothes manufacturing, and food processing, all of which have become nomadic, following the lure of free-trade agreements, cheap labour, and the availability of tax breaks and materials. It's the Flood, all right, and what it leaves behind is the flotsam and jetsam of globalization, along with homo sacer in its most wretched, abject form, stripped of identity, mobility, and spirit. So it's not all good. And crucially, of course, the temporarily sustainable forms of post-productive life, the twittering, flickring, friendfeeding multitude is entirely dependent on the destruction of human life as we know it. But let's take a step back from this dystopian vision for a moment and talk about games. Importantly, I think, the internet and the video game are both products of the Cold War military-industrial complex, which has structured the way we live today to a large extent. They are both posty-scarcity media, developed in university labs flush with military money and that is the message that it took them 50 years to impart. To be fair, packet switching and efficient subroutines (which were necessary to fit game code on small chips) both follow the logic of scarcity, but in their teleology, their technosocial impetus, both of these media followed a logic of abundance. The game, which is both larger and smaller, older and younger, than the internet, had the advantage of drawing on a tradition of play, which has always adhered to the logic of the potlatch, of "pure waste" (Caillois), and it infused the internet, and then the world wide web with what I have called an "ideology of play." I have written about the ideology of play on this list before, so I won't go into much detail now. The concept is neither novel nor complex, it just provides a convenient handle on some stuff that I am struggling with both in my life and my work (if this is a distinction that still makes sense). What is important to bear in mind is that play --- in its rarefied, unadulterated form, which probably never existed, except in the minds of cultural theorists who never set foot into a casino --- is autotelic and has no end than the one it finds in itself. So it is by definition unproductive, and even gambling is ultimately a zero-sum game. And since there is no reward in play it demands that players devote themselves to the game fully and unreservedly --- lest they be labelled spoilsports, cheaters or triflers. It seems to me that this is the logic (post-Aristotelian, for sure, but still a logic) is what governs the processes of production and distribution on the internet, and increasingly in all other domains of life, as commerce, art, communication, transport, sex, food, etc., transform themselves into digital expressions. So we are no longer in the realm or era of production but in that of pollination, to use a Stieglerian phrase. This of course raises the question of remuneration, but this might be too thorny an issue to tackle at the end of this long and rambling missive. So I will leave that to less frazzled minds than mine to sort out. So what can I offer to this discussion apart from a rather self-indulgent meditation on the nature of play? Maybe this: 1) The playground has become a factory, but the factory has become a playground, so the logic of production does no longer apply. 2) Resistance is futile but cheating is possible. 3) If we want to understand the rules of this new game, we will have to become players ourselves. 4) Playing the game means wagering everything but because of 2) we can bend the rules to our advantage and come out not necessarily with more but with something else. 5) "After the game is before the game" (Sepp Herberger). Julian. 2009/6/8 : > Good morning all, > > Life is not all about labor in the traditional sense but what creates > economic value is continuously changing and expanding. > > Jonathan Beller describes this as the financialization of everyday life > (our attention, imagination, creativity, and faith). This financialization > applies as much to the mortgage that Amanda mentioned as it does to the > current economic shakedown, the dotcom crash, and to what happens when we > log on. The value of new social media, speculative and "real" (in terms of > actual revenue) is created through advertising and the digital traces of > our attention. Driven much more by the desire for praise than > remuneration, people participate and this social participation has become > the oil of the digital economy. > > In 1928, Bertolt Brecht wrote his poem Questions from A Worker Who Reads, > where he points to the labor of the cooks, soldiers, and masons, which > cannot be found in history books. Today, Burak Arikan's Meta Markets draws > attention to user labor by creating a stock market for trading "socially > networked creative products" (http://meta-markets.com). > > Tracks of our behavior, the public management of our relationships with > others are recorded, sorted, analyzed and sold while we are enjoying > ourselves and benefit in many ways. IPv6 comes into this discussion. It's > really all quite frictionless despite Digg's Boston Digital Party and the > complaints of Facebook users starting in September 2006. For me, these > events are spectacles of Internet democracy; they are consumer feedback > loops. We are negotiating a product that we are co-producing. > > In the middle of the eighteenth century, Diderot and d'Alembert published > Encyclop?die, which celebrated the virtues of labor. Throughout its > twenty-seven volumes, articles dealt with everything from baking bread to > making nails. What would Diderot include in his revised edition today? A > few places to start-- > > virtual volunteering (i.e., ?? if handled adeptly, [unpaid Verizon > volunteers] hold considerable promise" http://is.gd/T6Q6) > > creating meta data (i.e., Flickr Commons) > > uploading and/or watching/looking at photos and videos > > socializing (playful acts of reciprocity) > > paying attention to advertising > > micro-blogging (status updates, Twitter) > > co-innovating (i.e., bicycles, mountain bikes, skate boards, cars, etc) > > posting blog entries and comments (i.e., the bloggers who work for > ?Huffington Post) > > performing emotional work (presenting a personality that ?fits in?) > > posting news stories > > referring (i.e., Digg.com) > > creating virtual objects (i.e., Second Life) > > beta testing (i.e, Netscape Navigator 1998) > > providing feedback > > consuming media (i.e., watching videos) > > consuming advertisement > > data work (i.e., filling in forms, profiles etc) > > viral marketing by super-users > > artistic work (i.e., video mashups, DeviantArt, Learning to Love You More) > > Most of this about pleasure, play, personal benefit, and profit-- all at > the same time. It's fun, sure, and the price we pay for the "free > services" is complex. Michael Warner is a good place to start thinking > about that: > > "Our lives are minutely administered and recorded to a degree > unprecedented in history;" as Warner put it, "We navigate a world of > corporate agents that do not respond or act as people do. Our personal > capacities, such as credit, turn out on reflection to be expressions of > corporate agency." > (Publics and Counterpublics, p52) > > > For now, > Trebor > > = > R. Trebor Scholz > The New School University > > Re: Remuneration > "A Fine Is a Price" > http://www.citeulike.org/user/yoav/article/1953151 > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > From markbandrejevic at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 01:36:41 2009 From: markbandrejevic at gmail.com (Mark Andrejevic) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 11:36:41 +1000 Subject: [iDC] Introduction In-Reply-To: <4A2A9C33.8050802@newschool.edu> References: <4A2A9C33.8050802@newschool.edu> Message-ID: <69ab47d10906081836x30fde077q8e2f0b00124f5ca2@mail.gmail.com> Hi Folks, I'm also introducing myself to the list -- it looks like a wonderfully interesting group of people. For the past several years I've been writing about the de-differentation of the realms of production, consumption, leisure, and domesticitiy in the interactive era. My interest in the uses of interactivity started with an examination of collaborative forms of artwork enabled by digital media and the internet. From there I considered the uptake of the "promise" of interactivity (as democratizing, empowering, etc.) in the realms of commerce and popular culture. My book, Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched situates the reality TV boom of the new millenium within the context of the mobilization of the promise of interactivity as a form of participation and attendant forms of willing submission to productive forms of monitoring. I take this thread up and generalize it to an exploration of the uses of interactivity in the realms of politics, national security, commerce, and the mass media in my second book: iSpy: Surveillance adn Power in the Interactive Era. The second book traces the continuity of digitally enhanced mass customization with turn of the (previous century) forms of monitoring based rationalization of the realms of consumption and production. My current work focuses on the development of a theory of exploitation appropriate to the mobilization of so-called "free labor" and on collective strategies for delimiting commercial forms of monitoring and data mining. I am currently a research fellow at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia and am on leave from my position as an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. I look forward to continuing the conversation! all the best, Mark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090609/0e48b3bb/attachment.htm From gdowney at wisc.edu Tue Jun 9 14:02:24 2009 From: gdowney at wisc.edu (Greg Downey) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:02:24 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: <9D317B32-A1FA-42C0-A0A5-96C9927E9FE7@wisc.edu> Hi there. My name is Greg Downey. I was also kindly invited into this discussion (and upcoming conference) by Trebor, who asked me to introduce myself to the list. I'm currently a professor the University of Wisconsin-Madison in two departments at once: Journalism & Mass Communication and Library & Information Studies. My training was rooted in two different areas, however: History of Technology and Human Geography. I study the "history and geography of information/communication technology and labor," which can be a mouthful. Examples work better. My first book was _Telegraph messenger boys: Labor, technology, and geography, 1850-1950_ (Routledge, 2002) and my second was _Closed captioning: Subtitling, stenography, and the digital convergence of text with television_ (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). Each of these explored a different global information/communication infrastructure (telegraph, television) through the lens of a particular labor process and set of rather unusual laborers within that infrastructure (largely male teens carrying messages through city streets, largely female adults transforming spoken audio into textual screen images). In between I also co-edited, with Aad Blok of the International Institute for Social History, a volume entitled _Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 1750-2000_ (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Right now I'm working on the research for my third book, which will look at the "metadata labor" of library professionals in the decades between World War II and the World Wide Web -- and hopefully it will be some aspect of this work that I'll be bringing to the conference for discussion. Cheers, -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: pastedGraphic.tiff Type: image/tiff Size: 2836 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090609/5086f430/attachment.tiff -------------- next part -------------- Greg Downey Professor School of Journalism & Mass Communication School of Library & Information Studies Department of Geography (joint appointment) Department of History of Science (affiliate appointment) University of Wisconsin-Madison 5115 Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue Madison, WI 53706 USA http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/~gdowney http://uncoveringinformationlabor.blogspot.com gdowney at wisc.edu 608/225-3809 From psp at ontologystream.com Tue Jun 9 15:54:40 2009 From: psp at ontologystream.com (Paul Prueitt) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 10:54:40 -0500 Subject: [iDC] iDC Digest, Vol 54, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <34F91BCA-2B21-4617-8A7F-312E6BE046F7@ontologystream.com> < comment my bcc - respond to psp at secondschool.net > < comment the iDC Digest is an academic forum well moderated.> *** Dear colleagues, This next academic year, I will be teaching introduction to computer science (two sections) at a small but very elite university in Northern VT. I have posted on this forum in the past and am a three + year (oh does time fly) reader. So I expect that a public commons based on my work will be available with teleconferencing between universities and other locations. This is an invitation. I am in Austin Texas now and working on establishing a "secondSchool" network in Texas. We look to build an extension and separation from Second Life, in the form of a public common (meaning everything is designed with responsibility assignable to participants. Clearly security is addressed with the technology- so a new capacity is to be made available - as a no cost public sector provided "service".) With respects, I wish to discuss the shift being visited by David, and will develop a thesis: The non-availability of knowledge management and ontological modeling capability is a major fact in the turn to entertainment. Some History: This history of virtual worlds is well known to Dr Kriste Bellman, and others whose effort within defense communities created the foundation for multiple user domains, such as Second Life, or Palace, or etc... Twitter is not equipped with true knowledge management tools, as is proposed by myself (in 1999). But it could be, and thus follow the model of Grove (used at DARPA etc all during the first part of the decade and last part of last decade. On Jun 9, 2009, at 7:00 AM, idc-request at mailman.thing.net wrote: > Naturally, the talk turned to social media as a possibility and an > obstacle > for such organization. > > His advice to me, based on anecdotal evidence, was to advise students > against using social media for organizing until they had strong > face-to-face > relationships. And then, only use it sparingly, as a tool. His > experience, > based on work with 20-50 year old working folks was that attitudes > quickly > devolve into patterns consistent with the consumption of > entertainment--you > do it when you have time, when it is fun, and with the multitude of > available channels of information it is too easy to avoid bare-knuckle > conflicts (even when exchanges become hot). In his view, the > contexts which > require organizing the most are those which are going to be risky-- > where you > might lose your job, face retaliation, and, in some cases, get > beaten. And > so, you need a tight social relationship in which people are > willing to > sacrifice for each other. His efforts at organizing online were > weak... > they generated good talk among those who participated... but they > did not > translate into a strong group, unless the group was rooted in face- > to-face > relationships. > > The view he articulated to me was basically the one that I had been > moving > more closely to over the years--watching students organize an > organization > with 200 members on facebook, and then showing up to an empty meeting. A background for my thesis is being structured into a book "Bridge to the Future". The down load is www.mathPedagogy.com/bridge.doc. This is a peer review request, not a publication as yet. There is always posted the dated last version (As of this morning - 136 pages - small type). Collaboration within the community of scholars I am looking for collaboration from social networking community and academic communities in specific areas such as evolutionary psychology, and theoretical biologic, or quantum theory. Essential information theory and social theory - along with the neurology and biology I will make detailed analytic response to this forum. And will request, after a few exchanges, that a separate group form within some public commons platform. Sub-thesis: The students, and our society as a whole, may do as humans and human social systems do; but in an entirely new way. The formation of a specific paradigmatic foundation is possible because we use language. As a consequence of specific cultural histories, the enhanced capability to form various paradigmatic foundations is resulting in new social behaviors never seen in past history. These foundations are in essence, our viewpoints. Acquired learning disability and avoidance behaviors rwt mathematics is thus re-framed (framing in the sense of G. Lakoff) as the first two memetic shifts (see for example http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/chitable.php) We see evolution and change occurring around us. The primary "improvement" (an evolution I see) is in developing the "common" capacity to shift from one set of foundational elements to a completely different set of foundational elements, and then back - easily. Why is this an improvement? So the individual on face book is interacting with many other "social systems", and increased effort along with reinforcement from peers creates new capacity. There is a self organization occurring, and this self organization is responding to the enhanced and increased capacity to shift viewpoint. A C tuning fork does not make a D tuning fork ring, but with all of the harmonies of nature - as played in musical expression - we have orchestration. What might be orchestrated by 18 year olds attending college for the first time, this year? Well, I believe that knowledge management and ontological modeling capacity use by these 18 year olds will result in music, and in tremendous insight as to how to fix our broken social and financial and education systems. Paul Prueitt -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090609/bd2312f7/attachment-0001.htm From fred at fredstutzman.com Tue Jun 9 15:38:32 2009 From: fred at fredstutzman.com (Fred Stutzman) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 11:38:32 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8CCF0909-6306-4C83-903A-BFA0D9AB894C@fredstutzman.com> Greetings all, Thank you to Trebor for sparking this interesting discussion. I've been a member of iDC for the past few years and I'm looking forward to the Digital Labor conference. As a doctoral student at UNC's school of Information and Library Science, my work explores various facets of identity and privacy in social media. My research has centered on Facebook. As a long-time user of the "social" web, I am particularly interested in the turn towards identification that is a hallmark of "late" social media. When we first started asking Facebook users about the type of information they shared, I was shocked to find the level of detail and self-reported accuracy of the information contributed to the digital public. This signaled a shift from a pseudononymous web, one in which there wasn't a normative connection between on online and offline persona. Popular discourse surrounding identity disclosure argued that young people were more narcissistic, they desired to live openly, and they didn't care about privacy. While each generation is different, these simple explanations for privacy behaviors fell flat. I have argued that identity disclosure is strongly affected by boundary setting and by salient coverage. Boundary setting refers to the level of control one has over the "space" of disclosure; Salient coverage refers to the extent to which salient others co-participate in the space. Put another way, network "closeness" is a strong motivator for a wide range of social media behaviors. Over time, we've observed Facebook (and other social media sites) change in terms of "closeness." Facebook is now widely popular, and closeness is diminished. As a result, norms have shifted towards privacy, and in our last survey we found exceptionally high adoption of privacy controls. With regard to the discussion at hand, I would like to raise two points. First, I see the shift toward identification on the social web as a particularly interesting cycle. I would argue that this normative shift has 1) de-marginalized participation and 2) legitimized the internet as a popular social channel. To go from the internet as a place of restrained identity to one where a wide range of individuals feel comfortable disclosing their names and identities in public represents nothing short of a paradigm shift for participation - as such, the labor pool is growing exponentially. I would also argue that this shift is being used to erode privacy on a number of levels. There has been much said about the shift toward "openness" caused by identified social software. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has yearned for a perfectly open society. I argue that our behavior in social media is both contextual and non-generalizable. A shift towards identified participation does not indicate a popular desire for openness. Further, I see inherent dangers in having this new ideology written into social software. On Facebook, you are not "allowed" to be pseudononymous; lately we've seen Twitter destroying impersonator accounts. This shifts limits our creativity, and opens new vectors of control; if we "write in" required openness into all software, then the software becomes an important apparatus in larger schemes of control. As we mediate more of our social lives with software, we allow designers to shape the content and structure of our experience. Of course, this is inherent to technology, and the shaping is a flexible, multi-group process. What we haven't seen before is the scale at which this shaping operates, and we've yet yet to see how such a shift can affect broad experience. Fred On Jun 4, 2009, at 11:46 AM, Trebor Scholz wrote: > Dear all, > > What follows is my introduction to the conference > "The Internet as Playground and Factory," which will take place > November 12-14 at the New School University in NYC. > > Over the next few months this list will serve as one of the places for > discussion in preparation for the event and some of the exchanges > that we > had on the iDC over the past few years are highly relevant to this > debate. > > These include: > Social information overload/time http://is.gd/OaFq > User labor http://is.gd/OaqD > "Creative labor" http://is.gd/Oaue > Labor and value http://is.gd/Oav5 > Fan labor http://is.gd/Oaxg > Immaterial labor http://is.gd/OayA > Enculturation http://is.gd/OaA1 > Virtual worlds, education, and labor http://is.gd/OaAI > > I hope that you'll join this discussion. > > == > The Internet as Playground and Factory > -- Introduction > Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in > economy, > labor, and life related to digital media. The purpose of this > conference is > to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, > consumption, and > production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to > establish > commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. > Currently, > communities that were previously sustained through national > newspapers now > started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind > televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their > computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease, > tag, > detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of > their > labor, corporations expropriate value. Guests in the virtual world > Second > Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then > consume. > What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of > digital > sociality that it brings into being? What are we doing to ourselves? > > Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users > create and > add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. > They leave > behind innumerable traces that speak to their interests, > affiliations, likes > and dislikes, and desires. Large corporations then profit from this > interaction by collecting and selling this data. Social > participation is > the oil of the digital economy. Today, communication is a mode of > social > production facilitated by new capitalist imperatives and it has become > increasingly difficult to distinguish between play, consumption and > production, life and work, labor and non-labor. > > The revenues of today's social aggregators are promising but their > speculative value exceeds billions of dollars. Capital manages to > expropriate value from the commons; labor goes beyond the factory, > all of > society is put to work. Every aspect of life drives the digital > economy: > sexual desire, boredom, friendship ? and all becomes fodder for > speculative > profit. We are living in a total labor society and the way in which > we are > commoditized, racialized, and engendered is profoundly and > disturbingly > normalized. The complex and troubling set of circumstances we now > confront > includes the collapse of the conventional opposition between waged and > unwaged labor, and is characterized by multiple ?tradeoffs? and > ?social > costs??such as government and corporate surveillance. While individual > instances are certainly exploitative in the most overt sense, the > shift in > the overall paradigm moves us beyond the explanatory power of the > Marxian > interpretation of exploitation (which is of limited use here). > > Free Software and similar practices have provided important > alternatives to > and critiques of traditional modes of intellectual property to date > but user > agency is not just a question of content ownership. Users should > demand data > portability, the right to pack up and leave the walled gardens of > institutionalized labor ? la Facebook or StudiVZ. We should ask > which rights > users have beyond their roles as consumers and citizens. Activists > in Egypt > have poached Facebook's platform to get their political message out > and to > organize protests. Google's Image Labeler transforms people?s > endless desire > for entertainment into work for the company. How much should Google > pay them > to tag an image? Such payment could easily become more of an insult > than a > remuneration. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor > that > fit the complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. > > This conference confronts the urgent need to interrogate what > constitutes > labor and value in the digital economy and it seeks to inspire > proposals for > action. Currently, there are few adequate definitions of labor that > fit the > complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. The Internet as > Playground > and Factory poses a series of questions about the conundrums > surrounding > labor (and often the labor of love) in relation to our digital > present: > > Is it possible to acknowledge the moments of ruthless exploitation > while not > eradicating optimism, inspiration, and the many instances of > individual > financial and political empowerment? > > What is labor and where is value produced? > > Are strategies of refusal an effective response to the expropriation > of > value from interacting users? > > How is the global crisis of capitalism linked to the speculative > performances of the digital economy? > > What can we learn from the ?cyber sweatshops? class-action lawsuit > against > AOL under the Fair Labor Standards Act in the early 1990s? > > How does this invisible interaction labor affect our bodies? What > were key > steps in the history of interaction design that managed to mobilize > and > structure the social participation of bodies and psyches in order to > capture > value? > > Most interaction labor, regardless whether it is driven by monetary > motivations or not, is taking place on corporate platforms. Where > does that > leave hopeful projections of a future of non-market peer production? > > Are transnational unionization or other forms of self-organization > workable > acts of resistance for what several authors have called the ?virtual > proletariat?? > > Are we witnessing a new friction-free imperialism that allows > capital to > profit from the unpaid interaction labor of millions of happy > volunteers who > also help each other? How can we turn these debates into politics? > > How does the ideology of Web 2.0 work to deflate some of the more > radical > possibilities of new social media? > > How can we maintain and enforce the rights to our own gestures, our > attention, our content, and our emotional labor? In the near future, > where > can we, personally, enter political processes that have an impact on > these > issues? > > -Trebor Scholz > http://digtallabor.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > -- Fred Stutzman Ph.D. Student and Teaching Fellow School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill fred at fredstutzman.com | (919) 260-8508 | http://fredstutzman.com/ From eric_gordon at emerson.edu Tue Jun 9 15:46:03 2009 From: eric_gordon at emerson.edu (Eric Gordon) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 11:46:03 -0400 Subject: [iDC] attention and the classroom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <90F9E8CA-8C14-469D-9496-D3F80295F8F2@emerson.edu> I've been following the conversation about the Internet as playground and factory with great interest and have been inspired to chime in. Lately I've been thinking about that most mysterious currency of the Internet: user attention. Certainly, the economy of the Internet trades in it. As Frank pointed out awhile back: "We all ?pay attention? (literally and figuratively) at monolithic sites like Google, Facebook, and eBay." Their business model is premised on how much we pay attention and how little we stray. What's interesting to me is how this model of monolithic attention gathering has similarities to the models of attention we have established for the classroom. Students should pay total attention to the professor. Distractions like open windows, buzzing from florescent light bulbs, chatter in the hallway, or god forbid, laptops and cell phones, threaten to chip away at the age old concept of undivided attention. In fact, these distractions threaten to turn classroom attention into an economy - where there is exchange and value for glances, foci, and thoughts. In the 1970s, Erving Goffman gave a lecture called "The Lecture." In it, he challenges the dominance of the subject of the lecture and its corresponding forward facing gaze and suggests that, in fact, students also pay attention to what he calls "the custard" of the situation - that stuff, including the joke before the lecture begins, the notes on the table, the noises in the room. All of this composes the situation and necessarily, the attention of students flows in and out of the custard and subject at hand. The Internet provides a new way into the context Goffman introduced decades ago. Open laptops with live twittering, web searching, SMS - all of this is part of the custard of interaction and part of the economy of attention that composes the situation of the classroom. Instead of banning these technologies from the classroom, as many a university is want to do, the answer is instead to harness them and to actively participate in establishing the rules of the economy. In an article I recently completed with my colleague David Bogen, I refer to this process as "designing choreographies of attention." (The complete article can be found here: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/2/000049.html) . We argue that educators should not fall back on monolithic models of undivided attention, and instead engage in this kind of design, which can transform the space of the classroom - complicating the relationships between front and back, professor and student, and peer to peer. In this case, the particular and thoughtful appropriation of Internet tools challenges the traditional economies of attention - both those established by the professorate centuries ago as well as those perpetuated by Google and its ilk. Despite its dominant business models, the Internet can help us rethink traditions; it can help us break down barriers and transform spaces. I'm interested in seeing this happen in the classroom. I'm interested in using these tools to harness distraction as a means of producing more vibrant (and dare I say focused) educational spaces. I'm quite interested to know how others respond to this proposition and specifically how it might feed into the larger discussion about labor. Indeed, students' attention is labor, whether it's undivided or not. From jbeller at pratt.edu Tue Jun 9 16:04:02 2009 From: jbeller at pratt.edu (Jonathan Beller) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 12:04:02 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <7d9726080906081405q20dc3765jfdf9d8b9ee1203c5@mail.gmail.com> References: <56010.173.2.143.75.1244468470.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> <7d9726080906081405q20dc3765jfdf9d8b9ee1203c5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi all, same drill, Trebor, etc. Very happy to be a part of this discussion group / conference and my sincere thanks to Trebor for including me among the participants. My current interests beyond The Cinematic Mode of Production and Acquiring Eyes have to do with thinking through media technologies themselves as imbricated in the histories of colonialism/imperialism/ empire as well as gender and racial formations. Technologies, frozen under what Allen Feldman has termed "platform fetishism" often are not legible as products of the lived social mediations that are the conditions of possibility of our "media." The practices and histories, which themselves constitute the appearance, uses and significance of various technologies, are then seemingly frozen into the apparatus and for most practical purposes rendered invisible. Thus the utilization of media quite often seems like a far more autonomous (and thus ahistorical) exercise (a user plus a value-neutral technology) than it actually is. How to make the playground pulse with the struggles that underpin, situate and overdetermine our very presence (virtual or otherwise) in this, our space-time-now. K. Am also interested in ye ole real subsumption of society by capital and the expropriation of the cognitive-linguistic capacities of the species (that would be us, I guess.) Two main aspects here: the role of visual and audiophonic media in the deliverance (in both senses) of this emergent discursive situation. Shouldn't we consider further that with the rise of photography and phonography language became one writable medium among others (and was thereby relativized and demoted). Shouldn't also, all of the discourse theory of the 20th century be rethought in this light? Psychoanalysis, Structuralism, Post-structuralism -- all artifact of new modalities of mediation. Second, the situation of writing now: not from the point of view of those of us who fill out forms all day long but from those (parts) of us who are looking to crack the code(s). This is where I am very interested in the work of so many of you on this list. I am looking forward to learning more about the extraoridnary things people are thinking and doing. For my part, I will try to direct my comments in a way that explores the implications for the kinds of writing and speaking we do, which is to say the politics of our own practice. Don't all our locals, petty or otherwise, bear the signature of the globopolis? What then might a geopolitical pedagogy of the oppressed look like? Looking forward, jon Jonathan Beller Professor Humanities and Media Studies and Critical and Visual Studies Pratt Institute jbeller at pratt.edu 718-636-3573 fax On Jun 8, 2009, at 5:05 PM, Julian K?cklich wrote: > Hi all, > > I have been encouraged by Trebor and Biella to chime in on what is > already quite an impressive discussion about play and labour on the > interwebz, and I also feel compelled to add my two cents to the stakes > because I've written a few bits and pieces on what I call playbour --- > mostly within the digital games production nexus, but also in other > pockets of post-productive living (I am painfully aware that the most > extensive piece of writing that I refer to above, my dissertation on > deludology, is still not available to public scrutiny, which I will > rectify at the earliest convenience --- meanwhile, if you like, take a > look at playability.de/pub for some of the published extracts from > that). > > But let me unpack. > > The transformation that Trebor refers to in his introductory piece may > have its roots online but it is quite evident to all of us that it has > now spilled over the confines of the virtual and seeped into the very > fabric of the actual, the material, the tangible. Everywhere we look > --- be it journalism, the wretched creative industries (which > encompass everything from designing bubble gum wrappers to making new > drugs), the financial markets, or the production of physical goods, it > seems increasingly ludicrous to pay people for their productive labour > when production has become almost entirely autonomous of the economic > and political contexts in which it appeared to be so firmly inscribed. > The latest crisis is just a symptom of a loss of orientation in a > world where the established models provided by Marx, Weber and Smith > do not provide guidance anymore. > > So it's not just a question of value, but also a question of values, a > distinction that is increasingly difficult to uphold in a world where > the value of a product or a company is determined by how compatible it > is to the values of its users (think facebook, or twitter). It seems > to me that what was of value in the pre-digital age was the discrete, > packaged and self-contained product, often manufactured through a > process that could itself be broken down into discrete, packaged and > self-contained steps. In the post-productive age value has shifted to > the stream, the continuous, the Flood (a metaphor borrowed from the > video game Halo), and these streams are itself generated through > messy, continuous, excessive (call them biopolitical, if you will) > processes. > > And I am not just talking about the > snorting-coke-off-a-naked-hookers-ass world of advertising and design > here, but also about software production, clothes manufacturing, and > food processing, all of which have become nomadic, following the lure > of free-trade agreements, cheap labour, and the availability of tax > breaks and materials. It's the Flood, all right, and what it leaves > behind is the flotsam and jetsam of globalization, along with homo > sacer in its most wretched, abject form, stripped of identity, > mobility, and spirit. So it's not all good. And crucially, of course, > the temporarily sustainable forms of post-productive life, the > twittering, flickring, friendfeeding multitude is entirely dependent > on the destruction of human life as we know it. > > But let's take a step back from this dystopian vision for a moment and > talk about games. Importantly, I think, the internet and the video > game are both products of the Cold War military-industrial complex, > which has structured the way we live today to a large extent. They are > both posty-scarcity media, developed in university labs flush with > military money and that is the message that it took them 50 years to > impart. To be fair, packet switching and efficient subroutines (which > were necessary to fit game code on small chips) both follow the logic > of scarcity, but in their teleology, their technosocial impetus, both > of these media followed a logic of abundance. The game, which is both > larger and smaller, older and younger, than the internet, had the > advantage of drawing on a tradition of play, which has always adhered > to the logic of the potlatch, of "pure waste" (Caillois), and it > infused the internet, and then the world wide web with what I have > called an "ideology of play." > > I have written about the ideology of play on this list before, so I > won't go into much detail now. The concept is neither novel nor > complex, it just provides a convenient handle on some stuff that I am > struggling with both in my life and my work (if this is a distinction > that still makes sense). What is important to bear in mind is that > play --- in its rarefied, unadulterated form, which probably never > existed, except in the minds of cultural theorists who never set foot > into a casino --- is autotelic and has no end than the one it finds in > itself. So it is by definition unproductive, and even gambling is > ultimately a zero-sum game. And since there is no reward in play it > demands that players devote themselves to the game fully and > unreservedly --- lest they be labelled spoilsports, cheaters or > triflers. > > It seems to me that this is the logic (post-Aristotelian, for sure, > but still a logic) is what governs the processes of production and > distribution on the internet, and increasingly in all other domains of > life, as commerce, art, communication, transport, sex, food, etc., > transform themselves into digital expressions. So we are no longer in > the realm or era of production but in that of pollination, to use a > Stieglerian phrase. This of course raises the question of > remuneration, but this might be too thorny an issue to tackle at the > end of this long and rambling missive. So I will leave that to less > frazzled minds than mine to sort out. > > So what can I offer to this discussion apart from a rather > self-indulgent meditation on the nature of play? Maybe this: 1) The > playground has become a factory, but the factory has become a > playground, so the logic of production does no longer apply. 2) > Resistance is futile but cheating is possible. 3) If we want to > understand the rules of this new game, we will have to become players > ourselves. 4) Playing the game means wagering everything but because > of 2) we can bend the rules to our advantage and come out not > necessarily with more but with something else. 5) "After the game is > before the game" (Sepp Herberger). > > Julian. > > > 2009/6/8 : >> Good morning all, >> >> Life is not all about labor in the traditional sense but what creates >> economic value is continuously changing and expanding. >> >> Jonathan Beller describes this as the financialization of everyday >> life >> (our attention, imagination, creativity, and faith). This >> financialization >> applies as much to the mortgage that Amanda mentioned as it does to >> the >> current economic shakedown, the dotcom crash, and to what happens >> when we >> log on. The value of new social media, speculative and "real" (in >> terms of >> actual revenue) is created through advertising and the digital >> traces of >> our attention. Driven much more by the desire for praise than >> remuneration, people participate and this social participation has >> become >> the oil of the digital economy. >> >> In 1928, Bertolt Brecht wrote his poem Questions from A Worker Who >> Reads, >> where he points to the labor of the cooks, soldiers, and masons, >> which >> cannot be found in history books. Today, Burak Arikan's Meta >> Markets draws >> attention to user labor by creating a stock market for trading >> "socially >> networked creative products" (http://meta-markets.com). >> >> Tracks of our behavior, the public management of our relationships >> with >> others are recorded, sorted, analyzed and sold while we are enjoying >> ourselves and benefit in many ways. IPv6 comes into this >> discussion. It's >> really all quite frictionless despite Digg's Boston Digital Party >> and the >> complaints of Facebook users starting in September 2006. For me, >> these >> events are spectacles of Internet democracy; they are consumer >> feedback >> loops. We are negotiating a product that we are co-producing. >> >> In the middle of the eighteenth century, Diderot and d'Alembert >> published >> Encyclop?die, which celebrated the virtues of labor. Throughout its >> twenty-seven volumes, articles dealt with everything from baking >> bread to >> making nails. What would Diderot include in his revised edition >> today? A >> few places to start-- >> >> virtual volunteering (i.e., ?? if handled adeptly, [unpaid Verizon >> volunteers] hold considerable promise" http://is.gd/T6Q6) >> >> creating meta data (i.e., Flickr Commons) >> >> uploading and/or watching/looking at photos and videos >> >> socializing (playful acts of reciprocity) >> >> paying attention to advertising >> >> micro-blogging (status updates, Twitter) >> >> co-innovating (i.e., bicycles, mountain bikes, skate boards, cars, >> etc) >> >> posting blog entries and comments (i.e., the bloggers who work for >> Huffington Post) >> >> performing emotional work (presenting a personality that ?fits in?) >> >> posting news stories >> >> referring (i.e., Digg.com) >> >> creating virtual objects (i.e., Second Life) >> >> beta testing (i.e, Netscape Navigator 1998) >> >> providing feedback >> >> consuming media (i.e., watching videos) >> >> consuming advertisement >> >> data work (i.e., filling in forms, profiles etc) >> >> viral marketing by super-users >> >> artistic work (i.e., video mashups, DeviantArt, Learning to Love >> You More) >> >> Most of this about pleasure, play, personal benefit, and profit-- >> all at >> the same time. It's fun, sure, and the price we pay for the "free >> services" is complex. Michael Warner is a good place to start >> thinking >> about that: >> >> "Our lives are minutely administered and recorded to a degree >> unprecedented in history;" as Warner put it, "We navigate a world of >> corporate agents that do not respond or act as people do. Our >> personal >> capacities, such as credit, turn out on reflection to be >> expressions of >> corporate agency." >> (Publics and Counterpublics, p52) >> >> >> For now, >> Trebor >> >> = >> R. Trebor Scholz >> The New School University >> >> Re: Remuneration >> "A Fine Is a Price" >> http://www.citeulike.org/user/yoav/article/1953151 >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090609/4c4b7193/attachment-0001.htm From jdrew at ucdavis.edu Tue Jun 9 17:43:08 2009 From: jdrew at ucdavis.edu (Jesse Drew) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 10:43:08 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: <24B69DA6-DEDB-4468-A031-498AC02DF46D@ucdavis.edu> Hi all. I am new to this list and was asked to introduce myself. My name is Jesse Drew and I am currently Director and Associate Professor of Technocultural Studies at the University of California at Davis. My interest in this discussion stems from much of what led me to academia in the first place. For many years I was active in labor activism, primarily as a shop-floor organizer in industrial plants and warehouses. I saw firsthand how computer technologies were debasing the labor process through ?minutes times motion? and ?just-in-time? strategies. Later, as an assembly line worker in a Silicon Valley electronics plant, I became interested in how advanced communications were laying the groundwork for the global assembly line. I wound up getting a degree in electronics but then veered sharply into the media arts, and the impact technology and culture have on the working class. I have a strong affinity as a ?maker? and have participated in producing films, videos and interactive media pieces over the years that critique the culture industry. I have also written for alt culture publications and was a collective member of a ?zine called Processed World that critiqued the brave new world of work in the information age. I have contributed chapters to anthologies on technology, labor and culture and am currently working on a book that contextualizes contemporary trends in democratic communications. A chapter in the book is based on 120 interviews with activists in six US industrial unions on how the internet is being used to globalize the labor movement. I look forward to this discussion and finding out more about you all! -Jesse Jesse Drew, Ph.D. Director, Technocultural Studies University of California at Davis Art Building, Room 316 One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 530-752-9674 jdrew at ucdavis.edu From chozib08 at newschool.edu Tue Jun 9 19:05:51 2009 From: chozib08 at newschool.edu (Brittany Chozinski) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:05:51 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: <4A2E7A4E0200000B00080B6E@IGATE.NEWSCHOOL.EDU> Hello - Trebor asked me to send out a brief introduction. I apologize for being a little late to the game, but, ironically enough for someone who works on digital media, I'm currently internet-less at home. Right now I'm finishing up my PhD in sociology at The New School for Social Research, where I also completely my MA in sociology. I also work as a multimedia specialist for a not-for-profit adoption agency in NYC, a position that allows me to experience and explore the ways in which organizations utilize new media, particularly social media, in client engagement. And on top of all that, I am an adjunct professor of sociology at Marymount Manhattan College and am working as a research assistant for Dr. Jaeho Kang in his work on propaganda, communications studies and the Frankfurt school. My academic work revolves around media and subjectivity, with particular interest in the digital screen, alterity and mimesis, and the body and subject in highly mediated digital environments. Though labor has not been a key focus of my work, it is a reoccurring theme, whether this be intentional or not. I have done previous work exploring televisual labor and how this changes through battles of convergence with the internet and mobile digital media. I have a strong background in cinema studies and the Frankfurt school and seek to apply a critical theoretical analysis to science and technology studies within sociology. Of particular interest to me in this conference is the question, How does this invisible interaction labor affect our bodies? What were key steps in the history of interaction design that managed to mobilize and structure the social participation of bodies and psyches in order to capture value? Trebor has asked me to work on organizing a student panel. I hope to produce a mixed gender panel of 3 to 4 students, both graduate and undergraduate. If you feel like you have any students who would be interested in working with me on this endeavor, please, by all means, put them in touch with me. I look forward to meeting and working with you all. Brittany Chozinski The New School for Social Research chozib08 at newschool.edu (917) 628-3677 From zzbbyy at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 20:54:34 2009 From: zzbbyy at gmail.com (Zbigniew Lukasiak) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:54:34 +0200 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <4A2BAFAA.5040406@nyu.edu> References: <7952bc610906051548t455aeadana1348b290b38f9af@mail.gmail.com> <74DF5DEB-A47E-4227-BEFF-14F592B29169@gmail.com> <4A2BAFAA.5040406@nyu.edu> Message-ID: Hi, I am a programmer involved in the practice of FLOSS. I got interested by your email from two points - first politics in FLOSS, second fragmentation of the web politics. You write that FLOSS has not fallen for it - maybe relatively this can be true - but what I see around is that there is a lot of effort duplication in FLOSS because of fragmentation. I am more practically inclined and I am searching the answer why this happens and what can we do about it. After years of observing it I think it comes straightly from human competitiveness (mimetic desire) and it is unavoidable. There is a book http://www.theoryoffun.com/ arguing that the fun in games comes mostly from satisfying our learning drive, I think this is the same case with FLOSS - people like to be the master of some tool (program, library). People like to contribute to projects and get that feeling this way - but whenever they feel that their contribution does not give them a fair place in the projects hierarchy they will search another project or start their own to get that feeling of mastery. This is the dynamic. In a way this is the same dynamic of competition between companies that fuels the capitalistic system - but maybe here this can be more finely grained - and maybe there is a bit less of lost effort thanks for the licensing schemas. Cheers, Zbigniew Lukasiak http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/ http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/ From arttorrents at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 21:44:03 2009 From: arttorrents at gmail.com (john smith) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:44:03 +0200 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <4A2E7A4E0200000B00080B6E@IGATE.NEWSCHOOL.EDU> References: <4A2E7A4E0200000B00080B6E@IGATE.NEWSCHOOL.EDU> Message-ID: <50e5df370906091444w3e083fe4qf4ab5674e514f78b@mail.gmail.com> Hey I'm a new reader of this list as well and wanted to give a short introduction to what i work on as well(English is not my first language, i hope it's readable). Between December 2006 and September 2008 i ran a blog called Art Torrents, which was and still is a synergetic bridge between KaraGarga.net, the largest torrent based archive, indexing material which could be labeled 'the negative shape of Hollywood(arthouse, videoart, experimental cinema, etc.) and then Google. The blog had several functions. One was to invite people to KaraGarga, who had use of and interest in some of the same material as i had, being mainly video art from the 60's to now. I have since 2006 received 4000 mails from which i have invited app. 1500 people from all over the world, students from every field and every place, professors from Asia, Africa and other non-western locations, with no access to the university archives in the west, which most of the new material which has come through me, stems from, artists(some sharing own work) - also from a wide range of locations, curators, historians, researchers and so forth. One thing was important while going through the mails: the ones who in some way said they planned to use the material they found in a social situation, in its widest sense(i might at some point have invited a lonely Inuit at some point, now sitting in his igloo watching Godard or something having no one to share it with), were chosen before the others, as i myself have moved from a somewhat romantic view of the internet as a place where new experiences can be gained to a view of the internet/the browser as a tool, to move data from one computer to another, and then into a social situation, where the material again is activated, actualized, made important; taken from the highspeed space being our browser into a more slow social space where our minds can relax and more often drop below the surface. In the future, everything which can be digitized will always all ready be there, which moves the task from creating the archive to the new task, which of course all ready is actual; making the binary masses important again, getting it off the internet, into a space, into our dialogue, away from the browser, from the place our computer is situated - often a desk and a chair, which literally makes everything flat, the body is put out of control, deactivated so as to make peace for our eyes, to scan over our computers and take everything in visually. Because of the decentralized structure of KaraGarga, the archive is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It has no physical appearance, at least not one anyone except a very small group of people have access to and therefore it lies somewhere in between the daily lifes of the sites users, the institutions they attend every day, the cinema they go to at night and so forth: it is what Stoffel Debuysere at some point on his blog referred to as an informal archive opposed to the formal ones which we find at fx. Berkeley and places like that - a line which of course isn't clearly drawn, meaning that KaraGarga, as a surface, a picture of how history also can be written, of course at some point, if it isn't taken down, may become an established institution in itself, a formal archive. Other than that i have since 2007 helped out at UbuWeb , an archive focusing on poetry/visual poetry, avantgarde, art, etc., run by Kenneth Goldsmith, a new york based poet. On a more general level, I am interested in the internet because of it's similarities with books and publications, as a thing, which is nothing else than what is asserted in a given context - meaning, at every site, in every book, every discourse, aesthetic language, can or can not be activated, by the one engaging with it opposed to the physical institutions which, when stepping through their doors, accepts certain ways of behaving while excluding others, the internet can as you can in a book fx., establish a hybrid institution, drawing on whatever language, visual as linguistic, as it want's to all the time affirming, that it exists in a place where it can be activated as well as it maybe wont be. All the best -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090609/f8abb609/attachment.htm From ue at ursenal.net Wed Jun 10 03:36:37 2009 From: ue at ursenal.net (ursula endlicher) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:36:37 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: Hi all, Trebor asked me to introduce myself to this list. I'd like to start with a few words about my work. I am Ursula Endlicher, and I am an artist working on the intersection of Internet, performance and installation. In my work I am using the Web's structures and grammars, foremost HTML code of specific Websites, to choreograph performances. The chosen Websites I have used so far in the performance series "Website Impersonations: The Ten Most Visited" have been facebook, myspace, wikipedia, to name just a few. In these performances I am using participatory databases - the html-movement-library(ies) which collect user submitted videos (online) or texts (while on stage/online) - to co-choreograph the show. The videos and texts in the library are showing or describing how HTML tags could look when performed through movement. (In order to come up with a movement, users, dancers, performers are encouraged to read more about it at http://turbulence.org/works/html_butoh to find out which functionality each tag serves in a browser and how to parallel this to physical movement.) So in my performances, dancers, audience and Web code together influence the course of the live show. Here are some links/documentation movies to previous performances: Website Impersonation of facebook: http://www.ursenal.net/wi_ttmv/index8.html -- and a direct link to a docu-movie about it: http://www.ursenal.net/wi_ttmv/index8facebookmovie.html Website Impersonation of Wikipedia.org: http://www.ursenal.net/wi_ttmv/index6.html -- and a direct link to a docu-movie about it: http://www.ursenal.net/wi_ttmv/index6wikimovie.html More of my work: http://www.ursenal.net/ I am very much looking forward to participating in this already exciting discussion, triggered by Trebor's text and questions about labor and Internet, leading up to the conference. Topics such as user participation, privacy, online personae (this comes back to me as a topic, differently though to how I was interested in it in the late 1990-ies), pseudonyms versus "real'" names, and "behavior" online and its possible effect on offline actions, are among the issues which have an impact on my work, and which I'd like to further investigate and share with this list. Looking forward to more? Ursula -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090609/3b652b1c/attachment-0001.htm From lisa.lanakamura at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 14:30:03 2009 From: lisa.lanakamura at gmail.com (Lisa Nakamura) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:30:03 -0500 Subject: [iDC] introduction from Lisa Nakamura Message-ID: <70bb61490906100730y599e2084v8d56e688acf028c2@mail.gmail.com> I'm writing this short email to introduce myself to this list, at Trebor's request. I think that Trebor's idea to have a conference on virtual labor and the Internet as playground and factory is an excellent one. I work on race and digital media, and have been thinking about this question for a few years now in relation to digital games and virtual worlds as sites of labor. If you go to http://sites.google.com/site/theresearchsiteforlisanakamura/Home/csmcfinal.pdf?attredirects=0 you can get a copy of my article entitled "Don?t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft"which came out last month in a journal called Critical Studies in Media Communication I'm hoping to develop it into a longer piece. It's about the racialization of labor in World of Warcraft, and how Chinese worker-players make and sell gold to leisure players who are too busy to earn in-game money for themselves. This chapter has been extraordinarily unpopular among most games scholars and game players, who are after all fans at heart and don't like to hear criticisms of their game. The rhetoric of merit, equality, and "play" that pervades games studies is challenged by the rapid growth of grey market economies, predominantly sustained by emiserated workers who play for 12-hour stretches in "workshop" conditions in mainland China. Richard Heeks estimates this trade in virtual goods to be worth as much as 500million/year. These forms of transnational gamic labor are undoubtedly racialized, hence the term "Chinese gold farmer," a new ethnic slur of the virtual world "citizen" who wishes to defend this world's virtual borders against illegal immigrants, but who is happy to use their labor. As Vijay Prashad wrote several years ago of the plight of S. Asian transnationals, "they want our labor, but not our lives." Projects like Stephanie Rothenberg's School of Perpetual Training and Invisible Threads/Double Happiness Jeans expose the laboring side of virtual worlds and the traffic in virtual goods by inviting the user to participate in sweatshop labor in Second Life and through the WII--play platforms that show us that "we are all farmers," as Alex Galloway wrote in 2007. Lisa -- Lisa Nakamura Director, Asian American Studies Program Professor, Institute of Communication Research Professor, Asian American Studies Program University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana 1208 W. Nevada Street, MC-142 Urbana, IL 61801-3818 office phone: 217 333-3928 fax: 217 265-6235 http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/N/nakamura_digitizing.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090610/00f2b000/attachment.htm From voyd at voyd.com Wed Jun 10 14:48:12 2009 From: voyd at voyd.com (Patrick Lichty) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:48:12 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [iDC] Playground @ The Factory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20090610144812.2CD54397C@theseus.cnchost.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090610/8165fd8e/attachment.htm From mroberts1 at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 15:03:24 2009 From: mroberts1 at gmail.com (mroberts1) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:03:24 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction Message-ID: <377e583e0906100803l4d1d8a63v8166a9f505c2788@mail.gmail.com> Greetings all, Trebor has invited me to introduce myself - I'm a faculty member at Eugene Lang College, The New School, where I teach in the Media and Cultural Studies major, including a course on piracy and another on TV and new media. My research background was in French Studies and I have a strong interest in avant-garde movements from Dada to Situationism and their legacies in pop culture (Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces remains a major reference point), as well as contemporary digital culture. I'm currently working on a book which explores the role of the transcultural in the articulation of subcultural identities, from Japanese hip-hop to US anime fandom. With regard to the concerns of the conference around digital labor, I'm interested in the relation between labor and leisure, and the disappearance of the distinction between the two: if labor in the digital economy is often characterized as a form of play (I design videogames for a living - how cool is that?!), the flipside is that leisure has become a new form of labor. The contemporary discourse on productivity, indeed, continually exhorts us to make even what little free time remains to us to become more productive citizens. Even sleep, ostensibly the ultimate restorative refuge from labor, has become a frontier for the productivity doctrine, an area to be *worked on,* with a multitude of lifehacking blogs explaining how to make sleep more "efficient" or even abolish it altogether ("micro-napping"). Within this context, I'm especially interested in the deployment of the concept of FUN in the contemporary discourse on productivity. Historically, fun is an experience of pleasure which has tended to be associated with spheres of experience *outside* labor time: its archetypal example remains Coney Island, a kind of benign inversion of industrial production in which decommissioned coal trucks are converted into adventure rides. The very concept of an "amusement park" seems antithetical to everything the factory stands for in terms of production, commodified labor, and clocked time. The dissolution of this distinction, as Stephen Duncombe has suggested, can be read in the transition from IBM's Organization Man to Sony's Media Producer, dramatized at Sonyworld, where work and play become indissociable. In contemporary digital culture, a proliferating chorus of voices insist that productivity is "fun," or explain how we can have fun while also being productive. Contrary to such assertions, I'm interested in exploring new forms of non-productive fun, and dedicated to the heretical idea--at least today--that fun is by definition non-productive. Updating Veblen, I'd suggest that we need a contemporary theory of the productive class, which would consider amongst other things how productivity has replaced leisure as the basis for social distinction in postmodern society. Digital technologies and the conspicuous production they facilitate are clearly at the heart of that project. Some of the other ideas outlined here may also be seen as possible starting-points for the elaboration of such a theory, which I'd like to call From Slackers To Hackers. From jdrew at ucdavis.edu Wed Jun 10 17:48:11 2009 From: jdrew at ucdavis.edu (Jesse Drew) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:48:11 -0700 Subject: [iDC] The Greatest Speedup in Human History Issue Message-ID: HI all, This is ancient history now, as things go, but I thought I would pass on the link to a special issue of Processed World Magazine we did on digital leisure and labor titled: The Greatest Speedup in Human History. It's here: http://www.processedworld.com/Issues/issue2001/toc_2001.htm -Jesse Jesse Drew, Ph.D. Director, Technocultural Studies University of California at Davis Art Building, Room 316 One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 530-752-9674 jdrew at ucdavis.edu From nak44 at cornell.edu Thu Jun 11 00:53:41 2009 From: nak44 at cornell.edu (nick knouf) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:53:41 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A305595.80802@cornell.edu> Dear iDC members, Coming late to the game, due to guest moderating -empyre- this week on participatory art, new media, and the archival trace, Trebor has asked me to introduce myself and post some thoughts about the conference topic. I've posted on iDC off and on over the years, so apologies for any repeats. I am currently a graduate student in information science at Cornell University. My work is in the interstitial spaces around information science, digital art, critical theory, and science and technology studies. Ongoing projects include MAICgregator (http://maicgregator.org), a Firefox extension that aggregates information about the military-academic-industrial complex; Fluid Nexus (http://fluidnexus.net), a mobile phone messaging application designed for activists and relief workers that operates independent of a centralized network; and sound works that encourage the expression of the unspeakable. I'm encouraged by the discussion that I've seen so far that not only critiques the status of digital or so-called "immaterial" labor, but also suggests how we might move from critique into action. As the MAICgregator project intimates, I am deeply worried about labor within the university context. Colleagues of mine see no problems with the mixing of their studies and summer work for Google, Microsoft, IBM, HP or others. In fact, this past year at CHI, the main conference for those working in human-computer interaction, there were advertisements that touted "HP Labs India: Innovating for HP's Next Billion Customers". When I asked the audience of about 50 at my presentation whether they saw anything wrong with this quote, only a couple hands were raised. Industry presents at the same level as academia at these conferences, conferences, mind you, that you are required to present at if you hope for a faculty job in this field. (Nevermind the high cost of the conference ($760 early registration for faculty members, $350 for students), effectively making this a "pay-to-publish" field, since conference proceedings cover the bulk of academic publications, not journal articles or author monographs.) This relationship between academia, industry, and the military is of course not new and has been documented by many including Jean-Francois Lyotard, Henry Giroux, Jennifer Washburn, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Marc Bousquet, among many others. Nevertheless there is something quite pernicious when we see at the major universities faculty and students---in both engineering _and_ the arts---using proprietary software and expensive hardware (read: iPhones and iPod Touches) as part of their "research", rather than considering instead how we might be able to reconfigure existing technology. Of course it is not surprising that industry is keen on monetizing the work of willing faculty and students---it is their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. They cannot act otherwise, or they risk lawsuits for not upholding their duty to increase shareholder value. Yet I find it quite disturbing when we valorize corporations such as Google or Yahoo "as long as [we] can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube" (as Howard Rheingold wrote). These are corporations who exist to create value, and thus they will do some quite heinous things as part of the "cost of doing business" (a euphemism if there ever was one). So, for example, Shi Tao can be sent to a Chinese prison due to e-mails turned over by Yahoo (http://www.amnestyusa.org/individuals-at-risk/priority-cases/shi-tao/page.do?id=1101243 ), one reason why I use FuckFlickr (http://fffff.at/fuckflickr-info/ ). Google can censor material in China (see it in action using the China Channel Plugin: http://www.chinachannel.hk/ ) because they "have to" in order to do business there. Google can also decide that they will retain search data for an inordinate amount of time, one reason why I use Scroogle (http://www.scroogle.org/ ). And we can be sure to present many others. (Consider the fact that computer companies are now being forced to install filtering software on all machines in China; we will see how easily their present protests get turned into arguments that they were just "following the law".) While indeed we each use many of these services daily, I for one would not be sad if they went away; I'd find something else to do with my time, something else to use, just like we always have done forever. In fact, I look forward to the day when Google serves up its last search result---because that day will indeed come, no matter how unlikely it appears now. What worries me most about attitudes towards digital labor that would accept the practices of these companies (and many, many, many, many more) as just the "cost of doing business" is that it effaces entirely the ethical dimension, puts it to the side, and asks us to suspend judgment. It assumes that the only way we can pass ethical judgment is from a state of pure non-implication, as if that state ever existed. I hope that the conference allows us to reactivate the ethical discussions that are vitally (always) needed, no matter how difficult they might be, no matter how worried we might be about falling down the relativist rabbit hole. Nevertheless I am heartened by work of individuals and collectives across the globe, such as edu-factory and the counter cartographies collective (3C), who are not only questioning the role of the university within capitalism but also performing an alternative. Thus the protests and occupations at NYU and the New School, however flawed, were encouraging, as well as the Anomalous Wave throughout Europe. I am interested in exploring how other allied groups are working across the artificial boundaries between universities and their local communities to examine similar issues and concerns around labor, without falling into the trap of a presumed consensus and recognizing the inherent agonism in any encounter with others. (On this issue, see the excellent article in the recent collection _Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations, Collective Theorization_ (edited by Stevphen Shukaitis and David Graeber) by Colectivo Situaciones regarding their relationships with Precarias de la Deriva and the difficulty of working across groups with widely varying modes of communication.) I would like to expand this to include questions of cultural production within/beyond the university context, to better understand how we might develop new alternatives and means of working that might, using Ned Rossiter's term, create sustainable "organized networks". (Such as the ongoing workshops put on by Medialab-Prado, headquartered in Madrid, Spain.) I hope that the discussion on this list, as well as the conference itself, allows us to create new configurations of people and abilities that allow us to both respond to the present "crisis" as well as configure our own future. Best, nick knouf From markbandrejevic at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 07:23:10 2009 From: markbandrejevic at gmail.com (Mark Andrejevic) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:23:10 +1000 Subject: [iDC] Exploitation.... Message-ID: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> Howard's post got me thinking about the need to tighten up an understanding of what we might mean by the term "exploitation." The very broad sense in which it is often used -- to indicate that someone else benefits from our labor -- isn't a particularly useful one. Theoretically it remains amorphous (how might it distinguish between collaborative labor and working in a sweat shop?) and practically it isn't much of a rallying cry ("Help, I'm being exploited because the value of my neighbor's house went up when I painted mine!"). I'd suggest (as a preliminary foray) that a meaningful political sense of the term (one that allows us to critique exploitation) would have to include at least two aspects: 1) a sense of loss of control over the results of our own productive activity (especially when these are turned back against us) and 2) structured relations of power that compel this loss of control, even when it looks like the result of "free" exchange. I don't feel a loss of control over my own productive activity when I contribute to a Wikipedia entry that may benefit others. On the other hand, I might be more likely to feel this loss of control when I discover, say, that details of my online activity have been collected, sorted, and packaged as a commodity for sale to people who may use it to deny me access to a job or to manipulate me based on perceived vulnerabilities, fears, and other personal details about my mental or physical well being. If I find myself in a position wherein I have to submit to this kind of monitoring as a condition of access to resources that I need to earn my livelihood or maintain my social relations in a networked era, I might be more likely to think of this situation as a truly exploitative one. When it starts to become tricky -- at least conceptually -- is when my work on Wikipedia (or tagging, or participating in other forms of UGC production) gets folded into the demographic/psychographic/geographic/(eventually biometric) forms of profiling that form the basis for the emerging online commercial economy. Still a meaningful conception of exploitation might help distinguish between the different productive roles of our online activity -- and between infrastructures that are more or less exploitative. On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Howard Rheingold wrote: > Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the > conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" > > I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and "Smart > Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com . I > teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital > Journalism" at Stanford. > > I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that > I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr. > It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a place > where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in > presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look closely > at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we > ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful > public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long as I > can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means that > I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have to > testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's > pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives away > search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to > advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, the > cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and other > paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for any > question in seconds. How many times a day were YOU exploited by > searching for something without paying a charge for the service? > Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be > exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and > tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on who > is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely > reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I would > never argue that people should refrain from witholding their labor, if > that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the > questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read > "What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for free." > > Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com http://twitter.com/hrheingold > http://www.rheingold.com http://www.smartmobs.com > http://vlog.rheingold.com > what it is ---> is --->up to us > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity ( > distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag > iDCref > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090611/421dab26/attachment-0001.htm From christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at Thu Jun 11 16:12:15 2009 From: christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at (Christian Fuchs) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:12:15 +0200 Subject: [iDC] Introduction Message-ID: <4A312CDF.8090503@sbg.ac.at> Dear all, Trebor asked me to introduced myself to the members of the list. My name is Christian Fuchs, I am at the University of Salzburg, Austria, my background and interest is in critical social theory and dialectical philosophy, especially the works by Hegel, Marx, Marcuse and how they can be applied for studying contemporary society, media, and information from a critical theory and critique of the political economy-perspective. Besides work in general social theory and the theory of capitalism, I have in the past years tried to apply this framework to areas such as Internet and society, the information and media economy, discussions about media and development, Web 2.0, social networking sites, etc. I am looking forward to follow and contribute to the the discussions on this list. Best, Christian Fuchs -- - - - Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs Assocaite Professor Unified Theory of Information Research Group University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at http;//www.uti.at Editor of tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation | Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society http://www.triple-c.at Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at/i&s.html From jbeller at pratt.edu Thu Jun 11 13:35:13 2009 From: jbeller at pratt.edu (Jonathan Beller) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:35:13 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Exploitation.... In-Reply-To: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> References: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <0D223600-2C33-424E-A607-3FEBDDC7FDC4@pratt.edu> Marks response to Howard (I haven't had the pleasure of meeting either of you, Hello) speaks to an urgent need (addressed to a degree by Nick Knouf and my own earlier post): if we hope to accomplish anything more than the advance of capitalist-technologies (and the advance of our own pleasures/careers) we require a more thoroughgoing account of exploitation than is generally available. One does not have to read even much beyond this list-serve to see that the old ideas about individual autonomy, choice, pleasure and yes, human nature -- ideas that properly belong to prior centuries -- remain operative. After providing an example (of writing for Wikipedia) discussed with reference to exploitation in a kind of close-up, Mark writes: When it starts to become tricky -- at least conceptually -- is when my work on Wikipedia (or tagging, or participating in other forms of UGC production) gets folded into the demographic/psychographic/geographic/ (eventually biometric) forms of profiling that form the basis for the emerging online commercial economy. Still a meaningful conception of exploitation might help distinguish between the different productive roles of our online activity -- and between infrastructures that are more or less exploitative. I agree with this statement with one caveat -- it is always already tricky. The autonomous user interfacing with the isolated media-event simply does not exist. The preconditions to both sides of that equation (user/technology) are nothing less than world history itself (a history that includes, racism, colonialism, patriarchy and genocide). One might wonder how participation in Wikipedia might leave most of that history (for which we ourselves are part of its living legacy) undisturbed, or worse, further buried in the unconscious of our digital high. And we might also want to wonder how participation in Wikipedia might actively redistribute the claims that a history of violence and exploitation makes on all of us in a way that makes its call more audible, more actionable. It is here, in this moment of wondering about the politics of our own production, that we might grasp the moment of the utterance, of the interface, as itself a political moment. Put another way, a particular user of an interface may have been conditioned to be satisfied with his/her wage of pleasure/recognition in exchange for his/her attention/virtuosity, but how does his/her cognitive-sensual labor attend to the 2 billion people on the planet that live on less than two dollars a day -- people who may not be too worried about global armageddon, because for many of them the worst thing in the world has already happened. For what it's worth, pretty much all of my work has endeavored to think about (and thus to transform) the dominant relationships between mediation and exploitation. I am attaching a 2003 essay I wrote which was later revised to become the introduction of my book The Cinematic Mode of Production: Attention Economy and the Society of the Spectacle for anyone who might be interested. I should say that my sense of the priority of cinema has shifted somewhat from the time of this writing, but many of the analytical strategies utilized in this essay (including the attention theory of value that dates back to 1993 or so) I still find to be useful. Of course there is much more work to be done -- and I am very excited to see that it seems that together we are doing some of it. All best, Jon Jonathan Beller Professor Humanities and Media Studies and Critical and Visual Studies Pratt Institute jbeller at pratt.edu 718-636-3573 fax On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:23 AM, Mark Andrejevic wrote: > Howard's post got me thinking about the need to tighten up an > understanding of what we might mean by the term "exploitation." The > very broad sense in which it is often used -- to indicate that > someone else benefits from our labor -- isn't a particularly useful > one. Theoretically it remains amorphous (how might it distinguish > between collaborative labor and working in a sweat shop?) and > practically it isn't much of a rallying cry ("Help, I'm being > exploited because the value of my neighbor's house went up when I > painted mine!"). > > I'd suggest (as a preliminary foray) that a meaningful political > sense of the term (one that allows us to critique exploitation) > would have to include at least two aspects: > 1) a sense of loss of control over the results of our own productive > activity (especially when these are turned back against us) and > 2) structured relations of power that compel this loss of control, > even when it looks like the result of "free" exchange. > I don't feel a loss of control over my own productive activity when > I contribute to a Wikipedia entry that may benefit others. On the > other hand, I might be more likely to feel this loss of control when > I discover, say, that details of my online activity have been > collected, sorted, and packaged as a commodity for sale to people > who may use it to deny me access to a job or to manipulate me based > on perceived vulnerabilities, fears, and other personal details > about my mental or physical well being. If I find myself in a > position wherein I have to submit to this kind of monitoring as a > condition of access to resources that I need to earn my livelihood > or maintain my social relations in a networked era, I might be more > likely to think of this situation as a truly exploitative one. > > When it starts to become tricky -- at least conceptually -- is when > my work on Wikipedia (or tagging, or participating in other forms of > UGC production) gets folded into the demographic/psychographic/ > geographic/(eventually biometric) forms of profiling that form the > basis for the emerging online commercial economy. Still a meaningful > conception of exploitation might help distinguish between the > different productive roles of our online activity -- and between > infrastructures that are more or less exploitative. > > > > On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Howard Rheingold > wrote: > Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the > conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" > > I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and "Smart > Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com . I > teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital > Journalism" at Stanford. > > I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that > I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr. > It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a place > where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in > presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look closely > at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we > ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful > public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long as I > can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means that > I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have to > testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's > pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives away > search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to > advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, the > cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and other > paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for any > question in seconds. How many times a day were YOU exploited by > searching for something without paying a charge for the service? > Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be > exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and > tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on who > is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely > reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I would > never argue that people should refrain from witholding their labor, if > that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the > questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read > "What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for free." > > Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com http://twitter.com/hrheingold > http://www.rheingold.com http://www.smartmobs.com > http://vlog.rheingold.com > what it is ---> is --->up to us > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090611/0124e10b/attachment-0002.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: CMP in TheoryCultCrit.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 76534 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090611/0124e10b/attachment-0001.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090611/0124e10b/attachment-0003.htm From editor at intertheory.org Thu Jun 11 12:55:45 2009 From: editor at intertheory.org (Nicholas Ruiz III) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:55:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] the exploited... In-Reply-To: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> References: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <641227.98026.qm@web308.biz.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Interesting thoughts/introductions, thanks for your time everyone... Didacticism aside...however sincere...what is the use value of a concept like 'the exploited'? ...unless one plans to argue for a tiered system of exploitation, even while calling it something else - is the janitor exploited? the subway clerk? professional surfer? hollywood actress? homeless actor? university professor? students? the mgmt. of xyz corp.? lily allen? ...in other words, the endpoint of such a criticism regarding the terms of 'the exploited,' leaves us with what exactly, in the end? A politics of exploitation? A calculus of acceptable levels of exploitation, in opposition to unacceptable levels of exploitation? Who decides? And have we already, decided? Are we always, in the process of in-decision? Or rather, it is undecidable, as an ethical aporia? pax et lux Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D Editor, Kritikos http://intertheory.org ________________________________ From: Mark Andrejevic Cc: idc at mailman.thing.net Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 3:23:10 AM Subject: [iDC] Exploitation.... Howard's post got me thinking about the need to tighten up an understanding of what we might mean by the term "exploitation." The very broad sense in which it is often used -- to indicate that someone else benefits from our labor -- isn't a particularly useful one. Theoretically it remains amorphous (how might it distinguish between collaborative labor and working in a sweat shop?) and practically it isn't much of a rallying cry ("Help, I'm being exploited because the value of my neighbor's house went up when I painted mine!"). I'd suggest (as a preliminary foray) that a meaningful political sense of the term (one that allows us to critique exploitation) would have to include at least two aspects: 1) a sense of loss of control over the results of our own productive activity (especially when these are turned back against us) and 2) structured relations of power that compel this loss of control, even when it looks like the result of "free" exchange. I don't feel a loss of control over my own productive activity when I contribute to a Wikipedia entry that may benefit others. On the other hand, I might be more likely to feel this loss of control when I discover, say, that details of my online activity have been collected, sorted, and packaged as a commodity for sale to people who may use it to deny me access to a job or to manipulate me based on perceived vulnerabilities, fears, and other personal details about my mental or physical well being. If I find myself in a position wherein I have to submit to this kind of monitoring as a condition of access to resources that I need to earn my livelihood or maintain my social relations in a networked era, I might be more likely to think of this situation as a truly exploitative one. When it starts to become tricky -- at least conceptually -- is when my work on Wikipedia (or tagging, or participating in other forms of UGC production) gets folded into the demographic/psychographic/geographic/(eventually biometric) forms of profiling that form the basis for the emerging online commercial economy. Still a meaningful conception of exploitation might help distinguish between the different productive roles of our online activity -- and between infrastructures that are more or less exploitative. On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Howard Rheingold wrote: Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and "Smart Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com/ . I teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital Journalism" at Stanford. I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr. It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a place where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look closely at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long as I can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means that I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have to testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives away search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, the cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and other paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for any question in seconds. How many times a day were YOU exploited by searching for something without paying a charge for the service? Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on who is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I would never argue that people should refrain from witholding their labor, if that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read "What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for free." Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.comhttp://twitter.com/hrheingold http://www.rheingold.com http://www.smartmobs.com/ http://vlog.rheingold.com/ what it is ---> is --->up to us _______________________________________________ iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) iDC at mailman.thing.net https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc List Archive: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ iDC Photo Stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ RSS feed: http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc iDC Chat on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090611/05fed118/attachment.htm From deludologist at googlemail.com Thu Jun 11 12:54:31 2009 From: deludologist at googlemail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julian_K=FCcklich?=) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:54:31 +0100 Subject: [iDC] Exploitation.... In-Reply-To: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> References: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A30FE87.3020301@googlemail.com> Hi all, I recently had a long and embittered debate about exploitation at a panel on co-creative labour that Larissa Hjorth and I co-chaired at the COST298 conference. I think I was arguing that what Tiziana calls "free labour" (and which I call "playbour" when I write about things like computer game modification (modding), the policing of virtual space in massively multiplayer games, and the free marketing players provide by digging, blogging, tweeting about games, etc.) is never entirely exploited, nor is it ever entirely free (in the sense of libre). The one-size-fits-all concept of exploitation we have inherited from the Marxist tradition was probably never particularly useful to begin with, but when we talk about forms of living where labour and leisure are so deeply intertwined it is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. One of the counter-arguments from an audience member at the COST298 panel was that women's movements didn't view work so much as exploitation than as a liberation from the subservience dictated by chauvinist societies, so this is not necessarily something that only becomes an issue with digital technologies, but rather something that comes into play once we start asking questions about what constitutes productive labour and what makes labourers eligible for renumeration. Traditionally, "women's work" was obviously often unpaid, unrecognized, and pretty much unregulated. The same is true of many of the forms of labour we see arising within digital forms of life today. I could insert the standard blurb about autonomism, refusal, and the multitude here, but you've obviously all read your Negri, your Tronti, and your Lazzarato, so let's skip that for the time being. What I find interesting about Mark's thoughts about exploitation is that he connects the concept to intellectual property and to the question of control. I am interested in both these things as a researcher and a gamer, and I find ludic models of control very useful to describe some of the processes that we are trying to get to the bottom of here. Play is necessarily a process in which the level of control the players experience oscillates during the game (I've written about this in terms of "ruled" and "unruled" space, yadayadayada, but that's neither here nor there), and their perception of their amount of control is not always accurate. Let's call it gote no sente (http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoteNoSente). Two or three things follow from that: 1) It's not so much about the level of control people actually have but about the level of control they perceive as having. 2) Being in control is not always a good thing (e.g. using restrictive licensing for the fruits of your labour limits what Henry Jenkins, for better or for worse, calls "spreadability". 3) Being out of control can be a good thing (for example, Minh Le's name only got firmly attached to Counterstrike when the mod was snapped up by Valve, and redistributed in a commercial version). So IPR, control, and exploitation are enmeshed in a tight mesh of causation, and both exploitation and liberation can be experienced negatively and positively (just as an example, let's remember that many academics like myself still subject themselves to the gangrape of publishing in peer-reviewed academic journals, and wear their bruises with pride). Let's also remember that exploitation feels normal to many people. One of my friends recently lost her job, and has tried to find a new one for the past three months. She is resigned to the fact that when she eventually finds a job, it will be just as mind-numbing, meaningless, and degrading as the last one, but despite my attempts to get her out of this mindset, she desperately scours jobsites, newsletters, even (gulp) newspaper job ads. London being a city that provides for people with much less in terms of financial resources, I find it hard to accept that someone would cling to this kind of negative normativity so strongly, but my friend is not the only one. I see the same kind of desperation in many social networks where you "pay with your life" (and all its mundane lacunae) for the privilege of not being a freak. It's this kind of motivation, however bourgeois we may find it, that we might have to consider when we talk about exploitation in the digital age. Julian. Mark Andrejevic wrote: > Howard's post got me thinking about the need to tighten up > an understanding of what we might mean by the term "exploitation." The > very broad sense in which it is often used -- to indicate that someone > else benefits from our labor -- isn't a particularly useful one. > Theoretically it remains amorphous (how might it distinguish between > collaborative labor and working in a sweat shop?) and practically it > isn't much of a rallying cry ("Help, I'm being exploited because the > value of my neighbor's house went up when I painted mine!"). > > I'd suggest (as a preliminary foray) that a meaningful political sense > of the term (one that allows us to critique exploitation) would have > to include at least two aspects: > 1) a sense of loss of control over the results of our own productive > activity (especially when these are turned back against us) and > 2) structured relations of power that compel this loss of control, > even when it looks like the result of "free" exchange. > I don't feel a loss of control over my own productive activity when > I contribute to a Wikipedia entry that may benefit others. On the > other hand, I might be more likely to feel this loss of control when I > discover, say, that details of my online activity have been collected, > sorted, and packaged as a commodity for sale to people who may use it > to deny me access to a job or to manipulate me based on perceived > vulnerabilities, fears, and other personal details about my mental or > physical well being. If I find myself in a position wherein I have to > submit to this kind of monitoring as a condition of access to > resources that I need to earn my livelihood or maintain my social > relations in a networked era, I might be more likely to think of this > situation as a truly exploitative one. > > When it starts to become tricky -- at least conceptually -- is when my > work on Wikipedia (or tagging, or participating in other forms of UGC > production) gets folded into the > demographic/psychographic/geographic/(eventually biometric) forms of > profiling that form the basis for the emerging online commercial > economy. Still a meaningful conception of exploitation might help > distinguish between the different productive roles of our online > activity -- and between infrastructures that are more or less > exploitative. > > > > On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Howard Rheingold > wrote: > > Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the > conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" > > I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and "Smart > Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com > . I > teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital > Journalism" at Stanford. > > I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that > I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr. > It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a place > where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in > presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look closely > at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we > ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful > public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long as I > can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means that > I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have to > testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's > pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives away > search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to > advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, the > cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and other > paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for any > question in seconds. How many times a day were YOU exploited by > searching for something without paying a charge for the service? > Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be > exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and > tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on who > is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely > reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I would > never argue that people should refrain from witholding their labor, if > that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the > questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read > "What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for free." > > Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com > http://twitter.com/hrheingold > http://www.rheingold.com > http://www.smartmobs.com > http://vlog.rheingold.com > what it is ---> is --->up to us > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org ) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding > the tag iDCref > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -- dr julian raul kuecklich http://playability.de M: +447833193467 L: +442032395578 http://flickr.com/cucchiaio From lirani at cs.stanford.edu Thu Jun 11 22:42:22 2009 From: lirani at cs.stanford.edu (Lilly Irani) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:42:22 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Exploitation.... In-Reply-To: <4A30FE87.3020301@googlemail.com> References: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> <4A30FE87.3020301@googlemail.com> Message-ID: <9495d0b20906111542y780da232r99c72071d342c1a7@mail.gmail.com> Hi all - I've been thinking a lot about Amazon Mechanical Turk this year (the side project that haunts me). I've found Charis Thompson's work (which I've encountered through Lucy Suchman) and Donna Haraway's work most though provoking in considering a post-Marxist, post-relativist exploitation. One take on exploitation might be to see not who gets objectified, but how those objectifications and exploitations are choreographed, controlled, and assembled, and how they are or are not open to reconfiguration. In studies of how particular women voluntarily place themselves under the objectifying gaze of a doctor for fertility therapy, Charis Cussins (Thompson) "locates alienation not in objectification per se, but in the breakdown of synechdochal relations between parts and whole that make objectification of various forms into associated forms of agency." Suchman explains that "It is this process 'of forging a functional zone of compatibility that maintains referential power between things of different kinds' that she names ontological choreography." Ontological choreography touches on issues of control and feelings of control brought up in this thread, it relates to class (im)mobility, and also debates about agency in sex work / exploitation. (My reading is from Suchman's "Agencies in Technology Design: Feminist Reconfigurations": www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/papers/suchman-agenciestechnodesign.pdf ) Donna Haraway takes on exploitation and labor more directly in her book Ch 3 ("Sharing Suffering: Instrumental Relations Between Animals and People") of the book "When Species Meet." In thinking through animals as *laborers* instead of as food or lab animals, she draws links to the ways production is often gendered and raced (asian women in semi-conductor factories or africans dying in the wars over the coltan destined for our cellphones). Critiquing vegans and PETA who base their actions on the logic of privileging animals as sacrosanct while saying nothing of the exploitation of others (people) who labor and die, she says "try as we might to distance ourselves, there is no way of living that is not also a way of someone, not just something, else dying differentially." (80) Haraway suggests responsibility and responsiveness as an alternate framework for thinking about exploitation -- in other words, seeing exploitation as a failed sort of relation that has to be judged by time and situation, rather than by who has the capital or the breasts. Both Cussins and Haraway, then, suggest that exploitation has to do with a lack of responsibility, a lack of responsiveness, a breakdown in which fluid relations are continually forced into reified ones. This helps me think about mechanical turk as not necessarily, essentially exploitative, despite the exploitative rhetoric Amazon deploys about what the platform is (Turk and the Human API of deraced, degendered human cognitive labor accessible 24-7). It suggests that claiming the exploitation of low-paid turk workers demands attention to the particular reasons why those people are doing turk and how they are (or are not) able to reconfigure those relations. ~lilly 2009/6/11 Julian K?cklich > Hi all, > > I recently had a long and embittered debate about exploitation at a > panel on co-creative labour that Larissa Hjorth and I co-chaired at the > COST298 conference. I think I was arguing that what Tiziana calls "free > labour" (and which I call "playbour" when I write about things like > computer game modification (modding), the policing of virtual space in > massively multiplayer games, and the free marketing players provide by > digging, blogging, tweeting about games, etc.) is never entirely > exploited, nor is it ever entirely free (in the sense of libre). The > one-size-fits-all concept of exploitation we have inherited from the > Marxist tradition was probably never particularly useful to begin with, > but when we talk about forms of living where labour and leisure are so > deeply intertwined it is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. > > One of the counter-arguments from an audience member at the COST298 > panel was that women's movements didn't view work so much as > exploitation than as a liberation from the subservience dictated by > chauvinist societies, so this is not necessarily something that only > becomes an issue with digital technologies, but rather something that > comes into play once we start asking questions about what constitutes > productive labour and what makes labourers eligible for renumeration. > Traditionally, "women's work" was obviously often unpaid, unrecognized, > and pretty much unregulated. The same is true of many of the forms of > labour we see arising within digital forms of life today. > > I could insert the standard blurb about autonomism, refusal, and the > multitude here, but you've obviously all read your Negri, your Tronti, > and your Lazzarato, so let's skip that for the time being. What I find > interesting about Mark's thoughts about exploitation is that he connects > the concept to intellectual property and to the question of control. I > am interested in both these things as a researcher and a gamer, and I > find ludic models of control very useful to describe some of the > processes that we are trying to get to the bottom of here. Play is > necessarily a process in which the level of control the players > experience oscillates during the game (I've written about this in terms > of "ruled" and "unruled" space, yadayadayada, but that's neither here > nor there), and their perception of their amount of control is not > always accurate. Let's call it gote no sente > (http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoteNoSente). > > Two or three things follow from that: 1) It's not so much about the > level of control people actually have but about the level of control > they perceive as having. 2) Being in control is not always a good thing > (e.g. using restrictive licensing for the fruits of your labour limits > what Henry Jenkins, for better or for worse, calls "spreadability". 3) > Being out of control can be a good thing (for example, Minh Le's name > only got firmly attached to Counterstrike when the mod was snapped up by > Valve, and redistributed in a commercial version). So IPR, control, and > exploitation are enmeshed in a tight mesh of causation, and both > exploitation and liberation can be experienced negatively and positively > (just as an example, let's remember that many academics like myself > still subject themselves to the gangrape of publishing in peer-reviewed > academic journals, and wear their bruises with pride). > > Let's also remember that exploitation feels normal to many people. One > of my friends recently lost her job, and has tried to find a new one for > the past three months. She is resigned to the fact that when she > eventually finds a job, it will be just as mind-numbing, meaningless, > and degrading as the last one, but despite my attempts to get her out of > this mindset, she desperately scours jobsites, newsletters, even (gulp) > newspaper job ads. London being a city that provides for people with > much less in terms of financial resources, I find it hard to accept that > someone would cling to this kind of negative normativity so strongly, > but my friend is not the only one. I see the same kind of desperation in > many social networks where you "pay with your life" (and all its mundane > lacunae) for the privilege of not being a freak. It's this kind of > motivation, however bourgeois we may find it, that we might have to > consider when we talk about exploitation in the digital age. > > Julian. > > Mark Andrejevic wrote: > > Howard's post got me thinking about the need to tighten up > > an understanding of what we might mean by the term "exploitation." The > > very broad sense in which it is often used -- to indicate that someone > > else benefits from our labor -- isn't a particularly useful one. > > Theoretically it remains amorphous (how might it distinguish between > > collaborative labor and working in a sweat shop?) and practically it > > isn't much of a rallying cry ("Help, I'm being exploited because the > > value of my neighbor's house went up when I painted mine!"). > > > > I'd suggest (as a preliminary foray) that a meaningful political sense > > of the term (one that allows us to critique exploitation) would have > > to include at least two aspects: > > 1) a sense of loss of control over the results of our own productive > > activity (especially when these are turned back against us) and > > 2) structured relations of power that compel this loss of control, > > even when it looks like the result of "free" exchange. > > I don't feel a loss of control over my own productive activity when > > I contribute to a Wikipedia entry that may benefit others. On the > > other hand, I might be more likely to feel this loss of control when I > > discover, say, that details of my online activity have been collected, > > sorted, and packaged as a commodity for sale to people who may use it > > to deny me access to a job or to manipulate me based on perceived > > vulnerabilities, fears, and other personal details about my mental or > > physical well being. If I find myself in a position wherein I have to > > submit to this kind of monitoring as a condition of access to > > resources that I need to earn my livelihood or maintain my social > > relations in a networked era, I might be more likely to think of this > > situation as a truly exploitative one. > > > > When it starts to become tricky -- at least conceptually -- is when my > > work on Wikipedia (or tagging, or participating in other forms of UGC > > production) gets folded into the > > demographic/psychographic/geographic/(eventually biometric) forms of > > profiling that form the basis for the emerging online commercial > > economy. Still a meaningful conception of exploitation might help > > distinguish between the different productive roles of our online > > activity -- and between infrastructures that are more or less > > exploitative. > > > > > > > > On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Howard Rheingold > > wrote: > > > > Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the > > conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" > > > > I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and "Smart > > Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com > > . I > > teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital > > Journalism" at Stanford. > > > > I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that > > I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr. > > It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a place > > where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in > > presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look closely > > at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we > > ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful > > public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long as I > > can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means that > > I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have to > > testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's > > pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives > away > > search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to > > advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, > the > > cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and other > > paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for any > > question in seconds. How many times a day were YOU exploited by > > searching for something without paying a charge for the service? > > Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be > > exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and > > tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on > who > > is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely > > reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I would > > never argue that people should refrain from witholding their labor, > if > > that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the > > questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read > > "What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for free." > > > > Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com > > http://twitter.com/hrheingold > > http://www.rheingold.com > > http://www.smartmobs.com > > http://vlog.rheingold.com > > what it is ---> is --->up to us > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > > (distributedcreativity.org ) > > iDC at mailman.thing.net > > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > > > List Archive: > > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > > > iDC Photo Stream: > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > > > RSS feed: > > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding > > the tag iDCref > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity ( > distributedcreativity.org) > > iDC at mailman.thing.net > > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > > > List Archive: > > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > > > iDC Photo Stream: > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > > > RSS feed: > > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > -- > > dr julian raul kuecklich > > http://playability.de > > M: +447833193467 > > L: +442032395578 > > http://flickr.com/cucchiaio > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity ( > distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > -- Lilly Irani University of California, Irvine http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lirani/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090611/b16ee989/attachment-0001.htm From ned at nedrossiter.org Thu Jun 11 23:47:10 2009 From: ned at nedrossiter.org (Ned Rossiter) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:47:10 +0800 Subject: [iDC] introduction: where's the labour in software studies? Message-ID: <1F0E0420-DA81-4E90-9A9D-2579585508FD@nedrossiter.org> hello idc-list. I've been a happy lurker since the early days of idc, and I feel like I'm outing myself or something, which I guess is about time. I've been following the fascinating postings on the question of digital labour with great interest, and hope to make more direct engagements with those shortly. By way of introduction, I work in China at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo (a 2nd tier city south of Shanghai, which I commute from, across the longest bridge - for the time being - in the world). Over the past five to seven years I've been writing on the relationship between creative labour, network cultures, state transformation and the invention of new institutional forms (what Nick Knouf referred to as organized networks). Along with my book on organized networks, related edited volumes and essays have been published with Geert Lovink, Brett Neilson and Soenke Zehle. Two relevant earlier texts are here: http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/lovink_rossiter.html http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/neilson_rossiter.html Trebor asked me to say something about the relationship between unions and organized networks. Perhaps the first thing to say is that their conditions of emergence, and thus their social-technical dynamics, are vastly different. The former is an institutional form coemergent with the industrial age of Fordism and the masculine culture of organized labour. The latter is an emergent institutional form, whose contours of labour organisation share something with the precarity movements (largely a European phenomenon, at least in terms of organization and identification) and the broad condition of post- Fordist labour (flexible, just-in-time, insecure, informational, etc). Having said that, there are also some affinities beginning to develop. One of the key issues of the 2007-2008 writer's strike in the US was the issue of payment for content distributed over the internet. Here, we see one of the central conflicts between creative labour and the rise of new media -- how to earn a buck when the world downloads content for free? Plenty has been written on the politics of this topic (Ken Wark's A Hacker Manifesto lays it out neatly), but less has been researched on the question of financial remuneration for free labour. This is where unions, with their traditional concerns with decent working conditions and fair pay, have got something up on organized networks, which are better at engaging practices of self-organization via new media of communication (see the recent student protests across the world, and the work of http:// edu-factory.org ), but are less able to deal with the social- technical condition of ephemerality, info-overload, increasingly diminishing attention spans, geocultural translation and the issue of sustainability. I wasn't following much of the writer's strike, however, and I'm sure there are people on this list who can say a lot more about how digital media were enlisted in the strategies of the union organizers. Closer to home, for me, were the strikes in Melbourne by taxi drivers in April 2008. Many of the drivers were Indian, and residing in the country on international student visas. Not organized through the traditional labour form of the union, but rather through the circulation of sms texts (a now widely adopted technique of self- organization, but still surprisingly unsettling for authorities), the strike proved highly effective at the time. As Brett Neilson and I wrote in recent text (published in theory, culture & society, and kindly available through http://aaaarg.org ): "It is precisely because the drivers did not organize along hierarchical or representative lines that their protest proved so baffling and threatening to the authorities. Clearly, the event was something other than a spontaneous uprising. It was not without ?structure or organizers?. Rather, the potency of the strike rested on its multiplicity and internal divisions, which remained illegible to the state but instituted a network of relations that, while precarious, brought the city to a halt. The second thing that interests us about this taxi blockade is the fact that many of the drivers are also international university students. Because most of these students are present in the country on visas that allow them to work only 20 hours a week, they are forced to survive by accepting illegal, dangerous and highly exploitative working conditions. The question thus arises as to whether the blockade should be read as taxi driver politics, migrant politics or student politics. We would suggest that one reason for the effectiveness of the strike (the government, which had only recently refused to negotiate with unions of teachers and health workers, acceded to the drivers? demands) is the fact that it is all three of these at the same time." In Europe, labour organizer Valery Alzaga has been working closely with migrant workers in the cleaning industry. This follows on from the work she did with the Justice for Janitors campaign in the US. In both these cases, I can see a connection between union politics and organized networks in so far as the new political constituencies of self-organized migrant labour are reinventing the organizational form and culture of unions. Since last September, when I moved from the polluted soup bowl of Beijing to the relatively clean air cities of Shanghai and Ningbo, I've been reacquainting myself with the matters related to the sea, and this includes a growing interest in what the maritime industries and logistics software have to tell us about new biopolitical regimes of labour. It's also struck me that the emergent field of software studies, embodied most recently in Matt Fuller's collection - Software Studies\a lexicon - seems to have nothing to say about labour. And this is pretty surprising, considering the amount of free labour invested in developing open source software. Here, Julian's concept of playbour as a double-edged sword captures the moving ground of labour/life nicely. Pasted below are some excerpts from a forthcoming paper for a biopolitics conference in Taiwan. Fieldwork notes associated with that paper can be found here: http://orgnets.cn/?cat=5 As Geert noted in comments on a draft version of the paper, We the global intelligentsia use Word. The global working class uses SAP/ERP. These are also matters for software studies/media theory. And they are also issues for labour politics and organized networks. The prospect of labour and life governed through the biopolitical regimes of logistics software is not some cooked up dystopian fear, but a concrete reality on the horizon of the future-present. The sooner software studies gets out of its bourgeois-anarchist ghetto of open source celebration and starts to engage the banality of labour and logistics software, then the sooner we will see the question of software politics find a place in the field of informational economies and digital media . Ned ---- excerpts from a forthcoming paper - The Logistics of Labour, Life and Things: Maritime Industries in China as a Biopolitical Index of Sovereign Futures [...] If Foucault?s interest in biopolitics moved around the indistinction within a neoliberal paradigm between labour and life, production and reproduction, then it follows that the labour of research might share something with the life of labour. Both subsist within what Foucault identified as the ?milieu? or environment within which the life of species-beings is addressed and constituted by power.[1] Perhaps even more forcefully, does the analytic rubric turn to the ?biopolitics of experience? when labour and life are constitutively indistinct?[2] No doubt one could say that experience has always been subject to regimes of governance that manage labour and life ? the church, for instance, exercised its power over life through the ritual of prayer and worship and the social practice of congregation for mass. But the real subsumption of labour by capital in a post-Fordist era renders the organization of experience in novel ways. Within information societies and knowledge economies, experience presents itself as one of those last frontiers of capture in the economisation of life. Think, for instance, of search engines such as Google and the way economies of data-mining derive profit from the aggregation of the seemingly inane activity of users clicking from one site to the next, or from the accumulation of the trivial taste on social networking sites. Across his lectures on biopolitics, Foucault returns to a core definition of biopolitics, only to then take further ?detours? in his elaboration of the relationship between territoriality, governmentality, security, populations, economy and so forth. ?Biopolitics deals with the population, with the population as a political problem, as a problem that is at once scientific and political, as a biological problem and as power?s problem?.[3] What, for instance, is the population or species-being operating or constituted as a ?problem? in the maritime industries? For logistics, the problem emerges in the interruption of global supply chains ? what RAND Corporation term ?fault tolerance? (a technocratic term suitably emptied of political substance and subjectivity).[4] The biopolitical problem, or population, for maritime logistics includes: the pirate, the stowaway, the sex worker, the so-called ?illegal migrant?, the disobedient worker, the disruption of organized labour, etc. But what of the production of knowledge on such populations? How is the population of academics, NGO researchers, health professionals, policy-makers, think-tank consultants, etc. managed and organized? What are the techniques of calculus by which these diverse populations, subsumed into the category of ?fault tolerance?, are identified and managed in the interests of securitization? Such questions concern the human as the species-being of bio-power. But what of the population of software applications and technological devices that, to varying degrees, are a species-being of artificial life increasingly able to self-manage, auto-correct and internally propagate as they process the informatized status of people and things? Technologies such as these would also belong to an analysis of the biopolitics of contemporary labour and life. [...] The rise of what I would term ?informatized sovereignty? takes on particular hues in the logistical techniques associated with the maritime industries.[5] Code is King. To find out more about the role of software in logistics, I got in touch with two logistics workers in China ? one employed by a U.S. automotive company based in Shanghai and the other studying at Shanghai Maritime University, having previously worked in container stowage at the Shanghai Port. Both placed an emphasis on the importance of efficiencies in logistics, with one noting that ?Well organized and highly-efficient workers can eliminate the risk and cost of logistics activities and provide added value service to customer?. This text-book response is embodied in software standards for logistics. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) databases are standard platforms used within logistics in combination with customised software applications to manage global supply chains, organizational conditions and labour efficiencies. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are software interfaces built into ERP databases to measure worker and organizational efficiencies, meeting of target quotas, financial performance, real-time status of global supply chains, and the capacity of the organization to adapt to changing circumstances. These are all quantitative indicators that register performance with a numerical value, however, and are not able to accommodate more immaterial factors such as a worker?s feelings and level of motivation and enthusiasm. It would seem logistics software is still to address the biological spectrum special to the species-being of human life. Yet it in another sense, such immaterialities of labour and life are coded into the quantitative parametres of KPIs through the brute force of instrumentality or calculation: no matter how a worker might feel, quotas have to be met and global supply chains must not be adversely affected. The coded materiality of fulfilling performance quotas and ensuring the smooth operation of supply chains subsists within its own universe of auto-affirmation. The relationship between logistics software and self-regulation by workers assumes closure in the circuit of governance. One of my logistics informants put it this way: ?As per our broker?s management experience, every staff is trained to use their internal ERP software to reflect every movement of their work. Moreover, the data from ERP software is also used as a tool or KPI to evaluate staff?s performance, thus making them work more efficiently?. This ready inculcation of both disciplinary practices and the logic of control within the organizational culture of the company and its workers is quite confronting. Certainly, the managerial culture of universities has more than its share of whacky acronyms that constitute a new planetary grammar coextensive with the governance of labour. And the bizarre interpellation of academics into the psuedo- corporate audit regimes predicated on performance outcomes and accountability measures presents some novel terrain for theories of subjectivity and desire. The industry of logistics further amplifies such biopolitical technologies, where the labour control regime is programmed into the logistics chain at the level of code. A ?Standard Operation Procedure? (SOP) is incorporated into the KPI of workers. [6] The SOP describes the status of specific job, dividing it ?into measurable control points?. My informant provided this example: ?For instance, we would set SOP to our broker, which may require them to finish custom clearance of a normal shipment within 3 working days, if they fail to hit it, their KPI will be influenced and thus influence their payment?. There is a sense here of how logistics software ?reflects? the ?movement? of labour as the fulfillment of assigned tasks over a set period of time. This sort of labour performance measure is reproduced across many workplace settings. What makes it noteworthy here is the way in which the governance of labour is informatized in such a way that the border between undertaking a task and reporting its completion has become closed or indistinct. Labour and performativity are captured in the real-time algorithms of code. There is little scope for the worker to ?fudge? their reporting of tasks some days or even months after the event, as in the case of academia and its increasing adoption of annual performance reviews, where a simple cut and paste of the previous year?s forecast of anticipated outputs with a shift to the retrospective tense is usually sufficient. The Zizek factory tuned in early to the genre of labour performance indicators, with this account of lessons learnt while working at the Institute of Sociology in Ljubljana: ?Every three years I write a research proposal. Then I subdivide it into three one-sentence paragraphs, which I call my yearly projects. At the end of each year I change the research proposal's future-tense verbs into the past tense and then call it my final report?.[7] Any academic who hasn?t been totally subsumed into the drone-like persona found in audit-land learns this technique of sanity management early in their career. But with the rise of informatized sovereignty, biopolitical control is immanent to the time of living labour and labour-power.[8] There is no longer a temporal delay between the execution of duties and their statistical measure. One logistics interviewee described how their broker uses ERP software to evaluate the KPI of workers: 'Each employee is asked to mark it in the ERP system when they finish their required work. There are two advantages for it: 1) If they fail to finish the logistics activity within SOP time, they check in the ERP system to find which employee did not complete his/her time according to SOP, which help measure employee's performance. 2) Every employee could track in the ERP system to know about the current status/movement of the logistics activities. In short, ERP software visualizes the movement of logistics activities by efforts of every link in the logistics chain'. But as noted earlier, ERP software is a quantitative system, and as a cybernetic model it refuses the feedback or noise of more immaterial forces such as worker?s attitudes, feelings and levels of motivation that would have disruptive effects. Although a more sophisticated software environment would calculate in such variables precisely because their modulating power operates in a replenishing way, such is the parasitical logic of capital and the organic modus operandi of life. As it stands, the metaphor of global supply chains signals a totalising vision in which everything can be accounted for, measured and given an economic value. As Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson note, ?the notion of the chain, while it carries a sense of ligature or bondage we wish to maintain, suggests the linkage or articulation of multiple units into a single linear system?.[9] In the case of logistics, there is an institutional, discursive and political-economic investment in securitization and risk assessment that underscores the need for such linear systems of control. And such linearity and closure is always going to be the condition of undoing for a system that rests on stasis, consistency and control without incorporating contingency and complexity that define the ?far- from-equilibrium? conditions of life-worlds as understood in more advanced cybernetics.[10] The dismal ?failure? of the U.S. led consortia in the war in Iraq embodies the limits of military logistics and the theatre of war. But as we have been reminded in recent news media reports on the so-called financial crisis, all limits or failures of capital present new opportunities for its ongoing reproduction. [...] If this diverse array of conditions, practices and social-technical systems are any indication of the future-present of sovereign states and biopolitical technologies of population control, then it would seem that labour which is able to operate outside of the software devices special to logistics and its global supply chains might correspond with a life that is at once free, and economically impoverished. [1] Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, Lectures at the Coll?ge de France, 1975-76, trans. David Macey, London: Allen Lane, 2003, p. 245. [2] For an examination of the biopolitics of experience, see Jon Solomon?s paper in this conference ? ?Beyond Foucault?s Culturalism: Translation between Biopolitics and the Archaeology of the Human Sciences?, Biopolitics, Ethics, and Subjectivation: Questions on Modernity, International Conference at National Chiao-Tung University, Hsin Chu, Taiwan, 24-28 June, 2009. [3] Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, p. 245. [4] See Henry H. Willis and David S. Ortiz, Evaluating the Security of the Global Containerized Supply Chain, Santa Monica, Cal.: RAND Corporation, 2004, http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2004/ RAND_TR214.pdf [5] A study of logistics in the aviation industries would, I suspect, produce similar findings. However, with its considerably longer history and thus conflict with shifting epochs, the maritime industries hold greater interest precisely because they were not born in a time of modern logistics, as the aviation industries arguably were. [6] Standard Operation Procedure also refers, of course, to the routine practices of torture adopted by the U.S. military, supposedly as a technique of interrogation. The shared terminology here should come as no surprise, given the origins of logistics within the military-industrial complex. [7] See Robert S. Boyton, ?Enjoy Your Zizek! An Excitable Slovenian Philosopher Examines The Obscene Practices Of Everyday Life, Including His Own', Lingua Franca 8.7 (October, 1998). Available at: http://www.lacan.com/zizek-enjoy.htm [8] See also Tiziana Terranova: ?What we seem to have then is definition of a new biopolitical plane that can be organized through the deployment of immanent control, which operates directly within the productive power of the multitude and the clinamen?. Network Cultures: Politics for the Information Age, London: Pluto, 2004, p. 122. [9] Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson, ?Care Workers, Traders, and Body Shoppers?, unpublished paper, 2009. [10] See Terranova, Network Cultures, p. 122. See also Ned Rossiter, Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions, Amsterdam: NAi Publishers / Institute of Network Cultures, 2006, pp. 166-195. From julian at kuecklich.de Fri Jun 12 07:28:08 2009 From: julian at kuecklich.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julian_K=FCcklich?=) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:28:08 +0100 Subject: [iDC] Exploitation.... In-Reply-To: <9495d0b20906111542y780da232r99c72071d342c1a7@mail.gmail.com> References: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> <4A30FE87.3020301@googlemail.com> <9495d0b20906111542y780da232r99c72071d342c1a7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d9726080906120028x1b9e7450le24235efce4c97a7@mail.gmail.com> Lilly, everybody, I like this post a lot. MechTurk either never entirely took off, or it continues to flourish behind the scenes, it's hard to tell. In any case, it's interesting as an early example of crowdsourcing, a practice which is now increasingly referred to as deploying "artificial artificial intelligence." So within the space of a few years, we have moved from the Turing paradigm to the Philip K. Dick paradigm. Instead of computers pretending to be human we are dealing with humans pretending to be computers pretending to be humans. Let's call it objectification-as-subjectification. So I would take it one step further and say exploitation is underwritten not only by processes of objectification but also of subjectification, and the devenir-machine is joined by a devenir-humain. Again, I would argue, as with exploitation and liberation, sub- and objectification are intertwined and embedded in a form of multitudinous intersubjectivity. I am taking my cues here from Gotthard Gunther's work on trans-Aristotelian logic (which, incidentally, can be read as an unfolding of ideas Gunther derived from reading Asimov), in which he emphatically and methodically refutes the "tertium non datur" axiom. This opens up a space for thinking about phenomena that escape the dualism of being and nothing, and this is precisely the space we need to think about exploitation. A conjecture: Marx, being a Hegelian, was deeply invested in the idea that the negation of being (ie entfremdung, "alienation") could only result in nothing, the reduction of the human being to a commodity. And this sad state of affairs could only be reversed by a negation of the negation, ie a revolution. But what if NOT NOT a != a? This opens up a whole range of new avenues, one of which is Tronti's strategy of refusal, but there are many other, less codified forms of refusing alienation, which I am too lazy to enumerate. To speak with Bartleby: "I'd prefer not to." But this does not mean that alienated labour and exploitation do not exist, or that it is easy to avoid them. What I find interesting about Lilly's example of fertility therapy is that it shows that objectification (and by extension, exploitation) can be distributed unevenly within a body's organs (this is more Fantastic Voyage than Body-without-Organs, or rather it's Body-with-or-without-Organs). You just have to look at office workers in a park, trying to run away from their brains, to see this in action. Another way of conceptualizing the uneven distribution of alienation within the body is to look at the various biopolitical campaigns (anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-teenage-pregnancy, anti STD, anti-skin-cancer, 5-a-day) that target different parts of the human body, and the various strategies of refusal deployed against them. The Mechanical Turk (a machine within which a human pretends to be a machine) is a BwowO that is reduced to a brain and hands, the body itself compressed and hidden from sight. It's a perfect metaphor of the plight of immaterial labourers on the internet, who are hidden, yet have to perform with virtuosity. Exploitation bisects them, or multi-sects them, they are exposed yet anonymous, subject to surveillance and escaping it through sousveillance. The choreography of exploitation, to take up Lilly's term, thus emerges as a phenomenon that challenges us to think beyond the oppositions of labourer and machine, subject and object, alienation and liberation. We are all Mechanical Turks now, to a lesser or greater degree and we dance to the inane refrain of The Machine is Us(ing Us). Julian. 2009/6/11 Lilly Irani : > Hi all - > > I've been thinking a lot about Amazon Mechanical Turk this year (the side > project that haunts me). I've found Charis Thompson's work (which I've > encountered through Lucy Suchman) and Donna Haraway's work most though > provoking in considering a post-Marxist, post-relativist exploitation. > > One take on exploitation might be to see not who gets objectified, but how > those objectifications and exploitations are choreographed, controlled, and > assembled, and how they are or are not open to reconfiguration. In studies > of how particular women voluntarily place themselves under the objectifying > gaze of a doctor for fertility therapy, Charis Cussins (Thompson) "locates > alienation not in objectification per se, but in the breakdown of > synechdochal relations between parts and whole that make objectification of > various forms into associated forms of agency." Suchman explains that "It is > this process 'of forging a functional zone of compatibility that maintains > referential power between things of different kinds' that she names > ontological choreography." Ontological choreography touches on issues of > control and feelings of control brought up in this thread, it relates to > class (im)mobility, and also debates about agency in sex work / > exploitation. (My reading is from Suchman's "Agencies in Technology Design: > Feminist Reconfigurations": > www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/papers/suchman-agenciestechnodesign.pdf ) > > Donna Haraway takes on exploitation and labor more directly in her book Ch 3 > ("Sharing Suffering: Instrumental Relations Between Animals and People") of > the book "When Species Meet." In thinking through animals as *laborers* > instead of as food or lab animals, she draws links to the ways production is > often gendered and raced (asian women in semi-conductor factories or > africans dying in the wars over the coltan destined for our cellphones). > Critiquing vegans and PETA who base their actions on the logic of > privileging animals as sacrosanct while saying nothing of the exploitation > of others (people) who labor and die, she says "try as we might to distance > ourselves, there is no way of living that is not also a way of someone, not > just something, else dying differentially." (80) Haraway suggests > responsibility and responsiveness as an alternate framework for thinking > about exploitation -- in other words, seeing exploitation as a failed sort > of relation that has to be judged by time and situation, rather than by who > has the capital or the breasts. > > Both Cussins and Haraway, then, suggest that exploitation has to do with a > lack of responsibility, a lack of responsiveness, a breakdown in which fluid > relations are continually forced into reified ones. > > This helps me think about mechanical turk as not necessarily, essentially > exploitative, despite the exploitative rhetoric Amazon deploys about what > the platform is (Turk and the Human API of deraced, degendered human > cognitive labor accessible 24-7). It suggests that claiming the exploitation > of low-paid turk workers demands attention to the particular reasons why > those people are doing turk and how they are (or are not) able to > reconfigure those relations. > > ~lilly > > 2009/6/11 Julian K?cklich >> >> Hi all, >> >> I recently had a long and embittered debate about exploitation at a >> panel on co-creative labour that Larissa Hjorth and I co-chaired at the >> COST298 conference. I think I was arguing that what Tiziana calls "free >> labour" (and which I call "playbour" when I write about things like >> computer game modification (modding), the policing of virtual space in >> massively multiplayer games, and the free marketing players provide by >> digging, blogging, tweeting about games, etc.) is never entirely >> exploited, nor is it ever entirely free (in the sense of libre). The >> one-size-fits-all concept of exploitation we have inherited from the >> Marxist tradition was probably never particularly useful to begin with, >> but when we talk about forms of living where labour and leisure are so >> deeply intertwined it is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. >> >> One of the counter-arguments from an audience member at the COST298 >> panel was that women's movements didn't view work so much as >> exploitation than as a liberation from the subservience dictated by >> chauvinist societies, so this is not necessarily something that only >> becomes an issue with digital technologies, but rather something that >> comes into play once we start asking questions about what constitutes >> productive labour and what makes labourers eligible for renumeration. >> Traditionally, "women's work" was obviously often unpaid, unrecognized, >> and pretty much unregulated. The same is true of many of the forms of >> labour we see arising within digital forms of life today. >> >> I could insert the standard blurb about autonomism, refusal, and the >> multitude here, but you've obviously all read your Negri, your Tronti, >> and your Lazzarato, so let's skip that for the time being. What I find >> interesting about Mark's thoughts about exploitation is that he connects >> the concept to intellectual property and to the question of control. I >> am interested in both these things as a researcher and a gamer, and I >> find ludic models of control very useful to describe some of the >> processes that we are trying to get to the bottom of here. Play is >> necessarily a process in which the level of control the players >> experience oscillates during the game (I've written about this in terms >> of "ruled" and "unruled" space, yadayadayada, but that's neither here >> nor there), and their perception of their amount of control is not >> always accurate. Let's call it gote no sente >> (http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoteNoSente). >> >> Two or three things follow from that: 1) It's not so much about the >> level of control people actually have but about the level of control >> they perceive as having. 2) Being in control is not always a good thing >> (e.g. using restrictive licensing for the fruits of your labour limits >> what Henry Jenkins, for better or for worse, calls "spreadability". 3) >> Being out of control can be a good thing (for example, Minh Le's name >> only got firmly attached to Counterstrike when the mod was snapped up by >> Valve, and redistributed in a commercial version). So IPR, control, and >> exploitation are enmeshed in a tight mesh of causation, and both >> exploitation and liberation can be experienced negatively and positively >> (just as an example, let's remember that many academics like myself >> still subject themselves to the gangrape of publishing in peer-reviewed >> academic journals, and wear their bruises with pride). >> >> Let's also remember that exploitation feels normal to many people. One >> of my friends recently lost her job, and has tried to find a new one for >> the past three months. She is resigned to the fact that when she >> eventually finds a job, it will be just as mind-numbing, meaningless, >> and degrading as the last one, but despite my attempts to get her out of >> this mindset, she desperately scours jobsites, newsletters, even (gulp) >> newspaper job ads. London being a city that provides for people with >> much less in terms of financial resources, I find it hard to accept that >> someone would cling to this kind of negative normativity so strongly, >> but my friend is not the only one. I see the same kind of desperation in >> many social networks where you "pay with your life" (and all its mundane >> lacunae) for the privilege of not being a freak. It's this kind of >> motivation, however bourgeois we may find it, that we might have to >> consider when we talk about exploitation in the digital age. >> >> Julian. >> >> Mark Andrejevic wrote: >> > Howard's post got me thinking about the need to tighten up >> > an understanding of what we might mean by the term "exploitation." The >> > very broad sense in which it is often used -- to indicate that someone >> > else benefits from our labor -- isn't a particularly useful one. >> > Theoretically it remains amorphous (how might it distinguish between >> > collaborative labor and working in a sweat shop?) and practically it >> > isn't much of a rallying cry ("Help, I'm being exploited because the >> > value of my neighbor's house went up when I painted mine!"). >> > >> > I'd suggest (as a preliminary foray) that a meaningful political sense >> > of the term (one that allows us to critique exploitation) would have >> > to include at least two aspects: >> > 1) a sense of loss of control over the results of our own productive >> > activity (especially when these are turned back against us) and >> > 2) structured relations of power that compel this loss of control, >> > even when it looks like the result of "free" exchange. >> > I don't feel a loss of control over my own productive activity when >> > I contribute to a Wikipedia entry that may benefit others. On the >> > other hand, I might be more likely to feel this loss of control when I >> > discover, say, that details of my online activity have been collected, >> > sorted, and packaged as a commodity for sale to people who may use it >> > to deny me access to a job or to manipulate me based on perceived >> > vulnerabilities, fears, and other personal details about my mental or >> > physical well being. If I find myself in a position wherein I have to >> > submit to this kind of monitoring as a condition of access to >> > resources that I need to earn my livelihood or maintain my social >> > relations in a networked era, I might be more likely to think of this >> > situation as a truly exploitative one. >> > >> > When it starts to become tricky -- at least conceptually -- is when my >> > work on Wikipedia (or tagging, or participating in other forms of UGC >> > production) gets folded into the >> > demographic/psychographic/geographic/(eventually biometric) forms of >> > profiling that form the basis for the emerging online commercial >> > economy. Still a meaningful conception of exploitation might help >> > distinguish between the different productive roles of our online >> > activity -- and between infrastructures that are more or less >> > exploitative. >> > >> > >> > >> > On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Howard Rheingold > > > wrote: >> > >> > ? ? Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the >> > ? ? conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" >> > >> > ? ? I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and >> > "Smart >> > ? ? Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com >> > ? ? . I >> > ? ? teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital >> > ? ? Journalism" at Stanford. >> > >> > ? ? I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that >> > ? ? I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from >> > flickr. >> > ? ? It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a place >> > ? ? where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in >> > ? ? presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look >> > closely >> > ? ? at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we >> > ? ? ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful >> > ? ? public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long as >> > I >> > ? ? can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means that >> > ? ? I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have to >> > ? ? testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's >> > ? ? pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives >> > away >> > ? ? search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to >> > ? ? advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, >> > the >> > ? ? cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and >> > other >> > ? ? paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for >> > any >> > ? ? question in seconds. How many times a day were ?YOU exploited by >> > ? ? searching for something without paying a charge for the service? >> > ? ? Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be >> > ? ? exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and >> > ? ? tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on >> > who >> > ? ? is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely >> > ? ? reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I would >> > ? ? never argue that people should refrain from witholding their labor, >> > if >> > ? ? that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the >> > ? ? questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read >> > ? ? "What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for free." >> > >> > ? ? Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com >> > ? ? http://twitter.com/hrheingold >> > ? ? http://www.rheingold.com >> > ? ? ?http://www.smartmobs.com >> > ? ? http://vlog.rheingold.com >> > ? ? what it is ---> is --->up to us >> > >> > >> > >> > ? ? _______________________________________________ >> > ? ? iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> > ? ? (distributedcreativity.org ) >> > ? ? iDC at mailman.thing.net >> > ? ? https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> > >> > ? ? List Archive: >> > ? ? http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> > >> > ? ? iDC Photo Stream: >> > ? ? http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> > >> > ? ? RSS feed: >> > ? ? http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> > >> > ? ? iDC Chat on Facebook: >> > ? ? http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> > >> > ? ? Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding >> > ? ? the tag iDCref >> > >> > >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> > (distributedcreativity.org) >> > iDC at mailman.thing.net >> > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> > >> > List Archive: >> > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> > >> > iDC Photo Stream: >> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> > >> > RSS feed: >> > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> > >> > iDC Chat on Facebook: >> > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> > >> > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> >> >> -- >> >> dr julian raul kuecklich >> >> http://playability.de >> >> M: +447833193467 >> >> L: +442032395578 >> >> http://flickr.com/cucchiaio >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > > -- > Lilly Irani > University of California, Irvine > http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lirani/ > From dg6n at mail.eservices.virginia.edu Fri Jun 12 11:49:05 2009 From: dg6n at mail.eservices.virginia.edu (David Golumbia) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:49:05 -0400 Subject: [iDC] introduction: where's the labour in software studies? In-Reply-To: <1F0E0420-DA81-4E90-9A9D-2579585508FD@nedrossiter.org> References: <1F0E0420-DA81-4E90-9A9D-2579585508FD@nedrossiter.org> Message-ID: <4A3240B1.8040907@mail.eservices.virginia.edu> Hi list, I've really enjoyed a lot of the recent discussion, and especially the comments Ned makes below; I feel I should mention that my recently-published book, /The Cultural Logic of Computation/ (Harvard, 2009) discusses ERP, CRM and other logistics software in just this context--and also continues to insist, as several have done here, that there is a deeply problematic mismatch between "labor" as it is conceptualized in the world of computing, and the other sorts of labor that will and must continue to make the everyday world operate. In no small part due to the decade I spent as a software architect and programmer in the financial information industry, I am deeply skeptical of claims that the computerization of society will lead to a freer, more democratic world. I am first skeptical that there is any kind of automatic trend in that direction, despite the huge amounts of rhetoric to that effect (much of it effectively critiqued on this list, and a major target of my book); but I feel it is just as critical to raise the question even at more pedestrian levels. I continue to think that despite its benefits, there are significant and underacknowledged conflicts between "the computerization of society" and, to quote the philospopher Hilary Putnam, "total human flourishing." David G. -- David Golumbia Assistant Professor Media Studies, English, and Linguistics University of Virginia Ned Rossiter wrote: > hello idc-list. I've been a happy lurker since the early days of idc, > and I feel like I'm outing myself or something, which I guess is > about time. I've been following the fascinating postings on the > question of digital labour with great interest, and hope to make more > direct engagements with those shortly. By way of introduction, I > work in China at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo (a 2nd tier > city south of Shanghai, which I commute from, across the longest > bridge - for the time being - in the world). Over the past five to > seven years I've been writing on the relationship between creative > labour, network cultures, state transformation and the invention of > new institutional forms (what Nick Knouf referred to as organized > networks). Along with my book on organized networks, related edited > volumes and essays have been published with Geert Lovink, Brett > Neilson and Soenke Zehle. Two relevant earlier texts are here: > > http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/lovink_rossiter.html > > http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/neilson_rossiter.html > > Trebor asked me to say something about the relationship between > unions and organized networks. Perhaps the first thing to say is that > their conditions of emergence, and thus their social-technical > dynamics, are vastly different. The former is an institutional form > coemergent with the industrial age of Fordism and the masculine > culture of organized labour. The latter is an emergent institutional > form, whose contours of labour organisation share something with the > precarity movements (largely a European phenomenon, at least in terms > of organization and identification) and the broad condition of post- > Fordist labour (flexible, just-in-time, insecure, informational, etc). > > Having said that, there are also some affinities beginning to > develop. One of the key issues of the 2007-2008 writer's strike in > the US was the issue of payment for content distributed over the > internet. Here, we see one of the central conflicts between creative > labour and the rise of new media -- how to earn a buck when the world > downloads content for free? Plenty has been written on the politics > of this topic (Ken Wark's A Hacker Manifesto lays it out neatly), but > less has been researched on the question of financial remuneration > for free labour. This is where unions, with their traditional > concerns with decent working conditions and fair pay, have got > something up on organized networks, which are better at engaging > practices of self-organization via new media of communication (see > the recent student protests across the world, and the work of http:// > edu-factory.org ), but are less able to deal with the social- > technical condition of ephemerality, info-overload, increasingly > diminishing attention spans, geocultural translation and the issue of > sustainability. > > I wasn't following much of the writer's strike, however, and I'm sure > there are people on this list who can say a lot more about how > digital media were enlisted in the strategies of the union > organizers. Closer to home, for me, were the strikes in Melbourne by > taxi drivers in April 2008. Many of the drivers were Indian, and > residing in the country on international student visas. Not organized > through the traditional labour form of the union, but rather through > the circulation of sms texts (a now widely adopted technique of self- > organization, but still surprisingly unsettling for authorities), the > strike proved highly effective at the time. As Brett Neilson and I > wrote in recent text (published in theory, culture & society, and > kindly available through http://aaaarg.org ): > > "It is precisely because the drivers did not organize along > hierarchical or representative lines that their protest proved so > baffling and threatening to the authorities. Clearly, the event was > something other than a spontaneous uprising. It was not without > ?structure or organizers?. Rather, the potency of the strike rested > on its multiplicity and internal divisions, which remained illegible > to the state but instituted a network of relations that, while > precarious, brought the city to a halt. > > The second thing that interests us about this taxi blockade is the > fact that many of the drivers are also international university > students. Because most of these students are present in the country > on visas that allow them to work only 20 hours a week, they are > forced to survive by accepting illegal, dangerous and highly > exploitative working conditions. The question thus arises as to > whether the blockade should be read as taxi driver politics, migrant > politics or student politics. We would suggest that one reason for > the effectiveness of the strike (the government, which had only > recently refused to negotiate with unions of teachers and health > workers, acceded to the drivers? demands) is the fact that it is all > three of these at the same time." > > In Europe, labour organizer Valery Alzaga has been working closely > with migrant workers in the cleaning industry. This follows on from > the work she did with the Justice for Janitors campaign in the US. In > both these cases, I can see a connection between union politics and > organized networks in so far as the new political constituencies of > self-organized migrant labour are reinventing the organizational form > and culture of unions. > > Since last September, when I moved from the polluted soup bowl of > Beijing to the relatively clean air cities of Shanghai and Ningbo, > I've been reacquainting myself with the matters related to the sea, > and this includes a growing interest in what the maritime industries > and logistics software have to tell us about new biopolitical regimes > of labour. It's also struck me that the emergent field of software > studies, embodied most recently in Matt Fuller's collection - > Software Studies\a lexicon - seems to have nothing to say about > labour. And this is pretty surprising, considering the amount of free > labour invested in developing open source software. Here, Julian's > concept of playbour as a double-edged sword captures the moving > ground of labour/life nicely. > > Pasted below are some excerpts from a forthcoming paper for a > biopolitics conference in Taiwan. Fieldwork notes associated with > that paper can be found here: http://orgnets.cn/?cat=5 > > As Geert noted in comments on a draft version of the paper, We the > global intelligentsia use Word. The global working class uses SAP/ERP. > > These are also matters for software studies/media theory. And they > are also issues for labour politics and organized networks. The > prospect of labour and life governed through the biopolitical regimes > of logistics software is not some cooked up dystopian fear, but a > concrete reality on the horizon of the future-present. The sooner > software studies gets out of its bourgeois-anarchist ghetto of open > source celebration and starts to engage the banality of labour and > logistics software, then the sooner we will see the question of > software politics find a place in the field of informational > economies and digital media . > > Ned > > ---- > > excerpts from a forthcoming paper - The Logistics of Labour, Life and > Things: Maritime Industries in China as a Biopolitical Index of > Sovereign Futures > > [...] If Foucault?s interest in biopolitics moved around the > indistinction within a neoliberal paradigm between labour and life, > production and reproduction, then it follows that the labour of > research might share something with the life of labour. Both subsist > within what Foucault identified as the ?milieu? or environment within > which the life of species-beings is addressed and constituted by > power.[1] Perhaps even more forcefully, does the analytic rubric turn > to the ?biopolitics of experience? when labour and life are > constitutively indistinct?[2] No doubt one could say that experience > has always been subject to regimes of governance that manage labour > and life ? the church, for instance, exercised its power over life > through the ritual of prayer and worship and the social practice of > congregation for mass. But the real subsumption of labour by capital > in a post-Fordist era renders the organization of experience in novel > ways. Within information societies and knowledge economies, > experience presents itself as one of those last frontiers of capture > in the economisation of life. Think, for instance, of search engines > such as Google and the way economies of data-mining derive profit > from the aggregation of the seemingly inane activity of users > clicking from one site to the next, or from the accumulation of the > trivial taste on social networking sites. > > Across his lectures on biopolitics, Foucault returns to a core > definition of biopolitics, only to then take further ?detours? in his > elaboration of the relationship between territoriality, > governmentality, security, populations, economy and so forth. > ?Biopolitics deals with the population, with the population as a > political problem, as a problem that is at once scientific and > political, as a biological problem and as power?s problem?.[3] What, > for instance, is the population or species-being operating or > constituted as a ?problem? in the maritime industries? For logistics, > the problem emerges in the interruption of global supply chains ? > what RAND Corporation term ?fault tolerance? (a technocratic term > suitably emptied of political substance and subjectivity).[4] The > biopolitical problem, or population, for maritime logistics includes: > the pirate, the stowaway, the sex worker, the so-called ?illegal > migrant?, the disobedient worker, the disruption of organized labour, > etc. But what of the production of knowledge on such populations? How > is the population of academics, NGO researchers, health > professionals, policy-makers, think-tank consultants, etc. managed > and organized? What are the techniques of calculus by which these > diverse populations, subsumed into the category of ?fault tolerance?, > are identified and managed in the interests of securitization? Such > questions concern the human as the species-being of bio-power. But > what of the population of software applications and technological > devices that, to varying degrees, are a species-being of artificial > life increasingly able to self-manage, auto-correct and internally > propagate as they process the informatized status of people and > things? Technologies such as these would also belong to an analysis > of the biopolitics of contemporary labour and life. > > [...] > > The rise of what I would term ?informatized sovereignty? takes on > particular hues in the logistical techniques associated with the > maritime industries.[5] Code is King. To find out more about the role > of software in logistics, I got in touch with two logistics workers > in China ? one employed by a U.S. automotive company based in > Shanghai and the other studying at Shanghai Maritime University, > having previously worked in container stowage at the Shanghai Port. > Both placed an emphasis on the importance of efficiencies in > logistics, with one noting that ?Well organized and highly-efficient > workers can eliminate the risk and cost of logistics activities and > provide added value service to customer?. This text-book response is > embodied in software standards for logistics. > > Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) databases are standard platforms > used within logistics in combination with customised software > applications to manage global supply chains, organizational > conditions and labour efficiencies. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) > are software interfaces built into ERP databases to measure worker > and organizational efficiencies, meeting of target quotas, financial > performance, real-time status of global supply chains, and the > capacity of the organization to adapt to changing circumstances. > These are all quantitative indicators that register performance with > a numerical value, however, and are not able to accommodate more > immaterial factors such as a worker?s feelings and level of > motivation and enthusiasm. It would seem logistics software is still > to address the biological spectrum special to the species-being of > human life. Yet it in another sense, such immaterialities of labour > and life are coded into the quantitative parametres of KPIs through > the brute force of instrumentality or calculation: no matter how a > worker might feel, quotas have to be met and global supply chains > must not be adversely affected. > > The coded materiality of fulfilling performance quotas and ensuring > the smooth operation of supply chains subsists within its own > universe of auto-affirmation. The relationship between logistics > software and self-regulation by workers assumes closure in the > circuit of governance. One of my logistics informants put it this > way: ?As per our broker?s management experience, every staff is > trained to use their internal ERP software to reflect every movement > of their work. Moreover, the data from ERP software is also used as a > tool or KPI to evaluate staff?s performance, thus making them work > more efficiently?. > > This ready inculcation of both disciplinary practices and the logic > of control within the organizational culture of the company and its > workers is quite confronting. Certainly, the managerial culture of > universities has more than its share of whacky acronyms that > constitute a new planetary grammar coextensive with the governance of > labour. And the bizarre interpellation of academics into the psuedo- > corporate audit regimes predicated on performance outcomes and > accountability measures presents some novel terrain for theories of > subjectivity and desire. The industry of logistics further amplifies > such biopolitical technologies, where the labour control regime is > programmed into the logistics chain at the level of code. A ?Standard > Operation Procedure? (SOP) is incorporated into the KPI of workers. > [6] The SOP describes the status of specific job, dividing it ?into > measurable control points?. My informant provided this example: ?For > instance, we would set SOP to our broker, which may require them to > finish custom clearance of a normal shipment within 3 working days, > if they fail to hit it, their KPI will be influenced and thus > influence their payment?. > > There is a sense here of how logistics software ?reflects? the > ?movement? of labour as the fulfillment of assigned tasks over a set > period of time. This sort of labour performance measure is reproduced > across many workplace settings. What makes it noteworthy here is the > way in which the governance of labour is informatized in such a way > that the border between undertaking a task and reporting its > completion has become closed or indistinct. Labour and performativity > are captured in the real-time algorithms of code. There is little > scope for the worker to ?fudge? their reporting of tasks some days or > even months after the event, as in the case of academia and its > increasing adoption of annual performance reviews, where a simple cut > and paste of the previous year?s forecast of anticipated outputs with > a shift to the retrospective tense is usually sufficient. The Zizek > factory tuned in early to the genre of labour performance indicators, > with this account of lessons learnt while working at the Institute of > Sociology in Ljubljana: ?Every three years I write a research > proposal. Then I subdivide it into three one-sentence paragraphs, > which I call my yearly projects. At the end of each year I change the > research proposal's future-tense verbs into the past tense and then > call it my final report?.[7] Any academic who hasn?t been totally > subsumed into the drone-like persona found in audit-land learns this > technique of sanity management early in their career. But with the > rise of informatized sovereignty, biopolitical control is immanent to > the time of living labour and labour-power.[8] There is no longer a > temporal delay between the execution of duties and their statistical > measure. One logistics interviewee described how their broker uses > ERP software to evaluate the KPI of workers: > > 'Each employee is asked to mark it in the ERP system when they finish > their required work. There are two advantages for it: 1) If they fail > to finish the logistics activity within SOP time, they check in the > ERP system to find which employee did not complete his/her time > according to SOP, which help measure employee's performance. 2) Every > employee could track in the ERP system to know about the current > status/movement of the logistics activities. In short, ERP software > visualizes the movement of logistics activities by efforts of every > link in the logistics chain'. > > But as noted earlier, ERP software is a quantitative system, and as a > cybernetic model it refuses the feedback or noise of more immaterial > forces such as worker?s attitudes, feelings and levels of motivation > that would have disruptive effects. Although a more sophisticated > software environment would calculate in such variables precisely > because their modulating power operates in a replenishing way, such > is the parasitical logic of capital and the organic modus operandi of > life. As it stands, the metaphor of global supply chains signals a > totalising vision in which everything can be accounted for, measured > and given an economic value. As Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson > note, ?the notion of the chain, while it carries a sense of ligature > or bondage we wish to maintain, suggests the linkage or articulation > of multiple units into a single linear system?.[9] > > In the case of logistics, there is an institutional, discursive and > political-economic investment in securitization and risk assessment > that underscores the need for such linear systems of control. And > such linearity and closure is always going to be the condition of > undoing for a system that rests on stasis, consistency and control > without incorporating contingency and complexity that define the ?far- > from-equilibrium? conditions of life-worlds as understood in more > advanced cybernetics.[10] The dismal ?failure? of the U.S. led > consortia in the war in Iraq embodies the limits of military > logistics and the theatre of war. But as we have been reminded in > recent news media reports on the so-called financial crisis, all > limits or failures of capital present new opportunities for its > ongoing reproduction. > > [...] > > If this diverse array of conditions, practices and social-technical > systems are any indication of the future-present of sovereign states > and biopolitical technologies of population control, then it would > seem that labour which is able to operate outside of the software > devices special to logistics and its global supply chains might > correspond with a life that is at once free, and economically > impoverished. > > [1] Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, Lectures at the > Coll?ge de France, 1975-76, trans. David Macey, London: Allen Lane, > 2003, p. 245. > > [2] For an examination of the biopolitics of experience, see Jon > Solomon?s paper in this conference ? ?Beyond Foucault?s Culturalism: > Translation between Biopolitics and the Archaeology of the Human > Sciences?, Biopolitics, Ethics, and Subjectivation: Questions on > Modernity, International Conference at National Chiao-Tung > University, Hsin Chu, Taiwan, 24-28 June, 2009. > > [3] Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, p. 245. > > [4] See Henry H. Willis and David S. Ortiz, Evaluating the Security > of the Global Containerized Supply Chain, Santa Monica, Cal.: RAND > Corporation, 2004, http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2004/ > RAND_TR214.pdf > > [5] A study of logistics in the aviation industries would, I suspect, > produce similar findings. However, with its considerably longer > history and thus conflict with shifting epochs, the maritime > industries hold greater interest precisely because they were not born > in a time of modern logistics, as the aviation industries arguably were. > > [6] Standard Operation Procedure also refers, of course, to the > routine practices of torture adopted by the U.S. military, supposedly > as a technique of interrogation. The shared terminology here should > come as no surprise, given the origins of logistics within the > military-industrial complex. > > [7] See Robert S. Boyton, ?Enjoy Your Zizek! An Excitable Slovenian > Philosopher Examines The Obscene Practices Of Everyday Life, > Including His Own', Lingua Franca 8.7 (October, 1998). Available at: > http://www.lacan.com/zizek-enjoy.htm > > [8] See also Tiziana Terranova: ?What we seem to have then is > definition of a new biopolitical plane that can be organized through > the deployment of immanent control, which operates directly within > the productive power of the multitude and the clinamen?. Network > Cultures: Politics for the Information Age, London: Pluto, 2004, p. 122. > > [9] Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson, ?Care Workers, Traders, and > Body Shoppers?, unpublished paper, 2009. > > [10] See Terranova, Network Cultures, p. 122. See also Ned Rossiter, > Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions, > Amsterdam: NAi Publishers / Institute of Network Cultures, 2006, pp. > 166-195. > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090612/c5013b5d/attachment-0001.htm From brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr Fri Jun 12 16:04:36 2009 From: brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr (Brian Holmes) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:04:36 +0200 Subject: [iDC] Political questions on play/labor In-Reply-To: <4A3240B1.8040907@mail.eservices.virginia.edu> References: <1F0E0420-DA81-4E90-9A9D-2579585508FD@nedrossiter.org> <4A3240B1.8040907@mail.eservices.virginia.edu> Message-ID: <4A327C94.2090201@aliceadsl.fr> Hello all, Greetings, brilliant that we will have a chance to meet in this hi-end conf organized by tireless Trebor, who already has some very successful symposia to his name. I am a cultural critic and activist, working among others on the theme of networked leisure and labor since my text on The Flexible Personality in 2002. Now I'm coming back from two decades in France to spend more time in the US, so it will be a great chance to meet many of you. The promise of the conference, seems to me, is to tie up in one living, breathing package the latest on computer-mediated and "choreographed" social interaction, considered as an ethos, a more or less legitimate way of living. But the eternal question of such studies is: what for? Among other perspectives, this from Jonathan Beller speaks to me: > How to make the playground pulse with > the struggles that underpin, situate and overdetermine our very presence > (virtual or otherwise) in this, our space-time-now. Given the record of egalitarian and emancipatory struggles in the hyper-mediated USA over this last decade, paralleled by the real decay of the society (militarism, immiseration of the middle classes, increasing exclusion and imprisonment, extraordinary financial crimes and a whole range of ecological dead-ends) the idea that an expanding space of play represents a realm of freedom looks like a dubious interpretation of the cultural consequences of networked media. If the parameters of play (devices, themes, rules of engagement, participatory rituals, affective tones etc) are an important part of what gives cultural form to a society of abundance, then I'd like to see what happens when a prominent group of academics, artists and technologists admit that the results today are not very good. Why is it so difficult now to talk about free play as a technique for the political neutralization of the (forever) young - when it's not a matter of indoctrinating future soldiers or corporate raiders? Similarly I'd debate the emancipatory value of a simple focus on digital labor and its relative autonomy, because the grand egalitarian traditions of labor struggles are not particularly evident in networked environments. Instead, the speed-up in pace (see the issue of Processed World sent by Jesse Drew) and the increased career opportunities in the financialized economy mostly led to new forms of grinding exploitation at the bottom of the payscale and extreme self-interest on the higher prosumer ends. Under the influence of Clintonism and New Labor, center-left professionals across the world accepted the premises of neoliberal government-by-selfish-economics, with outcomes that are now obvious thanks to the financial collapse. The question, then, is what is the value of focusing on labor if you cannot contribute to some new replacement for what the workerist traditions used to call commitment, solidarity and class consciousness? Can we really say, that's someone else's department, I study the nitty-gitty of digital work? I agree with Jonathan Beller that our unconscious thoughts and unquestioned social routines are overdetermined by the really existing struggles against bombs, pollution, exploitation and expropriation. But let's face it: the struggles in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and also in Europe and the USA themselves don't get much conscious help from the play-labor complex; and while it's quite valuable to hear any news to the contrary, there would be a certain dishonesty in exaggerating the importance of that news after what we have been though in this decade. To echo some earlier discussions about what has changed and what hasn't since digitization, it may well be true that the increase in the availability and communicability of knowledge about society has merely lent piercing clarity to the limited scope of personal agency in the capitalist democracies. Yet still it's a problem, no? Many of you on the list have done excellent work defining the operational underpinnings and interactive patterns of what can shortly be called "the control society," and I think this work is important. However, in my own case no less than any of yours, the limit of that kind of critical work is post-leftist melancholia and the exegesis of domination as some kind of theological destiny. If, as I would argue, the hope that a change in analytical focus could uncover previously unnoticed margins of agency in entertainment and in the relative autonomy of everyday labor has been largely a failure, then the question of how to make critical intellectualism into a force in the world again, and not just a declining career-path, raises its prickly head. In addition to the specialist knowledge that this conference will generate and freely share - and thanks in advance for that - the problem on my mind will be, how to make research, publication and teaching into a force for emancipation and social change, at a moment when the self-destructive trends of world society are so blatant? Gabriella Coleman and others have written about the impressive phenomenon of free-software development. Michael Bauwens talks about the need for institutional support of cooperative cultures of the kind that have emerged on line over the last twenty years. These approaches point in positive directions. Yet it does not appear that such forms of cooperation can be generated by better algorithms and interaction designs, because their ethical basis has to be cultivated by groups that at present are minorities, and therefore must develop their own infrastructure, value-orientations, operative modes and forms of validation, not to mention wellsprings of desire. At a time when war, mental as well as physical pollution and outright expropriation of the social wealth are so threatening, why not use this conference to think about the structures of discursive cooperation and social practice that could give some relevance back to research and teaching? Could the seeds of a more critical Internet culture be planted at a conference like this? Otherwise it's Howard Rheingold and the San Francisco venture capitalists forever! The discussion on this list about how to define exploitation is totally positive from my point of view. But you know, the US has used its scientific and cultural hegemony to extract so much wealth from the rest of the world over the past few decades that it's really no wonder people have basically been paid to play, whether through access to credit or as the part of the societal experiment in one-to-one marketing that we have all been part of since the Internet went commercial. The question of how to recover egalitarian values and how to invent ecological ones within the extended frameworks of world society is also fundamental to any constructive critique of the play-labor ethos, both politically and on strictly epistemological and ontological grounds (since neoliberalism has wiped out old definitions of exploitation, alienation and domination). If the conference could set some shared research agendas on these kinds of topics, that would be a real accomplishment. all the best, Brian text archive at brianholmes.wordpress.com. From ellgood at camden.rutgers.edu Fri Jun 12 16:08:16 2009 From: ellgood at camden.rutgers.edu (Ellen Goodman) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:08:16 -0400 Subject: [iDC] introduction Message-ID: Hello all, I'm a law professor at Rutgers University - Camden. Trebor asked me to participate in this conference because of my work on public media policy in a networked environment. The U.S. system of public media is premised on 20th century forms of media consumption and production, and notions of the commercial/noncommercial divide. At the same time, the goals for public media are better suited to the digital space than they were to the analog sphere: participation, diversity, citizenship, experimentation, technological and artistic innovation. These discussions about the function and definition of noncommercial production and amateur/citizen participation in our informational environment are central to discussions of public media reform and support. Does it remain important to have an advertising-free communicative sphere? How do we define sponsorship in the new environment? How do authority and editorial control co-exist with distributed production and engagement? What are the roles of philanthropists and government in sustaining a noncommercial media space and what is the place/function of social media in this space? These are some of the questions I'm exploring. Ellen P. Goodman Professor Rutgers University School of Law 217 North Fifth Street Camden, N.J. 08102-1203 ellgood at camlaw.rutgers.edu 856-225-6393 (p) 856-225-6516 (f) Selected papers -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090612/159d645f/attachment.htm From biella at nyu.edu Fri Jun 12 16:20:12 2009 From: biella at nyu.edu (Gabriella Coleman) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:20:12 -0400 Subject: [iDC] introduction: where's the labour in software studies? In-Reply-To: <4A3240B1.8040907@mail.eservices.virginia.edu> References: <1F0E0420-DA81-4E90-9A9D-2579585508FD@nedrossiter.org> <4A3240B1.8040907@mail.eservices.virginia.edu> Message-ID: <4A32803C.4080306@nyu.edu> Hi Ned (and others). Although I completely agree we need more of a focus on labor, it seems like the issue of labor is only growing in importance software studies. Here are some up and coming books/scholars that engage at some level with it. I including them as a resource and to get other citations on this topic (toying with the idea of teaching on software and politics next spring so mining for more resources). Sareeta Amrute does some interesting work on Indian software developers in Germany: http://depts.washington.edu/anthweb/people/faculty/SAmrute.php She is just getting started but I believe has some articles forthcoming. (Her complements the existing work of A. Aneesh, Virtual Migration and Global Body Shopping by Biao Xang). Thomas Malaby conducted fielwork among the programmers at Linden Lab and his book will soon be out: Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Labs and Second Life. Adrian McKenzie engages with labor and the materiality of code. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/faculty/profiles/158/33/ There is also some stuff by Andrew Ross, who is critical of open source developers for not having a labor consciousness in the American Quarterly piece Technology and Below-the-Line Labor in the Copyfight ... The various articles and book by Johan Soderberg, which reaches a pretty different conclusion than that of Ross (does not argue that developers have labor consciousness but nonetheless pave the way for a critical politics of capitalism). There are others, where labor is a bit more tangential (like Two Bits by Chris Kelty) but it is there, at least in the margins. I am sure there are many many others I am missing as well but just wanted to throw a few of these citations out in the hopes of generating more (and excited to check out David's new book). Biella David Golumbia wrote: > Hi list, > > I've really enjoyed a lot of the recent discussion, and especially the > comments Ned makes below; I feel I should mention that my > recently-published book, /The Cultural Logic of Computation/ (Harvard, > 2009) discusses ERP, CRM and other logistics software in just this > context--and also continues to insist, as several have done here, that > there is a deeply problematic mismatch between "labor" as it is > conceptualized in the world of computing, and the other sorts of labor > that will and must continue to make the everyday world operate. In no > small part due to the decade I spent as a software architect and > programmer in the financial information industry, I am deeply skeptical > of claims that the computerization of society will lead to a freer, more > democratic world. I am first skeptical that there is any kind of > automatic trend in that direction, despite the huge amounts of rhetoric > to that effect (much of it effectively critiqued on this list, and a > major target of my book); but I feel it is just as critical to raise the > question even at more pedestrian levels. I continue to think that > despite its benefits, there are significant and underacknowledged > conflicts between "the computerization of society" and, to quote the > philospopher Hilary Putnam, "total human flourishing." > > David G. > > -- > David Golumbia > Assistant Professor > Media Studies, English, and Linguistics > University of Virginia > > > Ned Rossiter wrote: >> hello idc-list. I've been a happy lurker since the early days of idc, >> and I feel like I'm outing myself or something, which I guess is >> about time. I've been following the fascinating postings on the >> question of digital labour with great interest, and hope to make more >> direct engagements with those shortly. By way of introduction, I >> work in China at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo (a 2nd tier >> city south of Shanghai, which I commute from, across the longest >> bridge - for the time being - in the world). Over the past five to >> seven years I've been writing on the relationship between creative >> labour, network cultures, state transformation and the invention of >> new institutional forms (what Nick Knouf referred to as organized >> networks). Along with my book on organized networks, related edited >> volumes and essays have been published with Geert Lovink, Brett >> Neilson and Soenke Zehle. Two relevant earlier texts are here: >> >> http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/lovink_rossiter.html >> >> http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/neilson_rossiter.html >> >> Trebor asked me to say something about the relationship between >> unions and organized networks. Perhaps the first thing to say is that >> their conditions of emergence, and thus their social-technical >> dynamics, are vastly different. The former is an institutional form >> coemergent with the industrial age of Fordism and the masculine >> culture of organized labour. The latter is an emergent institutional >> form, whose contours of labour organisation share something with the >> precarity movements (largely a European phenomenon, at least in terms >> of organization and identification) and the broad condition of post- >> Fordist labour (flexible, just-in-time, insecure, informational, etc). >> >> Having said that, there are also some affinities beginning to >> develop. One of the key issues of the 2007-2008 writer's strike in >> the US was the issue of payment for content distributed over the >> internet. Here, we see one of the central conflicts between creative >> labour and the rise of new media -- how to earn a buck when the world >> downloads content for free? Plenty has been written on the politics >> of this topic (Ken Wark's A Hacker Manifesto lays it out neatly), but >> less has been researched on the question of financial remuneration >> for free labour. This is where unions, with their traditional >> concerns with decent working conditions and fair pay, have got >> something up on organized networks, which are better at engaging >> practices of self-organization via new media of communication (see >> the recent student protests across the world, and the work of http:// >> edu-factory.org ), but are less able to deal with the social- >> technical condition of ephemerality, info-overload, increasingly >> diminishing attention spans, geocultural translation and the issue of >> sustainability. >> >> I wasn't following much of the writer's strike, however, and I'm sure >> there are people on this list who can say a lot more about how >> digital media were enlisted in the strategies of the union >> organizers. Closer to home, for me, were the strikes in Melbourne by >> taxi drivers in April 2008. Many of the drivers were Indian, and >> residing in the country on international student visas. Not organized >> through the traditional labour form of the union, but rather through >> the circulation of sms texts (a now widely adopted technique of self- >> organization, but still surprisingly unsettling for authorities), the >> strike proved highly effective at the time. As Brett Neilson and I >> wrote in recent text (published in theory, culture & society, and >> kindly available through http://aaaarg.org ): >> >> "It is precisely because the drivers did not organize along >> hierarchical or representative lines that their protest proved so >> baffling and threatening to the authorities. Clearly, the event was >> something other than a spontaneous uprising. It was not without >> ?structure or organizers?. Rather, the potency of the strike rested >> on its multiplicity and internal divisions, which remained illegible >> to the state but instituted a network of relations that, while >> precarious, brought the city to a halt. >> >> The second thing that interests us about this taxi blockade is the >> fact that many of the drivers are also international university >> students. Because most of these students are present in the country >> on visas that allow them to work only 20 hours a week, they are >> forced to survive by accepting illegal, dangerous and highly >> exploitative working conditions. The question thus arises as to >> whether the blockade should be read as taxi driver politics, migrant >> politics or student politics. We would suggest that one reason for >> the effectiveness of the strike (the government, which had only >> recently refused to negotiate with unions of teachers and health >> workers, acceded to the drivers? demands) is the fact that it is all >> three of these at the same time." >> >> In Europe, labour organizer Valery Alzaga has been working closely >> with migrant workers in the cleaning industry. This follows on from >> the work she did with the Justice for Janitors campaign in the US. In >> both these cases, I can see a connection between union politics and >> organized networks in so far as the new political constituencies of >> self-organized migrant labour are reinventing the organizational form >> and culture of unions. >> >> Since last September, when I moved from the polluted soup bowl of >> Beijing to the relatively clean air cities of Shanghai and Ningbo, >> I've been reacquainting myself with the matters related to the sea, >> and this includes a growing interest in what the maritime industries >> and logistics software have to tell us about new biopolitical regimes >> of labour. It's also struck me that the emergent field of software >> studies, embodied most recently in Matt Fuller's collection - >> Software Studies\a lexicon - seems to have nothing to say about >> labour. And this is pretty surprising, considering the amount of free >> labour invested in developing open source software. Here, Julian's >> concept of playbour as a double-edged sword captures the moving >> ground of labour/life nicely. >> >> Pasted below are some excerpts from a forthcoming paper for a >> biopolitics conference in Taiwan. Fieldwork notes associated with >> that paper can be found here: http://orgnets.cn/?cat=5 >> >> As Geert noted in comments on a draft version of the paper, We the >> global intelligentsia use Word. The global working class uses SAP/ERP. >> >> These are also matters for software studies/media theory. And they >> are also issues for labour politics and organized networks. The >> prospect of labour and life governed through the biopolitical regimes >> of logistics software is not some cooked up dystopian fear, but a >> concrete reality on the horizon of the future-present. The sooner >> software studies gets out of its bourgeois-anarchist ghetto of open >> source celebration and starts to engage the banality of labour and >> logistics software, then the sooner we will see the question of >> software politics find a place in the field of informational >> economies and digital media . >> >> Ned >> >> ---- >> >> excerpts from a forthcoming paper - The Logistics of Labour, Life and >> Things: Maritime Industries in China as a Biopolitical Index of >> Sovereign Futures >> >> [...] If Foucault?s interest in biopolitics moved around the >> indistinction within a neoliberal paradigm between labour and life, >> production and reproduction, then it follows that the labour of >> research might share something with the life of labour. Both subsist >> within what Foucault identified as the ?milieu? or environment within >> which the life of species-beings is addressed and constituted by >> power.[1] Perhaps even more forcefully, does the analytic rubric turn >> to the ?biopolitics of experience? when labour and life are >> constitutively indistinct?[2] No doubt one could say that experience >> has always been subject to regimes of governance that manage labour >> and life ? the church, for instance, exercised its power over life >> through the ritual of prayer and worship and the social practice of >> congregation for mass. But the real subsumption of labour by capital >> in a post-Fordist era renders the organization of experience in novel >> ways. Within information societies and knowledge economies, >> experience presents itself as one of those last frontiers of capture >> in the economisation of life. Think, for instance, of search engines >> such as Google and the way economies of data-mining derive profit >> from the aggregation of the seemingly inane activity of users >> clicking from one site to the next, or from the accumulation of the >> trivial taste on social networking sites. >> >> Across his lectures on biopolitics, Foucault returns to a core >> definition of biopolitics, only to then take further ?detours? in his >> elaboration of the relationship between territoriality, >> governmentality, security, populations, economy and so forth. >> ?Biopolitics deals with the population, with the population as a >> political problem, as a problem that is at once scientific and >> political, as a biological problem and as power?s problem?.[3] What, >> for instance, is the population or species-being operating or >> constituted as a ?problem? in the maritime industries? For logistics, >> the problem emerges in the interruption of global supply chains ? >> what RAND Corporation term ?fault tolerance? (a technocratic term >> suitably emptied of political substance and subjectivity).[4] The >> biopolitical problem, or population, for maritime logistics includes: >> the pirate, the stowaway, the sex worker, the so-called ?illegal >> migrant?, the disobedient worker, the disruption of organized labour, >> etc. But what of the production of knowledge on such populations? How >> is the population of academics, NGO researchers, health >> professionals, policy-makers, think-tank consultants, etc. managed >> and organized? What are the techniques of calculus by which these >> diverse populations, subsumed into the category of ?fault tolerance?, >> are identified and managed in the interests of securitization? Such >> questions concern the human as the species-being of bio-power. But >> what of the population of software applications and technological >> devices that, to varying degrees, are a species-being of artificial >> life increasingly able to self-manage, auto-correct and internally >> propagate as they process the informatized status of people and >> things? Technologies such as these would also belong to an analysis >> of the biopolitics of contemporary labour and life. >> >> [...] >> >> The rise of what I would term ?informatized sovereignty? takes on >> particular hues in the logistical techniques associated with the >> maritime industries.[5] Code is King. To find out more about the role >> of software in logistics, I got in touch with two logistics workers >> in China ? one employed by a U.S. automotive company based in >> Shanghai and the other studying at Shanghai Maritime University, >> having previously worked in container stowage at the Shanghai Port. >> Both placed an emphasis on the importance of efficiencies in >> logistics, with one noting that ?Well organized and highly-efficient >> workers can eliminate the risk and cost of logistics activities and >> provide added value service to customer?. This text-book response is >> embodied in software standards for logistics. >> >> Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) databases are standard platforms >> used within logistics in combination with customised software >> applications to manage global supply chains, organizational >> conditions and labour efficiencies. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) >> are software interfaces built into ERP databases to measure worker >> and organizational efficiencies, meeting of target quotas, financial >> performance, real-time status of global supply chains, and the >> capacity of the organization to adapt to changing circumstances. >> These are all quantitative indicators that register performance with >> a numerical value, however, and are not able to accommodate more >> immaterial factors such as a worker?s feelings and level of >> motivation and enthusiasm. It would seem logistics software is still >> to address the biological spectrum special to the species-being of >> human life. Yet it in another sense, such immaterialities of labour >> and life are coded into the quantitative parametres of KPIs through >> the brute force of instrumentality or calculation: no matter how a >> worker might feel, quotas have to be met and global supply chains >> must not be adversely affected. >> >> The coded materiality of fulfilling performance quotas and ensuring >> the smooth operation of supply chains subsists within its own >> universe of auto-affirmation. The relationship between logistics >> software and self-regulation by workers assumes closure in the >> circuit of governance. One of my logistics informants put it this >> way: ?As per our broker?s management experience, every staff is >> trained to use their internal ERP software to reflect every movement >> of their work. Moreover, the data from ERP software is also used as a >> tool or KPI to evaluate staff?s performance, thus making them work >> more efficiently?. >> >> This ready inculcation of both disciplinary practices and the logic >> of control within the organizational culture of the company and its >> workers is quite confronting. Certainly, the managerial culture of >> universities has more than its share of whacky acronyms that >> constitute a new planetary grammar coextensive with the governance of >> labour. And the bizarre interpellation of academics into the psuedo- >> corporate audit regimes predicated on performance outcomes and >> accountability measures presents some novel terrain for theories of >> subjectivity and desire. The industry of logistics further amplifies >> such biopolitical technologies, where the labour control regime is >> programmed into the logistics chain at the level of code. A ?Standard >> Operation Procedure? (SOP) is incorporated into the KPI of workers. >> [6] The SOP describes the status of specific job, dividing it ?into >> measurable control points?. My informant provided this example: ?For >> instance, we would set SOP to our broker, which may require them to >> finish custom clearance of a normal shipment within 3 working days, >> if they fail to hit it, their KPI will be influenced and thus >> influence their payment?. >> >> There is a sense here of how logistics software ?reflects? the >> ?movement? of labour as the fulfillment of assigned tasks over a set >> period of time. This sort of labour performance measure is reproduced >> across many workplace settings. What makes it noteworthy here is the >> way in which the governance of labour is informatized in such a way >> that the border between undertaking a task and reporting its >> completion has become closed or indistinct. Labour and performativity >> are captured in the real-time algorithms of code. There is little >> scope for the worker to ?fudge? their reporting of tasks some days or >> even months after the event, as in the case of academia and its >> increasing adoption of annual performance reviews, where a simple cut >> and paste of the previous year?s forecast of anticipated outputs with >> a shift to the retrospective tense is usually sufficient. The Zizek >> factory tuned in early to the genre of labour performance indicators, >> with this account of lessons learnt while working at the Institute of >> Sociology in Ljubljana: ?Every three years I write a research >> proposal. Then I subdivide it into three one-sentence paragraphs, >> which I call my yearly projects. At the end of each year I change the >> research proposal's future-tense verbs into the past tense and then >> call it my final report?.[7] Any academic who hasn?t been totally >> subsumed into the drone-like persona found in audit-land learns this >> technique of sanity management early in their career. But with the >> rise of informatized sovereignty, biopolitical control is immanent to >> the time of living labour and labour-power.[8] There is no longer a >> temporal delay between the execution of duties and their statistical >> measure. One logistics interviewee described how their broker uses >> ERP software to evaluate the KPI of workers: >> >> 'Each employee is asked to mark it in the ERP system when they finish >> their required work. There are two advantages for it: 1) If they fail >> to finish the logistics activity within SOP time, they check in the >> ERP system to find which employee did not complete his/her time >> according to SOP, which help measure employee's performance. 2) Every >> employee could track in the ERP system to know about the current >> status/movement of the logistics activities. In short, ERP software >> visualizes the movement of logistics activities by efforts of every >> link in the logistics chain'. >> >> But as noted earlier, ERP software is a quantitative system, and as a >> cybernetic model it refuses the feedback or noise of more immaterial >> forces such as worker?s attitudes, feelings and levels of motivation >> that would have disruptive effects. Although a more sophisticated >> software environment would calculate in such variables precisely >> because their modulating power operates in a replenishing way, such >> is the parasitical logic of capital and the organic modus operandi of >> life. As it stands, the metaphor of global supply chains signals a >> totalising vision in which everything can be accounted for, measured >> and given an economic value. As Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson >> note, ?the notion of the chain, while it carries a sense of ligature >> or bondage we wish to maintain, suggests the linkage or articulation >> of multiple units into a single linear system?.[9] >> >> In the case of logistics, there is an institutional, discursive and >> political-economic investment in securitization and risk assessment >> that underscores the need for such linear systems of control. And >> such linearity and closure is always going to be the condition of >> undoing for a system that rests on stasis, consistency and control >> without incorporating contingency and complexity that define the ?far- >> from-equilibrium? conditions of life-worlds as understood in more >> advanced cybernetics.[10] The dismal ?failure? of the U.S. led >> consortia in the war in Iraq embodies the limits of military >> logistics and the theatre of war. But as we have been reminded in >> recent news media reports on the so-called financial crisis, all >> limits or failures of capital present new opportunities for its >> ongoing reproduction. >> >> [...] >> >> If this diverse array of conditions, practices and social-technical >> systems are any indication of the future-present of sovereign states >> and biopolitical technologies of population control, then it would >> seem that labour which is able to operate outside of the software >> devices special to logistics and its global supply chains might >> correspond with a life that is at once free, and economically >> impoverished. >> >> [1] Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, Lectures at the >> Coll?ge de France, 1975-76, trans. David Macey, London: Allen Lane, >> 2003, p. 245. >> >> [2] For an examination of the biopolitics of experience, see Jon >> Solomon?s paper in this conference ? ?Beyond Foucault?s Culturalism: >> Translation between Biopolitics and the Archaeology of the Human >> Sciences?, Biopolitics, Ethics, and Subjectivation: Questions on >> Modernity, International Conference at National Chiao-Tung >> University, Hsin Chu, Taiwan, 24-28 June, 2009. >> >> [3] Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, p. 245. >> >> [4] See Henry H. Willis and David S. Ortiz, Evaluating the Security >> of the Global Containerized Supply Chain, Santa Monica, Cal.: RAND >> Corporation, 2004, http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2004/ >> RAND_TR214.pdf >> >> [5] A study of logistics in the aviation industries would, I suspect, >> produce similar findings. However, with its considerably longer >> history and thus conflict with shifting epochs, the maritime >> industries hold greater interest precisely because they were not born >> in a time of modern logistics, as the aviation industries arguably were. >> >> [6] Standard Operation Procedure also refers, of course, to the >> routine practices of torture adopted by the U.S. military, supposedly >> as a technique of interrogation. The shared terminology here should >> come as no surprise, given the origins of logistics within the >> military-industrial complex. >> >> [7] See Robert S. Boyton, ?Enjoy Your Zizek! An Excitable Slovenian >> Philosopher Examines The Obscene Practices Of Everyday Life, >> Including His Own', Lingua Franca 8.7 (October, 1998). Available at: >> http://www.lacan.com/zizek-enjoy.htm >> >> [8] See also Tiziana Terranova: ?What we seem to have then is >> definition of a new biopolitical plane that can be organized through >> the deployment of immanent control, which operates directly within >> the productive power of the multitude and the clinamen?. Network >> Cultures: Politics for the Information Age, London: Pluto, 2004, p. 122. >> >> [9] Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson, ?Care Workers, Traders, and >> Body Shoppers?, unpublished paper, 2009. >> >> [10] See Terranova, Network Cultures, p. 122. See also Ned Rossiter, >> Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions, >> Amsterdam: NAi Publishers / Institute of Network Cultures, 2006, pp. >> 166-195. >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -- **************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman From businessofutopia at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 16:17:47 2009 From: businessofutopia at gmail.com (matthew stadler) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:17:47 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Exploitation.... In-Reply-To: <7d9726080906120028x1b9e7450le24235efce4c97a7@mail.gmail.com> References: <69ab47d10906110023l2114fc32gb1ef4676079d2823@mail.gmail.com> <4A30FE87.3020301@googlemail.com> <9495d0b20906111542y780da232r99c72071d342c1a7@mail.gmail.com> <7d9726080906120028x1b9e7450le24235efce4c97a7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I'd like to introduce myself to the list. I am a writer involved with publication. I coordinate print with social gathering and the kind of user-driven digital commons that's being talked about here. My projects have all been temporary or open-ended, built through strategic partnerships with lots of people and some institutions, both where I live, in Portland, Ore., and internationally. suddenly.org is the most recent. Thanks to an unknown volunteer, wikipedia's entry on meis actually fairly good. An older blog , "Matthew Stadler's Personal Weblog," was entirely written by the MechTurk. More interesting, I recently posted a HIT on the Turk asking for a PowerPoint that "explains how to use the Amazon Mechanical Turk." I paid $10. Rather than getting the "how to post HITs and find workers" presentation I expected, a man called Rathika Lakshmi sent me a presentation about how to make money by taking HITs, how to manage the Turk as a worker. You can see Rathika's PPT on YouTube(posted with Rathika's permission). It's funny and smart. Meeting him in the wake of my HIT is not common, but it is not that unusual for me either. I generally pay $10/job, so Turk workers often seek me out after taking on one of my jobs. (You'll see in Rathika's presentation that this is in fact one of his recommended strategies.) I think the potentials and dyamics of the Turk are enormously complex, largely because Amazon has not subjected it to rigorous controls or investment. Matthew Stadler 2009/6/12 Julian K?cklich > Lilly, everybody, > > I like this post a lot. MechTurk either never entirely took off, or it > continues to flourish behind the scenes, it's hard to tell. In any > case, it's interesting as an early example of crowdsourcing, a > practice which is now increasingly referred to as deploying > "artificial artificial intelligence." So within the space of a few > years, we have moved from the Turing paradigm to the Philip K. Dick > paradigm. Instead of computers pretending to be human we are dealing > with humans pretending to be computers pretending to be humans. Let's > call it objectification-as-subjectification. > > So I would take it one step further and say exploitation is > underwritten not only by processes of objectification but also of > subjectification, and the devenir-machine is joined by a > devenir-humain. Again, I would argue, as with exploitation and > liberation, sub- and objectification are intertwined and embedded in a > form of multitudinous intersubjectivity. I am taking my cues here from > Gotthard Gunther's work on trans-Aristotelian logic (which, > incidentally, can be read as an unfolding of ideas Gunther derived > from reading Asimov), in which he emphatically and methodically > refutes the "tertium non datur" axiom. > > This opens up a space for thinking about phenomena that escape the > dualism of being and nothing, and this is precisely the space we need > to think about exploitation. A conjecture: Marx, being a Hegelian, was > deeply invested in the idea that the negation of being (ie > entfremdung, "alienation") could only result in nothing, the reduction > of the human being to a commodity. And this sad state of affairs could > only be reversed by a negation of the negation, ie a revolution. But > what if NOT NOT a != a? This opens up a whole range of new avenues, > one of which is Tronti's strategy of refusal, but there are many > other, less codified forms of refusing alienation, which I am too lazy > to enumerate. To speak with Bartleby: "I'd prefer not to." > > But this does not mean that alienated labour and exploitation do not > exist, or that it is easy to avoid them. What I find interesting about > Lilly's example of fertility therapy is that it shows that > objectification (and by extension, exploitation) can be distributed > unevenly within a body's organs (this is more Fantastic Voyage than > Body-without-Organs, or rather it's Body-with-or-without-Organs). You > just have to look at office workers in a park, trying to run away from > their brains, to see this in action. Another way of conceptualizing > the uneven distribution of alienation within the body is to look at > the various biopolitical campaigns (anti-smoking, anti-drinking, > anti-teenage-pregnancy, anti STD, anti-skin-cancer, 5-a-day) that > target different parts of the human body, and the various strategies > of refusal deployed against them. > > The Mechanical Turk (a machine within which a human pretends to be a > machine) is a BwowO that is reduced to a brain and hands, the body > itself compressed and hidden from sight. It's a perfect metaphor of > the plight of immaterial labourers on the internet, who are hidden, > yet have to perform with virtuosity. Exploitation bisects them, or > multi-sects them, they are exposed yet anonymous, subject to > surveillance and escaping it through sousveillance. The choreography > of exploitation, to take up Lilly's term, thus emerges as a phenomenon > that challenges us to think beyond the oppositions of labourer and > machine, subject and object, alienation and liberation. We are all > Mechanical Turks now, to a lesser or greater degree and we dance to > the inane refrain of The Machine is Us(ing Us). > > Julian. > > 2009/6/11 Lilly Irani : > > Hi all - > > > > I've been thinking a lot about Amazon Mechanical Turk this year (the side > > project that haunts me). I've found Charis Thompson's work (which I've > > encountered through Lucy Suchman) and Donna Haraway's work most though > > provoking in considering a post-Marxist, post-relativist exploitation. > > > > One take on exploitation might be to see not who gets objectified, but > how > > those objectifications and exploitations are choreographed, controlled, > and > > assembled, and how they are or are not open to reconfiguration. In > studies > > of how particular women voluntarily place themselves under the > objectifying > > gaze of a doctor for fertility therapy, Charis Cussins (Thompson) > "locates > > alienation not in objectification per se, but in the breakdown of > > synechdochal relations between parts and whole that make objectification > of > > various forms into associated forms of agency." Suchman explains that "It > is > > this process 'of forging a functional zone of compatibility that > maintains > > referential power between things of different kinds' that she names > > ontological choreography." Ontological choreography touches on issues of > > control and feelings of control brought up in this thread, it relates to > > class (im)mobility, and also debates about agency in sex work / > > exploitation. (My reading is from Suchman's "Agencies in Technology > Design: > > Feminist Reconfigurations": > > www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/papers/suchman-agenciestechnodesign.pdf ) > > > > Donna Haraway takes on exploitation and labor more directly in her book > Ch 3 > > ("Sharing Suffering: Instrumental Relations Between Animals and People") > of > > the book "When Species Meet." In thinking through animals as *laborers* > > instead of as food or lab animals, she draws links to the ways production > is > > often gendered and raced (asian women in semi-conductor factories or > > africans dying in the wars over the coltan destined for our cellphones). > > Critiquing vegans and PETA who base their actions on the logic of > > privileging animals as sacrosanct while saying nothing of the > exploitation > > of others (people) who labor and die, she says "try as we might to > distance > > ourselves, there is no way of living that is not also a way of someone, > not > > just something, else dying differentially." (80) Haraway suggests > > responsibility and responsiveness as an alternate framework for thinking > > about exploitation -- in other words, seeing exploitation as a failed > sort > > of relation that has to be judged by time and situation, rather than by > who > > has the capital or the breasts. > > > > Both Cussins and Haraway, then, suggest that exploitation has to do with > a > > lack of responsibility, a lack of responsiveness, a breakdown in which > fluid > > relations are continually forced into reified ones. > > > > This helps me think about mechanical turk as not necessarily, essentially > > exploitative, despite the exploitative rhetoric Amazon deploys about what > > the platform is (Turk and the Human API of deraced, degendered human > > cognitive labor accessible 24-7). It suggests that claiming the > exploitation > > of low-paid turk workers demands attention to the particular reasons why > > those people are doing turk and how they are (or are not) able to > > reconfigure those relations. > > > > ~lilly > > > > 2009/6/11 Julian K?cklich > >> > >> Hi all, > >> > >> I recently had a long and embittered debate about exploitation at a > >> panel on co-creative labour that Larissa Hjorth and I co-chaired at the > >> COST298 conference. I think I was arguing that what Tiziana calls "free > >> labour" (and which I call "playbour" when I write about things like > >> computer game modification (modding), the policing of virtual space in > >> massively multiplayer games, and the free marketing players provide by > >> digging, blogging, tweeting about games, etc.) is never entirely > >> exploited, nor is it ever entirely free (in the sense of libre). The > >> one-size-fits-all concept of exploitation we have inherited from the > >> Marxist tradition was probably never particularly useful to begin with, > >> but when we talk about forms of living where labour and leisure are so > >> deeply intertwined it is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. > >> > >> One of the counter-arguments from an audience member at the COST298 > >> panel was that women's movements didn't view work so much as > >> exploitation than as a liberation from the subservience dictated by > >> chauvinist societies, so this is not necessarily something that only > >> becomes an issue with digital technologies, but rather something that > >> comes into play once we start asking questions about what constitutes > >> productive labour and what makes labourers eligible for renumeration. > >> Traditionally, "women's work" was obviously often unpaid, unrecognized, > >> and pretty much unregulated. The same is true of many of the forms of > >> labour we see arising within digital forms of life today. > >> > >> I could insert the standard blurb about autonomism, refusal, and the > >> multitude here, but you've obviously all read your Negri, your Tronti, > >> and your Lazzarato, so let's skip that for the time being. What I find > >> interesting about Mark's thoughts about exploitation is that he connects > >> the concept to intellectual property and to the question of control. I > >> am interested in both these things as a researcher and a gamer, and I > >> find ludic models of control very useful to describe some of the > >> processes that we are trying to get to the bottom of here. Play is > >> necessarily a process in which the level of control the players > >> experience oscillates during the game (I've written about this in terms > >> of "ruled" and "unruled" space, yadayadayada, but that's neither here > >> nor there), and their perception of their amount of control is not > >> always accurate. Let's call it gote no sente > >> (http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoteNoSente). > >> > >> Two or three things follow from that: 1) It's not so much about the > >> level of control people actually have but about the level of control > >> they perceive as having. 2) Being in control is not always a good thing > >> (e.g. using restrictive licensing for the fruits of your labour limits > >> what Henry Jenkins, for better or for worse, calls "spreadability". 3) > >> Being out of control can be a good thing (for example, Minh Le's name > >> only got firmly attached to Counterstrike when the mod was snapped up by > >> Valve, and redistributed in a commercial version). So IPR, control, and > >> exploitation are enmeshed in a tight mesh of causation, and both > >> exploitation and liberation can be experienced negatively and positively > >> (just as an example, let's remember that many academics like myself > >> still subject themselves to the gangrape of publishing in peer-reviewed > >> academic journals, and wear their bruises with pride). > >> > >> Let's also remember that exploitation feels normal to many people. One > >> of my friends recently lost her job, and has tried to find a new one for > >> the past three months. She is resigned to the fact that when she > >> eventually finds a job, it will be just as mind-numbing, meaningless, > >> and degrading as the last one, but despite my attempts to get her out of > >> this mindset, she desperately scours jobsites, newsletters, even (gulp) > >> newspaper job ads. London being a city that provides for people with > >> much less in terms of financial resources, I find it hard to accept that > >> someone would cling to this kind of negative normativity so strongly, > >> but my friend is not the only one. I see the same kind of desperation in > >> many social networks where you "pay with your life" (and all its mundane > >> lacunae) for the privilege of not being a freak. It's this kind of > >> motivation, however bourgeois we may find it, that we might have to > >> consider when we talk about exploitation in the digital age. > >> > >> Julian. > >> > >> Mark Andrejevic wrote: > >> > Howard's post got me thinking about the need to tighten up > >> > an understanding of what we might mean by the term "exploitation." The > >> > very broad sense in which it is often used -- to indicate that someone > >> > else benefits from our labor -- isn't a particularly useful one. > >> > Theoretically it remains amorphous (how might it distinguish between > >> > collaborative labor and working in a sweat shop?) and practically it > >> > isn't much of a rallying cry ("Help, I'm being exploited because the > >> > value of my neighbor's house went up when I painted mine!"). > >> > > >> > I'd suggest (as a preliminary foray) that a meaningful political sense > >> > of the term (one that allows us to critique exploitation) would have > >> > to include at least two aspects: > >> > 1) a sense of loss of control over the results of our own productive > >> > activity (especially when these are turned back against us) and > >> > 2) structured relations of power that compel this loss of control, > >> > even when it looks like the result of "free" exchange. > >> > I don't feel a loss of control over my own productive activity when > >> > I contribute to a Wikipedia entry that may benefit others. On the > >> > other hand, I might be more likely to feel this loss of control when I > >> > discover, say, that details of my online activity have been collected, > >> > sorted, and packaged as a commodity for sale to people who may use it > >> > to deny me access to a job or to manipulate me based on perceived > >> > vulnerabilities, fears, and other personal details about my mental or > >> > physical well being. If I find myself in a position wherein I have to > >> > submit to this kind of monitoring as a condition of access to > >> > resources that I need to earn my livelihood or maintain my social > >> > relations in a networked era, I might be more likely to think of this > >> > situation as a truly exploitative one. > >> > > >> > When it starts to become tricky -- at least conceptually -- is when my > >> > work on Wikipedia (or tagging, or participating in other forms of UGC > >> > production) gets folded into the > >> > demographic/psychographic/geographic/(eventually biometric) forms of > >> > profiling that form the basis for the emerging online commercial > >> > economy. Still a meaningful conception of exploitation might help > >> > distinguish between the different productive roles of our online > >> > activity -- and between infrastructures that are more or less > >> > exploitative. > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Howard Rheingold < > howard at rheingold.com > >> > > wrote: > >> > > >> > Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the > >> > conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" > >> > > >> > I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and > >> > "Smart > >> > Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com > >> > . I > >> > teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital > >> > Journalism" at Stanford. > >> > > >> > I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add > that > >> > I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from > >> > flickr. > >> > It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a > place > >> > where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in > >> > presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look > >> > closely > >> > at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we > >> > ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful > >> > public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long > as > >> > I > >> > can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means > that > >> > I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have > to > >> > testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's > >> > pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives > >> > away > >> > search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to > >> > advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, > >> > the > >> > cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and > >> > other > >> > paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for > >> > any > >> > question in seconds. How many times a day were YOU exploited by > >> > searching for something without paying a charge for the service? > >> > Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be > >> > exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and > >> > tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on > >> > who > >> > is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely > >> > reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I > would > >> > never argue that people should refrain from witholding their > labor, > >> > if > >> > that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the > >> > questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read > >> > "What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for > free." > >> > > >> > Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com > >> > http://twitter.com/hrheingold > >> > http://www.rheingold.com > >> > http://www.smartmobs.com > >> > http://vlog.rheingold.com > >> > what it is ---> is --->up to us > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > >> > (distributedcreativity.org ) > >> > iDC at mailman.thing.net > >> > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > >> > > >> > List Archive: > >> > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > >> > > >> > iDC Photo Stream: > >> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > >> > > >> > RSS feed: > >> > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > >> > > >> > iDC Chat on Facebook: > >> > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > >> > > >> > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by > adding > >> > the tag iDCref > >> > > >> > > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >> > > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > >> > (distributedcreativity.org) > >> > iDC at mailman.thing.net > >> > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > >> > > >> > List Archive: > >> > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > >> > > >> > iDC Photo Stream: > >> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > >> > > >> > RSS feed: > >> > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > >> > > >> > iDC Chat on Facebook: > >> > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > >> > > >> > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > >> > >> > >> -- > >> > >> dr julian raul kuecklich > >> > >> http://playability.de > >> > >> M: +447833193467 > >> > >> L: +442032395578 > >> > >> http://flickr.com/cucchiaio > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > >> (distributedcreativity.org) > >> iDC at mailman.thing.net > >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > >> > >> List Archive: > >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > >> > >> iDC Photo Stream: > >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > >> > >> RSS feed: > >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > >> > >> iDC Chat on Facebook: > >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > >> > >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > > > > > > -- > > Lilly Irani > > University of California, Irvine > > http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lirani/ > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity ( > distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090612/3b70e988/attachment-0001.htm From fturner at stanford.edu Fri Jun 12 17:36:05 2009 From: fturner at stanford.edu (Fred Turner) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:36:05 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Introduction Message-ID: <74D6334A-E7D8-41BD-85B3-243249143D2D@stanford.edu> Hi All, What a neat mix -- delighted to be a part of it. Trebor and I have talked for a long time now about the links between American countercultural ideals and the contemporary blurring of work, play, sociability and exploitation. In my last book, From Counterculture to Cyberculture, I tried to get at some of the cultural roots of these new fusions. What stood out most to me in the 1960s was the deep critique of bureaucracy: in the two decades after World War II Americans of all sorts of political persuasions feared that working in large, rule-governed organizations would fracture the individual psyche. To become a psychologically whole person, one had to find ways to break down the walls of the organization, link minds and bodies with the like-minded, and make the work of living the work one did *for* one's living. In the 1960s, these ideas dominated the thinking of those whom I've called the New Communalists -- a generation of mostly young, college-educated or college-bound folks who formed the largest wave of communal activity in American history. Today of course, these ideas underpin all kinds of new modes of digitally enabled production and sociability. And they do so very concretely. Here in Silicon Valley for instance, the Burning Man festival, held annually in the Black Rock desert of Nevada, encodes many of those values and at the same time, provides a ritual structure with which to celebrate dominant modes of engineering practice at firms like Google (for a paper on this theme go to http://fredturner.stanford.edu). So: my own interests run to the fusion of countercultural idealism, new media technologies, and the diffusion of labor into everyday life. I look forward to reading and hearing more. -- Fred _____________________________________ Fred Turner Assistant Professor Dept. of Communication Building 120 Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-2050 Office: 650-723-0706 Fax: 650-725-2472 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090612/4d2a979d/attachment.htm From galloway at nyu.edu Fri Jun 12 18:38:33 2009 From: galloway at nyu.edu (Alexander Galloway) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:38:33 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction Message-ID: Greetings, Nice to be a part of this group as there are so many of you whose work i follow and find valuable. I teach at NYU and write software with the group RSG. By way of introduction, I sometimes steal a line from Jameson and say that I study the "poetics of social forms." A main part of that, for me, has been to try to refute the widely-held position that networks tend to dissolve and diminish systems of organization and control. This resulted in two books, "Protocol" and "The Exploit" (the second one co-written with my friend Eugene Thacker). I've also written on games, visual culture, and critical theory. Like many of you I'm interested in work, but I guess most relevant for this email list might be an essay on not work but on the "unworkability" of digital interfaces, particularly the final section on "Regimes of Signification" http://a.aaaarg.org/text/3157/unworkable-interface and you can find more info about me here http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway --Alexander Galloway From johan.soderberg at sts.gu.se Fri Jun 12 18:41:35 2009 From: johan.soderberg at sts.gu.se (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Johan_S=F6derberg?=) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:41:35 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: where's the labour in software studies? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <12091687.1244832095339.JavaMail.oracle@midtier-lyk-4.it.gu.se> Having now been named by Gabriella, I too feel compelled to step out of the shadow as a long-time lurker. Her proposal of making a list over labour-centred studies of software is excellent, so I would like to make an addition of my own: The many articles in Capital & Class no.97, 2009. It is a special issue dedicated to debating this theme, among which is included an article written by myself and George Dafermos, and whose title is suited to your request, Ned: "The hacker movement as a continuation of labour struggle". I would also like to make a brief remark as concerns the disputed importance of the "play-labour complex", whether it could possibly contribute to radical social change or if it is more likely to arrest such change. Here I take the lead from Theodors Roszak's classic The Making of a Counter Culture. While the shortcomings of the counter culture was clear to him already back in 1968, he nevertheless insisted that it was urgent to study them, for one simple reason: there existed no other movement to work with. That observation is just as relevant for the FOSS-developers, pirates, etc today. The shortcomings of these movements are even more appalling when judged against the standards of a leftist theoretical critique. No doubt, these movements cannot match up to the challenges of environmental devastation, world poverty, militarisation etc. which certainly carry a lot more weight for moving the world in one or the other direction. Still, in my opinion, it would be unfair to assess the significance of hackers, pirates etc. based on their struggles after these have been recuperated by state & capital, without also asking how things would have looked if those struggles had not taken place at all. Take for instance Philip Zimmermann's Pretty Good Privacy, whereby ordinary computer users got access to strong encryption and gained some limited protection from government surveillance. Though NSA has probably worked its way around this nuisance by now, and the dissemination of encryption methods has fostered thousends of shoddy busineess on the internet, I still find it to be of some significance that hackers, by playing around with software code, have deprived the state of its monopoly over secure data communication. The same might be said about filesharing. From Napster to The Pirate Bay, these sites have been run as for-profit ventures by entrepreneurs, and the practice is endorsed by free-market pundits like Chris Anderson. Likewise, the files downloaded pretty much conform with the popular tastes of the culture industry. Still, something has to be said for the fact that for a new generation of youth, intellectual property is not a natural right that must be respected, in the way we have been thought to perceive all other kinds of private property. Johan From arikan at burak-arikan.com Fri Jun 12 19:26:06 2009 From: arikan at burak-arikan.com (BURAK ARIKAN) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:26:06 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: <208FC995-181C-4637-A58C-77ADB5EB8E79@burak-arikan.com> Hi all, I am Burak Arikan, I've also been invited to this conference, to develop discussions around labor in the age of socialized and commercialized internet. I am an artist and researcher focusing on creating critical networked systems. My work confronts issues on the theme of user labor, participatory economy, cultural sustainability, and governance in the networked environments. Since June 2007, we've been running an experimental stock market, Meta- Markets ( http://meta-markets.com ), for trading socially networked creative products. These products are basically the web profiles flourished by users of the social web services such as Facebook, Flickr, Delicious etc. For example, a Meta-Markets participant does an IPO of their Facebook account and open the shares for trading. Discussions and transactions of shares among the participants define the speculative market value of the share, which then becomes an ephemeral reference, an approximation to the real / fair value of the account. If one cares, this information can be useful to debate with the service providers. If you ask founders of such social web services, they say "you use free services, so you pay with your data", which is being used for marketing, targeted advertisement etc. But we have a question here: How much value I generate for the service, how much value the service generate for me? This difference is unknown, for us. Obviously this ambivalent zone is being exploited since the beginning of the 20th century. Nicholas Carr points to the same issue in one of his post: http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/11/the_social_graf_1.php ?First you get your users to entrust their personal data to you, and then you not only sell that data to advertisers but you get the users to be the vector for the ads. And what do the users get in return? An animated Sprite Sips character to interact with.? Think the difference between Guy Debord?s Society of Spectacle and today?s networked society of spectacle. Today, the spectacle is digitally measurable, carried in the activity streams, analyzed in the silos, sold to elsewhere. The measurability of the spectacle raises a newly found company's value to 15 billion dollars in a few years. One of the reasons this happen is the exploitation of the difference between the value we generate for the service, and the value the service generates for us? Today what boosts measurability is the data standards. Of all kind, RSS, ATOM, microformats, etc. To be able to counter act against such user exploitation, we proposed a new data standard, User Labor Markup Language (ULML), to outline the metrics of user participation in social web services. We believe that accessibility of user labor metrics will ultimately lead to more sustainable service cycles in social web. You can see more here http://userlabor.org. I'd like to cut short here, will go on later. Like many of you, I am looking forward to seed a more critical Internet culture in this conference. Best, burak From ren at trubble.com Sat Jun 13 00:28:59 2009 From: ren at trubble.com (Ren Bucholz) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:28:59 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <04BFE769-B99A-4E86-A676-33651B23D2FA@trubble.com> Hi All, Very nice to hear from everyone. My name is Ren Bucholz and I am currently a law and graduate student in Toronto. Before coming back to school, I spent five years at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that works on technology and civil liberties. I represented the group at the United Nations and directed their international policy team. I was also a Google Policy Fellow in 2008, where I thought and wrote about copyright, technology standards, and competition law. In broad strokes, I'm interested in how technological norms can quietly replace policies that used to be, or at least "ought" to be, set in public [yay, Alexander Galloway!]. I'm therefore interested in distributed forms of technological control, digital rights management, technology standards, the rhetoric of neoliberalism, myths of progress/openness, and media policy. If all goes well, I'll be spending part of next year writing about how ameliorative tools like competition law could be tweaked to catch these new forms of distributed control. I look forward to participating here. Oddly enough, Ren On 12-Jun-09, at 2:38 PM, Alexander Galloway wrote: > Greetings, > > Nice to be a part of this group as there are so many of you whose work > i follow and find valuable. I teach at NYU and write software with the > group RSG. By way of introduction, I sometimes steal a line from > Jameson and say that I study the "poetics of social forms." A main > part of that, for me, has been to try to refute the widely-held > position that networks tend to dissolve and diminish systems of > organization and control. This resulted in two books, "Protocol" and > "The Exploit" (the second one co-written with my friend Eugene > Thacker). I've also written on games, visual culture, and critical > theory. Like many of you I'm interested in work, but I guess most > relevant for this email list might be an essay on not work but on the > "unworkability" of digital interfaces, particularly the final section > on "Regimes of Signification" http://a.aaaarg.org/text/3157/ > unworkable-interface > and you can find more info about me here http:// > cultureandcommunication.org/galloway > > --Alexander Galloway > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From michael at goldhaber.org Sat Jun 13 07:21:57 2009 From: michael at goldhaber.org (Michael H Goldhaber) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:21:57 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Relation of my work to conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory, " Message-ID: <251023D7-BA8B-4626-BF38-0B290263A348@goldhaber.org> Trebor Scholz has asked me to offer a brief comment as to how my work relates to the conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory," https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2009-June/003445.html To properly understand the nature and role of ?digital labor? requires understanding the nature of current society and how it seems to be evolving. My work on the Attention Economy suggests that the best way to do this is in terms of the emergence of a new, post-capitalist class society. (See , e.g. http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/519/440 Btw, I originated the term ?Attention Economy in the 1980?s, but is now too often used in a way that deviates markedly from what I mean; I am using it in the original way here.) This new class society revolves around the scarcity of the attention available from other human beings (and its desirability, even from immense audiences). The two new classes are then those who have succeeded in getting much more than an equal slice of attention (for brevity I label these people ?stars?) and those who obtain less attention than they pay out (?fans?). In other words, I argue we are passing from one dyadic class system (capitalists and worker) revolving around money, routine labor and standardized material goods, though not to a classless society ? as Marx had hoped ? but instead to a new dyadic class system of stars and fans, revolving around various forms of expression and the attention such expression hopes to garner. The interplay between these two dyads (the four classes named above) is complex and changing, with alliances and antagonisms springing up in every possible permutation. The same person can certainly be in an old class as well as a new one, and might identify as a member of two as well ). One aspect of digital labor would then be what I call ?fan?s work? which is apparently voluntary (unpaid) but supportive of and conditioned by the wishes of one, or more often a few or more stars. In my view, we are already farther along than it might seem in the transition to the dominance of the new kind of economy. I have a loose calculation ( http://goldhaber.org/blog/?p=80 ) to support that contention. Also, even in the current downturn of the old economy, the attention economy continues to gather strength. Michael H. Goldhaber michael at goldhaber.org mgoldh at well.com blog www.goldhaber.org older site, www.well.com/user/mgoldh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090613/7751ed12/attachment-0001.htm From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 13 03:39:32 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:39:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <56010.173.2.143.75.1244468470.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> References: <56010.173.2.143.75.1244468470.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> Message-ID: <512589.19290.qm@web50808.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Trebor, my remark here would be the same as my just sent response to Sean. Why see this as the exclusive benefit of capital, and be blind to how people are using these services for the construction of their own lives, using what is at hand. Knowledge workers have agency, just as netarchical capital has, and they are not merely parasiting, though they are to a degree, they are making services sustainable which are present NOT sustainable without them. Unless we start peer producing infrastructures ourselves, the sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself. Only fully commons oriented peer production efforts have shown the capability of creating independent infrastructures. We can imagine a three-pronged strategy: - use and accept commercial platforms to our benefit - make sure that user rights and data ownership and free network services principles are being followed as a terrain of social struggle between sharing communities and platform owners - consider peer producing our own p2p infrastructures when 1 and 2 are not working to our satisfaction, Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: "trebor at thing.net" > To: idc at mailman.thing.net > Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 8:41:10 PM > Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > >> > Tracks of our behavior, the public management of our relationships with > others are recorded, sorted, analyzed and sold while we are enjoying > ourselves and benefit in many ways. IPv6 comes into this discussion. It's > really all quite frictionless despite Digg's Boston Digital Party and the > complaints of Facebook users starting in September 2006. For me, these > events are spectacles of Internet democracy; they are consumer feedback > loops. We are negotiating a product that we are co-producing. > > In the middle of the eighteenth century, Diderot and d'Alembert published > Encyclop?die, which celebrated the virtues of labor. Throughout its > twenty-seven volumes, articles dealt with everything from baking bread to > making nails. What would Diderot include in his revised edition today? A > few places to start-- > > virtual volunteering (i.e., ?? if handled adeptly, [unpaid Verizon > volunteers] hold considerable promise" http://is.gd/T6Q6) > > creating meta data (i.e., Flickr Commons) > > uploading and/or watching/looking at photos and videos > > socializing (playful acts of reciprocity) > > paying attention to advertising > > micro-blogging (status updates, Twitter) > > co-innovating (i.e., bicycles, mountain bikes, skate boards, cars, etc) > > posting blog entries and comments (i.e., the bloggers who work for? ? ? ? > Huffington Post) > > performing emotional work (presenting a personality that ?fits in?) > > posting news stories > > referring (i.e., Digg.com) > > creating virtual objects (i.e., Second Life) > > beta testing (i.e, Netscape Navigator 1998) > > providing feedback > > consuming media (i.e., watching videos) > > consuming advertisement > > data work (i.e., filling in forms, profiles etc) > > viral marketing by super-users > > artistic work (i.e., video mashups, DeviantArt, Learning to Love You More) > > Most of this about pleasure, play, personal benefit, and profit-- all at > the same time. It's fun, sure, and the price we pay for the "free > services" is complex. Michael Warner is a good place to start thinking > about that: > > "Our lives are minutely administered and recorded to a degree > unprecedented in history;" as Warner put it, "We navigate a world of > corporate agents that do not respond or act as people do. Our personal > capacities, such as credit, turn out on reflection to be expressions of > corporate agency." > (Publics and Counterpublics, p52) > > > For now, > Trebor > > = > R. Trebor Scholz > The New School University > > Re: Remuneration > "A Fine Is a Price" > http://www.citeulike.org/user/yoav/article/1953151 > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 13 04:34:09 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:34:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> Message-ID: <895092.68628.qm@web50805.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Jeremy, it seems to me there are two pitfalls to avoid when we discuss changes, one is oldism, nothing really ever changes, one is newism, everything is changing all at once. It seems to me that your point of view is very close to oldism ... yes, we are all still struggling to live and eat and love and pay rent, just as it was 20 30 years ago, we are still watching media, still buying stuff ... - but are we watching the same media and doing the same things with them? - are we buying the same things and listening to the same people when we buy? - are we doing the same things when we're not working, and working the same? What does it mean for a society when most?media buys?are bought by peer recommendation? What does it mean when an increasing number of ?mothers go to Mumsnet instead of asking their doctor? What does it mean when 58% of the citizens of Malmo are reportedly engaged in one form of peer production or another? So I would find it more productive to look at these changes and see to what degree they have changed life and the structure of society, to see what has changed, what not, etc... rather than say, 'nothing has changed'. Living in Chiang Mai before the internet age would have been dramatically different for us 'expats', as reported by the old timers I have discussed the issue with, as are the much more intense relations of diasporic immigrant communities with their homeland. The idea that these changes are only affecting an elite is also very questionable. I live in Thailand, where there are a multitude of cybercafe's in city streets, and you will find them in the most remote villages; there are reports that it has quite dramatically changed the life of Chinese workers, who skype their families in the villages, and look up comparative wage scales, moving to regions and factories where higher, leading to a substantial rise in wages .. (I'm sure there were other factors, but that one shouldn't be discounted, as reported by labor organizers). Again, I'm not saying that everything has changed, that all is for the better, but would you argue that the invention of print did not contribute to major changes in social structures, however long that took. And is it not to be expected that a massive increase in hitherto impossible peer communication and media expression would contribute to important social changes ... Count me as a sceptic regarding the nothing has changed thesis, Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: jeremy hunsinger > To: idc at mailman.thing.net > Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 11:25:11 PM > Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations > > > > > Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in? > > economy, > > labor, and life related to digital media. > > > > I wonder if we are, and if we are, is it massive, and what then is the? > mass?? To what are we referring to when we consider massive in? > relation to economy; people, money, institutions, collective? > ideological functions, conventions?? surely if there is a change on a? > scale we'd be able to see it in some manner, and personally I've not? > seen it.? I see huge demographic changes, that's true, but not really? > huge cultural changes.? Perhaps I'm wrong, but my students at UIC? > weren't that into technology, they were very into paying bills and? > getting by, they used things like facebook, but then my mom is on? > facebook, I'm sort of surprised my grandmother isn't on it, but I? > suspect she is by proxy through her great grand-daughter.? However,? > when I look at their everyday lives they are not significantly? > different from what they were when I was a kid, 25-30 years ago. > > Perhaps the massive change is not there, and if it isn't... what is? > there?? what is changing?? Demographics are changing, and with that? > the tax burden is changing, and with that the mode of production is? > changing, but then the mode of production has been in transformation? > my whole life.? It is probably that categorically... if the mode of? > production doesn't change and adapt, it disappears. > > > > > The purpose of this conference is > > to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure,? > > consumption, and > > production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to? > > establish > > commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. > > I wonder if this is true.? I've seen the thesis, but... it was in the? > 60's that Baudrillard and others said it was a fiction.? It is a? > metanarrative, we tried to describe the new commonalities and promote? > them.? It seems like a story we tell, much like the stories we tell? > about all people in NYC being the same in some respect.? But having? > lived there, I can say... no, the commonalities are less common though? > more everyday, like most new yorkers that i knew had never been as far? > north as columbia university and even more had never been Astoria, in? > Queens, but they had all been past the Empire State Building.? I'm? > wondering if these commonalities are sort of like that...? 'having? > walked past, driven past, etc. the Empire State Building.? Sort of? > like.. 'watching Archie Bunker'.? The 'mass audience' though based on? > common experience I think is somewhat of a misconception, and to think? > that television actually provided those shared commonalities I think? > is worrisome because it really isn't a very strong medium of? > distributed cognition.? As several people on this list can argue, when? > you watch Television with me, we have profoundly different experiences? > of what is going on, we might share a central narrative, but there is? > divergence in what we find important and interesting and how we react? > to that. > > > > Currently, > > communities that were previously sustained through national? > > newspapers now > > started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind > > televisions sets in favor of communing with -- and through-- their > > computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease,? > > tag, > > detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of? > > their > > labor, corporations expropriate value. > > I'm wondering how this is different from the proliferation of men's? > and women's clubs in the 50's.? I'd say that socializing is a human? > process and communication is also, so we use whatever we have? > available, no? > > > Guests in the virtual world Second > > Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then? > > consume. > > > What is the nature of this interactive ?labor? and the new forms of? > > digital > > sociality that it brings into being?? What are we doing to ourselves? > > > Is it the labor of ergodic literature?? is it the labor of consumption? > like Baudrillard's Consummativity?? Is it the labor of non-knowledge/ > general economy from Bataille, or the labor of play from Homo Ludens?? > Here I think the term labor needs context no?? is that just me?? > Labor, as a recent critique of recent marxisms, has it.... has become? > as a part of discourse merely nominative, that is... it is a naming.? ? > I'd argue that labor is not a catch-all name.? Some things humans do? > are labor and laborious.? We need more context to understand what? > people are referring to when they say labor, because right now, either? > everything is labor... or nothing is. > > > > Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users? > > create and > > add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. > > do they?? I've seen the estimates at approximately 25 million active? > contributors worldwide and around 10x that for followers.? You might? > argue that there are more, but I think we'd need some definitions.? ? > Given a global capitalist market of around 1 billion these days, that? > is an estimate of the number of people who make more than around 2000? > u.s. dollars per year, meaning that they have expendable income beyond? > food, clothing, shelter.? ? To me that seems we are talking of a very? > small minority in a world of almost 7 billion people where unesco says? > there are at least 1 billion children living in abject poverty.? I? > mean we're talking about a very small global elite.? Even if you? > increase the estimates of producers and consumers by an order of? > magnitude, you still have a global minority. > > > So I'm guessing that most people aren't paying attention at all. > > I'm currently working on, amongst many other projects, a? > conceptualization of 'the unconnected'.... that is.? the people who? > choose not to participate, who have participated online, performed? > online labor, and then left.? I'm thinking that this population might? > help us to see what is really going on a bit better.? Depending on? > where you are in the developed world up to 20% of internet users have? > stopped using the internet and went to other media/modes of? > communication.? I see this with email all the time.? People get? > really upset with email and give up, or blame other people, etc.? > Eventually some just quit.? Same thing happens in games, in second? > life, in facebook, etc. etc.? I ask... why do people leave?? What is? > really going on here?? some move on to other systems, others just stop? > participating....? why do they choose to disconnect.? I have an? > intuition that it is because of my first set of comments.? That is...? > people are trying to live their life and are just trying to get by,? > pay rent, etc.? They have friends, colleagues, in real life that they? > interact with and spend their time doing that. > > The question then is one of whether there is... for most people, any? > transformation at all.? I suspect there is a dabbling, but it is no? > where near as profound as we often attempt to make it, nor as profound? > as the economic speculation would have it.? The latter seems to? > becoming more true as facebook and myspace are being revalued as their? > growth seems to have been attenuated. > > > > Jeremy Hunsinger > Center for Digital Discourse and Culture > Virginia Tech > Information Ethics Fellow > Center for Information Policy Research > > > Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. > -Jules de Gaultier > > () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail > /\ - against microsoft attachments > > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From jhuns at vt.edu Sat Jun 13 12:33:34 2009 From: jhuns at vt.edu (jeremy hunsinger) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 08:33:34 -0400 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: <895092.68628.qm@web50805.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> <895092.68628.qm@web50805.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi, I actually want to place my position as 'realism' not 'oldism' nor 'newism' In this discussion, I'm particularly against 2 forms of promotion one is novelty and its associated fictions, and the other is nostalgia. I don't think that I argued that 'nothing changes' what I was trying to say is that fundamentally the human condition in late capitalism hasn't changed. Now you can argue that there is new, exciting differences, and surely there are, but then i bring up the questions, for whom, for what, and why... On Jun 13, 2009, at 12:34 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > Hi Jeremy, > > it seems to me there are two pitfalls to avoid when we discuss > changes, > > one is oldism, nothing really ever changes, one is newism, > everything is changing all at once. > > It seems to me that your point of view is very close to oldism ... > yes, we are all still struggling to live and eat and love and pay > rent, just as it was 20 30 years ago, we are still watching media, > still buying stuff ... > > - but are we watching the same media and doing the same things with > them? have to say this will depend on how you look at things, i tend to look at things as systems of practices and conventions/norms which become institutionalized. So from my perspective, certain technologies in web 2.0 relate to new practices. However, in terms of things like 'watching' tv, 'listening' to music, etc., 'playing' games, we may have added another level of mediation, but I am not always convinced that the layer of mediation has changed things. For instance, there was a huge cultural change surrounding music with the development of the sony walkman... but did the mp3/ipod change the practices in significant ways, yes perhaps in terms of purchasing, as you can argue about the downfall of the 'album', but did it change consumption of said music, i'd have to think that it isn't as much we'd think. The question is one of data and interpretation, in the end, but there needs to be some basis for the discussions and arguments about labour, no? > > - are we buying the same things and listening to the same people > when we buy? I have changed brands of toothpaste. now where did that influence come from? I think it came from standing in the grocery store trying to find the one i was using and being unable, so moving to a more stable brand. Now, don't get me wrong there have been huge changes in grocery shopping in the last 20 years. However, I'm not that convinced that the practices are that different. > > - are we doing the same things when we're not working, and working > the same? Maybe... maybe not. This is the central question isn't it? I think the problem here is that the debate was centered on a smallish population which is somewhat unrepresentative of the human condition. However, you may argue, for instance, as we have heard argued.... that the olpc's presence in the developed world will revolutionize their economies, etc. etc. transform them etc. etc. I prefer to remain skeptical. Some people did become somewhat more wealthy with the advent of the olpc. I have not seen widespread social or economic change. > > What does it mean for a society when most media buys are bought by > peer recommendation? I don't know about you, but when i was a kid, that is how i bought music. > What does it mean when an increasing number of mothers go to > Mumsnet instead of asking their doctor? Is that different from talking to their church group or other social discussion they were likely involved in before it was mediated? > What does it mean when 58% of the citizens of Malmo are reportedly > engaged in one form of peer production or another? seems pretty small population, i suspect a definition error in the survey. I don't think i could get less than 98% if we defined it as producing things with other people. > > So I would find it more productive to look at these changes and see > to what degree they have changed life and the structure of society, > to see what has changed, what not, etc... rather than say, 'nothing > has changed'. I'd prefer to remain skeptical that there is 'change', especially massive change until we actually find a way that demonstrates that it is happening. Otherwise, i think we are just fetishizing the practices of a minority, and in doing that we are reifying those practices and likely universalizing them in ways that are unwarranted. Don't get me wrong, things do change, but then again the question is did they change in a way that is reflected for the majority of people? likely not, and if not, why are we focussing our efforts on the minority, when the difference might just be the difference between the majority and the minority, instead of the minority at time x versus the minority at time z. > > Living in Chiang Mai before the internet age would have been > dramatically different for us 'expats', as reported by the old > timers I have discussed the issue with, as are the much more intense > relations of diasporic immigrant communities with their homeland. > > The idea that these changes are only affecting an elite is also very > questionable. I live in Thailand, where there are a multitude of > cybercafe's in city streets, and you will find them in the most > remote villages; there are reports that it has quite dramatically > changed the life of Chinese workers, who skype their families in the > villages, and look up comparative wage scales, moving to regions and > factories where higher, leading to a substantial rise in wages .. > (I'm sure there were other factors, but that one shouldn't be > discounted, as reported by labor organizers). > > Again, I'm not saying that everything has changed, that all is for > the better, but would you argue that the invention of print did not > contribute to major changes in social structures, however long that > took. And is it not to be expected that a massive increase in > hitherto impossible peer communication and media expression would > contribute to important social changes ... > That isn't really what I was arguing, I was trying to make a point of the construction of 'profound change' and 'novelty', but I do agree with you. The question for me is really how we present the change and it's real effects. The digital diaspora is a great case of how information technology has enabled a population to maintain social ties across great distances, and likely changed the relations of their everyday lives. People can now call home, text, etc. and maintain those contacts. That transforms what we mean by diaspora and transforms the practices around it. But does it change labour for most people? profoundly? > Count me as a sceptic regarding the nothing has changed thesis, > > Michel > > From trebor at thing.net Sat Jun 13 13:28:01 2009 From: trebor at thing.net (Trebor Scholz) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:28:01 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: Michel, >Why see this as the exclusive benefit of capital, and be blind to how >people are using these services for the construction of their own >lives, using what is at hand. Hm,... from the conference introduction and my posts here I had hoped that it was clear that I am not suggesting a relationship marked by one-sided benefit. For the past ten years I have participated in countless social milieus and created a few myself. On reflection, I'd now say that the most pervasive relationship online is a praise-entertainment---expropriation-surveillance tradeoff between users and operators. I know, it's a mouth-full but as a German I have a deep appreciation for seemingly unending words. Google's Image Labeler is a suitable example. The developer of the game behind the Image Labeler wrote that he encourages people to do the work by taking advantage of their desire to be entertained. It's a triadic mix of self-interest ("fun," acknowledgment), network value (the image search gets better), and corporate profit (Google's product improves). Then there is public-spirited 'interaction labor' on a small number of sites like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, etc. At least today, they are the exception. Only very few of the over 1 billion Internet users contribute to these projects. And finally, if a worker gets paid $8 for transcribing a 45 minute-long video on Mechanical Turk, then I'd call that exploitation in the most technical sense of the word. However, it's expropriation and not exploitation that rules the net. I added a few comments about MTurk to my blog http://is.gd/10JG2 Surely, I'm not suggesting a simple typology; things are murky. Perhaps we can think of exhibitions like Les Immateriaux by Lyotard and Chaput in 1984, and artworks with Internet components like Learning to Love You More by Fletcher and July (2003) as miniature mirror worlds of today's tradeoffs when it comes to the social dynamics of participation... Today, it quickly gets dicey, for instance, when the creators of Facebook's self-translation application state that they have opened up the translation process [of the Facebook interface into some 63 languages] to the community because "You know best how Facebook should be translated into your language.? I don't think of this as straight exploitation but one user in Los Angeles (Valentin Macias) suggested that "people should not be tricked into donating their time and energy to a multimillion-dollar company so that the company can make millions more ? at least not without some type of compensation." Others enjoyed being in the position of co-deciding how "poking" is translated into their language. At the same time, they have more of a stake in the company; they become more loyal costumers of Facebook. Nigel Thrift was right when he proposed that "? value is embedded in the experiences co-created by the individual in an experience environment that the company co-develops with consumers." (Thrift, Reinventing 290) > Unless we start peer producing infrastructures ourselves, the > sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself. I could not agree more, Michel, and look forward to developing a strand of the conference that is dedicated to that. ~Trebor = From JDEAN at hws.edu Sat Jun 13 14:07:36 2009 From: JDEAN at hws.edu (Dean, Jodi) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:07:36 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Iintroduction from Jodi Dean Message-ID: At Trebor's request, I'm writing to introduce myself to the list (I've been lurking for quite a while). I'm a political theorist who works at the interface of psychoanalysis, marxism, and critical media theory. Over the past decade, I've been working on the notion of communicative capitalism as a tag for the ways networked information, communication, and entertainment media embed, extend, and amplify globalized neoliberalism. I also blog at I Cite (http://jdeanicite.typepad.com) where I've recently placed a draft of an article I'm working on, The Real Internet. Jodi Dean Professor, Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY Erasmus Chair of the Humanities, Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University, Rotterdam ________________________________________ From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net] On Behalf Of Lisa Nakamura [lisa.lanakamura at gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 10:30 AM To: idc at mailman.thing.net Subject: [iDC] introduction from Lisa Nakamura I'm writing this short email to introduce myself to this list, at Trebor's request. I think that Trebor's idea to have a conference on virtual labor and the Internet as playground and factory is an excellent one. I work on race and digital media, and have been thinking about this question for a few years now in relation to digital games and virtual worlds as sites of labor. If you go to http://sites.google.com/site/theresearchsiteforlisanakamura/Home/csmcfinal.pdf?attredirects=0 you can get a copy of my article entitled "Don?t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft" which came out last month in a journal called Critical Studies in Media Communication I'm hoping to develop it into a longer piece. It's about the racialization of labor in World of Warcraft, and how Chinese worker-players make and sell gold to leisure players who are too busy to earn in-game money for themselves. This chapter has been extraordinarily unpopular among most games scholars and game players, who are after all fans at heart and don't like to hear criticisms of their game. The rhetoric of merit, equality, and "play" that pervades games studies is challenged by the rapid growth of grey market economies, predominantly sustained by emiserated workers who play for 12-hour stretches in "workshop" conditions in mainland China. Richard Heeks estimates this trade in virtual goods to be worth as much as 500million/year. These forms of transnational gamic labor are undoubtedly racialized, hence the term "Chinese gold farmer," a new ethnic slur of the virtual world "citizen" who wishes to defend this world's virtual borders against illegal immigrants, but who is happy to use their labor. As Vijay Prashad wrote several years ago of the plight of S. Asian transnationals, "they want our labor, but not our lives." Projects like Stephanie Rothenberg's School of Perpetual Training and Invisible Threads/Double Happiness Jeans expose the laboring side of virtual worlds and the traffic in virtual goods by inviting the user to participate in sweatshop labor in Second Life and through the WII--play platforms that show us that "we are all farmers," as Alex Galloway wrote in 2007. Lisa -- Lisa Nakamura Director, Asian American Studies Program Professor, Institute of Communication Research Professor, Asian American Studies Program University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana 1208 W. Nevada Street, MC-142 Urbana, IL 61801-3818 office phone: 217 333-3928 fax: 217 265-6235 http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/N/nakamura_digitizing.html From joe.edelman at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 14:29:16 2009 From: joe.edelman at gmail.com (Joe Edelman) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:29:16 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21AEE90F-8DC2-4408-B768-332D15DD40EF@gmail.com> Trebor, Michel, I'd be curious what you think of The Extraordinaries (beextra.org), which is similar to mechanical turk, but exclusively for nonprofit use? Is the thing we call exploitation or expropriation about capital? Or is it about control? (The strategies of large nonprofits are no more democratically controlled than those of large corporations; even large member coops and democratic nations can only be vaguely said to be controlled by the people.) Or is it about connection? For me it's the later: if you meet people while you work, and those social connections can help you accomplish changing in your community and personal life, cross class boundaries, etc, that's a good thing. So when I look at Mechanical Turk, what I see a way to bring tens of thousands together without introducing themselves or making any kind of real, helpful connection. Which is, indeed, dystopian and scary. But Wikipedia and the Obama SMS campaign have this problem to some extent too. Facebook Groups and Twitter.. less so! -- J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 On Jun 13, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Trebor Scholz wrote: > Michel, > >> Why see this as the exclusive benefit of capital, and be blind to how >> people are using these services for the construction of their own >> lives, using what is at hand. > > Hm,... from the conference introduction and my posts here I had > hoped that > it was clear that I am not suggesting a relationship marked by one- > sided > benefit. For the past ten years I have participated in countless > social > milieus and created a few myself. On reflection, I'd now say that > the most > pervasive relationship online is > > a praise-entertainment---expropriation-surveillance tradeoff > > between users and operators. I know, it's a mouth-full but as a > German I > have a deep appreciation for seemingly unending words. > > Google's Image Labeler is a suitable example. The developer of the > game > behind the Image Labeler wrote that he encourages people to do the > work by > taking advantage of their desire to be entertained. It's a triadic > mix of > self-interest ("fun," acknowledgment), network value (the image > search gets > better), and corporate profit (Google's product improves). > > Then there is public-spirited 'interaction labor' on a small number > of sites > like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, etc. At least today, they are the > exception. Only very few of the over 1 billion Internet users > contribute to > these projects. > > And finally, if a worker gets paid $8 for transcribing a 45 minute- > long > video on Mechanical Turk, then I'd call that exploitation in the most > technical sense of the word. However, it's expropriation and not > exploitation that rules the net. I added a few comments about MTurk > to my > blog http://is.gd/10JG2 > > Surely, I'm not suggesting a simple typology; things are murky. > > Perhaps we can think of exhibitions like Les Immateriaux by Lyotard > and > Chaput in 1984, and artworks with Internet components like Learning > to Love > You More by Fletcher and July (2003) as miniature mirror worlds of > today's > tradeoffs when it comes to the social dynamics of participation... > > Today, it quickly gets dicey, for instance, when the creators of > Facebook's > self-translation application state that they have opened up the > translation > process [of the Facebook interface into some 63 languages] to the > community > because "You know best how Facebook should be translated into your > language.? I don't think of this as straight exploitation but one > user in > Los Angeles (Valentin Macias) suggested that "people should not be > tricked > into donating their time and energy to a multimillion-dollar company > so that > the company can make millions more ? at least not without some type of > compensation." Others enjoyed being in the position of co-deciding how > "poking" is translated into their language. At the same time, they > have more > of a stake in the company; they become more loyal costumers of > Facebook. > Nigel Thrift was right when he proposed that "? value is embedded in > the > experiences co-created by the individual in an experience > environment that > the company co-develops with consumers." (Thrift, Reinventing 290) > >> Unless we start peer producing infrastructures ourselves, the >> sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself. > > I could not agree more, Michel, and look forward to developing a > strand of > the conference that is dedicated to that. > > ~Trebor > = > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From julian at kuecklich.de Sat Jun 13 15:33:03 2009 From: julian at kuecklich.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julian_K=FCcklich?=) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:33:03 +0100 Subject: [iDC] Relation of my work to conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory, " In-Reply-To: <251023D7-BA8B-4626-BF38-0B290263A348@goldhaber.org> References: <251023D7-BA8B-4626-BF38-0B290263A348@goldhaber.org> Message-ID: <7d9726080906130833p45537b14s9ebcb9dd263ad30c@mail.gmail.com> Hi Michael & all, I try not to use the term attention economy, because it has somehow fallen in the hands of mutinous marketeers, and once they get their hands on something there's not much you can do. I do, however, agree with the central tenet of that argument: there's not enough attention to go around, and it's getting scarcer and scarcer. I am certainly not the first to suggest that we may have to turn our attention [sic] to an ecology rather than an economy of attention, but it was something else in your post that provoked this reply. You write: > I argue we are > passing from one dyadic class system (capitalists and worker) [...] to a new dyadic class > system of stars and fans I think we all agree that the old dyad of capitalists and workers never made much sense to begin with (and this is one of the reasons we have so many communist -isms), while the new dyad is neither new, nor does it make much sense in the context of the oh so tautologically named "social media." I think what we see evolving there (and by extension everywhere) is a system of microstardom and tactical fandom that calls into question the classical power relationship between fans and stars. This is obviously preceded by alt.fan communities such as the ones Jenkins writes about, but I am not interested so much in slash fiction etc., but rather in the microfame that exists on myspace, facebook, twitter, flickr, etc. The recent influx of "real celebrities", such as Oprah Winfrey, into the twitterverse provides a good example because it draws attention to the difference between a mass media attention economy (in this case, TV) and a multitudinous media attention economy. Oprah barged into twitter, expecting that people were actually willing to pay attention to the mundane details of her life, but as it turned out the mundane details of non-celebrities' lives are actually more interesting (Oprah of all people should know). In numerical terms, Oprah and Ashton Kutcher may be the "stars" of the twitterverse, but they are stars only in the sense that they provide a kind of background radiation for the real action. While indigenous microfame is rare, twitter often amplifies attention capital acquired elsewhere, and consolidates distributed and fragmented microaudiences. At the same time, however, the agency of microaudiences is heightened in multitudinous media such as twitter, and they can use this agency tactically as well as strategically, and often do. In this context, it is significant that while "friending" is the basic unit operation (to use Ian Bogost's term) of facebook, the basic unit operation of twitter is not "following" but "blocking". So if someone is perceived as abusing their microfame this is sanctioned not just by a denial of attention but by a reduction of that person(a)'s sphere of influence. So I think we are not dealing with a dyadic system at all, but with something much less structured and, for lack of a better word, more fun (fun also being the mechanism underwriting new forms of (self-)exploitation). Let's not forget, however, that achieving and maintaining microfame is a form of labour, and one not so dissimilar to the kind of work described in the MechTurk presentation sent around by Matthew yesterday: it's affective and relational labour, much of which consists in maintaining a good relationship with the "requesters" (or "followers"). It seems to me that the decisive difference between mass media fame and microfame resides in the fact that the former is systemic, while the latter is endemic. In other words: in mass media stars are made, while in multitudinous media stars make themselves by performing their virtuosity across different registers. This does not mean that MechTurk workers are in the same boat as "social media entrepreneurs" but it seems evident that menial labour is increasingly informed by entrepreneurial ideology while entrepreneurship now requires a much more labour-intensive micromanagement of audiences across a range of different terrains than the relationship management (schmoozing, corruption, collusion, etc.) engaged in by "capitalists." So, yes, the terrain we are dealing with is "complex and changing, with alliances and antagonisms springing up in every possible permutation," but I would contend that the binary oppositions of stars/fans and capitalists/workers have been replaced by contextual unit operations that follow a multivalent rather than a dyadic logic. Julian. 2009/6/13 Michael H Goldhaber : > > > Trebor Scholz has asked me to offer a brief comment as to how my work > relates to the conference on "The Internet as Playground and > Factory,"?https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2009-June/003445.html > > To properly understand the nature and role of ?digital labor? requires > understanding the nature of current society and how it seems to be evolving. > My work on the Attention Economy suggests that the best way to do this is in > terms of the emergence of a new, post-capitalist class society. (See , e.g. > http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/519/440 > > Btw, I originated the term ?Attention Economy? in the 1980?s, but is now too > often used in a way that deviates markedly from what I mean; I am using it > in the original way here.)? This new class society revolves around the > scarcity of the attention available from other human beings (and its > desirability, even from immense audiences). The two new classes are then > those who have succeeded in getting much more than an equal slice of > attention (for brevity I label these? people ?stars?) and those who obtain > less attention than they pay out (?fans?). In other words, I argue we are > passing from one dyadic class system (capitalists and worker) revolving > around money, routine labor and standardized material goods, though? not to > a classless society? ? as Marx had hoped ? but instead to a new dyadic class > system of stars and fans, revolving around various forms of expression and > the attention such expression hopes to garner. > > The interplay between these two dyads (the four classes named above) is > complex and changing, with alliances and antagonisms springing up in every > possible permutation. The same person can certainly be in an old class as > well as a new one, and might identify as a member of two as well ). One > aspect of digital labor would then be what I call ?fan?s work? which is > apparently voluntary (unpaid) but supportive of and conditioned by the > wishes of one, or more often a few or more stars. > > In my view, we are already farther along than it might seem in the > transition to the dominance of the new kind of economy.? I have a loose > calculation ( http://goldhaber.org/blog/?p=80 ) to support that contention. > Also, even in the current? downturn of the old economy, the attention > economy continues to gather strength. > > > Michael H. Goldhaber > michael at goldhaber.org > mgoldh at well.com > blog www.goldhaber.org > older site, www.well.com/user/mgoldh > > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > From lizlosh at uci.edu Sat Jun 13 15:42:29 2009 From: lizlosh at uci.edu (Elizabeth Losh) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 08:42:29 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2e2a651ddfecbc0483604ebab77458d9.squirrel@webmail.uci.edu> Hi Everybody, It has been interesting to read people's introductions, and I hope to see some of you face-to-face during June conference madness. As some of you might know, my new book, Virtualpolitik, has a chapter about book digitization that deals with the dematerialization of labor. For example, I love those moments in the Google Book Search project when they accidentally upload images of the digitizer's hand blocking the page, often a hand belonging to a woman or a person of color from which you can sometimes even extrapolate a narrative about the information underclass that is being reasserted, like a kind of return of the repressed. To research the book, I also went to different sites where digitization takes place to watch the human operators at work. "Although the digitization of information is often represented in the news media as a purely technical, totally automated, single-step process, as the workers of present-day Chester know, the transubstantiation that takes place in the local plant every day involves human commerce and specific, sometimes conflicting, social codes about labor practices, work cultures, annotation conventions, legal agreements, and professional associations." In the next book, I'm writing a chapter about the Open Courseware movement and its associated automagical thinking about emergence, perpetual gift economies, and free labor that ignores how course materials need to be translated for classroom use and how they often fail to function as a kind of easily convertible and easily monetized academic currency, despite the highest hopes of Open Courseware boosters who fantasize that digital files from course websites could be treated exactly like peer-reviewed publications. To get a sense of the fabulously baroque histories of the future being written about these supposedly precious commodities, check out David Wiley's "2005?2012: The OpenCourseWars" at http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262033712chap16.pdf. Recently, with xtine, Peter Krapp, Mark Nunes, Rich Edwards, and Ted Gournelos, I was part of two panels about a similar theme: "Free . . . As in Labor." I think Trebor has invited them to join the discussion here as well. Liz Elizabeth Losh Writing Director Humanities Core Course HIB 188, U.C. Irvine Irvine, CA 92697 949-824-8130 http://eee.uci.edu/faculty/losh http://www.virtualpolitik.org From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 13 03:31:59 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:31:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <304827.63442.qm@web50810.mail.re2.yahoo.com> I find the temporal interpretation below very debatable, and contrary to my own experience. Before 2001, the internet was massively infused by investment and speculative capital, co-existing with isolated TAZ's from the postmodern arty left (not meant as pejorative), which was communicating amongst itself. In 2001, the bubble crashed, and instead of withering away, an enormous amount of extra non-capital driven innovation was released (risk capital was nearly absent after the crash, and major innovations like Bittorrent were achieved with zero risk capital), which would eventually lead to Web 2.0 business models which made the platforms sustainable in the long run, and caused a quantum leap of participation, no longer confined to the isolated TAZ's, but massified to nearly the total wired population. The nostalgia you feel is the same as that of the early internet pioneers of the late eighties and early nineties, the sense that the frontier has been invaded by the masses. But was is nostaligia for you, is an enormous emancipatory progress?for the mass of the population. Yes, you pay a price, the sheriff has moved in as well, but he has still moved in a new territory which wasn't there before. Of course, I'm putting into brackets the business models and enclosures, and this is a important debate, but it in no way diminishes the fact that participation far from diminishing, made a quantum leap forwards, though at the price of abolition the dominance of a political minority congregating in its own isolated forums. That nostalgia is the feeling of a tiny minority and fully understandable, but it is time to get over it and secure more autonomous participation by everybody, Capital has not won, it is merely recognizing the victory of participation and adapting to it, turning it to its own use and benefit; what "we" have to do is exactly the same, and it is of course what your are saying despite the nostalgia argument, i.e. the struggle and the construction continues. My position would be: how can we use capital, just as it is using us. The future is not being built in the laments of nettime, but in the millions that are creating real life and business alternatives, on their own terms, sometimes adapting to the realities of capital, but always to fullfill their own new structures of desire, which are infused with open, participatory, and commons oriented values. Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: Sean Cubitt > To: Jean Burgess > Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net" > Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 7:57:07 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > > There's a kind of pay-off with democratisation: what we "all" get is always > less than the haute bourgeoisie had (fashion, art, comfort, privacy . . . ). > I posted the following to on the problem -- it isn't just about the > environmental imprint of the internet (far from weightless) but about the > necessity to Keep Going > > Sean > > Until the dot.com crash of 2001, the web was one of the longest-lived > Temporary Autonomous Zones our generation ever knew. Capital failed to > understand. Not until the years after 2001 did it begin to build business > models based in the Web rather than imported from magazine publishing and > the broadcast industry. > > Marx had established the principles in the famous Fragment on Machines (pp > 690 ff) in Grundrisse: the social intellect / general intellect is manifest > in two processes. In one, the skill developed over generations in making > things is ossified into machinery and turned to purposes of exploitation. In > the second, the ways workers organise themselves in factories so they can > get longer breaks or leave earlier are systematised by Capital. But as Virno > argues in Grammar of the Multitude, this innovative power to make new > systems is no longer a side benefit of employing workers: it is written into > our contracts. > > The risk capital always runs is that the endless revolutions in the means of > production (machinery, organisation) constantly run ahead of capital's > ability to assimilate them. This is what happened when the Web turned the > internet into a mass medium. Capital had no idea how to respond, and the > result was a fantastic flowering of creativity, of new kinds of cultural > practice, new types of service, now modes of organisation, among which > perhaps the Battle of Seattle can stand as a decent monument. > > Now of course with Web 2.0, capital has finally managed to catch up and turn > that innovatory impetus into a profit-making enterprise, although it damn > near blew itself up in the inflationary vapourware moment of the early > 2000s. > > What is left of the revolutionary Web is marked by nostalgia, as people have > been suggesting on nettime lately (Political Work in the Aftermath of the > New Media Arts Crisis). But that is no reason to give up fighting for a > piece of it; or to build alternatives inside the belly of the whale. Nor is > it a reason not to pursue alternatives to the monetarised Web, in particular > FLOSS and P2P. The mysterious, fluid, granular "we" can no more afford to > give up the struggle for the Web than we can afford to give up struggling to > find new alternatives to it. > > There are huge risks involved: the slow but certain approach of IPv6 might > flag the splitting of the Web into two, and if two why not many more. I find > that thought frightening. Other scenarios involve freeing more radio > spectrum from the dominance of TV signals, making wireless the new terrain, > probably a more hopeful variant. But for now we have to admit the battle of > the internet is over and capital won. The question is how do we operate now: > Tactically? Strategically? And how do we minimise or at least delay the > assimilation of whatever we invent into the reproduction of capital? > > (and to pre-empt discussion, a) call it biopower if you prefer and b) the > market is neither inevitable nor beneficial: the sixty years since Bretton > Woods have failed abjectly to provide even survival levels for the majority > of the world's population) > > > On 8/06/09 8:43 PM, "Jean Burgess" wrote: > > > You're right, Sean - this is the nub - cars looked great until > > everyone got them. > > > > Some of the most radical? developments in the population-wide > > extension of access to online communication in the last 10 years are > > also the most aggressively commercial (even if, as in the case of > > YouTube, they make no money). > > > > This moment raises questions without easy answers (unless one just > > already hates the masses and/or "capitalism" in which case it is very > > easy), and I am not yet convinced either by the banal celebrations or > > any available critique. > > > > We live in interesting times. > > > > On 07/06/2009, at 23:33, Sean Cubitt wrote: > > > >> This is the nub -- what is a social good? > >> > >> > >> On 7/06/09 7:29 AM, "Joe Edelman" wrote: > >> > >>> I won't rest until we get to the > >>> ubiquitous availability of physical resources like cars and trucks, > >> > >> Cars are not a good. As a lifelong cyclist, I know how dirty, > >> dangerous and > >> anti-social cars are. And as to the ubiquitous availability issue, > >> there are > >> not enough? rare earths on the planet for even China to have the > >> density of > >> wasteful duplication of devices we have (even with careful > >> shepherding I > >> have four DVD players in my house) > >> > >> Tye proliferation of consumer goods, and the detouring in desire > >> towards > >> consumerism, is about as utopian as the desire - instinctive I > >> believe - for > >> order when it becomes the fascist manipulation of anxiety towards the > >> terrorised society > >> > >> > >> "Universities, who have long claimed to elevate > >> and connect through scholarships and the like, are closed to most > >> participants, and can take six years and a great deal of expense to > >> effect the same power shift that can be accomplished by a disempowered > >> group on facebook or twitter in a few weeks." > >> > >> The kind of change we bring about in education is rather longer term > >> than > >> what can be achieved on Twitter. We have, admittedly, the luxury of > >> thinking > >> forty years into the future -- the likely working life of a student > >> graduating today.That means we balance between the usual corporate > >> horizon > >> of three to five years (like any other business) and the longer > >> term, which > >> entrepreneurs and corporations cannot afford to thing about. More > >> critically, the more "advanced' capital gets, the more *schools* - > >> by which > >> I mean schooling between 5 and 14 years of age -- become > >> competitive, with > >> the bestschools going to the children of the wealthy > >> > >> Capital is now, as it always has been, a lie founded on a bad pun: the > >> "freedom" of the market has nothing whatever to do with human > >> freedom, any > >> more than the 'survival of the fittest' describes the fit of a > >> species in an > >> ecological niche. > >> > >> Sorry to be argumentative: it's late, I'm tired, and I blew the > >> weekend > >> writing when I shd have been outdoors > >> > >> sean > >> > >> Prof Sean Cubitt > >> scubitt at unimelb.edu.au > >> Director > >> Media and Communications Program > >> Faculty of Arts > >> Room 127 John Medley East > >> The University of Melbourne > >> Parkville VIC 3010 > >> Australia > >> > >> Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667 > >> Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494 > >> M: 0448 304 004 > >> Skype: seancubitt > >> http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/ > >> http://www.digital-light.net.au/ > >> http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/ > >> http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/ > >> http://del.icio.us/seancubitt > >> > >> Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series > >> http://leonardo.info > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > >> (distributedcreativity.org) > >> iDC at mailman.thing.net > >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > >> > >> List Archive: > >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > >> > >> iDC Photo Stream: > >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > >> > >> RSS feed: > >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > >> > >> iDC Chat on Facebook: > >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > >> > >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > Prof Sean Cubitt > scubitt at unimelb.edu.au > Director > Media and Communications Program > Faculty of Arts > Room 127?John Medley East > The University of Melbourne > Parkville VIC 3010 > Australia > > Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667 > Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494 > M: 0448 304 004 > Skype: seancubitt > http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/ > http://www.digital-light.net.au/ > http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/ > http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/ > http://del.icio.us/seancubitt > > Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series > http://leonardo.info > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 13 03:59:30 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:59:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <944824.3629.qm@web50801.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi David, I'm very sympathetic to your point of view, rooted in struggle and real life experience, and indeed, social media is no panacea. However, it seems your example is rooted in local organizing, but what about the translocal. I wouldn't want to overstate the community aspects of my own work at the P2P Foundation, but I see it as a forum for serious discourse and exchange, aimed at 'changing the world', and I have enough anecdotal evidence, emails sent by many people, to indicate that is has sustained hope and strength in many different people. So, actually, in the end, I do not agree, discouraging people from using social media is pretty much like discouraging people from using TV, it won't work, because it offers too many benefits. So I would rather say, go with the use (no use to push people at all, they are all doing it by themselves anyway), but try to change that use, by infusing consciousness, a sense of the possible, and a sense that new futures can be co-constructed, both f2f and through social media. But indeed, I also object to just "playing around", signing petitions that have no effect at all, etc... There is I think something in between the two positions, Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: davin heckman > To: "idc at mailman.thing.net" > Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 10:47:52 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > > I was at a barbecue about a week ago, chatting with my brother-in-law, > who's a labor organizer.? He's less concerned with swelling the ranks > of a particular union than he is with talking to working people about > how they can, by talking with each other, improve their situation. > > As a teacher, I was interested in picking his brain on how I could use > some of his work to help my students talk about their lives, formulate > their responses, and organize themselves around issues that matter to > them.? Naturally, the talk turned to social media as a possibility and > an obstacle for such organization. > > His advice to me, based on anecdotal evidence, was to advise students > against using social media for organizing until they had strong > face-to-face relationships.? And then, only use it sparingly, as a > tool.? His experience, based on work with 20-50 year old working folks > was that attitudes quickly devolve into patterns consistent with the > consumption of entertainment--you do it when you have time, when it is > fun, and with the multitude of available channels of information it is > too easy to avoid bare-knuckle conflicts (even when exchanges become > hot).? In his view, the contexts which require organizing the most are > those which are going to be risky--where you might lose your job, face > retaliation, and, in some cases, get beaten.? And so, you need a tight > social relationship in which people are willing to sacrifice for each > other.? His efforts at organizing online were weak...? they generated > good talk among those who participated...? but they did not translate > into a strong group, unless the group was rooted in face-to-face > relationships. > > The view he articulated to me was basically the one that I had been > moving more closely to over the years--watching students organize an > organization with 200 members on facebook, and then showing up to an > empty meeting.? On the other hand, groups with no online presence can > have very active meetings.? Part of me wonders if there is a divide > between social media use in large metropolitan areas, where there are > lots of things going on... versus life in smaller cities and towns, > where people have more limited activities to choose from and less > money to spend on entertainment.? Maybe in big cities or among certain > demographic groups, social media "works" better.? Where I live and > teach, it tends to fall flat.? If I want someone to help out with > something, I have to put in face-to-face time.? I've lived in places > where you could choose from several Critical Mass bike rides to > attend...? but then there are huge swaths of territory where people > say, "Critical Mass?? What's that?"? And then, when you explain, they > say, "Why would you want to do that?" > > To finally get to my point, and I'm not trying to say there is > anything wrong with Web 2.0 stuff, but I do think in terms of social > potential it requires the user to approach it with a certain set of > priorities, a certain consciousness, and a learned orientation.? IF > the learned orientation is geared towards a rudimentary form of > consumption, the space is going to be filled with similar priorities, > perhaps with a bit more detail and elaboration.? But it does not > inevitably lead towards anything utopian, except in the kind of > watered-down neoliberal sense where we call fun "utopia."? On the > other hand, if people habitually have robust relationships that are > tied to consequence, they are more likely to place those expectations > onto any medium that they are invested in.? Even if consumers become > "green consumers" or "hipsters" (or whatever the thing to do is)... > as long as "the good" is framed primarily as an enlightened approach > to individual consumer choices...? it will be hard to respond to > employers and corporations who coordinate their decision-making in an > integrated way, facilitated by market research, lobbying, finance, > etc. > > In general, contemporary critical theory is frightened of tackling > concepts like guilt, sacrifice, duty, responsibility, etc.? Such > concepts are toxic to neoliberalism (except in those cases when they > can be exploited, like when neglected children learn to nag their > overworked parents into buying shit to make up for their absence), and > consequently, generations of people are afraid of these feelings. > But, if social media is going to work, it needs to be able to carry > consequences in proportion to risks.? If they are going to translate > into material effects, the virtual actions must be tied to embodied > responses. > > How do we do this?? Well...? my brother-in-law does a great job > organizing people.? Educators have an opportunity to connect students > to this reality.? And, artists can do this in their work. > Unfortunately, there aren't enough organizers, artists, and educators > doing this.? It requires active effort and hard work by people who are > conscious of the problem.? More importantly, we need to imagine an > entire education which is geared towards fostering an ethical view > that is capable of seeing systems of power beyond individual > decisions. > > If the Internet is a factory, then maybe we should follow the model of > past efforts of successful organizing....? And this usually takes > place when the workers are off the clock, when they can have candid > discussions, and when they can get to know each other personally and > intimately.? Especially in the case of the web, where people can get > so caught up in posturing and image-management, it might be doubly > powerful to be cared for and accepted in the flesh, where we feel a > little flabbier and look a bit more blemished, where there is no > backspace to filter out a personality flaw. > > Peace! > > Davin Heckman > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From davinheckman at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 18:14:14 2009 From: davinheckman at gmail.com (davin heckman) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:14:14 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <944824.3629.qm@web50801.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <944824.3629.qm@web50801.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I agree with you, actually. (Which is why I am on this list. I do not know any of the people face to face, but I do feel a strong sense of affection and solidarity, especially when exchanges get personal and force us to be present, responsible, and accountable to each other). I think, however, that the prerequisite for strong online organization is successful experience to some physical experience. I am skeptical about the idea online activism could precede "live" activism. A large, diverse, and successful political action is a very hard thing to pull off.... and the rewards are often realized in subtle ways... especially if you "lose." The sense of danger, the feelings of dependence, the way in which individual limitations are transcended through solidarity, and how disappointments lead to other positives. But through all this you learn how to be an activist. It changes who you are, becomes a part of your being. (And in a small community, especially, it marks you as a particular kind of person, which has its downsides, but also ups the ante in a good way.) And, then you kind of have to seek other people out and connect with them.... which is where, I think, social media comes in. Peace! Davin On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 10:59 PM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > > > > Hi David, > > I'm very sympathetic to your point of view, rooted in struggle and real life experience, and indeed, social media is no panacea. > > However, it seems your example is rooted in local organizing, but what about the translocal. > > I wouldn't want to overstate the community aspects of my own work at the P2P Foundation, but I see it as a forum for serious discourse and exchange, aimed at 'changing the world', and I have enough anecdotal evidence, emails sent by many people, to indicate that is has sustained hope and strength in many different people. > > So, actually, in the end, I do not agree, discouraging people from using social media is pretty much like discouraging people from using TV, it won't work, because it offers too many benefits. So I would rather say, go with the use (no use to push people at all, they are all doing it by themselves anyway), but try to change that use, by infusing consciousness, a sense of the possible, and a sense that new futures can be co-constructed, both f2f and through social media. > > But indeed, I also object to just "playing around", signing petitions that have no effect at all, etc... > > There is I think something in between the two positions, > > Michel > > > ----- Original Message ---- >> From: davin heckman >> To: "idc at mailman.thing.net" >> Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 10:47:52 PM >> Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory >> >> I was at a barbecue about a week ago, chatting with my brother-in-law, >> who's a labor organizer.? He's less concerned with swelling the ranks >> of a particular union than he is with talking to working people about >> how they can, by talking with each other, improve their situation. >> >> As a teacher, I was interested in picking his brain on how I could use >> some of his work to help my students talk about their lives, formulate >> their responses, and organize themselves around issues that matter to >> them.? Naturally, the talk turned to social media as a possibility and >> an obstacle for such organization. >> >> His advice to me, based on anecdotal evidence, was to advise students >> against using social media for organizing until they had strong >> face-to-face relationships.? And then, only use it sparingly, as a >> tool.? His experience, based on work with 20-50 year old working folks >> was that attitudes quickly devolve into patterns consistent with the >> consumption of entertainment--you do it when you have time, when it is >> fun, and with the multitude of available channels of information it is >> too easy to avoid bare-knuckle conflicts (even when exchanges become >> hot).? In his view, the contexts which require organizing the most are >> those which are going to be risky--where you might lose your job, face >> retaliation, and, in some cases, get beaten.? And so, you need a tight >> social relationship in which people are willing to sacrifice for each >> other.? His efforts at organizing online were weak...? they generated >> good talk among those who participated...? but they did not translate >> into a strong group, unless the group was rooted in face-to-face >> relationships. >> >> The view he articulated to me was basically the one that I had been >> moving more closely to over the years--watching students organize an >> organization with 200 members on facebook, and then showing up to an >> empty meeting.? On the other hand, groups with no online presence can >> have very active meetings.? Part of me wonders if there is a divide >> between social media use in large metropolitan areas, where there are >> lots of things going on... versus life in smaller cities and towns, >> where people have more limited activities to choose from and less >> money to spend on entertainment.? Maybe in big cities or among certain >> demographic groups, social media "works" better.? Where I live and >> teach, it tends to fall flat.? If I want someone to help out with >> something, I have to put in face-to-face time.? I've lived in places >> where you could choose from several Critical Mass bike rides to >> attend...? but then there are huge swaths of territory where people >> say, "Critical Mass?? What's that?"? And then, when you explain, they >> say, "Why would you want to do that?" >> >> To finally get to my point, and I'm not trying to say there is >> anything wrong with Web 2.0 stuff, but I do think in terms of social >> potential it requires the user to approach it with a certain set of >> priorities, a certain consciousness, and a learned orientation.? IF >> the learned orientation is geared towards a rudimentary form of >> consumption, the space is going to be filled with similar priorities, >> perhaps with a bit more detail and elaboration.? But it does not >> inevitably lead towards anything utopian, except in the kind of >> watered-down neoliberal sense where we call fun "utopia."? On the >> other hand, if people habitually have robust relationships that are >> tied to consequence, they are more likely to place those expectations >> onto any medium that they are invested in.? Even if consumers become >> "green consumers" or "hipsters" (or whatever the thing to do is)... >> as long as "the good" is framed primarily as an enlightened approach >> to individual consumer choices...? it will be hard to respond to >> employers and corporations who coordinate their decision-making in an >> integrated way, facilitated by market research, lobbying, finance, >> etc. >> >> In general, contemporary critical theory is frightened of tackling >> concepts like guilt, sacrifice, duty, responsibility, etc.? Such >> concepts are toxic to neoliberalism (except in those cases when they >> can be exploited, like when neglected children learn to nag their >> overworked parents into buying shit to make up for their absence), and >> consequently, generations of people are afraid of these feelings. >> But, if social media is going to work, it needs to be able to carry >> consequences in proportion to risks.? If they are going to translate >> into material effects, the virtual actions must be tied to embodied >> responses. >> >> How do we do this?? Well...? my brother-in-law does a great job >> organizing people.? Educators have an opportunity to connect students >> to this reality.? And, artists can do this in their work. >> Unfortunately, there aren't enough organizers, artists, and educators >> doing this.? It requires active effort and hard work by people who are >> conscious of the problem.? More importantly, we need to imagine an >> entire education which is geared towards fostering an ethical view >> that is capable of seeing systems of power beyond individual >> decisions. >> >> If the Internet is a factory, then maybe we should follow the model of >> past efforts of successful organizing....? And this usually takes >> place when the workers are off the clock, when they can have candid >> discussions, and when they can get to know each other personally and >> intimately.? Especially in the case of the web, where people can get >> so caught up in posturing and image-management, it might be doubly >> powerful to be cared for and accepted in the flesh, where we feel a >> little flabbier and look a bit more blemished, where there is no >> backspace to filter out a personality flaw. >> >> Peace! >> >> Davin Heckman >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > > > From michael at goldhaber.org Sat Jun 13 20:13:27 2009 From: michael at goldhaber.org (Michael H Goldhaber) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:13:27 -0700 Subject: [iDC] =?iso-8859-1?q?response_to_Julian_K=FCcklich?= Message-ID: Hi Julian and everyone, I disagree that the notion of dyadic classes never made much sense. On the contrary it was an is analytically of great value, even if it ignores some intermediate positions. The dynamics of societies are considerably clarified by the concept. ' As for whether Facebook, twitter and other means of social networking aid the attention economy as I use the term, we need not only think in terms of huge attention absorbers like Oprah. There are after all small capitalists as well as big ones, and there are small stars as well as big ones. to be a star, at the limit you only need to take in more attention than you pay out. If you choose to define a star as someone who takes in several times as much attention as paid out, I still suspect that many of the participants in this very discussion would qualify, and more might well want to. It is critical that we remember this as we discuss issues such as exploitation. It is also important to consider this possibility when we discuss the apparent equalizing trends of social media. While I would not rule out the possibility that some such media could tremendously aid a move toward fuller equality, that cannot be taken for granted, nor would the resulting equality necessarily be so complete as some might hope. Best, Michael Juliann wrote: Hi Michael & all, ..... You write: > I argue we are > passing from one dyadic class system (capitalists and worker) [...] to a new dyadic class > system of stars and fans I think we all agree that the old dyad of capitalists and workers never made much sense to begin with (and this is one of the reasons we have so many communist -isms), while the new dyad is neither new, nor does it make much sense in the context of the oh so tautologically named "social media." I think what we see evolving there (and by extension everywhere) is a system of microstardom and tactical fandom that calls into question the classical power relationship between fans and stars. This is obviously preceded by alt.fan communities such as the ones Jenkins writes about, but I am not interested so much in slash fiction etc., but rather in the microfame that exists on myspace, facebook, twitter, flickr, etc. The recent influx of "real celebrities", such as Oprah Winfrey, into the twitterverse provides a good example because it draws attention to the difference between a mass media attention economy (in this case, TV) and a multitudinous media attention economy. Oprah barged into twitter, expecting that people were actually willing to pay attention to the mundane details of her life, but as it turned out the mundane details of non-celebrities' lives are actually more interesting (Oprah of all people should know). In numerical terms, Oprah and Ashton Kutcher may be the "stars" of the twitterverse, but they are stars only in the sense that they provide a kind of background radiation for the real action. While indigenous microfame is rare, twitter often amplifies attention capital acquired elsewhere, and consolidates distributed and fragmented microaudiences. At the same time, however, the agency of microaudiences is heightened in multitudinous media such as twitter, and they can use this agency tactically as well as strategically, and often do. In this context, it is significant that while "friending" is the basic unit operation (to use Ian Bogost's term) of facebook, the basic unit operation of twitter is not "following" but "blocking". So if someone is perceived as abusing their microfame this is sanctioned not just by a denial of attention but by a reduction of that person(a)'s sphere of influence. So I think we are not dealing with a dyadic system at all, but with something much less structured and, for lack of a better word, more fun (fun also being the mechanism underwriting new forms of (self-)exploitation). Let's not forget, however, that achieving and maintaining microfame is a form of labour, and one not so dissimilar to the kind of work described in the MechTurk presentation sent around by Matthew yesterday: it's affective and relational labour, much of which consists in maintaining a good relationship with the "requesters" (or "followers"). It seems to me that the decisive difference between mass media fame and microfame resides in the fact that the former is systemic, while the latter is endemic. In other words: in mass media stars are made, while in multitudinous media stars make themselves by performing their virtuosity across different registers. This does not mean that MechTurk workers are in the same boat as "social media entrepreneurs" but it seems evident that menial labour is increasingly informed by entrepreneurial ideology while entrepreneurship now requires a much more labour-intensive micromanagement of audiences across a range of different terrains than the relationship management (schmoozing, corruption, collusion, etc.) engaged in by "capitalists." So, yes, the terrain we are dealing with is "complex and changing, with alliances and antagonisms springing up in every possible permutation," but I would contend that the binary oppositions of stars/fans and capitalists/workers have been replaced by contextual unit operations that follow a multivalent rather than a dyadic logic. Julian. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090613/30796b7b/attachment.htm From jbeller at pratt.edu Sun Jun 14 02:43:31 2009 From: jbeller at pratt.edu (Jonathan Beller) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:43:31 -0400 Subject: [iDC] =?iso-8859-1?q?response_to_M=2E_Goldhaber=27s_response_to_J?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ulian_K=FCcklich?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0456C740-0B49-4809-9556-9C02DC4A1EE3@pratt.edu> To continue the conversation: First of all, writ large, the structure of the celebrity is a fascistic one -- the accrual of social power by individuals via the captured attention of the masses, exactly parallels the accrual of social power by the capitalist via the captured labor of the masses. This is not an accidental correspondence but rather an intensification of the very processes that created new forms of recognition and personality nascent in bourgeois capitalism. And, by personality, I do not only mean the exterior trappings that allow a face to be recognized, I mean also the intense elaboration of subjectivity and interiority associated with the richly textured experiences of high bourgeois culture. In the case of the capitalist, the celebrity and the fascist dictator, the individual in question is a creation of the masses even though s/he is not representative of the masses. The charismatic leader, as Gramsci taught us, was a Ceasarist, a kind of master power-broker, who was capable of doing the work of the hierarchical capitalist state precisely by utilizing populist discourse (and today we could say the technologies of populism -- what was Hitler without the loudspeaker? etc.). The Fascist dictators from Mussolini to Macapagal-Arroyo to Bush were also, in the most literal sense -- cyborgs, "individuals" created in symbiotic relation to the technical and economic apparatuses of his/her time. These mechanisms were/are driven by the sensual labor of the masses. The celebrated individual(s) constitute, in Debord's famous words regarding the spectacle, the diplomatic presentation of hierarchical society to itself. Benjamin recognized the co-optation inherent in the celebrity-from already when he spoke of the fascist corruption of the film medium by capitalist industries/nations giving workers the chance not the right to represent themselves. One person is elevated, literally made from the subjective labor of the mass audience, and stands in as a point of identification for all those who will remain forever unrepresented. The celebrity becomes a kind of compensation for the disempowerment and castration of the masses. We regular folk will never accomplish anything, never achieve universal recognition by all humanity, but, not to worry, the celebrity does this in our stead. Of course, as with the dictator or with the capitalist monopolist our disempowerment is the condition of possibility for his/her elevation. Just as the wealth of the capitalist is the obverse of the poverty of the worker, the hyper-representation of the celebrity is the obverse of the non- representation of the rest of us. In order to show the historical relationship between the social order denoted by celebrities and fans on the one hand and owners and workers on the other, I will not recapitulate the entire argument of The Cinematic Mode of Production here (my apologies :)) : suffice it to say that cinema brings the industrial revolution to the eye and introjects the social relations of industrial society into the sensorium. In other words, the rise of visuality and subsequently of digitality does not happen in parallel to capitalism but is in fact an extension of capitalist relations deeper into the body -- into the viscera and, as is better understood, into cognitive-linguistic function. The logic of cinema, the chaine de montage, etc., extends the logic of the assembly line from the traditional labor processes of the factory to the senses and to perception. This movement of production into the visual/cognitive vis-a-vis the cinema is the material history of the emergence of the attention economy; cinema is the open book of the contemporary econometrics of attention. All of which is to say that with due deference to various forms of subversive fandom, we may want to think twice before we celebrate celebrity and pitch our brilliant insights to investors. Must we still ask why? When referring to the possibility of "social media" to bring about social change Michel Goldhaber writes below: While I would not rule out the possibility that some such media could tremendously aid a move toward fuller equality, that cannot be taken for granted, nor would the resulting equality necessarily be so complete as some might hope. it seems to me that there are at least two dangerous omissions: One is that media do not stand apart from us -- they are made out of us and they are us, no less than say, as Fanon reminded his readers, it was the labor of the Third World that built the European metropoles. The logic of celebrity, which is the logic of reification, has taught us to conceptually resolve media technologies as if they were free standing entities and not products of centuries of expropriation put to use by and large to continue and intensify those processes. We would do well to remember that today's planet of slums, with its 2 billion people (population Earth, 1929) in an abject, completely modern and utterly contemporary poverty, is also the product of whatever socio-technologic matrix of relations we find ourselves in. It is important also to recognize that the media, in and of themselves, are not going to progressively alter these relations. They are these relations! Here I recall Chomsky's response when asked if he thought internet would bring about greater democratization: "That question is not a matter for speculation, it is a matter for activism." In other words, the fight is also here and now. We are being called by the o/re-pressed that lies both within and without "us," to activate the vectors of struggle against domination/post- modern fascism/platform fetishism/capitalist technocracy/neo- imperialism/globalization/certain brands of "fun," etc. that already inhere in every atom of the status-quo. The second omission in Goldhaber's statement may well be more self- conscious than the first appears to be -- in saying "nor would the resulting equality necessarily be so compelete as some might hope" he appears to omit himself from those who still have hope or want to hope. When referring to those who hope for equality and presumably social justice, some of us would have said "we." Jonathan Beller Professor Humanities and Media Studies and Critical and Visual Studies Pratt Institute jbeller at pratt.edu 718-636-3573 fax On Jun 13, 2009, at 4:13 PM, Michael H Goldhaber wrote: > Hi Julian and everyone, > > I disagree that the notion of dyadic classes never made much sense. > On the contrary it was an is analytically of great value, even if it > ignores some intermediate positions. The dynamics of societies are > considerably clarified by the concept. ' > > As for whether Facebook, twitter and other means of social > networking aid the attention economy as I use the term, we need not > only think in terms of huge attention absorbers like Oprah. There > are after all small capitalists as well as big ones, and there are > small stars as well as big ones. to be a star, at the limit you only > need to take in more attention than you pay out. > > If you choose to define a star as someone who takes in several times > as much attention as paid out, I still suspect that many of the > participants in this very discussion would qualify, and more might > well want to. It is critical that we remember this as we discuss > issues such as exploitation. It is also important to consider this > possibility when we discuss the apparent equalizing trends of social > media. While I would not rule out the possibility that some such > media could tremendously aid a move toward fuller equality, that > cannot be taken for granted, nor would the resulting equality > necessarily be so complete as some might hope. > > Best, > Michael > Juliann wrote: > Hi Michael & all, > > ..... > > You write: > > I argue we are > > passing from one dyadic class system (capitalists and worker) > [...] to a new dyadic class > > system of stars and fans > > I think we all agree that the old dyad of capitalists and workers > never made much sense to begin with (and this is one of the reasons we > have so many communist -isms), while the new dyad is neither new, nor > does it make much sense in the context of the oh so tautologically > named "social media." I think what we see evolving there (and by > extension everywhere) is a system of microstardom and tactical fandom > that calls into question the classical power relationship between fans > and stars. > > This is obviously preceded by alt.fan communities such as the ones > Jenkins writes about, but I am not interested so much in slash fiction > etc., but rather in the microfame that exists on myspace, facebook, > twitter, flickr, etc. The recent influx of "real celebrities", such as > Oprah Winfrey, into the twitterverse provides a good example because > it draws attention to the difference between a mass media attention > economy (in this case, TV) and a multitudinous media attention > economy. Oprah barged into twitter, expecting that people were > actually willing to pay attention to the mundane details of her life, > but as it turned out the mundane details of non-celebrities' lives are > actually more interesting (Oprah of all people should know). > > In numerical terms, Oprah and Ashton Kutcher may be the "stars" of the > twitterverse, but they are stars only in the sense that they provide a > kind of background radiation for the real action. While indigenous > microfame is rare, twitter often amplifies attention capital acquired > elsewhere, and consolidates distributed and fragmented microaudiences. > At the same time, however, the agency of microaudiences is heightened > in multitudinous media such as twitter, and they can use this agency > tactically as well as strategically, and often do. In this context, it > is significant that while "friending" is the basic unit operation (to > use Ian Bogost's term) of facebook, the basic unit operation of > twitter is not "following" but "blocking". So if someone is perceived > as abusing their microfame this is sanctioned not just by a denial of > attention but by a reduction of that person(a)'s sphere of influence. > > So I think we are not dealing with a dyadic system at all, but with > something much less structured and, for lack of a better word, more > fun (fun also being the mechanism underwriting new forms of > (self-)exploitation). Let's not forget, however, that achieving and > maintaining microfame is a form of labour, and one not so dissimilar > to the kind of work described in the MechTurk presentation sent around > by Matthew yesterday: it's affective and relational labour, much of > which consists in maintaining a good relationship with the > "requesters" (or "followers"). It seems to me that the decisive > difference between mass media fame and microfame resides in the fact > that the former is systemic, while the latter is endemic. In other > words: in mass media stars are made, while in multitudinous media > stars make themselves by performing their virtuosity across different > registers. > > This does not mean that MechTurk workers are in the same boat as > "social media entrepreneurs" but it seems evident that menial labour > is increasingly informed by entrepreneurial ideology while > entrepreneurship now requires a much more labour-intensive > micromanagement of audiences across a range of different terrains than > the relationship management (schmoozing, corruption, collusion, etc.) > engaged in by "capitalists." > > So, yes, the terrain we are dealing with is "complex and changing, > with alliances and antagonisms springing up in every possible > permutation," but I would contend that the binary oppositions of > stars/fans and capitalists/workers have been replaced by contextual > unit operations that follow a multivalent rather than a dyadic logic. > > Julian. > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090613/00dc8592/attachment-0001.htm From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 13 05:50:30 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:50:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] attention and the classroom In-Reply-To: <90F9E8CA-8C14-469D-9496-D3F80295F8F2@emerson.edu> References: <90F9E8CA-8C14-469D-9496-D3F80295F8F2@emerson.edu> Message-ID: <473847.54884.qm@web50803.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Eric, I wonder about your use of the concept of 'monolithic' and what it exactly means if you'd say monopolistic it's easy to understand in terms of their dominance but the information on them is very far from monolithic, as is their usage in terms of attention diversity so I find your comparison with a lecture confusing, since the use of these media, with multitasking, short attention spans and multi-tasking is almost exactly the opposite ... thanks for explaining, Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: Eric Gordon > To: idc at mailman.thing.net > Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2009 10:46:03 PM > Subject: [iDC] attention and the classroom > > I've been following the conversation about the Internet as playground? > and factory with great interest and have been inspired to chime in.? > Lately I've been thinking about that most mysterious currency of the? > Internet: user attention.? Certainly, the economy of the Internet? > trades in it.? As Frank pointed out awhile back: "We all ?pay? > attention? (literally and figuratively) at monolithic sites like? > Google, Facebook, and eBay."? Their business model is premised on how? > much we pay attention and how little we stray.? What's interesting to? > me is how this model of monolithic attention gathering has? > similarities to the models of attention we have established for the? > classroom.? Students should pay total attention to the professor.? > Distractions like open windows, buzzing from florescent light bulbs,? > chatter in the hallway, or god forbid, laptops and cell phones,? > threaten to chip away at the age old concept of undivided attention.? > In fact, these distractions threaten to turn classroom attention into? > an economy - where there is exchange and value for glances, foci, and? > thoughts.? In the 1970s, Erving Goffman gave a lecture called "The? > Lecture."? In it, he challenges the dominance of the subject of the? > lecture and its corresponding forward facing gaze and suggests that,? > in fact, students also pay attention to what he calls "the custard" of? > the situation - that stuff, including the joke before the lecture? > begins, the notes on the table, the noises in the room.? All of this? > composes the situation and necessarily, the attention of students? > flows in and out of the custard and subject at hand. > > The Internet provides a new way into the context Goffman introduced? > decades ago.? Open laptops with live twittering, web searching, SMS -? > all of this is part of the custard of interaction and part of the? > economy of attention that composes the situation of the classroom.? > Instead of banning these technologies from the classroom, as many a? > university is want to do, the answer is instead to harness them and to? > actively participate in establishing the rules of the economy.? In an? > article I recently completed with my colleague David Bogen, I refer to? > this process as "designing choreographies of attention."? (The? > complete article can be found here: > http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/2/000049.html) > .? ? We argue that educators should not fall back on monolithic models? > of undivided attention, and instead engage in this kind of design,? > which can transform the space of the classroom - complicating the? > relationships between front and back, professor and student, and peer? > to peer.? In this case, the particular and thoughtful appropriation of? > Internet tools challenges the traditional economies of attention -? > both those established by the professorate centuries ago as well as? > those perpetuated by Google and its ilk.? Despite its dominant? > business models, the Internet can help us rethink traditions; it can? > help us break down barriers and transform spaces.? I'm interested in? > seeing this happen in the classroom.? I'm interested in using these? > tools to harness distraction as a means of producing more vibrant (and? > dare I say focused) educational spaces. > > I'm quite interested to know how others respond to this proposition? > and specifically how it might feed into the larger discussion about? > labor.? Indeed, students' attention is labor, whether it's undivided? > or not. > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From davinheckman at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 18:00:14 2009 From: davinheckman at gmail.com (davin heckman) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:00:14 -0500 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> <895092.68628.qm@web50805.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I like the "nothing has changed" vs. "everything has changed" dichotomy, only insofar as we can use it to force the following questions: 1. IF everything has changed in a material sense (what we use, what we own, how we get it, etc.), what, if any, continuity exists in our social and cultural existence? (For instance, many people still brush their teeth, and base their decisions on perceived progressive technological norms for hygiene. We must strive for sterility, whiteness, sanitation, hotness, etc. So, while the motivation remains the same, the techniques for selling oral hygiene have changed--toothbrushes have batteries, you can have your teeth whitened, tongue scraped, etc. But the basic drive is somewhat continuous, even if it has intensified due to the availability of consumer technologies and techniques for marketing them. 2. IF everything stays the same, what, if any, changes have been made in the social and cultural sphere? We still use internal combustion engines. It is an old technology and an inferior one. At one point it was regarded as new and revolutionary (which was how the technology was sold), but now it is reliable and stable and our way of life depends on it (or, at least, these are the arguments used to justify it.). A bike is too hard. Trains are too expensive. You will lose your freedom. Electric cars are risky. It's a liberal pipe dream. Etc. Sometimes, you can do the exact same thing, but with profoundly different effects. (Think of the history of the word "negro." For a moment in time, it was used as an alternative to a more disparaging word, and was thus a marker of respect. In our current milieu, it is considered a negative term.) Yet, Rush Limbaugh was able to play with the term "magic negro," to stoke resentment in a passive aggressive way, to be racist in spirit while looking less racist in form. The answers to both of those questions tend to have similar roots, in that they privilege the inertia that is inherent in large institutions and markers of power. And if you always ask those questions, you can avoid falling into the novelty or nostalgia modes, and just concentrate on what really matters: People. Which is the point, that Jeremy was making. Peace! Davin On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 7:33 AM, jeremy hunsinger wrote: > Hi, ?I actually want to place my position as 'realism' ?not 'oldism' > nor 'newism' ?In this discussion, I'm particularly against 2 forms of > promotion one is novelty and its associated fictions, and the other is > nostalgia. > > I don't think that I argued that 'nothing changes' ? what I was trying > to say is that fundamentally the human condition in late capitalism > hasn't changed. ?Now you can argue that there is new, exciting > differences, and surely there are, but then i bring up the questions, > for whom, for what, and why... > > > > On Jun 13, 2009, at 12:34 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > >> >> Hi Jeremy, >> >> it seems to me there are two pitfalls to avoid when we discuss >> changes, >> >> one is oldism, nothing really ever changes, one is newism, >> everything is changing all at once. >> >> It seems to me that your point of view is very close to oldism ... >> yes, we are all still struggling to live and eat and love and pay >> rent, just as it was 20 30 years ago, we are still watching media, >> still buying stuff ... >> >> - but are we watching the same media and doing the same things with >> them? > > have to say this will depend on how you look at things, i tend to look > at things as systems of practices and conventions/norms which become > institutionalized. ? So from my perspective, certain technologies in > web 2.0 relate to new practices. ?However, in terms of things like > 'watching' tv, 'listening' to music, etc., ?'playing' games, ?we may > have added another level of mediation, but I am not always convinced > that the layer of mediation has changed things. ?For instance, there > was a huge cultural change surrounding music with the development of > the sony walkman... but did the mp3/ipod change the practices in > significant ways, yes perhaps in terms of purchasing, as you can argue > about the downfall of the 'album', but did it change consumption of > said music, i'd have to think that it isn't as much we'd think. ? The > question is one of data and interpretation, in the end, but there > needs to be some basis for the discussions and arguments about labour, > no? > > >> >> - are we buying the same things and listening to the same people >> when we buy? > > I have changed brands of toothpaste. ? now where did that influence > come from? ?I think it came from standing in the grocery store trying > to find the one i was using and being unable, so moving to a more > stable brand. ?Now, don't get me wrong there have been huge changes in > grocery shopping in the last 20 years. ?However, I'm not that > convinced that the practices are that different. > >> >> - are we doing the same things when we're not working, and working >> the same? > > Maybe... maybe not. ?This is the central question isn't it? ?I think > the problem here is that the debate was centered on a smallish > population which is somewhat unrepresentative of the human condition. > However, you may argue, for instance, as we have heard argued.... that > the olpc's presence in the developed world will revolutionize their > economies, etc. etc. ?transform them etc. etc. ?I prefer to remain > skeptical. ?Some people did become somewhat more wealthy with the > advent of the olpc. ?I have not seen widespread social or economic > change. > > >> >> What does it mean for a society when most media buys are bought by >> peer recommendation? > > I don't know about you, but when i was a kid, that is how i bought > music. > >> What does it mean when an increasing number of ?mothers go to >> Mumsnet instead of asking their doctor? > > Is that different from talking to their church group or other social > discussion they were likely involved in before it was mediated? > >> What does it mean when 58% of the citizens of Malmo are reportedly >> engaged in one form of peer production or another? > > seems pretty small population, i suspect a definition error in the > survey. ?I don't think i could get less than 98% if we defined it as > producing things with other people. > >> >> So I would find it more productive to look at these changes and see >> to what degree they have changed life and the structure of society, >> to see what has changed, what not, etc... rather than say, 'nothing >> has changed'. > > I'd prefer to remain skeptical that there is 'change', especially > massive change until we actually find a way that demonstrates that it > is happening. ?Otherwise, i think we are just fetishizing the > practices of a minority, and in doing that we are reifying those > practices and likely universalizing them in ways that are unwarranted. > > Don't get me wrong, things do change, but then again the question is > did they change in a way that is reflected for the majority of > people? ?likely not, and if not, why are we focussing our efforts on > the minority, when the difference might just be the difference between > the majority and the minority, instead of the minority at time x > versus the minority at time z. > >> >> Living in Chiang Mai before the internet age would have been >> dramatically different for us 'expats', as reported by the old >> timers I have discussed the issue with, as are the much more intense >> relations of diasporic immigrant communities with their homeland. >> >> The idea that these changes are only affecting an elite is also very >> questionable. I live in Thailand, where there are a multitude of >> cybercafe's in city streets, and you will find them in the most >> remote villages; there are reports that it has quite dramatically >> changed the life of Chinese workers, who skype their families in the >> villages, and look up comparative wage scales, moving to regions and >> factories where higher, leading to a substantial rise in wages .. >> (I'm sure there were other factors, but that one shouldn't be >> discounted, as reported by labor organizers). >> >> Again, I'm not saying that everything has changed, that all is for >> the better, but would you argue that the invention of print did not >> contribute to major changes in social structures, however long that >> took. And is it not to be expected that a massive increase in >> hitherto impossible peer communication and media expression would >> contribute to important social changes ... >> > > That isn't really what I was arguing, I was trying to make a point of > the construction of 'profound change' and 'novelty', but I do agree > with you. ?The question for me is really how we present the change and > it's real effects. ?The digital diaspora is a great case of how > information technology has enabled a population to maintain social > ties across great distances, and likely changed the relations of their > everyday lives. ?People can now call home, text, etc. and maintain > those contacts. ?That transforms what we mean by diaspora and > transforms the practices around it. > > But does it change labour for most people? profoundly? > > >> Count me as a sceptic regarding the nothing has changed thesis, >> >> Michel >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > From playethical at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 11:00:49 2009 From: playethical at gmail.com (pat kane) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:00:49 +0100 Subject: [iDC] more thoughts about fan-labor/'playbour" Message-ID: HI all Decided to sit down and read the 37,000-odd words so far generated on this list, and it's like riding a bucking bronco... exhilarating, but bruising. I'm hoping to respond to many of the points in specific, but in lieu of that, I thought I'd share this slightly edited fragment from a presentation I made at Cambridge University's CRASSH seminar earlier this year on metrics of creativity (and their impossiblity!). I think It relates to recent iDC discussions on fan-labour and playbour. I'm trying to look at the interactions on our Hue And Cry Music Club site through the lens of two research papers from academics presenting at the seminar - one an anthropologist who studies social creativity in Melanesia, and one from sociologist Nigel Thrift (mentioned by Trebor recently) who has a radical (and to me somewhat pitiless) social theory about innovation in the network age. I kinda feel like Engels the reluctant business partner to the various multiple Marx's on this list, sometimes... hope that a trader's perspective, working through the "murky typologies" of interactive enterprise, may be of interest. best, pk FROM "Taking Reality Lightly: the challenge of play to metrics of creativity" http://www.theplayethic.com/2009/04/measuringcreativity.html LEACH: THE COMMANDS OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY ...The first piece I was given was by my chair, James Leach, titled 'Modes of Creativity'. As I understand it, James is attempting to specify what he would call a 'Euro-American' appropriative model of creativity, rooted in a conception of creativity as the intellectual act of an individual/individuals upon a material world ? a world that remains inanimate until its elements have been recombined or transformed by external mental activity. This conception is the basis of what we might called Western intellectual property and copyright law. Leach compares this mode of creativity to that experienced by Nekgini speakers in the Rai Coast, Melanesia. For me, this was a head- wrenching account of a profoundly non-Western and relentlessly intersubjective world of people and things ? an effect which I expect the best anthropology is designed to do for the reader. But what struck me was actually the possibility that, in the Euro- American techno-culture, an existing middle-ground between these two modes of creativity ? one appropriative, one generative ? might well be opening up, right in the heart of the network society. But that middle-ground is very tough, complex and ambiguous. In short, I found myself comparing a lot of James's distinctions between these two wildly different modes of creativity, with what we're trying to do with an online community website we're running around Hue And Cry, called the Hue And Cry Music Club (http:// hueandcry.ning.com). For the Rai Coast people, James says that their "spirits/songs are seen as a resource ? a powerful one, as they elicit the currency of kinship, the currency through which affinal (reproductive) relations are managed." Well, I don't know that we have kinship, or affinal relations managed through our website (although there's a lot of flirting between members). But it clearly struck me that our songs are a resource and currency for friendship and affiliation between our fans. That's exactly how they use these songs, as they surf and morph these ramifying, malleable networks. The strange thing about networked digitalisation, and the way that it's currently challening old ideas of how to commercialise music, is that it's supporting the kind of 'music as social currency' practices that James sees in indigenous societies. There's a kind of resignation about 'the end of music as property' in the music biz ? which opens up interesting new opportunities for live performance. But other things about the Reite people's mode of creativity sounded familiar to me. I quote James again: "For Reite people creativity is a necessary process. Human life does not continue without it. Humanity is not defined by the contingency of creative action (in thought/mental operation) but by the necessity of embodying and acting creatively? "Relations established with others create those others and oneself in the work of differentiation? We come to this insight through the contrast with intellectual property rights, which make creativity into a specific resource, its presence contingent upon certain conditions of emergence. The notion of resource implies scarcity, and scarcity is a measure of value. But creativity is not scarce in Reite. Resources for these people lie elsewhere. People themselves are valuable, not what they produce as objects." (My italics)" Now I'm struck by how similar the idea that "people themselves are valuable, not what they produce as objects" is to the experience of social networking that our site demonstrates and many social network sites do. Certainly, the experience of social networks is of a realm defined by a plenitude of possibities for creative interaction with others, rather than a scarcity. Our Euro-American, rather than just Melanesian, "necessity for embodying and acting creatively" is possibly disclosed by the radically cooperative nature of socio- technical networks. Clay Shirky in his recent book Here Comes Everybody notes that the cheap organising tools of Web 2.0 ? their propensity for 'insanely easy group-forming' ? are revealing a realm of daily sociability that simply hasn't had the opportunity to express itself in such an organised way before. Another quote from James: As Wagner points out, ?Westerners? value the objects, the outcomes of creativity: ?we keep the ideas, the quotations, the memoirs, the creations and let the people go. Our attics ... [and] museums are full of this kind of culture? (Wagner 1975: 26). In contrast, palems [the groups that the Reite people form] do not last. Torrposts [one of their symbolic objects of exchange] rot away in the bush. Their effect is to maintain separations between people, to distribute ?creativity? throughout existence. Intellectual property regimes have the effect, to the contrary, of concentrating creativity in particular individuals, and then in individual kinds of mental operation which amount to forms of appropriation by the subject." [My italics] In light of this point, wasn't it fascinating to see those recent protests organised against Facebook's explicit 'apprpriation of the subjective flows of its users' sociability? My guess is that the mentality wasn't as much "you're trying to make money our of my stuff', as much as "you're commodifying something which I regard as a record of my sociability with friends and family". It also reminds me of the debates we had in setting up the Music Club ? whether to charge a fee or not. The rule-of-thumb for this in e-commerce is that you get a tenth of the possible community membership if you ask people to pay for a service. The intrinsically commons-based nature of the Net compels any web-commercial enterprise to take into account that, at the very least, the cash nexus has to be sensitively handled, or pushed to the margins. There is a default expectation among users that this is a 'cornucopia of the commons' (however much of a 'tragedy' it might be for one's cash-flow!). My take-away from Leach's paper is that the Euro-American mode of appropriative creativity is already being challenged by open-source production and remix culture. Yet it's the "hybrid" enterprises trying to survive in this environment that concern me ? those that balance closed copyright or enclosed and scarce commodities, with open commuity involvement. Other than via a neo-communism [the social wage suggested by many Italian Marxists and Greens], how else can creators find some way to be recompensed for their art? THRIFT: THE COLD CHILL OF DEPLOYMENT This brings me to the second paper ? Nigel Thrift's Re-inventing Invention. To me this was almost like reportage of our business model, and about a near to a political economy of play as I've ever read, particularly if play is about 'taking reality lightly'. I could talk all day about this, but I'll confine myself to a few comments. What Thrift gets absolutely right is the strategic intent of people like myself who are trying to ply my cultural trade, in what he calls "a different kind of capitalist world, one in which a new epistemic ecology of encounter will dwell and have its effects, a world of indirect but continuous expression, which is also a world in which that expression can backfire on its makers". He also gets it right about what kind of business cultural players, and particularly musicians, are up to in this environment ? "from simply the invention of new commodities to the capture or configuration of new worlds into which these commodities are inserted". As the strap-line for our Music Club has it: "Music, Friendship and More for Hue And Cry Fans". The 'And More' isn't accidental? Another quote: "Consumers have become involved in the production of communities around particular commodities which themselves generate value, by fostering allegiance, by offering instant feedback and by providing active interventions in the commodity itself". That's absolutely accurate about the intentional design, and the eventual usage, of our site. But the key experiential driver of the site is the live experience of watching our band ? urging fans to record the gig on their phones, to record themselves at the gig, to create collages that represent their experience. Professor Thrift puts the relationship between digital plenitude and live experience into his theory as well (he should be a music manager): "In line with the increasing tendency to want to gather invention in wherever it may be found, new time-space arrangements have to be designed that can act as traps for innovation and invention. They are spaces of circulation, then, but, more than that, they are clearly also meant to be, in some (usually poorly specified) way that is related to their dynamic and porous nature, spaces of inspiration incorporating many possible worlds." Thrift is talking here about the well-designed public centres for science and culture that are opening up to house what he calls the 'brainy classes'. But when we do a gig in Shepherd's Bush Empire, is it "a space of inspiration incorporating many possible worlds" ? or an enclosed space in which one artistic experience is dominant? As a songwriter, I'd like to say that there are worlds within and between every song? but some may disagree? For me this is Thrift at his most spookily descriptive of my project as a musician in the world of indirect but continuous expression: "Design has increasingly therefore become re-cast as interaction design : the design of commodities that behave, communicate or inform, if even in the most marginal way, in part by making them into processes of variation and difference that can allow for the unforeseen activities in which they may become involved or, used for which, may then act as clues to further incarnations. In other words, ?the success of a design is arrived at socially? - that is through structured processes of cultural deliberation which massage form? Another way of putting this is that ?through the activity of design the process of production provides information for itself about itself ? This is another means of understanding co-creation, of course, as a continual process of tuning arrived at by distributed aspiration." Our experience of using the modular social networking platform Ning chimes exactly with this. We literally massage the form of this platform, shift one element around, create new ones and kill old ones, in the face of a stream of "unforseen activities" by users that give us clues as how to develop the site. "A continual process of tuning arrived at by distributed aspiration" is precisely descriptive of the relationship between our fans and ourselves through this network ? their enthusiasm as they sit at their terminals throughout the country is indeed a "distributed aspiration", and their actions continually tune the music of our site's design and functionality. And to return to Thrift's initial quote: some of that tuning can be in the face of quite severe critiques from fans, not just for how much we're trying to sell them stuff, but sometimes how little (or how wrongly) we're trying to sell them stuff! Trade and commerce become one form of socially-regulated exchange in the Hue And Cry Music Club, among many other kinds of reciprocations, with no prior place in any hierarchy of actions within the site. But there are points where that co-creation of the Hue And Cry interactive reality is limited or arrested. For example, my brother and I are still wedded to the idea of an CD with 12-15 songs, produced in seclusion by myself and my brother, the result of a silting-up of experience and living, and brought out to the world as a punctual event. As artists, we still want to reserve that old Romantic right to conduct an act of poiesis ? rather than be always lost in the cybernetic coils of autopoiesis. And we believe that our fans want that also. I know what Thrift means when he talks of "a world made incarnate by a co-shaping which is an intrinsic property neither of the human being nor of the artefact", or when he dreams of "an animated economy in which the entities being dealt with are not people but innovations that are constantly trying to multiply themselves, ?quanta of change with a life of their own?"? a world dependent upon and activated by germs of talent, which are driven by sentiments and knowledge and are able to circulate easily through a semiconscious process of imitation that generates difference from within itself. The world becomes a continuous and inexhaustible process of emergence of inventions that goes beyond slavish accumulation." I know what he means ? or I should say, I know what he memes? But emotionally, do I want to live there? I've rarely been as chilled in reading social theory when I read Thrift on one of the new sensibilities he thinks is worth charting in this new, full-on capitalism. This is a permanent tactical manoevering with the way the world is, an endless 'war of position' in everyday life: all of us interactives in a state of permanent, combative deployment (rather than employment) of one's energies and skills. (Thrift takes his metaphor from the Chinese military ethic of shi). I returned rather gladly to James Leach's point that our over- intellectualised model of creativity does not consider how we socially reproduce that creativity, through families, affective ties, nuturance and community. For all the excitement of Thrift's non- human, cyborg-style modern consciousness, I'm still not surprised that most pop songs are about love. Or that some can present the best and most searching ethical questions you ever heard (or didn't want to hear). Pat Kane http://theplayethic.typepad.com/patkane Mob: +44 (0)7718 588497 Twitter: theplayethic Ideas: http://www.theplayethic.com http://delicious.com/theplayethic http://www.softpowernetwork.com Music: http://www.hueandcry.co.uk http://hueandcry.ning.com http://theplayethic.typepad.com/patkane All mail to: playethical at gmail.com The idea is all there is. Trust me. - Ornette Coleman http://bit.ly/2VDLPI -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090614/699dab60/attachment-0001.htm From scubitt at unimelb.edu.au Sun Jun 14 11:30:55 2009 From: scubitt at unimelb.edu.au (Sean Cubitt) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:30:55 +1000 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There's an adage in policy studies: we rarely make entirely new policy, but adapt previous solutions. Thus the national base of telegraphy was adopted by telecoms, held straight through to the formation of ICANN, and then becomes a problem because the internet is not just quantitatively more transnational but qualitatively so, at which point there comes a crisis, and attempts to reform regulatory regimes (in this instance through IGF or, if you're Chinese, ITU - a step back towards national governance or at least inter-governmental). Karl marx observed something similar concerning the 18th Brumaire. Santayana observed that those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it.. Elsewhere marx suggested that the dead weight of histroy weighs on the minds of the living like a nightmae (I think he had the folkloric image of the dreamhorse in mind) Despite the legacy of cangouilhem (Foucault, Althusser etc) history rarely proceeds by revolution but by increment. Thus the immaterialisation of labour can be cheerfully traced back to the 'control crisis' of the 1860s and 1870s (using Beniger's term). That such labour is in fact entirely material ios evident from the increasing environmental footprint of office work, not to mention the health and safety aspects. Jeremy's realism makes sense, save that 'fundamentally the human condition' is - I'm sure this is familiar turf - an uncomfortably universalising phrase. The condition of humans differs radically between here and the house next door, let alone between my kitchen and the kitchen of the coffee farmer who supplies my breakfast. That I am even aware of her existence - and she of mine, at least in terms of the price she gets for her crop - is evidence that something might have changed - incrementally. It isn't the condition so much as the relation that matters: the old bearded patriarch of the British Library with the boils on his bum was not so wide of the mark: relations between humans appear in the fantastical guise of a relation between things. And services, I suppose we shd add Change is the human condition: O Fortuna. Difference is the base of labour and of human relations in general. The question is whether the commodity relation means that we are not only equal but interchangeable, and that the differences become something like potential difference, what demands flow, and in our instance regulated flows The persistence of the past - not just of memory or nostalgia but of things, patterns, habits, atavisms, spiritualities and policy frameworks like Westphalia ? the persistenc eof the past is the ground on which we make the future. As Adorno says in criticism of Wittgenstein: the world is all that is not the case, all that is potential, all that could be but isn't. That is the difference between labour and work, and it is work that is the valuable rather than play, which has been assimilated into the artificial playworlds of corporate culture and the ideology of consumption far more successfully than the idea of work as the production of value other than exchange and sign. I really shd get to bed sean Sean On 14/06/09 4:00 AM, "davin heckman" wrote: > I like the "nothing has changed" vs. "everything has changed" > dichotomy, only insofar as we can use it to force the following > questions: > > 1. IF everything has changed in a material sense (what we use, what we > own, how we get it, etc.), what, if any, continuity exists in our > social and cultural existence? (For instance, many people still brush > their teeth, and base their decisions on perceived progressive > technological norms for hygiene. We must strive for sterility, > whiteness, sanitation, hotness, etc. So, while the motivation remains > the same, the techniques for selling oral hygiene have > changed--toothbrushes have batteries, you can have your teeth > whitened, tongue scraped, etc. But the basic drive is somewhat > continuous, even if it has intensified due to the availability of > consumer technologies and techniques for marketing them. > > 2. IF everything stays the same, what, if any, changes have been made > in the social and cultural sphere? We still use internal combustion > engines. It is an old technology and an inferior one. At one point > it was regarded as new and revolutionary (which was how the technology > was sold), but now it is reliable and stable and our way of life > depends on it (or, at least, these are the arguments used to justify > it.). A bike is too hard. Trains are too expensive. You will lose > your freedom. Electric cars are risky. It's a liberal pipe dream. > Etc. > > Sometimes, you can do the exact same thing, but with profoundly > different effects. (Think of the history of the word "negro." For a > moment in time, it was used as an alternative to a more disparaging > word, and was thus a marker of respect. In our current milieu, it is > considered a negative term.) Yet, Rush Limbaugh was able to play with > the term "magic negro," to stoke resentment in a passive aggressive > way, to be racist in spirit while looking less racist in form. > > The answers to both of those questions tend to have similar roots, in > that they privilege the inertia that is inherent in large institutions > and markers of power. And if you always ask those questions, you can > avoid falling into the novelty or nostalgia modes, and just > concentrate on what really matters: People. Which is the point, that > Jeremy was making. > > Peace! > Davin > > On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 7:33 AM, jeremy hunsinger wrote: >> Hi, ?I actually want to place my position as 'realism' ?not 'oldism' >> nor 'newism' ?In this discussion, I'm particularly against 2 forms of >> promotion one is novelty and its associated fictions, and the other is >> nostalgia. >> >> I don't think that I argued that 'nothing changes' ? what I was trying >> to say is that fundamentally the human condition in late capitalism >> hasn't changed. ?Now you can argue that there is new, exciting >> differences, and surely there are, but then i bring up the questions, >> for whom, for what, and why... >> >> >> >> On Jun 13, 2009, at 12:34 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: >> >>> >>> Hi Jeremy, >>> >>> it seems to me there are two pitfalls to avoid when we discuss >>> changes, >>> >>> one is oldism, nothing really ever changes, one is newism, >>> everything is changing all at once. >>> >>> It seems to me that your point of view is very close to oldism ... >>> yes, we are all still struggling to live and eat and love and pay >>> rent, just as it was 20 30 years ago, we are still watching media, >>> still buying stuff ... >>> >>> - but are we watching the same media and doing the same things with >>> them? >> >> have to say this will depend on how you look at things, i tend to look >> at things as systems of practices and conventions/norms which become >> institutionalized. ? So from my perspective, certain technologies in >> web 2.0 relate to new practices. ?However, in terms of things like >> 'watching' tv, 'listening' to music, etc., ?'playing' games, ?we may >> have added another level of mediation, but I am not always convinced >> that the layer of mediation has changed things. ?For instance, there >> was a huge cultural change surrounding music with the development of >> the sony walkman... but did the mp3/ipod change the practices in >> significant ways, yes perhaps in terms of purchasing, as you can argue >> about the downfall of the 'album', but did it change consumption of >> said music, i'd have to think that it isn't as much we'd think. ? The >> question is one of data and interpretation, in the end, but there >> needs to be some basis for the discussions and arguments about labour, >> no? >> >> >>> >>> - are we buying the same things and listening to the same people >>> when we buy? >> >> I have changed brands of toothpaste. ? now where did that influence >> come from? ?I think it came from standing in the grocery store trying >> to find the one i was using and being unable, so moving to a more >> stable brand. ?Now, don't get me wrong there have been huge changes in >> grocery shopping in the last 20 years. ?However, I'm not that >> convinced that the practices are that different. >> >>> >>> - are we doing the same things when we're not working, and working >>> the same? >> >> Maybe... maybe not. ?This is the central question isn't it? ?I think >> the problem here is that the debate was centered on a smallish >> population which is somewhat unrepresentative of the human condition. >> However, you may argue, for instance, as we have heard argued.... that >> the olpc's presence in the developed world will revolutionize their >> economies, etc. etc. ?transform them etc. etc. ?I prefer to remain >> skeptical. ?Some people did become somewhat more wealthy with the >> advent of the olpc. ?I have not seen widespread social or economic >> change. >> >> >>> >>> What does it mean for a society when most media buys are bought by >>> peer recommendation? >> >> I don't know about you, but when i was a kid, that is how i bought >> music. >> >>> What does it mean when an increasing number of ?mothers go to >>> Mumsnet instead of asking their doctor? >> >> Is that different from talking to their church group or other social >> discussion they were likely involved in before it was mediated? >> >>> What does it mean when 58% of the citizens of Malmo are reportedly >>> engaged in one form of peer production or another? >> >> seems pretty small population, i suspect a definition error in the >> survey. ?I don't think i could get less than 98% if we defined it as >> producing things with other people. >> >>> >>> So I would find it more productive to look at these changes and see >>> to what degree they have changed life and the structure of society, >>> to see what has changed, what not, etc... rather than say, 'nothing >>> has changed'. >> >> I'd prefer to remain skeptical that there is 'change', especially >> massive change until we actually find a way that demonstrates that it >> is happening. ?Otherwise, i think we are just fetishizing the >> practices of a minority, and in doing that we are reifying those >> practices and likely universalizing them in ways that are unwarranted. >> >> Don't get me wrong, things do change, but then again the question is >> did they change in a way that is reflected for the majority of >> people? ?likely not, and if not, why are we focussing our efforts on >> the minority, when the difference might just be the difference between >> the majority and the minority, instead of the minority at time x >> versus the minority at time z. >> >>> >>> Living in Chiang Mai before the internet age would have been >>> dramatically different for us 'expats', as reported by the old >>> timers I have discussed the issue with, as are the much more intense >>> relations of diasporic immigrant communities with their homeland. >>> >>> The idea that these changes are only affecting an elite is also very >>> questionable. I live in Thailand, where there are a multitude of >>> cybercafe's in city streets, and you will find them in the most >>> remote villages; there are reports that it has quite dramatically >>> changed the life of Chinese workers, who skype their families in the >>> villages, and look up comparative wage scales, moving to regions and >>> factories where higher, leading to a substantial rise in wages .. >>> (I'm sure there were other factors, but that one shouldn't be >>> discounted, as reported by labor organizers). >>> >>> Again, I'm not saying that everything has changed, that all is for >>> the better, but would you argue that the invention of print did not >>> contribute to major changes in social structures, however long that >>> took. And is it not to be expected that a massive increase in >>> hitherto impossible peer communication and media expression would >>> contribute to important social changes ... >>> >> >> That isn't really what I was arguing, I was trying to make a point of >> the construction of 'profound change' and 'novelty', but I do agree >> with you. ?The question for me is really how we present the change and >> it's real effects. ?The digital diaspora is a great case of how >> information technology has enabled a population to maintain social >> ties across great distances, and likely changed the relations of their >> everyday lives. ?People can now call home, text, etc. and maintain >> those contacts. ?That transforms what we mean by diaspora and >> transforms the practices around it. >> >> But does it change labour for most people? profoundly? >> >> >>> Count me as a sceptic regarding the nothing has changed thesis, >>> >>> Michel >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref Prof Sean Cubitt scubitt at unimelb.edu.au Director Media and Communications Program Faculty of Arts Room 127?John Medley East The University of Melbourne Parkville VIC 3010 Australia Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667 Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494 M: 0448 304 004 Skype: seancubitt http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/ http://www.digital-light.net.au/ http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/ http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/ http://del.icio.us/seancubitt Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series http://leonardo.info From joe.edelman at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 23:23:48 2009 From: joe.edelman at gmail.com (Joe Edelman) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:23:48 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: <944824.3629.qm@web50801.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <743B5611-BB2E-4D8F-AAA5-084B88B8C115@gmail.com> Davin, Michael: I think that the distinction between online organizing and "some physical experience" is about to erode. It's based on a "social media" world where computers are in people's basements instead of in their pockets, and where friend-of-a-friend data is more easy to come by than who-is-nearby data. These things are technological and they are changing fast. In many parts of the world computers were never in basements, only in pockets, and people's first experiences with social media were via text messages leading directly to face time. This will turn out to be more the basic model. Thank god! Who wants a world of people in their basements? Let's take to the streets. --Joe -- J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 On Jun 13, 2009, at 2:14 PM, davin heckman wrote: > I agree with you, actually. (Which is why I am on this list. I do > not know any of the people face to face, but I do feel a strong sense > of affection and solidarity, especially when exchanges get personal > and force us to be present, responsible, and accountable to each > other). > > I think, however, that the prerequisite for strong online organization > is successful experience to some physical experience. I am skeptical > about the idea online activism could precede "live" activism. A > large, diverse, and successful political action is a very hard thing > to pull off.... and the rewards are often realized in subtle ways... > especially if you "lose." The sense of danger, the feelings of > dependence, the way in which individual limitations are transcended > through solidarity, and how disappointments lead to other positives. > > But through all this you learn how to be an activist. It changes who > you are, becomes a part of your being. (And in a small community, > especially, it marks you as a particular kind of person, which has its > downsides, but also ups the ante in a good way.) And, then you kind > of have to seek other people out and connect with them.... which is > where, I think, social media comes in. > > Peace! > Davin > > On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 10:59 PM, Michael > Bauwens wrote: >> >> >> >> >> Hi David, >> >> I'm very sympathetic to your point of view, rooted in struggle and >> real life experience, and indeed, social media is no panacea. >> >> However, it seems your example is rooted in local organizing, but >> what about the translocal. >> >> I wouldn't want to overstate the community aspects of my own work >> at the P2P Foundation, but I see it as a forum for serious >> discourse and exchange, aimed at 'changing the world', and I have >> enough anecdotal evidence, emails sent by many people, to indicate >> that is has sustained hope and strength in many different people. >> >> So, actually, in the end, I do not agree, discouraging people from >> using social media is pretty much like discouraging people from >> using TV, it won't work, because it offers too many benefits. So I >> would rather say, go with the use (no use to push people at all, >> they are all doing it by themselves anyway), but try to change that >> use, by infusing consciousness, a sense of the possible, and a >> sense that new futures can be co-constructed, both f2f and through >> social media. >> >> But indeed, I also object to just "playing around", signing >> petitions that have no effect at all, etc... >> >> There is I think something in between the two positions, >> >> Michel >> >> >> ----- Original Message ---- >>> From: davin heckman >>> To: "idc at mailman.thing.net" >>> Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 10:47:52 PM >>> Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and >>> Factory >>> >>> I was at a barbecue about a week ago, chatting with my brother-in- >>> law, >>> who's a labor organizer. He's less concerned with swelling the >>> ranks >>> of a particular union than he is with talking to working people >>> about >>> how they can, by talking with each other, improve their situation. >>> >>> As a teacher, I was interested in picking his brain on how I could >>> use >>> some of his work to help my students talk about their lives, >>> formulate >>> their responses, and organize themselves around issues that matter >>> to >>> them. Naturally, the talk turned to social media as a possibility >>> and >>> an obstacle for such organization. >>> >>> His advice to me, based on anecdotal evidence, was to advise >>> students >>> against using social media for organizing until they had strong >>> face-to-face relationships. And then, only use it sparingly, as a >>> tool. His experience, based on work with 20-50 year old working >>> folks >>> was that attitudes quickly devolve into patterns consistent with the >>> consumption of entertainment--you do it when you have time, when >>> it is >>> fun, and with the multitude of available channels of information >>> it is >>> too easy to avoid bare-knuckle conflicts (even when exchanges become >>> hot). In his view, the contexts which require organizing the most >>> are >>> those which are going to be risky--where you might lose your job, >>> face >>> retaliation, and, in some cases, get beaten. And so, you need a >>> tight >>> social relationship in which people are willing to sacrifice for >>> each >>> other. His efforts at organizing online were weak... they >>> generated >>> good talk among those who participated... but they did not >>> translate >>> into a strong group, unless the group was rooted in face-to-face >>> relationships. >>> >>> The view he articulated to me was basically the one that I had been >>> moving more closely to over the years--watching students organize an >>> organization with 200 members on facebook, and then showing up to an >>> empty meeting. On the other hand, groups with no online presence >>> can >>> have very active meetings. Part of me wonders if there is a divide >>> between social media use in large metropolitan areas, where there >>> are >>> lots of things going on... versus life in smaller cities and towns, >>> where people have more limited activities to choose from and less >>> money to spend on entertainment. Maybe in big cities or among >>> certain >>> demographic groups, social media "works" better. Where I live and >>> teach, it tends to fall flat. If I want someone to help out with >>> something, I have to put in face-to-face time. I've lived in places >>> where you could choose from several Critical Mass bike rides to >>> attend... but then there are huge swaths of territory where people >>> say, "Critical Mass? What's that?" And then, when you explain, >>> they >>> say, "Why would you want to do that?" >>> >>> To finally get to my point, and I'm not trying to say there is >>> anything wrong with Web 2.0 stuff, but I do think in terms of social >>> potential it requires the user to approach it with a certain set of >>> priorities, a certain consciousness, and a learned orientation. IF >>> the learned orientation is geared towards a rudimentary form of >>> consumption, the space is going to be filled with similar >>> priorities, >>> perhaps with a bit more detail and elaboration. But it does not >>> inevitably lead towards anything utopian, except in the kind of >>> watered-down neoliberal sense where we call fun "utopia." On the >>> other hand, if people habitually have robust relationships that are >>> tied to consequence, they are more likely to place those >>> expectations >>> onto any medium that they are invested in. Even if consumers become >>> "green consumers" or "hipsters" (or whatever the thing to do is)... >>> as long as "the good" is framed primarily as an enlightened approach >>> to individual consumer choices... it will be hard to respond to >>> employers and corporations who coordinate their decision-making in >>> an >>> integrated way, facilitated by market research, lobbying, finance, >>> etc. >>> >>> In general, contemporary critical theory is frightened of tackling >>> concepts like guilt, sacrifice, duty, responsibility, etc. Such >>> concepts are toxic to neoliberalism (except in those cases when they >>> can be exploited, like when neglected children learn to nag their >>> overworked parents into buying shit to make up for their absence), >>> and >>> consequently, generations of people are afraid of these feelings. >>> But, if social media is going to work, it needs to be able to carry >>> consequences in proportion to risks. If they are going to translate >>> into material effects, the virtual actions must be tied to embodied >>> responses. >>> >>> How do we do this? Well... my brother-in-law does a great job >>> organizing people. Educators have an opportunity to connect >>> students >>> to this reality. And, artists can do this in their work. >>> Unfortunately, there aren't enough organizers, artists, and >>> educators >>> doing this. It requires active effort and hard work by people who >>> are >>> conscious of the problem. More importantly, we need to imagine an >>> entire education which is geared towards fostering an ethical view >>> that is capable of seeing systems of power beyond individual >>> decisions. >>> >>> If the Internet is a factory, then maybe we should follow the >>> model of >>> past efforts of successful organizing.... And this usually takes >>> place when the workers are off the clock, when they can have candid >>> discussions, and when they can get to know each other personally and >>> intimately. Especially in the case of the web, where people can get >>> so caught up in posturing and image-management, it might be doubly >>> powerful to be cared for and accepted in the flesh, where we feel a >>> little flabbier and look a bit more blemished, where there is no >>> backspace to filter out a personality flaw. >>> >>> Peace! >>> >>> Davin Heckman >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >>> (distributedcreativity.org) >>> iDC at mailman.thing.net >>> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >>> >>> List Archive: >>> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >>> >>> iDC Photo Stream: >>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >>> >>> RSS feed: >>> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >>> >>> iDC Chat on Facebook: >>> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >>> >>> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> >> >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From biella at nyu.edu Sun Jun 14 12:00:40 2009 From: biella at nyu.edu (Gabriella Coleman) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:00:40 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: <4A34E668.7090208@nyu.edu> Just affirming what folks say below, with a slightly different focus. When it comes to activism, there is real power in online organizing but without face-to-face time, the ties remain weak, though it does not necessarily have to be constant face-to-face either. Put the two together, especially through the medium of the conference (which I treat in my work as ritual underside of publics) and you you get some gas on fire (this is also explored in Ned Rossiter's work as well). One reason that most of the larger FOSS projects scaled so well is because of the developer conferences the hold, which are not simply pragmatic affairs, but a celebratory ones, often intoxicating (emotionally and due to lots of alcohol). Though draining, far more than academic ones, which are already pretty tiring, they revitalize commitments and keep people attuned and participating. One of the early failure, imho, of Indymedia, was not holding a yearly (or every other year) conference as it would have helped to sustain the network. Of course, there are huge environmental factors to consider for this modern day pilgrimage (requiring more regional and less international events) but nonetheless one that is crucial for making online activism sustainable though time. Biella **************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman I agree with you, actually. (Which is why I am on this list. I do not know any of the people face to face, but I do feel a strong sense of affection and solidarity, especially when exchanges get personal and force us to be present, responsible, and accountable to each other). I think, however, that the prerequisite for strong online organization is successful experience to some physical experience. I am skeptical about the idea online activism could precede "live" activism. A large, diverse, and successful political action is a very hard thing to pull off.... and the rewards are often realized in subtle ways... especially if you "lose." The sense of danger, the feelings of dependence, the way in which individual limitations are transcended through solidarity, and how disappointments lead to other positives. But through all this you learn how to be an activist. It changes who you are, becomes a part of your being. (And in a small community, especially, it marks you as a particular kind of person, which has its downsides, but also ups the ante in a good way.) And, then you kind of have to seek other people out and connect with them.... which is where, I think, social media comes in. Peace! Davin From jhuns at vt.edu Sun Jun 14 12:54:06 2009 From: jhuns at vt.edu (jeremy hunsinger) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:54:06 -0400 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <96BE0824-5B03-431D-BF38-52968A946DC9@vt.edu> > > > Jeremy's realism makes sense, save that 'fundamentally the human > condition' > is - I'm sure this is familiar turf - an uncomfortably universalising > phrase. Yes, i worry about the universalization possible there, I think that though there is more pluralistic particularistic possibilities in the idea of a human condition than there is in the generalizng rhetoric of the digital play and labor. So i used it more of as a hand-waving covering concept to the set of shared circumstances, narratives, etc. Though it is meant to tease out, in time, a position of critique. > > > The persistence of the past - not just of memory or nostalgia but of > things, > patterns, habits, atavisms, spiritualities and policy frameworks like > Westphalia ? the persistenc eof the past is the ground on which we > make the > future. As Adorno says in criticism of Wittgenstein: the world is > all that > is not the case, all that is potential, all that could be but isn't. > That is > the difference between labour and work, and it is work that is the > valuable > rather than play, which has been assimilated into the artificial > playworlds > of corporate culture and the ideology of consumption far more > successfully > than the idea of work as the production of value other than exchange > and > sign. I agree, I just tend to use different terms, conventions, norms, controversies, modalities and trajectories. Those myriad of things in the assemblages projecting lines of flight, etc. The 'history' the generates the 'current' From eric_gordon at emerson.edu Sun Jun 14 15:10:55 2009 From: eric_gordon at emerson.edu (Eric Gordon) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:10:55 -0400 Subject: [iDC] attention and the classroom In-Reply-To: <473847.54884.qm@web50803.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <90F9E8CA-8C14-469D-9496-D3F80295F8F2@emerson.edu> <473847.54884.qm@web50803.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <863F4B77-1A8C-4F41-8871-3C26BFEB4423@emerson.edu> Michael, Thanks for your comment. My use of the term monolithic is in reference to normative assumptions about attention in the classroom. I'm referring to the ideal outward appearance of attentional discipline, which includes a forward-facing gaze, looking down only momentarily to take notes. This particular outward appearance, or personal front as Goffman calls it, is a monolithic ideal, in the sense that the debates about short attention spans and distraction in the classroom is measured against it. On one hand, there is this concept of the undivided attention of a group of people (with its recognizable front and assumptions about effectiveness), and on the other there is distraction (with its evolving front that includes heads down in laptops, glances to others in the "audience," such that what is taking place at the podium does not appear front and center). The latter is a challenge to what is the presumption of a monolithic attentional regime. What I tried to communicate in my post (and what is communicated more clearly in the full article) is that this challenge can be a good thing. The personal front of attentional discipline does not necessarily equal better learning or better experience. And the "tools of distraction," such as Twitter, Google, etc. can in fact enhance the learning experience, despite appearances that suggest the contrary. This begs the question of labor, as I am proposing that some of the "work" of the lecture be distributed to the audience and that educators need to adapt to the subsequent outward appearance of this distribution. Indeed, I am arguing that educators need to take part in designing for attention so that they might participate and take some control in this distribution. In short, assumptions about the appearance of classroom attention is monolithic. The redistribution of attention in the classroom challenges these assumptions and opens up the possibility for better learning environments. Eric On Jun 13, 2009, at 1:50 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > Hi Eric, > > I wonder about your use of the concept of 'monolithic' and what it > exactly means > > if you'd say monopolistic it's easy to understand in terms of their > dominance > > but the information on them is very far from monolithic, as is their > usage in terms of attention diversity > > so I find your comparison with a lecture confusing, since the use of > these media, with multitasking, short attention spans and multi- > tasking is almost exactly the opposite ... > > thanks for explaining, > > Michel > > > > ----- Original Message ---- >> From: Eric Gordon >> To: idc at mailman.thing.net >> Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2009 10:46:03 PM >> Subject: [iDC] attention and the classroom >> >> I've been following the conversation about the Internet as playground >> and factory with great interest and have been inspired to chime in. >> Lately I've been thinking about that most mysterious currency of the >> Internet: user attention. Certainly, the economy of the Internet >> trades in it. As Frank pointed out awhile back: "We all ?pay >> attention? (literally and figuratively) at monolithic sites like >> Google, Facebook, and eBay." Their business model is premised on how >> much we pay attention and how little we stray. What's interesting to >> me is how this model of monolithic attention gathering has >> similarities to the models of attention we have established for the >> classroom. Students should pay total attention to the professor. >> Distractions like open windows, buzzing from florescent light bulbs, >> chatter in the hallway, or god forbid, laptops and cell phones, >> threaten to chip away at the age old concept of undivided attention. >> In fact, these distractions threaten to turn classroom attention into >> an economy - where there is exchange and value for glances, foci, and >> thoughts. In the 1970s, Erving Goffman gave a lecture called "The >> Lecture." In it, he challenges the dominance of the subject of the >> lecture and its corresponding forward facing gaze and suggests that, >> in fact, students also pay attention to what he calls "the custard" >> of >> the situation - that stuff, including the joke before the lecture >> begins, the notes on the table, the noises in the room. All of this >> composes the situation and necessarily, the attention of students >> flows in and out of the custard and subject at hand. >> >> The Internet provides a new way into the context Goffman introduced >> decades ago. Open laptops with live twittering, web searching, SMS - >> all of this is part of the custard of interaction and part of the >> economy of attention that composes the situation of the classroom. >> Instead of banning these technologies from the classroom, as many a >> university is want to do, the answer is instead to harness them and >> to >> actively participate in establishing the rules of the economy. In an >> article I recently completed with my colleague David Bogen, I refer >> to >> this process as "designing choreographies of attention." (The >> complete article can be found here: >> http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/2/000049.html) >> . We argue that educators should not fall back on monolithic >> models >> of undivided attention, and instead engage in this kind of design, >> which can transform the space of the classroom - complicating the >> relationships between front and back, professor and student, and peer >> to peer. In this case, the particular and thoughtful appropriation >> of >> Internet tools challenges the traditional economies of attention - >> both those established by the professorate centuries ago as well as >> those perpetuated by Google and its ilk. Despite its dominant >> business models, the Internet can help us rethink traditions; it can >> help us break down barriers and transform spaces. I'm interested in >> seeing this happen in the classroom. I'm interested in using these >> tools to harness distraction as a means of producing more vibrant >> (and >> dare I say focused) educational spaces. >> >> I'm quite interested to know how others respond to this proposition >> and specifically how it might feed into the larger discussion about >> labor. Indeed, students' attention is labor, whether it's undivided >> or not. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > > From psp at ontologystream.com Sun Jun 14 16:17:23 2009 From: psp at ontologystream.com (Paul Prueitt) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:17:23 -0500 Subject: [iDC] on the issue of attentional mechanism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2447EDB6-9AA6-47BA-B75C-6718C98D226A@ontologystream.com> On Jun 14, 2009, at 6:38 AM, Eric Gordon wrote: >> I'm quite interested to know how others respond to this proposition? >> and specifically how it might feed into the larger discussion about? >> labor.? Indeed, students' attention is labor, whether it's undivided? >> or not. One topic that has been skirted over the past weeks here is the issue of mechanism and the use of mechanism to too strongly shape consumption behavior. We as educators may need to find natural science (to be clear, I mean a new science that is not purely reductionist) in more of what we talk about with students. I wish to gain attention on this topic. A thesis has emerged in my work over several decades that avoidance behavior in the mathematics class is an immune response like phenomenon having the form of a socially induced cognitive disability. The thesis claims evidence of specific biological mechanism in the cognitive and immune response systems of individuals. This absence of real skill in arithmetic, demonstrated by now a large percentage of the adult population, is a behavior maintained by replication - of parts of attention phenomenon, as experienced by young college students. The parts to whole aggregation of individual behavioral patterns is then dependent on (replicated) parts of attention phenomenon. The thesis and a recommendation is given in www.mathPedagogy.com/bridge.doc The core conclusion is that failure of shift viewpoint is a form of fundamentalism, and that the media - in spite of its "attentional diversity" - has but one message: buy, buy now, buy this, buy anything, just buy. The evolutionary solution piggy backs on social networking technology, and use phenomenon. This fundamentalism phenomenon is based, my monograph claims, on how the brain uses phase coherence and thus to the notion of coherence. A theory of multi-modal thought, and the regaining of the ability to shift viewpoint is indicated as a lifting pedagogy; Socratic and constructivist in nature. The new technology paradigm presented in the monograph is ideal for aggregation of social networking intention, The user is assisted in building profiles that are 100% under the individual's control - and this assistance gives the individual control over "individual information space". Once this assistance is embodied as a part of the social communication medium, deep change in behavioral patterns are expected. I conclude this note with the observation that positive evolutionary forces would be expected, under the lifting pedagogy thesis, to evolve an individual ability to maintain many distinct information spaces, and to flee into those that are comfortable when social forces forces us into conflicts. The mathematics class has been for decades a social abuse, as experienced by the most common types of student. However, the control over the individual by the consumption economy can become "uncomfortable" as the individual reaches into self identity and re-expresses the native desire to know about the physical world - through science and mathematics and through contemplation. The shift is then made as we more fully understand the interdependencies in economic and environmental systems; and the necessity of behavioral shifts involving a finer actual control over attentional mechanism. I am making a number of deep assumptions regarding the "nature of self", of course; and stand ready to acknowledge errors in my thinking regarding these assumptions. Paul Prueitt Norwich University Advanced Computing Center -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090614/235facbc/attachment.htm From jhuns at vt.edu Mon Jun 15 11:02:02 2009 From: jhuns at vt.edu (jeremy hunsinger) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:02:02 -0400 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: <974385.28040.qm@web50810.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> <895092.68628.qm@web50805.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <974385.28040.qm@web50810.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jun 15, 2009, at 12:44 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > Hi Jeremy, > > Thanks for the precisions, > > I think we could debate this forever, I'm arguing that things have > changed, pointing to the evidence in the things that have changed, > and you to the fact that things haven't changed that much, for most > people, pointing to evidence in things staying the same. > > But I do not find this a very interesting debate. My approach would > be, we now have technical possibilities to globally coordinate small > teams to create very complex social artefacts, in ways that > outcompete traditional capitalist wage-labour formats, that increase > the level of autonomy in important ways. ahh, i'd say they just as well limit autonomy. as for the global small teams, there has to the best of my knowledge been a transnational elite class capable of the actions you indicate for a very long time. Sometimes they are very successful, sometimes not. Ancient Athens for instance had a whole class of such people, the metics. Now the goal would be to establish that the new communication regime changes things for the transnational small team, which it does, speed changes everything... Virilio talks about that in Speed and Politics, amongst other places. In Popular Defense and Ecological struggles though, he discusses one effect that capital and speed engines have on individuals and populations, specifically here I am thinking of the way capital transforms people into mobile slaves, the people 'look free' but they are in the end all working for capital as capital and capitalism... is not outside, it is integrated into the world. I think this is somewhat similar to what Jacques Camatte describes in his work, but somewhat different also. > > How do we increase and protect that autonomy in the face of the > integration of those practices in new adapted forms of capitalism, > or even use them to go beyond those limits. Why do we want to? perhaps autonomy is just an ideological construct developed from the individualism of modernity. I'd suspect that 'autonomous workers' are ideal for capital, and we can see this in recent debates about mobility of workforces. Why is it that governments want to create mobile autonomous workforces? It would seem in the digital age that people could on the other hand work from where they want to live and telecommute to where there labor is needed? > Alternatively, we focus on the recuperation practices and decide > that the 'adversary' has already won, and can return to our > comfortable jobs of being paid to be critical, or just leave all > those capabilities to others. I'm not paid to be critical. > > I find the minorities that decide to be co-creative more > interesting, and this is the whole world, than those who prefer to > consume passively, oblivious of the new potential, and believe that > historically it is always such minorities that have caused change. > I've never known a minority that weren't co-creative. Though... there are likely stable cultures, perhaps the Sentinalese in the Adaman islands... I don't know. > The labour movement of the 19th century fought hard for universal > literacy, public libraries and access to education, and I believe > contemporary organizers are doing just the same, they are not > waiting for a hypothetical OPLC, but using the tools at hand ... > Does that mean they are 'winning' ... of course not, not by itself, > but it is part of the toolbox of change ... > yes, but change for what. Andrew Carnegie funded hundreds of libraries, what was his goal in that? It was to benefit mankind, much along the way that a mobile workforce benefits mankind. Education does help, but here we have the issue of... 'what education','whose education'. Utah Phillips used to say that he was well educated, but there was a problem with that, because he saw that he was educated to see the heroes and paradigms of rich as the highest merits, they put in the buttons and levers that made him an ideal servant (i'm paraphrasing) and it was only after he had been in the world enough that he began to see there was another history, another set of narratives, that educations and libraries didn't contain, or if they did contain it, the presented it in ways that demeaned it. That's why he claims he became a singer/songwriter, because the stories people needed to hear were primarily orally transmitted culture. in any case, there is usually a bit of bias in the historical ideas of literacy and education.... They are not usually found to be tools that serve autonomy in any necessary way... The usually do benefit people though (at least to my enlightenment ideals mindset). They could..., but here i find the story of the term 'literacy' to be somewhat informative, but that i think is a huge debate. > Michel > > > > From julian at kuecklich.de Mon Jun 15 08:09:43 2009 From: julian at kuecklich.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julian_K=FCcklich?=) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:09:43 +0100 Subject: [iDC] =?iso-8859-1?q?response_to_M=2E_Goldhaber=27s_response_to_J?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ulian_K=FCcklich?= In-Reply-To: <0456C740-0B49-4809-9556-9C02DC4A1EE3@pratt.edu> References: <0456C740-0B49-4809-9556-9C02DC4A1EE3@pratt.edu> Message-ID: <7d9726080906150109n7f94611lcf62bf8b002b744b@mail.gmail.com> Here's a sort of postscript on microfame. [Mon, 15 June, 07:57 GMT] cycus: Thou shalt follow @cucchiaio for being the personification of ludology and coolnerdism, spitting out teenage angst poetry in a reflected way. cucchiaio: @cycus Aww, thx. That's an awfully nice follow recommendation. cycus: @cucchiaio was a pleasure since I'm consistently laughing my ass off with your? dark sarcasm cucchiaio: Thinking about microfame and microfascism. #idc #theory cucchiaio: One of the (manymany) problems of academic discourse is that it cannot overcome its oedipal fixation with scholarly celebrities. #idc markbuchholz: @cucchiaio I think microfame for many is when their jokes got retweetet by a handful of twitter-bots cucchiaio: I mean, how can you sustain a critique of celebrity culture while referencing Marx, Weber, Benjamin, Debord, McLuhan, Deleuze, etc.? #idc cucchiaio: @markbuchholz Well, that's precisely what it is. Microfame is mundane, self-referential, and unit-operational. Long live the twitterbots! [Mon, 15 June, 08:42 GMT] 2009/6/14 Jonathan Beller : > To continue the conversation: > > First of all, writ large, the structure of the celebrity is a fascistic one > -- the accrual of social power by individuals via the captured attention of > the masses, exactly parallels the accrual of social power by the capitalist > via the captured labor of the masses. This is not an accidental > correspondence but rather an intensification of the very processes that > created new forms of recognition and personality nascent in bourgeois > capitalism. And, by personality, I do not only mean the exterior trappings > that allow a face to be recognized, I mean also the intense elaboration of > subjectivity and interiority associated with the richly textured experiences > of high bourgeois culture. In the case of the capitalist, the celebrity and > the fascist dictator, the individual in question is a creation of the masses > even though s/he is not representative of the masses. The charismatic > leader, as Gramsci taught us, was a Ceasarist, a kind of master > power-broker, who was capable of doing the work of the hierarchical > capitalist state precisely by utilizing populist discourse (and today we > could say the technologies of populism -- what was Hitler without the > loudspeaker? etc.). The Fascist dictators from Mussolini to Macapagal-Arroyo > to Bush ?were also, in the most literal sense -- cyborgs, ?"individuals" > created in symbiotic relation to the technical and economic apparatuses of > his/her time. These mechanisms were/are driven by the sensual labor of the > masses. The celebrated individual(s) constitute, in Debord's famous words > regarding the spectacle, the diplomatic presentation of hierarchical society > to itself. > Benjamin recognized the co-optation inherent in the celebrity-from already > when he spoke of the fascist corruption of the film medium by capitalist > industries/nations giving workers the chance not the right to represent > themselves. One person is elevated, literally?made from the subjective labor > of the mass audience, and stands in as a point of identification for all > those who will remain forever unrepresented. The celebrity becomes a kind of > compensation for the disempowerment and castration of the masses. We regular > folk will never accomplish anything, never achieve universal recognition by > all humanity, but, not to worry, ?the celebrity does this in our stead. Of > course, as with the dictator or with the capitalist monopolist our > disempowerment is the condition of possibility for his/her elevation. Just > as the wealth of the capitalist is the obverse of the poverty of the worker, > the hyper-representation of the celebrity is the obverse of the > non-representation of the rest of us. > In order to show the historical relationship between the social order > denoted by celebrities and fans on the one hand and owners and workers on > the other, I ?will not recapitulate the entire argument of The Cinematic > Mode of Production here (my apologies :)) : suffice it to say that cinema > brings the industrial revolution to the eye and introjects the social > relations of industrial society into the sensorium. In other words, the rise > of visuality and subsequently of digitality does not happen in parallel to > capitalism but is in fact an extension of capitalist relations deeper into > the body -- into the viscera and, as is better understood, into > cognitive-linguistic function. The logic of cinema, the chaine de montage, > etc., extends the logic of the assembly line from the traditional labor > processes of the factory to the senses and to perception. This movement of > production into the visual/cognitive vis-a-vis the cinema is the material > history of the emergence of the attention economy; cinema is the open book > of the contemporary econometrics of attention. > All of which is to say that with due deference to various forms of > subversive fandom, we may want to think twice before we celebrate celebrity > and pitch our brilliant insights to investors. Must we still ask why? > > When referring to the possibility of "social media" to bring about social > change Michel Goldhaber writes below: > While I would not rule out the possibility that some such media could > tremendously aid ?a move toward fuller > equality,?that?cannot?be?taken?for?granted,?nor?would?the?resulting?equality?necessarily?be?so?complete?as?some?might?hope. > it seems to me that there are at least two dangerous omissions: One is that > media do not stand apart from us -- they are made out of us and they are us, > no less than say, as Fanon reminded his readers, it was the labor of the > Third World that built the European metropoles. The logic of celebrity, > which is the logic of reification, has taught us to conceptually resolve > media technologies as if they were free standing entities and not products > of centuries of expropriation put to use by and large to continue and > intensify those processes. We would do well to remember that today's planet > of slums, with its 2 billion people (population Earth, 1929) in an abject, > completely modern and utterly contemporary poverty, is also the product of > whatever socio-technologic matrix of relations we find ourselves in. It is > important also to recognize that the media, in and of themselves, are not > going to progressively alter these relations. They are these relations! Here > I recall Chomsky's response when asked if he thought internet would bring > about greater democratization: "That question is not a matter for > speculation, it is a matter for activism." In other words, the fight is also > here and now. We are being called by the o/re-pressed that lies both within > and without "us," to activate the vectors of struggle against > domination/post-modern fascism/platform fetishism/capitalist > technocracy/neo-imperialism/globalization/certain brands of "fun," etc. that > already inhere in every atom of the status-quo. > The second omission in Goldhaber's statement may well be more self-conscious > than the first appears to be -- in saying "nor would the resulting equality > necessarily be so compelete as some might hope" he appears to omit himself > from those who still have hope or want to hope. When referring to those who > hope for equality and presumably social justice, some of us would have said > "we." > Jonathan Beller > Professor > Humanities and Media Studies > and Critical and Visual Studies > Pratt Institute > jbeller at pratt.edu > 718-636-3573 fax > > > > > > > > On Jun 13, 2009, at 4:13 PM, Michael H Goldhaber wrote: > > Hi Julian and everyone, > I disagree that the notion of dyadic classes never made much sense. On the > contrary it was an is analytically of great value, even if it ignores some > intermediate positions. The dynamics of societies are considerably clarified > by the concept. ' > As for whether Facebook, twitter ?and other means of social networking > aid?the?attention?economy?as?I?use?the?term,?we?need?not?only?think?in?terms?of?huge?attention?absorbers?like?Oprah. > There are after all small capitalists as well as big ones, and there are > small stars as well as big ones. to be a star, at the limit you only need to > take in more attention than you pay out. > If you choose to define a star as someone who takes in several times as much > attention as paid out, I still suspect that many of the participants in this > very discussion would qualify, and more might well want to. It is critical > that we remember this as we discuss issues such as exploitation. It is also > important to consider this possibility when we discuss the apparent > equalizing trends of social media. While I would not rule out the > possibility that some such media could tremendously aid ?a move toward > fuller > equality,?that?cannot?be?taken?for?granted,?nor?would?the?resulting?equality?necessarily?be?so?complete?as?some?might?hope. > > Best, > Michael > Juliann wrote: > > Hi Michael & all, > > ..... > > You write: >> I argue we are >> passing from one dyadic class system (capitalists and worker) [...] to a >> new dyadic class >> system of stars and fans > > I think we all agree that the old dyad of capitalists and workers > never made much sense to begin with (and this is one of the reasons we > have so many communist -isms), while the new dyad is neither new, nor > does it make much sense in the context of the oh so tautologically > named "social media." I think what we see evolving there (and by > extension everywhere) is a system of microstardom and tactical fandom > that calls into question the classical power relationship between fans > and stars. > > This is obviously preceded by alt.fan communities such as the ones > Jenkins writes about, but I am not interested so much in slash fiction > etc., but rather in the microfame that exists on myspace, facebook, > twitter, flickr, etc. The recent influx of "real celebrities", such as > Oprah Winfrey, into the twitterverse provides a good example because > it draws attention to the difference between a mass media attention > economy (in this case, TV) and a multitudinous media attention > economy. Oprah barged into twitter, expecting that people were > actually willing to pay attention to the mundane details of her life, > but as it turned out the mundane details of non-celebrities' lives are > actually more interesting (Oprah of all people should know). > > In numerical terms, Oprah and Ashton Kutcher may be the "stars" of the > twitterverse, but they are stars only in the sense that they provide a > kind of background radiation for the real action. While indigenous > microfame is rare, twitter often amplifies attention capital acquired > elsewhere, and consolidates distributed and fragmented microaudiences. > At the same time, however, the agency of microaudiences is heightened > in multitudinous media such as twitter, and they can use this agency > tactically as well as strategically, and often do. In this context, it > is significant that while "friending" is the basic unit operation (to > use Ian Bogost's term) of facebook, the basic unit operation of > twitter is not "following" but "blocking". So if someone is perceived > as abusing their microfame this is sanctioned not just by a denial of > attention but by a reduction of that person(a)'s sphere of influence. > > So I think we are not dealing with a dyadic system at all, but with > something much less structured and, for lack of a better word, more > fun (fun also being the mechanism underwriting new forms of > (self-)exploitation). Let's not forget, however, that achieving and > maintaining microfame is a form of labour, and one not so dissimilar > to the kind of work described in the MechTurk presentation sent around > by Matthew yesterday: it's affective and relational labour, much of > which consists in maintaining a good relationship with the > "requesters" (or "followers"). It seems to me that the decisive > difference between mass media fame and microfame resides in the fact > that the former is systemic, while the latter is endemic. In other > words: in mass media stars are made, while in multitudinous media > stars make themselves by performing their virtuosity across different > registers. > > This does not mean that MechTurk workers are in the same boat as > "social media entrepreneurs" but it seems evident that menial labour > is increasingly informed by entrepreneurial ideology while > entrepreneurship now requires a much more labour-intensive > micromanagement of audiences across a range of different terrains than > the relationship management (schmoozing, corruption, collusion, etc.) > engaged in by "capitalists." > > So, yes, the terrain we are dealing with is "complex and changing, > with alliances and antagonisms springing up in every possible > permutation," but I would contend that the binary oppositions of > stars/fans and capitalists/workers have been replaced by contextual > unit operations that follow a multivalent rather than a dyadic logic. > > Julian. > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 15 04:44:10 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:44:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> <895092.68628.qm@web50805.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <974385.28040.qm@web50810.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Jeremy, Thanks for the precisions, I think we?could debate this forever, I'm arguing that things have changed, pointing to the evidence in the things that have changed, and you to the fact that things haven't changed that much, for most people, pointing to evidence in things staying the same.? But I do not find this a very interesting debate. My approach would be, we now have technical possibilities to globally coordinate small teams to create very complex social artefacts, in ways that outcompete traditional capitalist wage-labour formats, that increase the level of autonomy in important ways. How do we increase and protect that autonomy in the face of the integration of those practices in new adapted forms of capitalism, or even use them to go beyond those limits. Alternatively, we focus on the recuperation practices and decide that the 'adversary' has already won, and can return to our comfortable jobs of being paid to be critical, or just leave all those capabilities to others. I find the minorities that decide to be co-creative more interesting, and this is the whole world, than those who prefer to consume passively, oblivious of the new potential, and believe that historically it is always such minorities that have caused change. The labour movement of the 19th century fought hard for universal literacy, public libraries and access to education, and I believe contemporary organizers are doing just the same, they are not waiting for a hypothetical OPLC, but using the tools at hand ... Does that mean they are 'winning' ... of course not, not by itself, but it is part of the toolbox of change ... Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: jeremy hunsinger > To: Michael Bauwens > Cc: idc at mailman.thing.net > Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 7:33:34 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations > > Hi,? I actually want to place my position as 'realism'? not 'oldism'? nor > 'newism'? In this discussion, I'm particularly against 2 forms of promotion one > is novelty and its associated fictions, and the other is nostalgia. > > I don't think that I argued that 'nothing changes'? what I was trying to say is > that fundamentally the human condition in late capitalism hasn't changed.? Now > you can argue that there is new, exciting differences, and surely there are, but > then i bring up the questions, for whom, for what, and why... > > > > On Jun 13, 2009, at 12:34 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > > > > Hi Jeremy, > > > > it seems to me there are two pitfalls to avoid when we discuss changes, > > > > one is oldism, nothing really ever changes, one is newism, everything is > changing all at once. > > > > It seems to me that your point of view is very close to oldism ... yes, we are > all still struggling to live and eat and love and pay rent, just as it was 20 30 > years ago, we are still watching media, still buying stuff ... > > > > - but are we watching the same media and doing the same things with them? > > have to say this will depend on how you look at things, i tend to look at things > as systems of practices and conventions/norms which become institutionalized.? > So from my perspective, certain technologies in web 2.0 relate to new > practices.? However, in terms of things like 'watching' tv, 'listening' to > music, etc.,? 'playing' games,? we may have added another level of mediation, > but I am not always convinced that the layer of mediation has changed things.? > For instance, there was a huge cultural change surrounding music with the > development of the sony walkman... but did the mp3/ipod change the practices in > significant ways, yes perhaps in terms of purchasing, as you can argue about the > downfall of the 'album', but did it change consumption of said music, i'd have > to think that it isn't as much we'd think.? The question is one of data and > interpretation, in the end, but there needs to be some basis for the discussions > and arguments about labour, no? > > > > > > - are we buying the same things and listening to the same people when we buy? > > I have changed brands of toothpaste.? now where did that influence come from?? I > think it came from standing in the grocery store trying to find the one i was > using and being unable, so moving to a more stable brand.? Now, don't get me > wrong there have been huge changes in grocery shopping in the last 20 years.? > However, I'm not that convinced that the practices are that different. > > > > > - are we doing the same things when we're not working, and working the same? > > Maybe... maybe not.? This is the central question isn't it?? I think the problem > here is that the debate was centered on a smallish population which is somewhat > unrepresentative of the human condition.? However, you may argue, for instance, > as we have heard argued.... that the olpc's presence in the developed world will > revolutionize their economies, etc. etc.? transform them etc. etc.? I prefer to > remain skeptical.? Some people did become somewhat more wealthy with the advent > of the olpc.? I have not seen widespread social or economic change. > > > > > > What does it mean for a society when most media buys are bought by peer > recommendation? > > I don't know about you, but when i was a kid, that is how i bought music. > > > What does it mean when an increasing number of? mothers go to Mumsnet instead > of asking their doctor? > > Is that different from talking to their church group or other social discussion > they were likely involved in before it was mediated? > > > What does it mean when 58% of the citizens of Malmo are reportedly engaged in > one form of peer production or another? > > seems pretty small population, i suspect a definition error in the survey.? I > don't think i could get less than 98% if we defined it as producing things with > other people. > > > > > So I would find it more productive to look at these changes and see to what > degree they have changed life and the structure of society, to see what has > changed, what not, etc... rather than say, 'nothing has changed'. > > I'd prefer to remain skeptical that there is 'change', especially massive change > until we actually find a way that demonstrates that it is happening.? Otherwise, > i think we are just fetishizing the practices of a minority, and in doing that > we are reifying those practices and likely universalizing them in ways that are > unwarranted. > > Don't get me wrong, things do change, but then again the question is did they > change in a way that is reflected for the majority of people?? likely not, and > if not, why are we focussing our efforts on the minority, when the difference > might just be the difference between the majority and the minority, instead of > the minority at time x versus the minority at time z. > > > > > Living in Chiang Mai before the internet age would have been dramatically > different for us 'expats', as reported by the old timers I have discussed the > issue with, as are the much more intense relations of diasporic immigrant > communities with their homeland. > > > > The idea that these changes are only affecting an elite is also very > questionable. I live in Thailand, where there are a multitude of cybercafe's in > city streets, and you will find them in the most remote villages; there are > reports that it has quite dramatically changed the life of Chinese workers, who > skype their families in the villages, and look up comparative wage scales, > moving to regions and factories where higher, leading to a substantial rise in > wages .. (I'm sure there were other factors, but that one shouldn't be > discounted, as reported by labor organizers). > > > > Again, I'm not saying that everything has changed, that all is for the better, > but would you argue that the invention of print did not contribute to major > changes in social structures, however long that took. And is it not to be > expected that a massive increase in hitherto impossible peer communication and > media expression would contribute to important social changes ... > > > > That isn't really what I was arguing, I was trying to make a point of the > construction of 'profound change' and 'novelty', but I do agree with you.? The > question for me is really how we present the change and it's real effects.? The > digital diaspora is a great case of how information technology has enabled a > population to maintain social ties across great distances, and likely changed > the relations of their everyday lives.? People can now call home, text, etc. and > maintain those contacts.? That transforms what we mean by diaspora and > transforms the practices around it. > > But does it change labour for most people? profoundly? > > > > Count me as a sceptic regarding the nothing has changed thesis, > > > > Michel > > > > From arsalaan1-3677 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 15 13:25:58 2009 From: arsalaan1-3677 at yahoo.com (arsalaan1-3677 at yahoo.com) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:25:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: <346171.97532.qm@web30802.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hi everyone. I thought I would share a proposal for something I'm presenting next month at the 4th inclusiva-net meeting (I know Michel Bauwens is also going to be there). It's a bit uncooked, but part of a larger book project I'm working on. I believe Medialab Prado is going to publish the papers subsequently, if you are interested. Cheers, -Ulises ---- Peerless: The Ethics of P2P Network Disassembly In theory, P2P networks embody a model of collaboration that spells out the end of monopolies of communication. Like the Inclusiva-net Call for Papers states, P2P exemplifies principles like ?equality of power among participants, free cooperation among them, putting into circulation or forming what are considered ?common goods?, and participation and communication ?from many to many.?? While all this has been empirically confirmed in isolated cases, we need to question the ?goodness? of these premises at a large societal scale. Even if we are to accept the claim that P2P network architecture engenders publics instead of markets, we should not put aside Kierkergaard?s critique of publics as nihilistic systems intended to facilitate the accumulation of information while postponing action indefinitely. While Kierkergaard was putting down newspaper media, his critique couldn?t be more fitting in the age of Web browsers, RSS aggregators and bitTorrent clients. Another way of putting this is to say that while P2P networks may indeed democratize access to cultural contents, we still need to ask: Whose cultural contents? The whole piracy debate revolves around the fact that the statistical majority of ?pirates? are using P2P networks not to disseminate radical countercultural products, but to share the latest Hollywood blockbuster or teen idol musical hit. We need to question how network processes normalize monocultures, and to do so we need to theorize what form of resistance is embodied by existing in the peripheries of networks. In my work, I argue that digital technosocial networks (DTSNs) function not just as metaphors to describe sociality, but as full templates or models for organizing it. Since in order for something to be relevant or even visible within the network it needs to be rendered as a node, DTSNs are constituted as totalities by what they include as much as by what they exclude. I propose a framework for understanding the epistemological exclusion embedded in the structure and dynamics of DTSNs, and for exploring the ethical questions associated with the nature of the bond between the node and the excluded other. Contrary to its depiction in diagrams, the outside of the network is not empty but inhabited by multitudes that do not conform to the organizing logic of the network. Thus, I put forth a theory for how the peripheries of the network represent an ethical resistance to the network, and I suggest that these peripheries, the only sites from which it is possible to un-think the network episteme, can inform emerging models of identity and sociality. This is important because we are perhaps entering an age when deviation from social norms will only be possible in the private, non-surveilled space of the paranodal (the space beyond the nodes), away from the templates of the network as model for organizing sociality. Subjectivization, as Ranci?re argues, happens precisely through a process of disidentification: parts of society disidentify themselves from the whole, and individuals and groups recognize themselves as separate from the mainstream. Thus, to paraphrase Ranci?re, the paranodal is the part of those who have no part; it is the place where we experience?or at least are free to theorize?what it is like to be outside the network. Articulating this form of disidentification, of imagining and claiming difference even in relation to ?democratic? P2P networks, is an important step in the actualization of alternative ways of knowing and acting in the world. http://blog.ulisesmejias.com/ From jbeller at pratt.edu Mon Jun 15 13:32:03 2009 From: jbeller at pratt.edu (Jonathan Beller) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:32:03 -0400 Subject: [iDC] =?iso-8859-1?q?response_to_M=2E_Goldhaber=27s_response_to_J?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ulian_K=FCcklich?= In-Reply-To: <7d9726080906150109n7f94611lcf62bf8b002b744b@mail.gmail.com> References: <0456C740-0B49-4809-9556-9C02DC4A1EE3@pratt.edu> <7d9726080906150109n7f94611lcf62bf8b002b744b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44613726-743B-4E64-9F56-0C92546F6CB0@pratt.edu> Niiice! Downright Socratic (if you'll pardon the spectacularity of the reference). Who said that all twitterbots were twittiets anyway? Wonderful to drop those celebrated names like so many empties crushed underfoot despite yourour lightness. Overall I would agree that the stars themselves -- always-already indices of collective programs anyway -- ought to be dropped like Walter's shells as we strive to eliminate that unique phenomenon of distance, however close it may be. Who said that? Why all of us -- but from over here, somewhere. Ah poesy! delicate as a dehiscent dandelion, lethal as a gun. Jonathan Beller Professor Humanities and Media Studies and Critical and Visual Studies Pratt Institute jbeller at pratt.edu 718-636-3573 fax On Jun 15, 2009, at 4:09 AM, Julian K?cklich wrote: > Here's a sort of postscript on microfame. > > [Mon, 15 June, 07:57 GMT] > > cycus: Thou shalt follow @cucchiaio for being the personification of > ludology and coolnerdism, spitting out teenage angst poetry in a > reflected way. > > cucchiaio: @cycus Aww, thx. That's an awfully nice follow > recommendation. > > cycus: @cucchiaio was a pleasure since I'm consistently laughing my > ass off with your dark sarcasm > > cucchiaio: Thinking about microfame and microfascism. #idc #theory > > cucchiaio: One of the (manymany) problems of academic discourse is > that it cannot overcome its oedipal fixation with scholarly > celebrities. #idc > > markbuchholz: @cucchiaio I think microfame for many is when their > jokes got retweetet by a handful of twitter-bots > > cucchiaio: I mean, how can you sustain a critique of celebrity culture > while referencing Marx, Weber, Benjamin, Debord, McLuhan, Deleuze, > etc.? #idc > > cucchiaio: @markbuchholz Well, that's precisely what it is. Microfame > is mundane, self-referential, and unit-operational. Long live the > twitterbots! > > [Mon, 15 June, 08:42 GMT] > > 2009/6/14 Jonathan Beller : >> To continue the conversation: >> >> First of all, writ large, the structure of the celebrity is a >> fascistic one >> -- the accrual of social power by individuals via the captured >> attention of >> the masses, exactly parallels the accrual of social power by the >> capitalist >> via the captured labor of the masses. This is not an accidental >> correspondence but rather an intensification of the very processes >> that >> created new forms of recognition and personality nascent in bourgeois >> capitalism. And, by personality, I do not only mean the exterior >> trappings >> that allow a face to be recognized, I mean also the intense >> elaboration of >> subjectivity and interiority associated with the richly textured >> experiences >> of high bourgeois culture. In the case of the capitalist, the >> celebrity and >> the fascist dictator, the individual in question is a creation of >> the masses >> even though s/he is not representative of the masses. The charismatic >> leader, as Gramsci taught us, was a Ceasarist, a kind of master >> power-broker, who was capable of doing the work of the hierarchical >> capitalist state precisely by utilizing populist discourse (and >> today we >> could say the technologies of populism -- what was Hitler without the >> loudspeaker? etc.). The Fascist dictators from Mussolini to >> Macapagal-Arroyo >> to Bush were also, in the most literal sense -- cyborgs, >> "individuals" >> created in symbiotic relation to the technical and economic >> apparatuses of >> his/her time. These mechanisms were/are driven by the sensual labor >> of the >> masses. The celebrated individual(s) constitute, in Debord's famous >> words >> regarding the spectacle, the diplomatic presentation of >> hierarchical society >> to itself. >> Benjamin recognized the co-optation inherent in the celebrity-from >> already >> when he spoke of the fascist corruption of the film medium by >> capitalist >> industries/nations giving workers the chance not the right to >> represent >> themselves. One person is elevated, literally made from the >> subjective labor >> of the mass audience, and stands in as a point of identification >> for all >> those who will remain forever unrepresented. The celebrity becomes >> a kind of >> compensation for the disempowerment and castration of the masses. >> We regular >> folk will never accomplish anything, never achieve universal >> recognition by >> all humanity, but, not to worry, the celebrity does this in our >> stead. Of >> course, as with the dictator or with the capitalist monopolist our >> disempowerment is the condition of possibility for his/her >> elevation. Just >> as the wealth of the capitalist is the obverse of the poverty of >> the worker, >> the hyper-representation of the celebrity is the obverse of the >> non-representation of the rest of us. >> In order to show the historical relationship between the social order >> denoted by celebrities and fans on the one hand and owners and >> workers on >> the other, I will not recapitulate the entire argument of The >> Cinematic >> Mode of Production here (my apologies :)) : suffice it to say that >> cinema >> brings the industrial revolution to the eye and introjects the social >> relations of industrial society into the sensorium. In other words, >> the rise >> of visuality and subsequently of digitality does not happen in >> parallel to >> capitalism but is in fact an extension of capitalist relations >> deeper into >> the body -- into the viscera and, as is better understood, into >> cognitive-linguistic function. The logic of cinema, the chaine de >> montage, >> etc., extends the logic of the assembly line from the traditional >> labor >> processes of the factory to the senses and to perception. This >> movement of >> production into the visual/cognitive vis-a-vis the cinema is the >> material >> history of the emergence of the attention economy; cinema is the >> open book >> of the contemporary econometrics of attention. >> All of which is to say that with due deference to various forms of >> subversive fandom, we may want to think twice before we celebrate >> celebrity >> and pitch our brilliant insights to investors. Must we still ask why? >> >> When referring to the possibility of "social media" to bring about >> social >> change Michel Goldhaber writes below: >> While I would not rule out the possibility that some such media could >> tremendously aid a move toward fuller >> equality, that cannot be taken for granted, nor would the resulting >> equality necessarily be so complete as some might hope. >> it seems to me that there are at least two dangerous omissions: One >> is that >> media do not stand apart from us -- they are made out of us and >> they are us, >> no less than say, as Fanon reminded his readers, it was the labor >> of the >> Third World that built the European metropoles. The logic of >> celebrity, >> which is the logic of reification, has taught us to conceptually >> resolve >> media technologies as if they were free standing entities and not >> products >> of centuries of expropriation put to use by and large to continue and >> intensify those processes. We would do well to remember that >> today's planet >> of slums, with its 2 billion people (population Earth, 1929) in an >> abject, >> completely modern and utterly contemporary poverty, is also the >> product of >> whatever socio-technologic matrix of relations we find ourselves >> in. It is >> important also to recognize that the media, in and of themselves, >> are not >> going to progressively alter these relations. They are these >> relations! Here >> I recall Chomsky's response when asked if he thought internet would >> bring >> about greater democratization: "That question is not a matter for >> speculation, it is a matter for activism." In other words, the >> fight is also >> here and now. We are being called by the o/re-pressed that lies >> both within >> and without "us," to activate the vectors of struggle against >> domination/post-modern fascism/platform fetishism/capitalist >> technocracy/neo-imperialism/globalization/certain brands of "fun," >> etc. that >> already inhere in every atom of the status-quo. >> The second omission in Goldhaber's statement may well be more self- >> conscious >> than the first appears to be -- in saying "nor would the resulting >> equality >> necessarily be so compelete as some might hope" he appears to omit >> himself >> from those who still have hope or want to hope. When referring to >> those who >> hope for equality and presumably social justice, some of us would >> have said >> "we." >> Jonathan Beller >> Professor >> Humanities and Media Studies >> and Critical and Visual Studies >> Pratt Institute >> jbeller at pratt.edu >> 718-636-3573 fax >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Jun 13, 2009, at 4:13 PM, Michael H Goldhaber wrote: >> >> Hi Julian and everyone, >> I disagree that the notion of dyadic classes never made much sense. >> On the >> contrary it was an is analytically of great value, even if it >> ignores some >> intermediate positions. The dynamics of societies are considerably >> clarified >> by the concept. ' >> As for whether Facebook, twitter and other means of social >> networking >> aid the attention economy as I use the term, we need not only think >> in terms of huge attention absorbers like Oprah. >> There are after all small capitalists as well as big ones, and >> there are >> small stars as well as big ones. to be a star, at the limit you >> only need to >> take in more attention than you pay out. >> If you choose to define a star as someone who takes in several >> times as much >> attention as paid out, I still suspect that many of the >> participants in this >> very discussion would qualify, and more might well want to. It is >> critical >> that we remember this as we discuss issues such as exploitation. It >> is also >> important to consider this possibility when we discuss the apparent >> equalizing trends of social media. While I would not rule out the >> possibility that some such media could tremendously aid a move >> toward >> fuller >> equality, that cannot be taken for granted, nor would the resulting >> equality necessarily be so complete as some might hope. >> >> Best, >> Michael >> Juliann wrote: >> >> Hi Michael & all, >> >> ..... >> >> You write: >>> I argue we are >>> passing from one dyadic class system (capitalists and worker) >>> [...] to a >>> new dyadic class >>> system of stars and fans >> >> I think we all agree that the old dyad of capitalists and workers >> never made much sense to begin with (and this is one of the reasons >> we >> have so many communist -isms), while the new dyad is neither new, nor >> does it make much sense in the context of the oh so tautologically >> named "social media." I think what we see evolving there (and by >> extension everywhere) is a system of microstardom and tactical fandom >> that calls into question the classical power relationship between >> fans >> and stars. >> >> This is obviously preceded by alt.fan communities such as the ones >> Jenkins writes about, but I am not interested so much in slash >> fiction >> etc., but rather in the microfame that exists on myspace, facebook, >> twitter, flickr, etc. The recent influx of "real celebrities", such >> as >> Oprah Winfrey, into the twitterverse provides a good example because >> it draws attention to the difference between a mass media attention >> economy (in this case, TV) and a multitudinous media attention >> economy. Oprah barged into twitter, expecting that people were >> actually willing to pay attention to the mundane details of her life, >> but as it turned out the mundane details of non-celebrities' lives >> are >> actually more interesting (Oprah of all people should know). >> >> In numerical terms, Oprah and Ashton Kutcher may be the "stars" of >> the >> twitterverse, but they are stars only in the sense that they >> provide a >> kind of background radiation for the real action. While indigenous >> microfame is rare, twitter often amplifies attention capital acquired >> elsewhere, and consolidates distributed and fragmented >> microaudiences. >> At the same time, however, the agency of microaudiences is heightened >> in multitudinous media such as twitter, and they can use this agency >> tactically as well as strategically, and often do. In this context, >> it >> is significant that while "friending" is the basic unit operation (to >> use Ian Bogost's term) of facebook, the basic unit operation of >> twitter is not "following" but "blocking". So if someone is perceived >> as abusing their microfame this is sanctioned not just by a denial of >> attention but by a reduction of that person(a)'s sphere of influence. >> >> So I think we are not dealing with a dyadic system at all, but with >> something much less structured and, for lack of a better word, more >> fun (fun also being the mechanism underwriting new forms of >> (self-)exploitation). Let's not forget, however, that achieving and >> maintaining microfame is a form of labour, and one not so dissimilar >> to the kind of work described in the MechTurk presentation sent >> around >> by Matthew yesterday: it's affective and relational labour, much of >> which consists in maintaining a good relationship with the >> "requesters" (or "followers"). It seems to me that the decisive >> difference between mass media fame and microfame resides in the fact >> that the former is systemic, while the latter is endemic. In other >> words: in mass media stars are made, while in multitudinous media >> stars make themselves by performing their virtuosity across different >> registers. >> >> This does not mean that MechTurk workers are in the same boat as >> "social media entrepreneurs" but it seems evident that menial labour >> is increasingly informed by entrepreneurial ideology while >> entrepreneurship now requires a much more labour-intensive >> micromanagement of audiences across a range of different terrains >> than >> the relationship management (schmoozing, corruption, collusion, etc.) >> engaged in by "capitalists." >> >> So, yes, the terrain we are dealing with is "complex and changing, >> with alliances and antagonisms springing up in every possible >> permutation," but I would contend that the binary oppositions of >> stars/fans and capitalists/workers have been replaced by contextual >> unit operations that follow a multivalent rather than a dyadic logic. >> >> Julian. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090615/92d49500/attachment-0001.htm From nak44 at cornell.edu Mon Jun 15 15:29:07 2009 From: nak44 at cornell.edu (nick knouf) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:29:07 -0400 Subject: [iDC] =?iso-8859-1?q?response_to_M=2E_Goldhaber=27s_response_to_J?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ulian_K=FCcklich?= In-Reply-To: <44613726-743B-4E64-9F56-0C92546F6CB0@pratt.edu> References: <0456C740-0B49-4809-9556-9C02DC4A1EE3@pratt.edu> <7d9726080906150109n7f94611lcf62bf8b002b744b@mail.gmail.com> <44613726-743B-4E64-9F56-0C92546F6CB0@pratt.edu> Message-ID: <4A3668C3.10307@cornell.edu> This is Socratic? From brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr Mon Jun 15 20:01:50 2009 From: brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr (Brian Holmes) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:01:50 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Identification and dis-identification In-Reply-To: <346171.97532.qm@web30802.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <346171.97532.qm@web30802.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A36A8AE.5050602@aliceadsl.fr> Ulises Mejias just offered a fascinating proposal for understanding the structure of inclusion and exclusion in a networked society, as well as the possibilities for voluntary disengagement or dis-identification. That seems to me like a great departure point, and I'm curious to see the full paper. Just to remind you what's at stake, here's a key quote from his short sketch: "In my work, I argue that digital technosocial networks (DTSNs) function not just as metaphors to describe sociality, but as full templates or models for organizing it. Since in order for something to be relevant or even visible within the network it needs to be rendered as a node, DTSNs are constituted as totalities by what they include as much as by what they exclude. I propose a framework for understanding the epistemological exclusion embedded in the structure and dynamics of DTSNs, and for exploring the ethical questions associated with the nature of the bond between the node and the excluded other. Contrary to its depiction in diagrams, the outside of the network is not empty but inhabited by multitudes that do not conform to the organizing logic of the network. Thus, I put forth a theory for how the peripheries of the network represent an ethical resistance to the network, and I suggest that these peripheries, the only sites from which it is possible to un-think the network episteme, can inform emerging models of identity and sociality." That last seems brilliant to me! But to really understand the proposal we need to know what you're defining as a network, Ulises. After all, the Internet itself is a network of networks; and social network theory could distinguish other systems and subsystems, not only online but in all sorts of offline relations that networked information flows help to organize. So definitely tell us more about this proposal as you develop it. Whatever approach you take I'm sure it's going to be interesting, because you raise what I think is the crucial question: that of identification and dis-identification with networked society. At this point I would say some kind of rupture, some kind of break is essential. And that moment of dis-identification is all too rare. In fact, that's exactly why Ranci?re says that politics is rare. For some people on this list, the networked society is making great progress toward co-operative social interaction. For others there is far too much consensus about contemporary society's concepts of the good life and about its ways of obtaining it. One of the reasons we disagree is that we define "networks" very differently: some of us look only at the web itself, while others look at the whole tissue of networked society. Another thing that makes our discussions unclear is that we've been focusing almost solely on "exploitation" to describe what's wrong with the so-called "peer networks" of Web 2.0. I want to delve into both those issues a little more closely. Trebor has made a serious attempt to find cases of exploitation happening via Web 2.0. His prime example is Amazon's "Mechanical Turk": an interface for buying and selling of information-processing services, where the buyer can easily take advantage of geographical and class differences in the acceptable rate of pay. It's interesting, particularly because of the image that Amazon has used to promote the service. The "Mechanical Turk" is an exotically racialized automaton, an elaborate chess-playing machine which is actually a fake, and hides the human being who makes the moves in reality. But isn't this just the everyday experience of the consumer in the networked economy of neoliberal globalization? We navigate a web interface and order a product which is delivered effortlessly to our door. Meanwhile we spend some more time playing with social media, maybe talking with people on the other side of the world. What we don't see and usually don't want to see are the complex supply lines linking our consumption to others' production. The educated middle classes are all excited about becoming cyborgs, but the world around us, both near and far, is full of flesh-and-blood human beings subject to labor exploitation, ecological decay, police oppression and outright war. The thing I don't get, Trebor, is why just look for exploitation happening _on the web_, when there is so much exploitation happening under the conditions of neoliberal globalization, which as every study shows is inconceivable without networked information flows? The corollary of that is the possibility that our experience of the Internet itself may in some way actually hide what's going on, that it may serve to induct us into a privileged stratum of global society and blind us to the need for radical change. The corollary, in other words, is that Web 2.0 may be a locus of ideology, a friendly kind of ideology that works very actively to include as many people as possible. Obviously this is where I am really struck by the message of Ulises' post. For the last fifteen years my question - directed first of all at myself - has been this: Why do we _tolerate_ being included in this networked society? I think that there are cultural routines that blind us to the dead-end path our societies are taking, and for that reason I think that not only exploitation is an issue, but also a technics, an aesthetics and an ideology that promote conformity, that make dis-identification and dissent extremely rare, especially in the USA. Working with the same kind of material that Mark Andrejevic has put together in his excellent-looking book iSpy (which I'm looking forward to read by the way), I tried to define not only the procedures of identification, but above all the structural dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the networked societies. What I found is not only police techniques for identifying deviants, criminals and terrorists, but above all a machinery of seduction that tries to encourage and profit from the inclusion of registered and channeled behaviors. And probably the most impressive thing I found is the emergence of veritable control architectures which use real-time information flows to transform the urban environment in order to capture the desires of those moving through it. The resulting text is called Future Map: or, How the Cyborgs Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Surveillance, and you can find it right here: http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/future-map Obviously I'm not convinced by the emancipatory possibilities of really-existing corporate social media, despite the good things about it which I don't necessarily discount or ignore. Like Michael Bauwens, whose work is fantastic imho, I have never thought it was enough to just get paid for gloom and doom, which is something I dislike in a lot of post-leftist academic production. The thing is to create dissenting and alternative social relations, both on the hardware and protocol levels, and also in subjective and affective experience where art can be such a powerful and surprising force of dis- and re-identification. My book Unleashing the Collective Phantoms: Essays in Reverse Imagineering, is devoted to exactly that, with examples mainly drawn from artists working the counter-globalization movements. Now, clearly the artistic activism that I love involves something like the kind of play that Pat Kane talks about (and amusingly, I too have written about Schiller's aesthetics, I'll put that essay online if anyone's interested). We are not squarely opposed, Pat, but the difference is that I have always considered play to be an ambiguous possibility, which can be used for both entrapment and liberation. Just looking at, say, Disney Corp. ought to make that pretty clear - as does Schiller's essay. The problem with being an unequivocal or unambiguous proponent of homo ludens in the post-68 societies is that you get led down the garden path by all kinds of smart, witty and often deluded people. But those of us who like dancing in the face of the cops and speaking pie to power are not exactly averse to a little humor either! I've been known to work with the Yes Men, Reclaim the Streets, EuroMayday and so on, it can get pretty funny out there... Recently I've tried to reframe this whole complex of questions in cybernetic terms, in order to reply to the bleak situation portrayed in Future Map, and to show how the social order we are caught in can be replayed, if you will. To dis-identify, to achieve a break, I think it's necessary to map out and then actually flesh out alternative ways of living, which on the one hand bring aesthetics and philosophy into play, but which are also affective, fully embodied, social and operational. Delirious too! That text is called Guattari's Schizoanalytic Cartographies: The Pathic Core at the Heart of Cybernetics, and it's here: http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/guattaris-schizoanalytic-cartographies The discussion of identification and dis-identification on the one hand, and of the tools, protocols and forms of alternatives on the other, are what seem most promising to me among the themes of this conference. I think it's a practical discussion for people working in the universities and in the arts. What society needs at every level are resistant minorities that can step back from the norms, see how they function and make concrete proposals for change, even while escaping the whole thing, embracing other realities right here and now. If we can't acknowledge the immense dangers of present-day society, and if we can't develop alternative approaches at the highest technical, aesthetic and philosophical levels, then what are we doing with our privileged positions? That's the question I keep on asking... best, Brian From playethical at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 18:53:12 2009 From: playethical at gmail.com (pat kane) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:53:12 +0100 Subject: [iDC] : getting beyond the 'play-labor nexus' In-Reply-To: <4A3668C3.10307@cornell.edu> References: <0456C740-0B49-4809-9556-9C02DC4A1EE3@pratt.edu> <7d9726080906150109n7f94611lcf62bf8b002b744b@mail.gmail.com> <44613726-743B-4E64-9F56-0C92546F6CB0@pratt.edu> <4A3668C3.10307@cornell.edu> Message-ID: <925ED83C-E516-4032-977D-4C1CC3574A17@googlemail.com> Trebor has asked me for my take on some definitions of 'play' and 'labor' ? let me come at it this way? So much of this discussion is rooted in a Marxist/post-Marxist framework about the nature of labour as 'exploitation' (in terms of realising surplus value) or 'alienation' (in terms of the divisions of labour and their effect upon our subjectivities). I want to try and step back towards some roots of the Marxist analysis, and attempt to link that to current multidisciplinary understandings of play. In The Ideology of the Aesthetic, Terry Eagleton devotes a chapter to Schiller's Letters of the Aesthetic Education of Man ? one of the most important theories of play ever (and much quoted by Johan Soderberg in Hacking Capitalism). Eagleton notes that Schiller's evocation of the importance of play ? what he called the 'play drive' ? allowed Marx to envision the kind of rich, fully-extended humanity that exploitation and alienation would damage and distort. "Marx's critique of industrial capitalism is deeply rooted in a Schillerian vision of stunted capacities, dissociated powers, the ruined totality of human nature" (http://bit.ly/rcBx). The "play-drive" for Schiller is also the ground of possibility of all human action: it suspends the destructive tendencies both of our appetites ('sense-drive') and our reason (form-drive), and creates a zone of "free determinability". From this sublime experience of possible states of being (which Schiller terms 'aesthetic'), we will be able to assess the best, most "graceful" options for personal and social action. So Schiller's vision of the play-drive is that of a space of potentiation in the human condition ? and I guess Marx's radicalism was to see that this protean, self-creating force at the heart of our species being needed a revolutionary redeployment of resources to come into its own. But what is interesting about the study of play since Schiller, right up to the present, is that so much biology, zoology and psychology confirms his characterisation of play as that zone of possibility in the human condition. Play is 'adaptive potentiation', as the great play scholar Brian Sutton-Smith puts it. By this he means all those experiments, simulations and virtualisations that we recognise as play, but which clearly serve an evolutionary purpose - namely, to aid our survival and flourishing. How? By helping us rehearse strategies for dealing with our complex social worlds, composed (as they are) of other linguistic and richly emotional human beings. (On Sutton-Smith's latest formulation of this, see http://bit.ly/wQTwp). So play is deeply constitutive of human sociality: we know this from child development. And that productive adulthood has been about the 'soul's play-day being the devil's work-day', or the 'putting away of childish things', is a Puritan truism that any student of Weber knows about. And any other student of E.P. Thompson also knows how relentless was the campaign needed to subject the pre-capitalist culture of festivals and 'Happy Mondays' to disciplinary, workplace rule. But here's what might be the truly revolutionary fact of our digital and networked lives: Its symbolic and immaterial plentitude, and the participative design of its tools and platforms, helps adults to recover, and then extend and develop, that constitutive experience of play. As many of the Italian Marxists say, particularly Paulo Virno in his recent 'Multitude' books, there might be a new anthropology required to cope with a world in which the most protean of human faculties ? language, affectivity and symbolic analysis itself ? becomes the basic productive infrastructure of organisational, community and personal life. Does this deep nexus between species being and our digital+networked 'extensions of the human' (to smarten up McLuhan), around the axis of play, have consequences for how we arrange our productive lives? At the very least, one can point to the amazing diversity on this list ? every "adaptive potentiation" from a mark-up language that encodes the working conditions of its sites, to an iPhone app that helps you do voluntary info-work for charities, to Ned Rossiter's 'organised networks' as the successor to trade unions ? as indication that an extraordinary creative energy is being tapped. Shirky tells us that it's a matter of insanely-easy group-forming networks opening up space beneath the Coasian floor, but there's more to it than that. To explain this fecundity, I keep finding myself turning away from sociology or economics, and either turning to philosophy ? the creative ontology and transcendental empiricisms of Deleuze, Negri, Virno and others ? or to what has to be called (with some tentativeness, I concede ? but only some) the 'socio-biology' of play. (Maybe biosemiotics ? see http://bit.ly/SvDT5). In a recent presentation, http://bit.ly/RGjlU, I talked about the common conditions for a 'ground of play'. Cubs cavorting on the savannah, children having fun in a playpark, adults interacting with the Web: each of these playgrounds have 1) loose but robust governance, 2) ensure a surplus of time, space and stuff, 3) treat failure, risk and mess as developmental necessities. I went on to cite Google's 20 percent rule ? where its engineers are encourage to devote 20% of their work time to projects that don't follow company imperatives ? as a rare example of a mainstream company trying to recreate those constitutive conditions of play for their employees. (I've also been delighted to dive into Fred Turner's archive, triggered by his contribution to this list, and find this brilliant essay on Google's embrace of Burning Man culture, which corroborates my point http://bit.ly/AvFUZ). Does Google, or any of the 'netarchical capitalists' that Michel Bauwens talks about, in any way exhaust the organisational possibilities available? In no way. And can the engaging interactions that we have upon these 'grounds of play' be pointed towards socially progressive ends? Well, I'm looking at the Extraordinaries app on my iPhone at the moment (though I'd like to have more to do than tagging the Smithsonian's pics). And we know from people like Jane McGonigal (http://www.avantgame.com) how much gaming has the possibility to improve governance, foresight and collective wisdom. So I'd like to resist the notion of the 'play-labor nexus' advanced by Julian Kucklich, Jonathan Beller and Brian Holmes on this list, and perhaps suggest a 'play-network terrain' instead ? a landscape to be explored, and flexibly de- and re-territorialized, rather than a fiendish strategy to create 'dividuals' out of individuals, and extend the tendrils of biopower everywhere (first the cinema makes our minds and passions machinic, then television, then the internet? I prefer going from Kubrick's flying bone, to the spaceship, in a jump cut?) We need to keep carefully attending to the design of our networks, protocols and interfaces ? immersing ourselves in an "aesthetic craft" which Schiller and Marx would both have recognised as the authentic practice of autonomous, non-alienated labor. (And which playcraft Richard Sennett in his book The Craftsman locates as the very conditions of citizenship http://bit.ly/nQTS). As Soderberg rephrases Schiller in his book (http://bit.ly/DsZ3a), "If man is ever to solve that problem of politics in practice he will have to approach it through the problem of the aesthetic, because it is only through Beauty that man makes his way to Freedom". Both adherents and critics of Schiller have pigeonholed him in the tradition of romanticism. It would do Schiller more justice if his words were recovered from the fine arts scene and instead applied to the politics that flow from the "beauty of the baud" and the play with source code in the computer underground. Like Bauwens, I see this playfully-driven moment of infrastructural and organisational creativity as an opportunity for civic enterprise on a number of fronts (and niches), rather than as one more version of the 'bigger cages, longer chains' tradition of left pessimism (as Brian Holmes at least admits). Trebor's wish that the Digital Labor conference has a strand concerned with "peer producing infrastructures ourselves", without which the "sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself", is one I share. Building good, generative playgrounds is noble labor indeed But for my neo-Marxist friends on this list, I respectfully suggest that the "multitudinous, multivalent" phenomena they're observing may have its roots in the way that digital networks articulate a long- occluded aspect of our species being. Femina et homo ludens, as a mainstream and self-conscious identity of developed-world citizens, may be exactly who the bearded one was waiting for. ends -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090615/ef6a1301/attachment-0001.htm From julian at kuecklich.de Mon Jun 15 21:00:24 2009 From: julian at kuecklich.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julian_K=FCcklich?=) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:00:24 +0100 Subject: [iDC] : getting beyond the 'play-labor nexus' In-Reply-To: <925ED83C-E516-4032-977D-4C1CC3574A17@googlemail.com> References: <0456C740-0B49-4809-9556-9C02DC4A1EE3@pratt.edu> <7d9726080906150109n7f94611lcf62bf8b002b744b@mail.gmail.com> <44613726-743B-4E64-9F56-0C92546F6CB0@pratt.edu> <4A3668C3.10307@cornell.edu> <925ED83C-E516-4032-977D-4C1CC3574A17@googlemail.com> Message-ID: <7d9726080906151400o11b68d43r465efc225fe7b7ed@mail.gmail.com> Here's a quote from Sutton-Smith's The Ambiguity of Play: "Huizinga has essentially adopted the aristocratic rhetoric of the late nineteenth century, which sought to see games as being played for the games' sake [...], a point of view that can be sustained in practical terms only by a wealthy elite, or in modern terms by closely supervised schoolchildren. Thus saying, as he did, that play is outside of ordinary life, that it is immaterial, disinterested, nonutilitarian, voluntary, spatially and temporally separate, childlike, nonprofane, governed by rules, and utterly involving, he idealizes and sacralizes play. These 'essentialistic' statements not only contradict many of his own exemplars of play as nasty, brutish and short but are also themselves conditions of play only in limited circumstances. [...] He has countered the view that play is frivolous, but in his opposition he has so idealized it that he has vitiated its regular broad functioning in human life. [...] "It can be ventured that the denigration of frivolous play actually subdivides itself into six different kinds of devalued play, each of which, in its own way, helps to sustain the six types of play that are lauded by [the rhetorics of play]: developmental play, fateful play, contestive play, festival play, imaginative play, and personal play. [...] Each rhetoric involves an internal polarity between good play and bad play and uses the term frivolous for whatever kind is chosen as bad play. [...] "Of all the rhetorics, progress is the most explicit in terms of hegemony [...]. The very point of the progress rhetoric has been to constrain child play in the service of growth, education, and progress [...]. Most adults show great anxiety and fear that children's play behavior, if not rationalized in these ways, will escape their control and become frivolous or become an irrational representation of child power, child community, phantasmagoria, and childish ecstasies. Play as progress is an ideology for the conquest of children's behavior through organizing their play." [203-5] I don't think I have to point out that we might just as well replace "progress" by "evolutionary purpose." But it might be worth mentioning that the difference between "cubs cavorting on the savannah" and "children having fun in a playpark [or] adults interacting with the Web" lies in the level of organization and rationalization, or the suffusion of these spaces with the rhetorics (or ideology) of play. I am not saying play is by definition something that serves those in power and I agree with Pat that it has the potential to serve the powerless, but as long as we are in the business of building "better playgrounds" (or mousetraps), and as long as we don't acknowledge the destructive, violent, addictive, deceptive qualities of play, I don't think this is going to happen. Julian. 2009/6/15 pat kane : > Trebor has asked me for my take on some definitions of 'play' and 'labor' ? > let me come at it this way? > > So much of this discussion is rooted in a Marxist/post-Marxist framework > about the nature of labour as 'exploitation' (in terms of realising surplus > value) or 'alienation' (in terms of the divisions of labour and their effect > upon our subjectivities). I want to try and step back towards some roots of > the Marxist analysis, and attempt to link that to current multidisciplinary > understandings of play. > > In The Ideology of the Aesthetic, Terry Eagleton devotes a chapter to > Schiller's Letters of the Aesthetic Education of Man ? one of the most > important theories of play ever (and much quoted by Johan Soderberg in > Hacking Capitalism). Eagleton notes that Schiller's evocation of the > importance of play ? what he called the 'play drive' ? allowed Marx to > envision the kind of rich, fully-extended humanity that exploitation and > alienation would damage and distort. "Marx's critique of industrial > capitalism is deeply rooted in a Schillerian vision of stunted capacities, > dissociated powers, the ruined totality of human nature" > (http://bit.ly/rcBx). > > The "play-drive" for Schiller is also the ground of possibility of all human > action: it suspends the destructive tendencies both of our appetites > ('sense-drive') and our reason (form-drive), and creates a zone of "free > determinability". From this sublime experience of possible states of being > (which Schiller terms 'aesthetic'), we will be able to assess the best, most > "graceful" options for personal and social action. > > So Schiller's vision of the play-drive is that of a space of potentiation in > the human condition ? and I guess Marx's radicalism was to see that this > protean, self-creating force at the heart of our species being needed a > revolutionary redeployment of resources to come into its own. But what is > interesting about the study of play since Schiller, right up to the present, > is that so much biology, zoology and psychology confirms his > characterisation of play as that zone of possibility in the human condition. > > Play is 'adaptive potentiation', as the great play scholar Brian > Sutton-Smith puts it. By this he means all those experiments, simulations > and virtualisations that we recognise as play, but which clearly serve an > evolutionary purpose - namely, to aid our survival and flourishing. How? By > helping us rehearse strategies for dealing with our complex social worlds, > composed (as they are) of other linguistic and richly emotional human > beings. (On Sutton-Smith's latest formulation of this, see > http://bit.ly/wQTwp). > > So play is deeply constitutive of human sociality: we know this from child > development. And that productive adulthood has been about the 'soul's > play-day being the devil's work-day', or the 'putting away of childish > things', is a Puritan truism that any student of Weber knows about. And any > other student of E.P. Thompson also knows how relentless was the campaign > needed to subject the pre-capitalist culture of festivals and 'Happy > Mondays' to disciplinary, workplace rule. > > But here's what might be the truly revolutionary fact of our digital and > networked lives: Its symbolic and immaterial plentitude, and the > participative design of its tools and platforms, helps adults to recover, > and then extend and develop, that constitutive experience of play. As many > of the Italian Marxists say, particularly Paulo Virno in his recent > 'Multitude' books, there might be a new anthropology required to cope with a > world in which the most protean of human faculties ? language, affectivity > and symbolic analysis itself ? becomes the basic productive infrastructure > of organisational, community and personal life. > > Does this deep nexus between species being and our digital+networked > 'extensions of the human' (to smarten up McLuhan), around the axis of play, > have consequences for how we arrange our productive lives? At the very > least, one can point to the amazing diversity on this list ? every "adaptive > potentiation" from a mark-up language that encodes the working conditions of > its sites, to an iPhone app that helps you do voluntary info-work for > charities, to Ned Rossiter's 'organised networks' as the successor to trade > unions ? as indication that an extraordinary creative energy is being > tapped. Shirky tells us that it's a matter of insanely-easy group-forming > networks opening up space beneath the Coasian floor, but there's more to it > than that. To explain this fecundity, I keep finding myself turning away > from sociology or economics, and either turning to philosophy ? the creative > ontology and transcendental empiricisms of Deleuze, Negri, Virno and others > ? or to what has to be called (with some tentativeness, I concede ? but only > some) the 'socio-biology' of play. (Maybe biosemiotics ? see > http://bit.ly/SvDT5). > > In a recent presentation, http://bit.ly/RGjlU, I talked about the common > conditions for a 'ground of play'. Cubs cavorting on the savannah, children > having fun in a playpark, adults interacting with the Web: each of these > playgrounds have 1) loose but robust governance, 2) ensure a surplus of > time, space and stuff, 3) treat failure, risk and mess as developmental > necessities. I went on to cite Google's 20 percent rule ? where its > engineers are encourage to devote 20% of their work time to projects that > don't follow company imperatives ? as a rare example of a mainstream company > trying to recreate those constitutive conditions of play for their > employees. (I've also been delighted to dive into Fred Turner's archive, > triggered by his contribution to this list, and find this brilliant essay on > Google's embrace of Burning Man culture, which corroborates my point > http://bit.ly/AvFUZ). > > Does Google, or any of the 'netarchical capitalists' that Michel Bauwens > talks about, in any way exhaust the organisational possibilities available? > In no way. And can the engaging interactions that we have upon these > 'grounds of play' be pointed towards socially progressive ends? Well, I'm > looking at the Extraordinaries app on my iPhone at the moment (though I'd > like to have more to do than tagging the Smithsonian's pics). And we know > from people like Jane McGonigal (http://www.avantgame.com) how much gaming > has the possibility to improve governance, foresight and collective wisdom. > > So I'd like to resist the notion of the 'play-labor nexus' advanced by > Julian Kucklich, Jonathan Beller and Brian Holmes on this list, and perhaps > suggest a 'play-network terrain' instead ? a landscape to be explored, and > flexibly de- and re-territorialized, rather than a fiendish strategy to > create 'dividuals' out of individuals, and extend the tendrils of biopower > everywhere (first the cinema makes our minds and passions machinic, then > television, then the internet? I prefer going from Kubrick's flying bone, to > the spaceship, in a jump cut?) > > We need to keep carefully attending to the design of our networks, protocols > and interfaces ? immersing ourselves in an "aesthetic craft" which Schiller > and Marx would both have recognised as the authentic practice of autonomous, > non-alienated labor. (And which playcraft Richard Sennett in his book The > Craftsman locates as the very conditions of citizenship http://bit.ly/nQTS). > As Soderberg rephrases Schiller in his book (http://bit.ly/DsZ3a), > > "If man is ever to solve that problem of politics in practice he will have > to approach it through the problem of the aesthetic, because it is only > through Beauty that man makes his way to Freedom". Both adherents and > critics of Schiller have pigeonholed him in the tradition of romanticism. It > would do Schiller more justice if his words were recovered from the fine > arts scene and instead applied to the politics that flow from the "beauty of > the baud" and the play with source code in the computer underground. > > Like Bauwens, I see this playfully-driven moment of infrastructural and > organisational creativity as an opportunity for civic enterprise on a number > of fronts (and niches), rather than as one more version of the 'bigger > cages, longer chains' tradition of left pessimism (as Brian Holmes at least > admits). Trebor's wish that the Digital Labor conference has a strand > concerned with "peer producing infrastructures ourselves", without which the > "sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself", is one I > share. Building good, generative playgrounds is noble labor indeed > > But for my neo-Marxist friends on this list, I respectfully suggest that the > "multitudinous, multivalent" phenomena they're observing may have its roots > in the way that digital networks articulate a long-occluded aspect of our > species being. Femina et homo ludens, as a mainstream and self-conscious > identity of developed-world citizens, may be exactly who the bearded one was > waiting for. > ends > From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 15 14:59:41 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:59:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> <895092.68628.qm@web50805.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <974385.28040.qm@web50810.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <811564.62432.qm@web50803.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Jeremy, my responses are inline ----- Original Message ---- > From: jeremy hunsinger > To: Michael Bauwens > Cc: idc at mailman.thing.net > Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 6:02:02 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations > > > On Jun 15, 2009, at 12:44 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > > > > Hi Jeremy, > > > >> > ahh, i'd say they just as well limit autonomy.? sure, others always limit individual autonomy, which doesn't really exist in any case, but do you think that peer producing communities are more limiting than the wage relationship? ?as for the global small teams,? > there has to the best of my knowledge been a transnational elite class capable > of the actions you indicate for a very long time. before the internet, only members of multinationals had this capability, through private networks, but that possibility has now been widely extended, though you could argue that it is still an elite .., but that isn't necessarily pejorative ?> > > > How do we increase and protect that autonomy in the face of the integration of > those practices in new adapted forms of capitalism, or even use them to go > beyond those limits. > > Why do we want to?? perhaps autonomy is just an ideological construct developed > from the individualism of modernity.? I'd suspect that 'autonomous workers' are > ideal for capital, and we can see this in recent debates about mobility of > workforces.? Why is it that governments want to create mobile autonomous > workforces?? It would seem in the digital age that people could on the other > hand work from where they want to live and telecommute to where there labor is > needed? I'm interested only in the autonomy which attempts to go beyond capital > > > Alternatively, we focus on the recuperation practices and decide that the > 'adversary' has already won, and can return to our comfortable jobs of being > paid to be critical, or just leave all those capabilities to others. > > I'm not paid to be critical. sorry, I assumed you were an academic from your edu address > > > yes, but change for what.? Andrew Carnegie funded hundreds of libraries, what > was his goal in that?? It was to benefit mankind, much along the way that a > mobile workforce benefits mankind.? Education does help, but here we have the > issue of... 'what education','whose education'.? absolutely ? orally transmitted culture. > > in any case, there is usually a bit of bias in the historical ideas of literacy > and education....? They are not usually found to be tools that serve autonomy in > any necessary way...? The usually do benefit people though (at least to my > enlightenment ideals mindset). They could..., but here i find the story of the > term 'literacy' to be somewhat informative, but that i think is a huge debate. would you prefer then to restrict literacy to an elite? > > > > Michel From jhuns at vt.edu Mon Jun 15 15:35:44 2009 From: jhuns at vt.edu (jeremy hunsinger) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:35:44 -0400 Subject: [iDC] some thoughts on digital labor and populations In-Reply-To: <811564.62432.qm@web50803.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <3BB112BD-0669-4BE1-A2B5-0F41DEA307B7@vt.edu> <895092.68628.qm@web50805.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <974385.28040.qm@web50810.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <811564.62432.qm@web50803.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > >> there has to the best of my knowledge been a transnational elite >> class capable >> of the actions you indicate for a very long time. > > before the internet, only members of multinationals had this > capability, through private networks, but that possibility has now > been widely extended, though you could argue that it is still an > elite .., but that isn't necessarily pejorative Well here I'm not sure. In the 20's with the telegraph, and new travel. In Ancient greece we could think of what aristotle called 'tribes' being forms of 'corporation' that acted much the same way, coordinating across expanses with a combination of protocols and communication. here protocol means more of, in case of x, we will always do y' I'm pretty sure we can demonstrate cross-national coordinated activities, economic and not, before the internet, using whatever communication systems they had. There are of course a myriad of technologies which aid this through history, from protocols, standing orders, to architectures and organizations, roads, ships, telegraph, etc. etc. I think we have to be careful here and skeptical in general when we claim that there is a 'novel' process or structure at play here. There are certainly elements of novelty in the internet, but I suspect the fundamental human processes aren't changing that much. I could be wrong of course. The case i originally was going to talk about here was trade families in Doge era Venice. They managed a great deal of coordination without the intarwebs :) including managing chains of production that yielded products. Granted, we are always talking about elites. The question i've pointed to before is... Why are we we talking about the elites? are there other elites? > >>> How do we increase and protect that autonomy in the face of the >>> integration of >> those practices in new adapted forms of capitalism, or even use >> them to go >> beyond those limits. >> >> Why do we want to? perhaps autonomy is just an ideological >> construct developed >> from the individualism of modernity. I'd suspect that 'autonomous >> workers' are >> ideal for capital, and we can see this in recent debates about >> mobility of >> workforces. Why is it that governments want to create mobile >> autonomous >> workforces? It would seem in the digital age that people could on >> the other >> hand work from where they want to live and telecommute to where >> there labor is >> needed? > > I'm interested only in the autonomy which attempts to go beyond > capital. The question is .. can it? Camatte says it cannot. It really will depend on how you extend the idea of autonomy through the conceptual field. I tend to think that you do not really get autonomy outside of capital in the contemporary age. Cognitive capitalism is nearly pervasive, and you can find people that will and do perform acts of commensuration and valuation across all norms. > >> >>> Alternatively, we focus on the recuperation practices and decide >>> that the >> 'adversary' has already won, and can return to our comfortable jobs >> of being >> paid to be critical, or just leave all those capabilities to others. >> >> I'm not paid to be critical. > > sorry, I assumed you were an academic from your edu address sure, that doesn't mean i'm paid to be critical. not everyone takes the critical standpoint. I generally do, but I'd be doing this sort of intellectual labor, pay or not, it is more of a way of being in the world. I'm not paid to be critical though. I'm critical without pay, and when i am paid, it is almost always for some other set of skills, usually technical skills, teaching skills, research skills, etc. > > >>> >> yes, but change for what. Andrew Carnegie funded hundreds of >> libraries, what >> was his goal in that? It was to benefit mankind, much along the >> way that a >> mobile workforce benefits mankind. Education does help, but here >> we have the >> issue of... 'what education','whose education'. > > absolutely > > orally transmitted culture. >> >> in any case, there is usually a bit of bias in the historical ideas >> of literacy >> and education.... They are not usually found to be tools that >> serve autonomy in >> any necessary way... The usually do benefit people though (at >> least to my >> enlightenment ideals mindset). They could..., but here i find the >> story of the >> term 'literacy' to be somewhat informative, but that i think is a >> huge debate. > > > would you prefer then to restrict literacy to an elite? no, i would just admit that the state of being literate is not what we should aim for, for all people. We should aim significantly higher. Literacy serves a very clear purpose in labour systems. My goal is to move students beyond being literate to more of a 'culture of learning' where they will just keep learning, which they do in many ways otherwise, but the goal is get people to that level, where they will move beyond literacy and self-educate, etc. Though.. that does not always work for a wide variety of reasons. From davinheckman at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 15:20:56 2009 From: davinheckman at gmail.com (davin heckman) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:20:56 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <449485.54410.qm@web50806.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <944824.3629.qm@web50801.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <449485.54410.qm@web50806.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Not to keep harping on the same point, but I think the fine distinctions are important here. I think the examples that you refer to (Linux and P2P foundation), you have a high degree of technical competence and a community which tends to have a strong social investment in this technology arising in its material consequences. It makes sense that programmers, in the case of Linux, who are able to recognize and discern the traces of other's labor as manifested in code to their own livelihood, but then to also suture those persons that they uncover back into prior social experience. My concern with a lot of the social organizing online is that its theory tends to originate in people who have one set of relationships to technology, and the bonding not only centers on social activity, but on the idea of technology playing a role in social activity. The translocal activity is supported by the certainty that the work is likely to produce consequences for people who we "know" are real, who depend on our actions, and who are also doing things for us. On the other hand, many of the weak online social organizations do not require the same degree of technical ability. There is less appreciation for technical virtuosity... and so the level at which people are using the technology, deconstructing, and "hacking" it (thereby creating their own critical practice) is less probable. To revert to talk about an old technology.... my students who read and write a lot are more likely to use reading and writing as a means of communication. Furthermore, they are more likely to engage in the critical practice of using tradition and innovation. Currently, I don't know that this level of literacy translates over to the web. Sure, there people who are able to write in the new form, but for most, tech. literacy is really a read-only proposition. And the sort of "multitasking," "short attention span" sort of literacy, while it is widely celebrated as the revolutionary new way of being by people with a vested interested in it, it also influences the opposition to "vested interests". Everywhere, we hear artists and educators talking about this new way of thinking and learning, and the impossibility of older forms of social organization... Which, of course, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The general result, is a sort of "gamer" mentality, which harnesses people's boredom and dissatisfaction, and says, well, you can do something about it, utopia is yours to create or destroy, and the only cost to you is a little time, concentration, and, of course, the pertinent fees. I worry that waiting for the next bit of technology or the next application is going to lead us where it always has. It's probably passe to reference Ellul, but Ellul's gripe with the "technological society" was that we have such abundant faith in technology to release people from suffering and injustice without any sacrifice or guilt, that we miss the mundane things we can do right now. In his day, he was talking about industrial technologies to, say, solve hunger, even as it was possible to feed the world with existing sources of food. In our own time, I think the solutions and ambitions of our authentic techno-utopians are more modest and incomplete (sometimes, purely, intellectual and imaginary)...even as the actual technologies (particularly in areas like genetic engineering, RFID, pharmaceutical, and, as always, warfare) of the powerful are rather staggering... I find myself going back to Ellul in this regard. Not to say that technology has no place in this equation, but that it should not distract from what we can do with our hands, feet, mouths, and minds. If we will ever have power to change the world, we have it now. Where this type of view might fit with the sort of work that you are doing... is not to discourage it... but to ground it. I would hate to disparage the earnest efforts of people who are striving to improve human life and agency in those areas where they are likely to have the most impact. But success resides in our ability to tie virtual actions to real actions, and to avoid the sort of thinking which says, "What is real, anyways? It's all real!" Because, there is a difference between the sophistry which declares something "real" by fiat, to prove its own importance, and those symbolic actions which are real because they effect people at an existential level. And the baseline measure should not be the existential anxieties of people who cannot tell the difference between the world and theory, the baseline should be always the hard focus on the fact that through our actions or inaction, people are dying, that existence itself is threatened by the current trajectory of civilization. Peace! Davin On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 9:49 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > Hi Davin, > > there is indeed a strong dialectic between the offline and online contacts, but I would insist that the internet has enabled a whole new layer of affinity based translocal organizing, which was perhaps possible before, but at a much higher 'treshold' cost, necessitating strong organizations which took years to build ... > > In the case of the p2p foundation, definitely the online came first, and on top of that, a community is being slowly formed, people are meeting each other, etc ... It seems Linux started in the same way, first by an online appeal, then by building a movement with people who would eventually meet ... > > Michel > > > ----- Original Message ---- >> From: davin heckman >> To: Michael Bauwens >> Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net" >> Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 1:14:14 AM >> Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory >> >> I agree with you, actually.? (Which is why I am on this list.? I do >> not know any of the people face to face, but I do feel a strong sense >> of affection and solidarity, especially when exchanges get personal >> and force us to be present, responsible, and accountable to each >> other). >> >> I think, however, that the prerequisite for strong online organization >> is successful experience to some physical experience.? I am skeptical >> about the idea online activism could precede "live" activism.? A >> large, diverse, and successful political action is a very hard thing >> to pull off....? and the rewards are often realized in subtle ways... >> especially if you "lose."? The sense of danger, the feelings of >> dependence, the way in which individual limitations are transcended >> through solidarity, and how disappointments lead to other positives. >> >> But through all this you learn how to be an activist.? It changes who >> you are, becomes a part of your being.? (And in a small community, >> especially, it marks you as a particular kind of person, which has its >> downsides, but also ups the ante in a good way.)? And, then you kind >> of have to seek other people out and connect with them....? which is >> where, I think, social media comes in. >> >> Peace! >> Davin >> >> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 10:59 PM, Michael >> Bauwens wrote: >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > Hi David, >> > >> > I'm very sympathetic to your point of view, rooted in struggle and real life >> experience, and indeed, social media is no panacea. >> > >> > However, it seems your example is rooted in local organizing, but what about >> the translocal. >> > >> > I wouldn't want to overstate the community aspects of my own work at the P2P >> Foundation, but I see it as a forum for serious discourse and exchange, aimed at >> 'changing the world', and I have enough anecdotal evidence, emails sent by many >> people, to indicate that is has sustained hope and strength in many different >> people. >> > >> > So, actually, in the end, I do not agree, discouraging people from using >> social media is pretty much like discouraging people from using TV, it won't >> work, because it offers too many benefits. So I would rather say, go with the >> use (no use to push people at all, they are all doing it by themselves anyway), >> but try to change that use, by infusing consciousness, a sense of the possible, >> and a sense that new futures can be co-constructed, both f2f and through social >> media. >> > >> > But indeed, I also object to just "playing around", signing petitions that >> have no effect at all, etc... >> > >> > There is I think something in between the two positions, >> > >> > Michel >> > >> > >> > ----- Original Message ---- >> >> From: davin heckman >> >> To: "idc at mailman.thing.net" >> >> Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 10:47:52 PM >> >> Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory >> >> >> >> I was at a barbecue about a week ago, chatting with my brother-in-law, >> >> who's a labor organizer.? He's less concerned with swelling the ranks >> >> of a particular union than he is with talking to working people about >> >> how they can, by talking with each other, improve their situation. >> >> >> >> As a teacher, I was interested in picking his brain on how I could use >> >> some of his work to help my students talk about their lives, formulate >> >> their responses, and organize themselves around issues that matter to >> >> them.? Naturally, the talk turned to social media as a possibility and >> >> an obstacle for such organization. >> >> >> >> His advice to me, based on anecdotal evidence, was to advise students >> >> against using social media for organizing until they had strong >> >> face-to-face relationships.? And then, only use it sparingly, as a >> >> tool.? His experience, based on work with 20-50 year old working folks >> >> was that attitudes quickly devolve into patterns consistent with the >> >> consumption of entertainment--you do it when you have time, when it is >> >> fun, and with the multitude of available channels of information it is >> >> too easy to avoid bare-knuckle conflicts (even when exchanges become >> >> hot).? In his view, the contexts which require organizing the most are >> >> those which are going to be risky--where you might lose your job, face >> >> retaliation, and, in some cases, get beaten.? And so, you need a tight >> >> social relationship in which people are willing to sacrifice for each >> >> other.? His efforts at organizing online were weak...? they generated >> >> good talk among those who participated...? but they did not translate >> >> into a strong group, unless the group was rooted in face-to-face >> >> relationships. >> >> >> >> The view he articulated to me was basically the one that I had been >> >> moving more closely to over the years--watching students organize an >> >> organization with 200 members on facebook, and then showing up to an >> >> empty meeting.? On the other hand, groups with no online presence can >> >> have very active meetings.? Part of me wonders if there is a divide >> >> between social media use in large metropolitan areas, where there are >> >> lots of things going on... versus life in smaller cities and towns, >> >> where people have more limited activities to choose from and less >> >> money to spend on entertainment.? Maybe in big cities or among certain >> >> demographic groups, social media "works" better.? Where I live and >> >> teach, it tends to fall flat.? If I want someone to help out with >> >> something, I have to put in face-to-face time.? I've lived in places >> >> where you could choose from several Critical Mass bike rides to >> >> attend...? but then there are huge swaths of territory where people >> >> say, "Critical Mass?? What's that?"? And then, when you explain, they >> >> say, "Why would you want to do that?" >> >> >> >> To finally get to my point, and I'm not trying to say there is >> >> anything wrong with Web 2.0 stuff, but I do think in terms of social >> >> potential it requires the user to approach it with a certain set of >> >> priorities, a certain consciousness, and a learned orientation.? IF >> >> the learned orientation is geared towards a rudimentary form of >> >> consumption, the space is going to be filled with similar priorities, >> >> perhaps with a bit more detail and elaboration.? But it does not >> >> inevitably lead towards anything utopian, except in the kind of >> >> watered-down neoliberal sense where we call fun "utopia."? On the >> >> other hand, if people habitually have robust relationships that are >> >> tied to consequence, they are more likely to place those expectations >> >> onto any medium that they are invested in.? Even if consumers become >> >> "green consumers" or "hipsters" (or whatever the thing to do is)... >> >> as long as "the good" is framed primarily as an enlightened approach >> >> to individual consumer choices...? it will be hard to respond to >> >> employers and corporations who coordinate their decision-making in an >> >> integrated way, facilitated by market research, lobbying, finance, >> >> etc. >> >> >> >> In general, contemporary critical theory is frightened of tackling >> >> concepts like guilt, sacrifice, duty, responsibility, etc.? Such >> >> concepts are toxic to neoliberalism (except in those cases when they >> >> can be exploited, like when neglected children learn to nag their >> >> overworked parents into buying shit to make up for their absence), and >> >> consequently, generations of people are afraid of these feelings. >> >> But, if social media is going to work, it needs to be able to carry >> >> consequences in proportion to risks.? If they are going to translate >> >> into material effects, the virtual actions must be tied to embodied >> >> responses. >> >> >> >> How do we do this?? Well...? my brother-in-law does a great job >> >> organizing people.? Educators have an opportunity to connect students >> >> to this reality.? And, artists can do this in their work. >> >> Unfortunately, there aren't enough organizers, artists, and educators >> >> doing this.? It requires active effort and hard work by people who are >> >> conscious of the problem.? More importantly, we need to imagine an >> >> entire education which is geared towards fostering an ethical view >> >> that is capable of seeing systems of power beyond individual >> >> decisions. >> >> >> >> If the Internet is a factory, then maybe we should follow the model of >> >> past efforts of successful organizing....? And this usually takes >> >> place when the workers are off the clock, when they can have candid >> >> discussions, and when they can get to know each other personally and >> >> intimately.? Especially in the case of the web, where people can get >> >> so caught up in posturing and image-management, it might be doubly >> >> powerful to be cared for and accepted in the flesh, where we feel a >> >> little flabbier and look a bit more blemished, where there is no >> >> backspace to filter out a personality flaw. >> >> >> >> Peace! >> >> >> >> Davin Heckman >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> >> >> List Archive: >> >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> >> >> RSS feed: >> >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > > From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 15 04:59:46 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:59:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <302760.62330.qm@web50802.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Trebor, I completely agree that users should be educated into who benefits/profits from their labour, and I personally would not engage in free activities for a for-profit. Nevertheless, for a young person that needs to establish his credentials in a competitive world, he may feel the benefits exceed the cost ... Re your conclusion about building our own p2p infrastructures: I think it is pretty much a question of the underlying social contract: proprietary platforms are structurally constrained to offer participation and sharing, or face exist, not to speak of user revolts. It is only when they go beyond such acceptable social contract, that you have a chance to establish an independent platform, but precisely to avoid this, they will generally abide by the social contract. So I think they are here to stay and the more politically astute thing to do is to fight/hack for user rights, open standards, free network service principles ... More generally, from my observations, it would seem that open communities which ally themselves successfully with some form of businesses, do better than those who don't, and there are good reasons for that, which I could explain later. So what I'm saying that, beyond what a radical minority may wish, there arer constraints of 'realism' in what can be achieved and expected, This is not much different from the labour movement, where most workers were quite happy to accept the Fordist social contract ... as long as the system can deliver on those terms, change is only possible within the system; but when the system starts to fail in this deliverance, more radical change becomes possible. So I think that a good policy of change is to play on both levels i.e. work on improving the social contract for sharing and peer producing communities, while paying close attention, and offer support, to those working on more radical distributed infrastructures ... Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: Trebor Scholz > To: "idc at mailman.thing.net" > Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 8:28:01 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > > Michel, > > >Why see this as the exclusive benefit of capital, and be blind to how > >people are using these services for the construction of their own > >lives, using what is at hand. > > Hm,... from the conference introduction and my posts here I had hoped that > it was clear that I am not suggesting a relationship marked by one-sided > benefit. For the past ten years I have participated in countless social > milieus and created a few myself. On reflection, I'd now say that the most > pervasive relationship online is > > a praise-entertainment---expropriation-surveillance tradeoff > > > > > Unless we start peer producing infrastructures ourselves, the > > sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself. > > I could not agree more, Michel, and look forward to developing a strand of > the conference that is dedicated to that. > > ~Trebor > = > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From joe.edelman at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 14:30:05 2009 From: joe.edelman at gmail.com (Joe Edelman) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:30:05 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <439938.30755.qm@web50806.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <21AEE90F-8DC2-4408-B768-332D15DD40EF@gmail.com> <439938.30755.qm@web50806.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <14D45463-7DBE-44C2-8FA4-057AA39CB33C@gmail.com> Michel, I like this perspective. The only thing that I would add is that there's often a design choice, when we as programmer-organizers are choosing how to structure this 'distribution of labor', between following a more 'grid computing' model (take a task, complete it, check it in, update the issue tracker) versus following a more 'bittorrent' model (talk to this guy about the work done so far, do some work, hand it off to this other guy). The former creates connections only from workers to the central tracking point. The latter creates peer connections. The latter is better for building social capital. I would encourage the designers of The Extraordinaries, and other crowdsourcing systems, to make this design decision thoughtfully. --Joe -- J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 On Jun 15, 2009, at 1:38 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > Hi Joe, > > I think that your example is one of the broad shift towards more and > more 'distribution of labor' vs. the old fordist division of labour, > i.e. allowing the micro-level self aggregation of tasks, and this > can work on all levels of social productivity, including nonprofit > volunteering. > > This trend is pretty much unavoidable and in my understanding, the > next step in organizational forms and human civilization; so the > question becomes: how do we make it work for us, and less so for > capital, or, make it work at least for both, in terms of more > favourable social contracts. > > I make a difference between peer to peer dynamics (voluntary input, > participatory process, commons output), and peer-informed modes in > which older institutions try to incorporate the benefits of the new, > while maintaining overall control. This is the new terrain of > struggle, between communities and platforms. > > The natural extension of the project is: do we follow the agenda set > by large nonprofits, or can volunteers determine their own > priorities, with different hybrid particpatory possibilities in > between, > > Michel > > > ----- Original Message ---- >> From: Joe Edelman >> To: Trebor Scholz >> Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net" >> Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 9:29:16 PM >> Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and >> Factory >> >> Trebor, Michel, >> >> I'd be curious what you think of The Extraordinaries (beextra.org), >> which is similar to mechanical turk, but exclusively for nonprofit >> use? >> >> Is the thing we call exploitation or expropriation about capital? Or >> is it about control? (The strategies of large nonprofits are no more >> democratically controlled than those of large corporations; even >> large >> member coops and democratic nations can only be vaguely said to be >> controlled by the people.) Or is it about connection? For me it's >> the later: if you meet people while you work, and those social >> connections can help you accomplish changing in your community and >> personal life, cross class boundaries, etc, that's a good thing. >> >> So when I look at Mechanical Turk, what I see a way to bring tens of >> thousands together without introducing themselves or making any kind >> of real, helpful connection. Which is, indeed, dystopian and scary. >> But Wikipedia and the Obama SMS campaign have this problem to some >> extent too. Facebook Groups and Twitter.. less so! >> >> -- >> J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 >> >> >> >> >> On Jun 13, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Trebor Scholz wrote: >> >>> Michel, >>> >>>> Why see this as the exclusive benefit of capital, and be blind to >>>> how >>>> people are using these services for the construction of their own >>>> lives, using what is at hand. >>> >>> Hm,... from the conference introduction and my posts here I had >>> hoped that >>> it was clear that I am not suggesting a relationship marked by one- >>> sided >>> benefit. For the past ten years I have participated in countless >>> social >>> milieus and created a few myself. On reflection, I'd now say that >>> the most >>> pervasive relationship online is >>> >>> a praise-entertainment---expropriation-surveillance tradeoff >>> >>> between users and operators. I know, it's a mouth-full but as a >>> German I >>> have a deep appreciation for seemingly unending words. >>> >>> Google's Image Labeler is a suitable example. The developer of the >>> game >>> behind the Image Labeler wrote that he encourages people to do the >>> work by >>> taking advantage of their desire to be entertained. It's a triadic >>> mix of >>> self-interest ("fun," acknowledgment), network value (the image >>> search gets >>> better), and corporate profit (Google's product improves). >>> >>> Then there is public-spirited 'interaction labor' on a small number >>> of sites >>> like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, etc. At least today, they are the >>> exception. Only very few of the over 1 billion Internet users >>> contribute to >>> these projects. >>> >>> And finally, if a worker gets paid $8 for transcribing a 45 minute- >>> long >>> video on Mechanical Turk, then I'd call that exploitation in the >>> most >>> technical sense of the word. However, it's expropriation and not >>> exploitation that rules the net. I added a few comments about MTurk >>> to my >>> blog http://is.gd/10JG2 >>> >>> Surely, I'm not suggesting a simple typology; things are murky. >>> >>> Perhaps we can think of exhibitions like Les Immateriaux by Lyotard >>> and >>> Chaput in 1984, and artworks with Internet components like Learning >>> to Love >>> You More by Fletcher and July (2003) as miniature mirror worlds of >>> today's >>> tradeoffs when it comes to the social dynamics of participation... >>> >>> Today, it quickly gets dicey, for instance, when the creators of >>> Facebook's >>> self-translation application state that they have opened up the >>> translation >>> process [of the Facebook interface into some 63 languages] to the >>> community >>> because "You know best how Facebook should be translated into your >>> language.? I don't think of this as straight exploitation but one >>> user in >>> Los Angeles (Valentin Macias) suggested that "people should not be >>> tricked >>> into donating their time and energy to a multimillion-dollar company >>> so that >>> the company can make millions more ? at least not without some >>> type of >>> compensation." Others enjoyed being in the position of co-deciding >>> how >>> "poking" is translated into their language. At the same time, they >>> have more >>> of a stake in the company; they become more loyal costumers of >>> Facebook. >>> Nigel Thrift was right when he proposed that "? value is embedded in >>> the >>> experiences co-created by the individual in an experience >>> environment that >>> the company co-develops with consumers." (Thrift, Reinventing 290) >>> >>>> Unless we start peer producing infrastructures ourselves, the >>>> sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself. >>> >>> I could not agree more, Michel, and look forward to developing a >>> strand of >>> the conference that is dedicated to that. >>> >>> ~Trebor >>> = >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >>> (distributedcreativity.org) >>> iDC at mailman.thing.net >>> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >>> >>> List Archive: >>> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >>> >>> iDC Photo Stream: >>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >>> >>> RSS feed: >>> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >>> >>> iDC Chat on Facebook: >>> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >>> >>> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > > From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 15 05:38:25 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:38:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <21AEE90F-8DC2-4408-B768-332D15DD40EF@gmail.com> References: <21AEE90F-8DC2-4408-B768-332D15DD40EF@gmail.com> Message-ID: <439938.30755.qm@web50806.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Joe, I think that your example is one of the broad shift towards more and more 'distribution of labor' vs. the old fordist division of labour, i.e. allowing the micro-level self aggregation of tasks, and this can work on all levels of social productivity, including nonprofit volunteering. This trend is pretty much unavoidable and in my understanding, the next step in organizational forms and human civilization; so the question becomes: how do we make it work for us, and less so for capital, or, make it work at least for both, in terms of more favourable social contracts. I make a difference between peer to peer dynamics (voluntary input, participatory process, commons output), and peer-informed modes in which older institutions try to incorporate the benefits of the new, while maintaining overall control. This is the new terrain of struggle, between communities and platforms. The natural extension of the project is: do we follow the agenda set by large nonprofits, or can volunteers determine their own priorities, with different hybrid particpatory possibilities in between, Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: Joe Edelman > To: Trebor Scholz > Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net" > Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 9:29:16 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > > Trebor, Michel, > > I'd be curious what you think of The Extraordinaries (beextra.org),? > which is similar to mechanical turk, but exclusively for nonprofit use? > > Is the thing we call exploitation or expropriation about capital?? Or? > is it about control? (The strategies of large nonprofits are no more? > democratically controlled than those of large corporations; even large? > member coops and democratic nations can only be vaguely said to be? > controlled by the people.)? Or is it about connection?? For me it's? > the later:? if you meet people while you work, and those social? > connections can help you accomplish changing in your community and? > personal life, cross class boundaries, etc, that's a good thing. > > So when I look at Mechanical Turk, what I see a way to bring tens of? > thousands together without introducing themselves or making any kind? > of real, helpful connection.? Which is, indeed, dystopian and scary.? > But Wikipedia and the Obama SMS campaign have this problem to some? > extent too.? Facebook Groups and Twitter.. less so! > > -- > J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 > > > > > On Jun 13, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Trebor Scholz wrote: > > > Michel, > > > >> Why see this as the exclusive benefit of capital, and be blind to how > >> people are using these services for the construction of their own > >> lives, using what is at hand. > > > > Hm,... from the conference introduction and my posts here I had? > > hoped that > > it was clear that I am not suggesting a relationship marked by one- > > sided > > benefit. For the past ten years I have participated in countless? > > social > > milieus and created a few myself. On reflection, I'd now say that? > > the most > > pervasive relationship online is > > > > a praise-entertainment---expropriation-surveillance tradeoff > > > > between users and operators. I know, it's a mouth-full but as a? > > German I > > have a deep appreciation for seemingly unending words. > > > > Google's Image Labeler is a suitable example. The developer of the? > > game > > behind the Image Labeler wrote that he encourages people to do the? > > work by > > taking advantage of their desire to be entertained. It's a triadic? > > mix of > > self-interest ("fun," acknowledgment), network value (the image? > > search gets > > better), and corporate profit (Google's product improves). > > > > Then there is public-spirited 'interaction labor' on a small number? > > of sites > > like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, etc. At least today, they are the > > exception. Only very few of the over 1 billion Internet users? > > contribute to > > these projects. > > > > And finally, if a worker gets paid $8 for transcribing a 45 minute- > > long > > video on Mechanical Turk, then I'd call that exploitation in the most > > technical sense of the word. However, it's expropriation and not > > exploitation that rules the net. I added a few comments about MTurk? > > to my > > blog http://is.gd/10JG2 > > > > Surely, I'm not suggesting a simple typology; things are murky. > > > > Perhaps we can think of exhibitions like Les Immateriaux by Lyotard? > > and > > Chaput in 1984, and artworks with Internet components like Learning? > > to Love > > You More by Fletcher and July (2003) as miniature mirror worlds of? > > today's > > tradeoffs when it comes to the social dynamics of participation... > > > > Today, it quickly gets dicey, for instance, when the creators of? > > Facebook's > > self-translation application state that they have opened up the? > > translation > > process [of the Facebook interface into some 63 languages] to the? > > community > > because "You know best how Facebook should be translated into your > > language.? I don't think of this as straight exploitation but one? > > user in > > Los Angeles (Valentin Macias) suggested that "people should not be? > > tricked > > into donating their time and energy to a multimillion-dollar company? > > so that > > the company can make millions more ? at least not without some type of > > compensation." Others enjoyed being in the position of co-deciding how > > "poking" is translated into their language. At the same time, they? > > have more > > of a stake in the company; they become more loyal costumers of? > > Facebook. > > Nigel Thrift was right when he proposed that "? value is embedded in? > > the > > experiences co-created by the individual in an experience? > > environment that > > the company co-develops with consumers." (Thrift, Reinventing 290) > > > >> Unless we start peer producing infrastructures ourselves, the > >> sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself. > > > > I could not agree more, Michel, and look forward to developing a? > > strand of > > the conference that is dedicated to that. > > > > ~Trebor > > = > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity? > > (distributedcreativity.org) > > iDC at mailman.thing.net > > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > > > List Archive: > > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > > > iDC Photo Stream: > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > > > RSS feed: > > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From JDEAN at hws.edu Mon Jun 15 22:50:17 2009 From: JDEAN at hws.edu (Dean, Jodi) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:50:17 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <346171.97532.qm@web30802.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <346171.97532.qm@web30802.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Folks, I've been following the discussion thus far. For me, one of the ways it's been useful is as a challenge to think through/across different vocabularies and approaches. I wonder if the discussion on the list over the summer will possibly start to generate a somewhat more common way of formulating questions and concerns. For example, I read Wark's Gamer Theory, as well as Fred Thompson's work on cyberculture, as acute demonstrations of the inapplicability of the opposition between work and play in the contemporary setting. Once play was capitalized, it ceased to be an opening to some sort of an outside. Then, the questions become again, how to conceive networked interactions. I've been trying to approach the question via Zizek's discussion of the decline of symbolic efficiency (Mark Andrejevic also uses this concept)--the benefit of this approach is that it doesn't proceed from a separation of technologically mediated communication from some kind of other communication. Here's an excerpt from a draft of my essay, The Real Internet. The basic attempt is to consider how the Real of the internet is circulation, circulation that produces a loop, and a hole, that can never be filled and hence entraps those who use it in a circuit of drive. Jodi Zizek?s early work on cyberspace emphasizes the loss of virtuality as the gaps in the symbolic are filled. The circulation of contributions in the networks of communicative capitalism suggests a different structure, one characterized by drive. There is no ?cyberspace? that persists as its own domain. Rather, the networks of global communications occur through a variety of devices, technologies, and media?internet, mobile phones, television, global positioning systems, game platforms, etc. In fact, one of the more interesting features of massive multiplayer online role playing games is less the creation of virtual worlds than the intersections of game and non-game worlds: players can buy and trade currencies and characters outside the gamespace. The expansions and intensifications of networked interactions thus point not to a field closed to meaning as all possibilities are explored and filled in but rather back to the non-all Real of human experiences. Differently put, the Real of the internet is the circulatory movement effected by symbolic efficiency as loss. The movement from link to link, the forwarding and storing and commenting, the contributing without expectation of response but in hope of further movement (why else count page views?) is circulation for its own sake. Drive in the course of its circulating movement takes the form of a loop. The empty space within it, then, is not the result of the loss of something that was there before and now is missing. The drive of the internet is not around the missing Master signifier (which is foreclosed rather than missing). Instead, it is the inside of the loop, the space of nothing that the loop makes appear. Indeed, this endless loop that persists for its own sake is the difference that makes a difference between so-called old and new media. Old media sought to deliver messages. New media just circulates. Understanding this circulation via drive enables us to understand how it is that we are captured in its loop, how the loop ensnares. First, we enjoy failure. That is to say, insofar as the aim of the drive is not to reach its goal but to enjoy, we enjoy our endless circulation, our repetitive loop. We cannot know certainly; we cannot know adequately. But we can mobilize this loss, googling, checking Wikipedia, mistrusting it immediately, losing track of what we doing, going somewhere else. We are captured because we enjoy. This idea appears in writing that associates new media with drugs, ?users? and ?using,? as well as colloquial expressions like ?Facecrack? (as a friend said to me, well, why didn?t you tell me Facebook is like crack? I?ll be certain to sign up now!). Second, as I?ve already suggested, we are captured in our passivity; in the absence of an ego ideal, we remain passive. Differently put, the information not only is necessarily an age wherein we lack the information we need to act, but as it incites continuous search for this information it renders it perpetually out of reach. A concrete example here is the policy of tortured conducted by the Bush administration. A constant refrain concerns the need to get to the truth of the situation, to see more photographs, read more documents?as if had not been known sense at least 2004 that the U.S. was torturing prisoners captured in the so-called war on terror. Since photographs and documents already circulate, since members of the Bush administration?including Vice President Cheney?have already acknowledged that they did in fact approve the policy of torture, it cannot be the case that the problem is the absence of information. What is missing is instead more radical, namely, a capacity to see ourselves as acting. Christian Marazzi makes a similar point in his description of imitative behavior among those working in the finance sector. He writes, ?One important result of the empirical studies of the behavioral finance theorists is this very notion of imitative behavior based on the structural information deficits of all investors, be they large or small. . . The modalities of communication of what the ?others? consider a good stock to invest in counts more than what is communicated.? As is well known, an imitative, competitive relation to others is a characteristic of imaginary identification. It makes sense, then, to recognize this imitative behavior as indicative of the decline of symbolic efficiency; unable to find a standpoint from which to assess the adequacy of the available information, bond traders and hedge fund managers simply mimic those around them, stuck in the circuits of global finance. The gaze draws us to a third way we are captured in contemporary communication networks. Precisely because the gaps are not filled, because they cannot be filled, we are drawn to them, inscribing ourselves in the images we see, the texts that we read. So although it may make initial sense to consider online interactions as so many ways that we search for ourselves, trying to know who we are, to pull together our fragmented identities, the other aspect of the gaze, its traumatic disruption of the image is vital as well. The satisfaction provided by the group or tribe arises from transgressing its expectations as well. The phenomenon of splicing scary zombie pop-ups into conventional You Tube videos illustrates this point. Just as the viewer has become absorbed in the video, perhaps searching for the ghost or the key to the magic trip, a monstrous image (usually accompanied by a hideous scream) shocks her out of her absorption, reminding her that, in a way, the fault is hers?she shouldn?t have been wasting her time watching videos online, shouldn?t have let her guard down, shouldn?t have presumed that the video images had a flow independent of her investment in them. Although the discussion of drive here draws heavily from Zizek, there is a crucial point of difference. Zizek emphasizes that the ?stuckness? of drive (what I?ve been treating as capture) is the intrusion of radical break or imbalance: ?drive is quite literally the very ?drive? to break the All of continuity in which we are embedded, to introduce a radical imbalance into it.? My argument is that communicative capitalism is a formation that relies on this imbalance, on the repeated suspension of narratives, patterns, identities, norms, etc. Under conditions of the decline of symbolic efficiency, drive is not an act; it does not break out of a set of given expectations because such sets no longer persist as coherent enchainments of meaning. On the contrary, the circulation of drive is functional for the prevention of such enchainments, enchainments that might well enable radical political opposition. The contemporary challenge, then, is producing the conditions of possibility for breaking out of the loop of drive. From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 15 13:49:27 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:49:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: <944824.3629.qm@web50801.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <449485.54410.qm@web50806.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Davin, there is indeed a strong dialectic between the offline and online contacts, but I would insist that the internet has enabled a whole new layer of affinity based translocal organizing, which was perhaps possible before, but at a much higher 'treshold' cost, necessitating strong organizations which took years to build ... In the case of the p2p foundation, definitely the online came first, and on top of that, a community is being slowly formed, people are meeting each other, etc ... It seems Linux started in the same way, first by an online appeal, then by building a movement with people who would eventually meet ... Michel ----- Original Message ---- > From: davin heckman > To: Michael Bauwens > Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net" > Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 1:14:14 AM > Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > > I agree with you, actually.? (Which is why I am on this list.? I do > not know any of the people face to face, but I do feel a strong sense > of affection and solidarity, especially when exchanges get personal > and force us to be present, responsible, and accountable to each > other). > > I think, however, that the prerequisite for strong online organization > is successful experience to some physical experience.? I am skeptical > about the idea online activism could precede "live" activism.? A > large, diverse, and successful political action is a very hard thing > to pull off....? and the rewards are often realized in subtle ways... > especially if you "lose."? The sense of danger, the feelings of > dependence, the way in which individual limitations are transcended > through solidarity, and how disappointments lead to other positives. > > But through all this you learn how to be an activist.? It changes who > you are, becomes a part of your being.? (And in a small community, > especially, it marks you as a particular kind of person, which has its > downsides, but also ups the ante in a good way.)? And, then you kind > of have to seek other people out and connect with them....? which is > where, I think, social media comes in. > > Peace! > Davin > > On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 10:59 PM, Michael > Bauwens wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Hi David, > > > > I'm very sympathetic to your point of view, rooted in struggle and real life > experience, and indeed, social media is no panacea. > > > > However, it seems your example is rooted in local organizing, but what about > the translocal. > > > > I wouldn't want to overstate the community aspects of my own work at the P2P > Foundation, but I see it as a forum for serious discourse and exchange, aimed at > 'changing the world', and I have enough anecdotal evidence, emails sent by many > people, to indicate that is has sustained hope and strength in many different > people. > > > > So, actually, in the end, I do not agree, discouraging people from using > social media is pretty much like discouraging people from using TV, it won't > work, because it offers too many benefits. So I would rather say, go with the > use (no use to push people at all, they are all doing it by themselves anyway), > but try to change that use, by infusing consciousness, a sense of the possible, > and a sense that new futures can be co-constructed, both f2f and through social > media. > > > > But indeed, I also object to just "playing around", signing petitions that > have no effect at all, etc... > > > > There is I think something in between the two positions, > > > > Michel > > > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > >> From: davin heckman > >> To: "idc at mailman.thing.net" > >> Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 10:47:52 PM > >> Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > >> > >> I was at a barbecue about a week ago, chatting with my brother-in-law, > >> who's a labor organizer.? He's less concerned with swelling the ranks > >> of a particular union than he is with talking to working people about > >> how they can, by talking with each other, improve their situation. > >> > >> As a teacher, I was interested in picking his brain on how I could use > >> some of his work to help my students talk about their lives, formulate > >> their responses, and organize themselves around issues that matter to > >> them.? Naturally, the talk turned to social media as a possibility and > >> an obstacle for such organization. > >> > >> His advice to me, based on anecdotal evidence, was to advise students > >> against using social media for organizing until they had strong > >> face-to-face relationships.? And then, only use it sparingly, as a > >> tool.? His experience, based on work with 20-50 year old working folks > >> was that attitudes quickly devolve into patterns consistent with the > >> consumption of entertainment--you do it when you have time, when it is > >> fun, and with the multitude of available channels of information it is > >> too easy to avoid bare-knuckle conflicts (even when exchanges become > >> hot).? In his view, the contexts which require organizing the most are > >> those which are going to be risky--where you might lose your job, face > >> retaliation, and, in some cases, get beaten.? And so, you need a tight > >> social relationship in which people are willing to sacrifice for each > >> other.? His efforts at organizing online were weak...? they generated > >> good talk among those who participated...? but they did not translate > >> into a strong group, unless the group was rooted in face-to-face > >> relationships. > >> > >> The view he articulated to me was basically the one that I had been > >> moving more closely to over the years--watching students organize an > >> organization with 200 members on facebook, and then showing up to an > >> empty meeting.? On the other hand, groups with no online presence can > >> have very active meetings.? Part of me wonders if there is a divide > >> between social media use in large metropolitan areas, where there are > >> lots of things going on... versus life in smaller cities and towns, > >> where people have more limited activities to choose from and less > >> money to spend on entertainment.? Maybe in big cities or among certain > >> demographic groups, social media "works" better.? Where I live and > >> teach, it tends to fall flat.? If I want someone to help out with > >> something, I have to put in face-to-face time.? I've lived in places > >> where you could choose from several Critical Mass bike rides to > >> attend...? but then there are huge swaths of territory where people > >> say, "Critical Mass?? What's that?"? And then, when you explain, they > >> say, "Why would you want to do that?" > >> > >> To finally get to my point, and I'm not trying to say there is > >> anything wrong with Web 2.0 stuff, but I do think in terms of social > >> potential it requires the user to approach it with a certain set of > >> priorities, a certain consciousness, and a learned orientation.? IF > >> the learned orientation is geared towards a rudimentary form of > >> consumption, the space is going to be filled with similar priorities, > >> perhaps with a bit more detail and elaboration.? But it does not > >> inevitably lead towards anything utopian, except in the kind of > >> watered-down neoliberal sense where we call fun "utopia."? On the > >> other hand, if people habitually have robust relationships that are > >> tied to consequence, they are more likely to place those expectations > >> onto any medium that they are invested in.? Even if consumers become > >> "green consumers" or "hipsters" (or whatever the thing to do is)... > >> as long as "the good" is framed primarily as an enlightened approach > >> to individual consumer choices...? it will be hard to respond to > >> employers and corporations who coordinate their decision-making in an > >> integrated way, facilitated by market research, lobbying, finance, > >> etc. > >> > >> In general, contemporary critical theory is frightened of tackling > >> concepts like guilt, sacrifice, duty, responsibility, etc.? Such > >> concepts are toxic to neoliberalism (except in those cases when they > >> can be exploited, like when neglected children learn to nag their > >> overworked parents into buying shit to make up for their absence), and > >> consequently, generations of people are afraid of these feelings. > >> But, if social media is going to work, it needs to be able to carry > >> consequences in proportion to risks.? If they are going to translate > >> into material effects, the virtual actions must be tied to embodied > >> responses. > >> > >> How do we do this?? Well...? my brother-in-law does a great job > >> organizing people.? Educators have an opportunity to connect students > >> to this reality.? And, artists can do this in their work. > >> Unfortunately, there aren't enough organizers, artists, and educators > >> doing this.? It requires active effort and hard work by people who are > >> conscious of the problem.? More importantly, we need to imagine an > >> entire education which is geared towards fostering an ethical view > >> that is capable of seeing systems of power beyond individual > >> decisions. > >> > >> If the Internet is a factory, then maybe we should follow the model of > >> past efforts of successful organizing....? And this usually takes > >> place when the workers are off the clock, when they can have candid > >> discussions, and when they can get to know each other personally and > >> intimately.? Especially in the case of the web, where people can get > >> so caught up in posturing and image-management, it might be doubly > >> powerful to be cared for and accepted in the flesh, where we feel a > >> little flabbier and look a bit more blemished, where there is no > >> backspace to filter out a personality flaw. > >> > >> Peace! > >> > >> Davin Heckman > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > >> (distributedcreativity.org) > >> iDC at mailman.thing.net > >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > >> > >> List Archive: > >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > >> > >> iDC Photo Stream: > >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > >> > >> RSS feed: > >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > >> > >> iDC Chat on Facebook: > >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > >> > >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > > > > > > > > From cbrubin at risd.edu Mon Jun 15 23:56:53 2009 From: cbrubin at risd.edu (Cynthia Beth Rubin) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:56:53 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Terms of Agreement: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: I want to return to the issue of ownership of posts on web sites. Would it be possible to use this discussion to define reasonable terms of agreement for users on all social networking sites? I do believe that this is possible, because of a real-life experience with changing Terms of Agreement. The alumni association of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, signed an agreement with iModules to provide a kind of "Facebook" experience for those of us who are alums. When some of read the "Terms of Agreement", it turned out that we agreeing to give everything away. Some of us freaked and asked for new terms (we worked together to write them). It worked. Quite honestly, I suspect that the ridiculous terms were written by attorneys with little understanding of social networking sites. No one at iModules thought that we were wrong to ask for new terms. Below are some phrases from the current Terms of Agreement on the Antiochians.org site (our alumni site -- and yes -- we are still in existence) 7. Content submitted to this site We do not assert any ownership over user content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms and Conditions, you retain full ownership of all of your content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your content. . . . xxxxxxxxxx(lots of stand stuff) - xxxxxxxxxxx If you wish to grant other users or the general public additional licenses to your content, you may include such terms with your content such as: Usage granted under Creative Commons License http://creativecommons.org Cynthia Beth Rubin http://CBRubin.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090615/beb7fcf2/attachment.htm From michelsub2003 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 15 15:05:55 2009 From: michelsub2003 at yahoo.com (Michael Bauwens) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:05:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <14D45463-7DBE-44C2-8FA4-057AA39CB33C@gmail.com> References: <21AEE90F-8DC2-4408-B768-332D15DD40EF@gmail.com> <439938.30755.qm@web50806.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <14D45463-7DBE-44C2-8FA4-057AA39CB33C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <752150.11775.qm@web50806.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Interesting distinction .. do you have more about this? to supplement our entry on: http://p2pfoundation.net/Value_Sensitive_Design ----- Original Message ---- > From: Joe Edelman > To: Michael Bauwens > Cc: Trebor Scholz ; idc at mailman.thing.net; Ben Rigby ; jacob at beextra.org > Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 9:30:05 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > > Michel, > > I like this perspective.? The only thing that I would add is that there's often > a design choice, when we as programmer-organizers are choosing how to structure > this 'distribution of labor', between following a more 'grid computing' model > (take a task, complete it, check it in, update the issue tracker) versus > following a more 'bittorrent' model (talk to this guy about the work done so > far, do some work, hand it off to this other guy).? The former creates > connections only from workers to the central tracking point.? The latter creates > peer connections.? The latter is better for building social capital. > > I would encourage the designers of The Extraordinaries, and other crowdsourcing > systems, to make this design decision thoughtfully. > > --Joe > > -- > J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 > > > > > On Jun 15, 2009, at 1:38 AM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > > > > Hi Joe, > > > > I think that your example is one of the broad shift towards more and more > 'distribution of labor' vs. the old fordist division of labour, i.e. allowing > the micro-level self aggregation of tasks, and this can work on all levels of > social productivity, including nonprofit volunteering. > > > > This trend is pretty much unavoidable and in my understanding, the next step > in organizational forms and human civilization; so the question becomes: how do > we make it work for us, and less so for capital, or, make it work at least for > both, in terms of more favourable social contracts. > > > > I make a difference between peer to peer dynamics (voluntary input, > participatory process, commons output), and peer-informed modes in which older > institutions try to incorporate the benefits of the new, while maintaining > overall control. This is the new terrain of struggle, between communities and > platforms. > > > > The natural extension of the project is: do we follow the agenda set by large > nonprofits, or can volunteers determine their own priorities, with different > hybrid particpatory possibilities in between, > > > > Michel > > > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > >> From: Joe Edelman > >> To: Trebor Scholz > >> Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net" > >> Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 9:29:16 PM > >> Subject: Re: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory > >> > >> Trebor, Michel, > >> > >> I'd be curious what you think of The Extraordinaries (beextra.org), > >> which is similar to mechanical turk, but exclusively for nonprofit use? > >> > >> Is the thing we call exploitation or expropriation about capital?? Or > >> is it about control? (The strategies of large nonprofits are no more > >> democratically controlled than those of large corporations; even large > >> member coops and democratic nations can only be vaguely said to be > >> controlled by the people.)? Or is it about connection?? For me it's > >> the later:? if you meet people while you work, and those social > >> connections can help you accomplish changing in your community and > >> personal life, cross class boundaries, etc, that's a good thing. > >> > >> So when I look at Mechanical Turk, what I see a way to bring tens of > >> thousands together without introducing themselves or making any kind > >> of real, helpful connection.? Which is, indeed, dystopian and scary. > >> But Wikipedia and the Obama SMS campaign have this problem to some > >> extent too.? Facebook Groups and Twitter.. less so! > >> > >> -- > >> J.E. // nxhx.org // (c) 413.250.8007 > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> On Jun 13, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Trebor Scholz wrote: > >> > >>> Michel, > >>> > >>>> Why see this as the exclusive benefit of capital, and be blind to how > >>>> people are using these services for the construction of their own > >>>> lives, using what is at hand. > >>> > >>> Hm,... from the conference introduction and my posts here I had > >>> hoped that > >>> it was clear that I am not suggesting a relationship marked by one- > >>> sided > >>> benefit. For the past ten years I have participated in countless > >>> social > >>> milieus and created a few myself. On reflection, I'd now say that > >>> the most > >>> pervasive relationship online is > >>> > >>> a praise-entertainment---expropriation-surveillance tradeoff > >>> > >>> between users and operators. I know, it's a mouth-full but as a > >>> German I > >>> have a deep appreciation for seemingly unending words. > >>> > >>> Google's Image Labeler is a suitable example. The developer of the > >>> game > >>> behind the Image Labeler wrote that he encourages people to do the > >>> work by > >>> taking advantage of their desire to be entertained. It's a triadic > >>> mix of > >>> self-interest ("fun," acknowledgment), network value (the image > >>> search gets > >>> better), and corporate profit (Google's product improves). > >>> > >>> Then there is public-spirited 'interaction labor' on a small number > >>> of sites > >>> like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, etc. At least today, they are the > >>> exception. Only very few of the over 1 billion Internet users > >>> contribute to > >>> these projects. > >>> > >>> And finally, if a worker gets paid $8 for transcribing a 45 minute- > >>> long > >>> video on Mechanical Turk, then I'd call that exploitation in the most > >>> technical sense of the word. However, it's expropriation and not > >>> exploitation that rules the net. I added a few comments about MTurk > >>> to my > >>> blog http://is.gd/10JG2 > >>> > >>> Surely, I'm not suggesting a simple typology; things are murky. > >>> > >>> Perhaps we can think of exhibitions like Les Immateriaux by Lyotard > >>> and > >>> Chaput in 1984, and artworks with Internet components like Learning > >>> to Love > >>> You More by Fletcher and July (2003) as miniature mirror worlds of > >>> today's > >>> tradeoffs when it comes to the social dynamics of participation... > >>> > >>> Today, it quickly gets dicey, for instance, when the creators of > >>> Facebook's > >>> self-translation application state that they have opened up the > >>> translation > >>> process [of the Facebook interface into some 63 languages] to the > >>> community > >>> because "You know best how Facebook should be translated into your > >>> language.? I don't think of this as straight exploitation but one > >>> user in > >>> Los Angeles (Valentin Macias) suggested that "people should not be > >>> tricked > >>> into donating their time and energy to a multimillion-dollar company > >>> so that > >>> the company can make millions more ? at least not without some type of > >>> compensation." Others enjoyed being in the position of co-deciding how > >>> "poking" is translated into their language. At the same time, they > >>> have more > >>> of a stake in the company; they become more loyal costumers of > >>> Facebook. > >>> Nigel Thrift was right when he proposed that "? value is embedded in > >>> the > >>> experiences co-created by the individual in an experience > >>> environment that > >>> the company co-develops with consumers." (Thrift, Reinventing 290) > >>> > >>>> Unless we start peer producing infrastructures ourselves, the > >>>> sharing mode by itself is not strong enough to sustain itself. > >>> > >>> I could not agree more, Michel, and look forward to developing a > >>> strand of > >>> the conference that is dedicated to that. > >>> > >>> ~Trebor > >>> = > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > >>> (distributedcreativity.org) > >>> iDC at mailman.thing.net > >>> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > >>> > >>> List Archive: > >>> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > >>> > >>> iDC Photo Stream: > >>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > >>> > >>> RSS feed: > >>> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > >>> > >>> iDC Chat on Facebook: > >>> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > >>> > >>> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > >> (distributedcreativity.org) > >> iDC at mailman.thing.net > >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > >> > >> List Archive: > >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > >> > >> iDC Photo Stream: > >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > >> > >> RSS feed: > >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > >> > >> iDC Chat on Facebook: > >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > >> > >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > > > > > > From howard at rheingold.com Tue Jun 16 00:47:04 2009 From: howard at rheingold.com (Howard Rheingold) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:47:04 -0700 Subject: [iDC] Henry Jenkins interviews Sonia Livingstone Message-ID: <2F3E5A13-C2CF-4DE8-AB70-0861B1733EC1@rheingold.com> I recommend this interview, and if it piques your interest, Sonia Livingstone's new book. I haven't read it yet, but I have followed her for years, and I'm always interested in what she has to say. Her conclusions follow empirical work, and she doesn't allow herself to be trapped into simple-minded overgeneralization about what Trebor calls "non-existing polarities of utopia and dystopia." Interview: http://henryjenkins.org/2009/06/an_interview_with_sonia_living.html Brief quote from Livingstone: > Many of us have argued for some time now that the concept of > 'impacts' seems to treat the internet (or any technology) as if it > came from outer space, uninfluenced by human (or social and > political) understandings. Of course it doesn't. So, the concept of > affordances usefully recognises that the online environment has been > conceived, designed and marketed with certain uses and users in > mind, and with certain benefits (influence, profits, whatever) going > to the producer. > > Affordances also recognises that interfaces or technologies > don't determine consequences 100%, though they may be influential, > strongly guiding or framing or preferring one use or one > interpretation over another. That's not to say that I'd rule out all > questions of consequences, more that we need to find more subtle > ways of asking the questions here. Problematically too, there is > still very little research that looks long-term at changes > associated with the widespread use of the internet, making it > surprisingly hard to say whether, for example, my children's > childhood is really so different from mine was, and why. Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com http://twitter.com/hrheingold http://www.rheingold.com http://www.smartmobs.com http://vlog.rheingold.com what it is ---> is --->up to us From guibertc at criticalsecret.com Tue Jun 16 01:20:16 2009 From: guibertc at criticalsecret.com (Aliette Guibert-Certhoux) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:20:16 +0200 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9eb0e3810906151820i18ddadb7t59f12a1bcc9b631c@mail.gmail.com> Dear Trebor, Dear all, What I would want to say without being able to venture to participate completely in the discussion, because I write too badly English, it is just this : Naturally there is a Web economy which is centred by external commercial activities, I think of the Press for example or I think of the big vectoral websites trading. These sites represent a working field for developers or designers, for the translators, for the editors etc. Network engineers, and creators of software. There is also a business of hosting and a business of serving the sites, and a very big cost of the bandwidth... But there is also a big part of free work, the freeware in all our sites of creation and of publication. And the use of the bandwith is collective mostly free for all. Who pay the bandwith for sites such as : MySpace (we know), Facebook etc. ? And finally we can remind that the web commom was almost created free, hardware and even a part of software--if we count all the experimenters of the Beta versions. So that Web being a global space of interactive communication, we can imagine it similar to an increased society. Certainly a virtual society but a real society. What happens in the society : there are roads railways and a lot of equipments (is it the word ?) and a lot of things which are in free access. Can be apart the commercial device and the paying services but can be too within the framework of a neo-liberal society, it remains that for any social organization the principle of the society is to connect people by the way to allow an increase of productive power, because it is a device of mutual exploitation of people who share it. This mutual exploitation is a free exchange which constitutes the social pact. If you make paying the pact at once the society loosing its object disappear becoming a segregationist community. Internet is a virtual increased reality from the society and increasing the Technics of which the source is to get free of alienating work (i.e. Working for food). Internet may be sound as the part of evil of the materialist society, the place of mutual donation even can be the poorest can be to the richest: online indifference. What is exactly normal. By night the lighting of the public streets is for everybody even for those who do not pay tax. Online there is something free, largely free because that is the pact. Or it will not be vital. For me it is not disturbing to make run google. Being exploited by this way is not different with my city. The only matter which disturbs me, it is the transmission of the vectoral data to the cops. Without forgetting an Hadopi cop in my computer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090616/f20457c7/attachment.htm From kpatelis at aueb.gr Tue Jun 16 09:10:56 2009 From: kpatelis at aueb.gr (Korinna Patelis) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:10:56 +0300 Subject: [iDC] Terms of Agreement: The Internet as Playground and Factory References: Message-ID: <7CCCD597D0CC4CE790BB566E79AEA55F@Mrsmosh> Hi, Reading the post below as well as numerous papers on terms of service and so on in academic journals, i feel that focusing on the actual literal terms of service or privacy when we discuss ownership and content overshadows the more general problems with content ownership and content structure in social media. I dont feel the problem with all the user generated content living in commercialised social media spaces should be approached as a contractual issue between users and companies. It is a far more complicated and indeed far more abstract problem then that. The power of a commercial company like facebook cannot be reduced to its power to provide its users with the terms of use it wants. At the same time the actual terms of service are sign of that power. So i feel it woulld be usefull to contextualise disussionss on contracts with discussions of the power of commercial media and above all with debates on the structures of representations of social media and the power to determine these. I understand this might seem obvious and self evident but I think that its important to constantly reflect on commerial power if we dont want to become to legalistic. To put this in user terms: that facebook wont allow me to dislike something a friend has done, or that i cant have enemies on my profile determines the content i will upload in ways more intersting than the actual terms of service. And i think that we need to address such determination at the same time as we address the problem of who owns my content Thanks Korinna Patelis (www.aueb.gr/users/patelis) korinna ----- Original Message ----- From: Cynthia Beth Rubin To: idc at mailman.thing.net Cc: Cynthia Beth Rubin Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 2:56 AM Subject: [iDC] Terms of Agreement: The Internet as Playground and Factory I want to return to the issue of ownership of posts on web sites. Would it be possible to use this discussion to define reasonable terms of agreement for users on all social networking sites? I do believe that this is possible, because of a real-life experience with changing Terms of Agreement. The alumni association of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, signed an agreement with iModules to provide a kind of "Facebook" experience for those of us who are alums. When some of read the "Terms of Agreement", it turned out that we agreeing to give everything away. Some of us freaked and asked for new terms (we worked together to write them). It worked. Quite honestly, I suspect that the ridiculous terms were written by attorneys with little understanding of social networking sites. No one at iModules thought that we were wrong to ask for new terms. Below are some phrases from the current Terms of Agreement on the Antiochians.org site (our alumni site -- and yes -- we are still in existence) 7. Content submitted to this site We do not assert any ownership over user content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms and Conditions, you retain full ownership of all of your content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your content. . . . xxxxxxxxxx(lots of stand stuff) - xxxxxxxxxxx If you wish to grant other users or the general public additional licenses to your content, you may include such terms with your content such as: Usage granted under Creative Commons License http://creativecommons.org Cynthia Beth Rubin http://CBRubin.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) iDC at mailman.thing.net https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc List Archive: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ iDC Photo Stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ RSS feed: http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc iDC Chat on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090616/17c7af6c/attachment.htm From michael at goldhaber.org Tue Jun 16 05:13:05 2009 From: michael at goldhaber.org (Michael H Goldhaber) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:13:05 -0700 Subject: [iDC] attention and the classroom In-Reply-To: <473847.54884.qm@web50803.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <90F9E8CA-8C14-469D-9496-D3F80295F8F2@emerson.edu> <473847.54884.qm@web50803.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3F43E364-5216-4DFF-862E-A5C5BF7DCACC@goldhaber.org> I would like to comment on Eric Gordon and David Bogen's thought- provoking article on Designing Choreographies for the "New Economy of Attention". 1) As Lanham and others ignore or refuse to say, the economics of attention is not only about the scarcity of it, but it's intense desirability (at least for some) which leads to a growing competition for it, as I have often argued. (My somewhat biased review of Lanham's book is in First Monday http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1416/1334 ). A significant number of people who define themselves as educators or lecturers are among those who seek attention (and some are very good at getting it). Thus even those of us try to be educators must view even our own roles with a certain suspicion. How do we decide educational goals and to what extent do these goals reflect a desire to have others see the world through our eyes, and what does that entail? Do we hope for some degree of stardom or at least admiration for ourselves, and if so, do we then couch that in an objective sounding framework of what must be taught? 2) Gordon and Bogen's article focuses on modifications of the traditional lecture caused by new technology. I think the treatment somewhat downplays both the long history and the contested terrain of the classroom even in advance of the Internet and similar technologies. For one thing, as the etymology of the word "lecture" makes clear it began as a reading of text (at first not by the lecturer at all, but rather a received text). In early universities, predating printing, the purpose was to pass on these texts to the students' own notebooks. But even before that, the discipline of a silent audience was enforced by awe, possible punishment and possibly seduction. The earliest lecturers were likely priests reading holy texts , and too much indiscipline in listening could lead to death. In medieval Catholic Europe, for instance, discussion of these texts by the laity was not allowed (See, e.g., the actions of the Holy Inquisition against the Cathars decribed in LeRoy Ladurie's "Montaillou." ) Given that many lectures are read from texts, albeit usually these days texts original with the lecturers, it has long been questioned why the lecture system survives. 3) Certainly sitting still to listen to a teacher or lecturer or even a pater familias at the dinner table does not come naturally. It is enforced, seduced or otherwise won only with considerable effort, something most children do learn in pre-school or kindergarten or early elementary school, but not all do. It used to be (and in places still is) enforced in schools with the birch rod and by similar means. A Ritalin Rx may be the new form of corporal punishment. 4) So the likely desire on the part of the lecturer to get attention ( a desire I must admit I share) along withe vast anachronism of the lecture form and the need for prior discipline of some kind to enforce if not attention at least silence are all preconditions for the situation Gordon and Bogen wish to address. Day dreaming, doodling, tossing notes across the room when the teacher was not looking, whispering covertly, secretly reading something that has nothing to do with the lecture may now have been replaced with the less easily spotted techniques associated with having laptops, smart phones or just plain cell phones to play with, but how much is truly different, except that actually paying attention is even less required today, since the lecture may be well be available on website (even a video) whenever the attendee chooses pay attention , if ever. The old classroom already had the venerable tradition of class clown as well as teacher's pet, each vying for attention; the new media allow more surreptitiously to seek such roles. 5) In addition, today, with the wealth of demands on attention, some of which required great creativity, skill and much labor to put together (movies , TV shows, music, etc. ) the average educator's challenge in seducing actual attention has become very great. This brings me to the metaphor of choreography . Actual choreography is of course amazingly difficult, time consuming, and requires just the right highly trained performers to be put into effect. It appears to me that Gordon and Bogen's experiment amounted to attempting something as improbable as choreographing a set of more or less randomly chosen amateurs in partly preset, partly improvised dance that still would be as satisfying as one by a really good dance troupe. That is a very tall order. The fact that the result, on my reading, seemed more like the mad-hatter's tea party was only to be expected. 6) It is certainly the case that quite satisfying and valuable modes of use of social media, etc. are evolving and will continue to do so, and that the participants can learn much through their use. But I think that just as they seem to be displacing the book, the CD, the daily newspaper they are in the process of displacing much traditional in academia. While we well can mourn the good part of what is thereby lost, I very much doubt that the sort of experiment described is more than a stab in the dark in the discovery of what will work. Rather than a few carefully planned experiments, millions and millions of unplanned ones are under way and will eventually lead to new and hopefully worthwhile modes of learning. Best, Michael Michael H. Goldhaber michael at goldhaber.org mgoldh at well.com blog www.goldhaber.org older site, www.well.com/user/mgoldh On Jun 12, 2009, at 10:50 PM, Michael Bauwens wrote: > > Hi Eric, > > I wonder about your use of the concept of 'monolithic' and what it > exactly means > > if you'd say monopolistic it's easy to understand in terms of their > dominance > > but the information on them is very far from monolithic, as is their > usage in terms of attention diversity > > so I find your comparison with a lecture confusing, since the use of > these media, with multitasking, short attention spans and multi- > tasking is almost exactly the opposite ... > > thanks for explaining, > > Michel > > > > ----- Original Message ---- >> From: Eric Gordon >> To: idc at mailman.thing.net >> Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2009 10:46:03 PM >> Subject: [iDC] attention and the classroom >> >> I've been following the conversation about the Internet as playground >> and factory with great interest and have been inspired to chime in. >> Lately I've been thinking about that most mysterious currency of the >> Internet: user attention. Certainly, the economy of the Internet >> trades in it. As Frank pointed out awhile back: "We all ?pay >> attention? (literally and figuratively) at monolithic sites like >> Google, Facebook, and eBay." Their business model is premised on how >> much we pay attention and how little we stray. What's interesting to >> me is how this model of monolithic attention gathering has >> similarities to the models of attention we have established for the >> classroom. Students should pay total attention to the professor. >> Distractions like open windows, buzzing from florescent light bulbs, >> chatter in the hallway, or god forbid, laptops and cell phones, >> threaten to chip away at the age old concept of undivided attention. >> In fact, these distractions threaten to turn classroom attention into >> an economy - where there is exchange and value for glances, foci, and >> thoughts. In the 1970s, Erving Goffman gave a lecture called "The >> Lecture." In it, he challenges the dominance of the subject of the >> lecture and its corresponding forward facing gaze and suggests that, >> in fact, students also pay attention to what he calls "the custard" >> of >> the situation - that stuff, including the joke before the lecture >> begins, the notes on the table, the noises in the room. All of this >> composes the situation and necessarily, the attention of students >> flows in and out of the custard and subject at hand. >> >> The Internet provides a new way into the context Goffman introduced >> decades ago. Open laptops with live twittering, web searching, SMS - >> all of this is part of the custard of interaction and part of the >> economy of attention that composes the situation of the classroom. >> Instead of banning these technologies from the classroom, as many a >> university is want to do, the answer is instead to harness them and >> to >> actively participate in establishing the rules of the economy. In an >> article I recently completed with my colleague David Bogen, I refer >> to >> this process as "designing choreographies of attention." (The >> complete article can be found here: >> http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/2/000049.html) >> . We argue that educators should not fall back on monolithic >> models >> of undivided attention, and instead engage in this kind of design, >> which can transform the space of the classroom - complicating the >> relationships between front and back, professor and student, and peer >> to peer. In this case, the particular and thoughtful appropriation >> of >> Internet tools challenges the traditional economies of attention - >> both those established by the professorate centuries ago as well as >> those perpetuated by Google and its ilk. Despite its dominant >> business models, the Internet can help us rethink traditions; it can >> help us break down barriers and transform spaces. I'm interested in >> seeing this happen in the classroom. I'm interested in using these >> tools to harness distraction as a means of producing more vibrant >> (and >> dare I say focused) educational spaces. >> >> I'm quite interested to know how others respond to this proposition >> and specifically how it might feed into the larger discussion about >> labor. Indeed, students' attention is labor, whether it's undivided >> or not. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From mrenoch at phantomcynthetics.com Tue Jun 16 04:51:48 2009 From: mrenoch at phantomcynthetics.com (Jonah Bossewitch) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:51:48 -0400 Subject: [iDC] (belated) Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory References: 4A2A9C33.8050802@newschool.edu Message-ID: <4A3724E4.6070402@phantomcynthetics.com> Hi Everyone, I have been lurking on idc for a while and desperately trying to catch up on this thread before interrupting with an introduction. Hopeless. I (http://alchemicalmusings.org/about/) am a full time technical architect at Columbia's Center for New Media Teaching and Learning and also chipping away at a PhD in communications at the Journalism school. I am investigating the politics of memory (transparency/surveillance & privacy) especially at the intersection of corruption in psychiatry and big pharma. As a longtime free software developer, I am also an activist for free culture (and mad pride), and these discourses form the substrate of my research. I had the pleasure of co-presenting with Tevor at the Left Forum on a panel on Internet Labor where we discussed playgrounds and factories. I grew up playing in adventure (or junk) playgrounds (http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=11939) - where play was hard work. I am quite curious to hear this group's thoughts on the communications coming out of Iran right now. Does it even still make sense to talk about these crowdsourced reporting functions as labor? This tool didn't quite make it out in time to be in play during this crisis, but as a thought experiment, I think it jams up the spokes in this conversation: http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2009/02/04/crisis-info-crowdsourcing-the-filter/ http://swiftapp.org/ Pleasure meeting everyone. best regards, /Jonah From voyd at voyd.com Tue Jun 16 03:02:40 2009 From: voyd at voyd.com (patrick lichty) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:02:40 -0500 Subject: [iDC] A lot of threads on labor and the Net. Message-ID: <040201c9ee2e$e9a60e10$bcf22a30$@com> Hello all, As Flusser severely challenged my formal style of writing a few years ago, I'll likely be speaking in a lively or anecdotal/episodic voice this time around. Capital/Labor/Net 2.0: This has been a huge problem for me. Either I hae missed this conversation, but I have always felt that Web 2.0 has been about the most brilliant shell game of all. Getting the proletariat to pay the provider to work for them. The capitalist builds the scaffold for the users, like so many polyps to build their content-reef-attention ecology, from which the capitalist reaps benefits and then (as in the case of Facebook) double reaps by selling cute pets to fight with, gifts, etc. This conceit fo empowerment as expropriation is especially true in Second Life, ( I apologize, but it has been my primary locus of research these past 3 years). "It's your world" they say, while only hinting at the fact that to build that world that they then charge from, one has to pay to have land-space, and then if someone is talented, they only then to not have to pay for the house that they paid for, etc etc etc. Of course, the value is the extancy of community, that has also bought the Ponzi scheme; not only of SL, but of the larger framework of Web 2.0. Of course, one can cite the building of worlds, communities as the affirmative version of Wark's 3rd Nature of the Hacker shooting forth from the vector of the industrialist, but without getting into the other discussion on the TAZ, I would like to wonder about the subversive aspect of the 3rd order ob abstraction. For example, Virtual worlds tend towards the hunky, sexy avatars, and the gleaming cyberbungalow, but I love a group called the Hobos. These are virtual worlders that exercise considerable craft to create a parallel "free" FLOSS economy, and to exert high craftsmanship to create favelas and shantytowns that cause their neighbors to put up huge murals of meadows. This, to me, is the dialectical fruit of human vs. technocratic utopia. ATTENTION/LABOR/MULTITASK: I love this idea of monolithic frontal attention, because It has ceased to exist in my classroom. It's that I think that unless we act as strict parents, the ontology of US students, especially in media arts, is so multithreaded/multimodal that one has to at least acknowledge it, if not directly address it. This is where I was going in my 98 essay "Speaking the Multimedia Culture", but this would eb much more thoroughly "multi". This also reminds me of some of Trebor's comments on Constant Partial Attention Deficit. Perhaps this is not as much CPAD as a necessary modality to the time (i.e. a rhizomatic discursive structure that conflicts against the hegemonic monoattentional model). As I think about D&G's rhizomatic structure as template for resistance, I find that my young have wholeheartedly accepted it, but simultaneously accept the oversight of the corporation-provider while questioning the "expert" in terms of that they think they should have, which then comes from the same rhizomatic media structure they espouse. Perhaps that's a bit circular, and I may be drifting from preparing to go to the Arctic. WORK/ENTERTAINMENT One thing I loathe is the axiom "at least you love what you do". This is the dream, isn't it? That we can deliriously work 24/7 with nary a care. And, in the aforementioned models, we do it and pay the entrepreneur for doing it for them just for the privilege of inclusion, or for novelty (my thought on MTurk), or even for the illusion/hope of profit. The last is the "perpetual spec" model where the practitioner is strung along in hopes of a future payoff. Again, this is evident in SL, where people are told that if they spend the money, put up the store, etc. whey will real great benefits, while doing something they love. Taylorist entertainment seems to be the axiom of the day, cloaked in the rhetoric of empowerment and inclusion. I do it; I think it's revolting, but I do it nonetheless. What a great discussion. I apologize for being shorter than usual; time for bed, and I just finished a piece for Version as well. Patrick Lichty - Interactive Arts & Media Columbia College, Chicago - Editor-In-Chief Intelligent Agent Magazine http://www.intelligentagent.com 225 288 5813 FAX 312 344-8021 voyd at voyd.com "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090615/82b8f00f/attachment.htm From christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at Tue Jun 16 11:55:50 2009 From: christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at (Christian Fuchs) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:55:50 +0200 Subject: [iDC] Terms of Agreement: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <7CCCD597D0CC4CE790BB566E79AEA55F@Mrsmosh> References: <7CCCD597D0CC4CE790BB566E79AEA55F@Mrsmosh> Message-ID: <4A378846.7030306@sbg.ac.at> Dear all, I agree with Korinna that the issue of the terms of use is a complex power problem. And I disagree with Cynthia that it makes sense to write down reasonable terms of use for social networking sites or other Internet platforms. The problem is that the social relation between Internet companies and users is one of fundamental inequality that is structured by class power. It is an inequality in the power to define the terms of use that is based on corporate power. Strategies such as the commenting on terms of use now offered by Facebook are undemocratic legitimatization strategies. The corporate player defines the rules and the users are allowed to comment. This does not sound like participation, it sounds like plebiscitary power. It somehow reminds me of a political model with the name Volksgemeinschaft that was popular some 70 years ago. There is an intrinsic capitalistic motivation of Internet corporations to commodify users and user data in order to accumulate capital. As long as there is capitalism, there will be economic surveillance and the self-set enlightenment goal of attaining privacy for individuals will always be negated by corporate interests and resulting practices. This is like a negative dialectic of the enlightenment of Web 2.0. The only reasonable thing to do is in my opinion to work towards the abolishment of capitalism and to support and engage in anti-corporate class struggle. It is an illusion to think that consumers can negotiate "fair" terms of use with Internet corporations. This is a false liberal illusion of reforming capitalism and of consumer sovereignty. An alternative is in my opinion to build and support non-commercial, non-corporate social networking sites and "Web 2.0" platforms as a form of anti-corporate struggle. It is not about reforming Facebook, MySpace etc - it is about engaging in a class struggle that creates viable alternatives to these platforms so that corporate SNS will in the end vanish. As long as such corporate platforms exist and people use them, there will be problems with corporate surveillance, privacy, etc. I am not optimistic that much will be done against corporate power, but I am sure that something needs to be done. Best, Christian Korinna Patelis schrieb: > Hi, > > Reading the post below as well as numerous papers on terms of service > and so on in academic journals, i feel that focusing on the actual > literal terms of service or privacy when we discuss ownership and > content overshadows the more general problems with content ownership > and content structure in social media. I dont feel the problem with > all the user generated content living in commercialised social media > spaces should be approached as a contractual issue between users and > companies. It is a far more complicated and indeed far more abstract > problem then that. The power of a commercial company like facebook > cannot be reduced to its power to provide its users with the terms of > use it wants. At the same time the actual terms of service are sign of > that power. > > So i feel it woulld be usefull to contextualise disussionss on > contracts with discussions of the power of commercial media and above > all with debates on the structures of representations of social media > and the power to determine these. I understand this might seem obvious > and self evident but I think that its important to constantly reflect > on commerial power if we dont want to become to legalistic. > > To put this in user terms: that facebook wont allow me to dislike > something a friend has done, or that i cant have enemies on my > profile determines the content i will upload in ways more intersting > than the actual terms of service. And i think that we need to address > such determination at the same time as we address the problem of who > owns my content > > Thanks > > Korinna Patelis (www.aueb.gr/users/patelis > ) > > korinna > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Cynthia Beth Rubin > *To:* idc at mailman.thing.net > *Cc:* Cynthia Beth Rubin > *Sent:* Tuesday, June 16, 2009 2:56 AM > *Subject:* [iDC] Terms of Agreement: The Internet as Playground > and Factory > > I want to return to the issue of ownership of posts on web sites. > > Would it be possible to use this discussion to define reasonable > terms of agreement for users on all social networking sites? > > I do believe that this is possible, because of a real-life > experience with changing Terms of Agreement. The alumni > association of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, signed an > agreement with iModules to provide a kind of "Facebook" experience > for those of us who are alums. When some of read the "Terms of > Agreement", it turned out that we agreeing to give everything > away. Some of us freaked and asked for new terms (we worked > together to write them). It worked. Quite honestly, I suspect > that the ridiculous terms were written by attorneys with little > understanding of social networking sites. No one at iModules > thought that we were wrong to ask for new terms. > > Below are some phrases from the current Terms of Agreement on the > Antiochians.org site (our alumni site -- and yes -- we are still > in existence) > > > 7. Content submitted to this site > We do not assert any ownership over user content; rather, as > between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in > these Terms and Conditions, you retain full ownership of all > of your content and any intellectual property rights or other > proprietary rights associated with your content. . . . > > xxxxxxxxxx(lots of stand stuff) - xxxxxxxxxxx > > If you wish to grant other users or the general public > additional licenses to your content, you may include such > terms with your content such as: > Usage granted under Creative Commons License > http://creativecommons.org > > > > Cynthia Beth Rubin > http://CBRubin.net > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref -- - - - Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs Associate Professor Unified Theory of Information Research Group University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at http;//www.uti.at Editor of tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation | Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society http://www.triple-c.at Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at/i&s.html From D.M.Berry at swansea.ac.uk Tue Jun 16 11:34:19 2009 From: D.M.Berry at swansea.ac.uk (Dr. David Berry) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:34:19 +0100 Subject: [iDC] introduction: where's the labour in software studies? In-Reply-To: <4A32803C.4080306@nyu.edu> References: <1F0E0420-DA81-4E90-9A9D-2579585508FD@nedrossiter.org> <4A3240B1.8040907@mail.eservices.virginia.edu> <4A32803C.4080306@nyu.edu> Message-ID: Hi Trebor has asked me to introduce myself a number of times but I have just never found the opportunity. However with the general chorus of introductions I thought I would make an extra effort :-) I am David Berry, based in the UK at Swansea University and my research is focussed around the concept of code, through notions developed through what is now being called 'software studies', but more particularly my work has engaged with Free/Libre and Open Source software. I recently published a monograph on FLOSS groups call Copy, Rip, Burn: The Politics Of Copyleft and Open Source (Pluto 2008). I am extremely interested in concepts of the information society and how these relate to changes in the representation of and the means of production themselves, more concretely in changes in the notion of the commodity and its relation to labour-power. I am also looking at the nature of finance capital, especially its spectacular nature and its relation to technology and computability. My research spans the entire breadth of technology-related theory, including the philosophy of technology, phenomenology and actor-network theory (I am currently fascinated by Latour's rather interesting notion of the Plasma, for example). In regard to the discussion I wonder if the focus on 'labour' needs to be unpacked with notions of the labour process, in addition to labour power itself, and the Marxian notion that 'moments are the elements of profit'. Certainly it is interesting to see the way in which Agile Programming and Extreme Programming, for example, concentrate on the spatial and temporal organisation of the programming process (both with a panoptic, or perhaps oligoptic (Latour), inflection) and the 'craft' dimension to programming increasingly under threat (one thinks here of UML/Z, and other mechanisms, mostly not completely successful, to deskill or automate elements of the process). Other important points in the rationalisation of programming include: modularity, code review/peer review, outsourcing of labour (even to open-source projects), and such like. Programming still takes time, and that time is being paid for somewhere, somehow, whether it be via a foundation, university, business entity or even by the individual themselves so we must not lose sight of the production and political economy of software/code but also the fact that the production of code is in someway also a consumption of other code (interesting to think of this in terms of Marx's depreciation model of machinery, but also linked to the notion of software aging). Best David --- Dr. David M. Berry Room 412 Media and Communications Department School of Arts University of Wales Swansea Swansea SA2 8PP Wales, UK Web: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/academic/Arts/berryd/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20090616/a3e89434/attachment.htm From zimmerm at uwm.edu Tue Jun 16 15:38:24 2009 From: zimmerm at uwm.edu (Michael Zimmer) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:38:24 -0500 Subject: [iDC] Terms of Agreement: The Internet as Playground and Factory In-Reply-To: <4A378846.7030306@sbg.ac.at> References: <7CCCD597D0CC4CE790BB566E79AEA55F@Mrsmosh> <4A378846.7030306@sbg.ac.at> Message-ID: Dear all, I've been enjoying these discussions, and have been trying to find a place to jump in. Here goes. By way of introduction, I am Michael Zimmer, an assistant professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Previously, I was a fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. My work revolves around issues of information ethics and information policy, focusing mostly on privacy & surveillance in various networked and "2.0" environments. I had the privilege of editing a special issue of First Monday on "Critical Perspectives of Web 2.0" , which included an excellent contribution from Trebor. Below, Christian Fuchs aptly notes that > "As long > as there is capitalism, there will be economic surveillance and the > self-set enlightenment goal of attaining privacy for individuals will > always be negated by corporate interests and resulting practices. This > is like a negative dialectic of the enlightenment of Web 2.0. I agree, and that's a point I'm trying to articulate both generally in the "Critical Perspectives" collection of articles, and more specifically relation to social networking sites in this blog post: "The Laws of Social Networking: Promote Open Flows of Information, Make Privacy Hard" In short, I identify three laws that govern the relationship between users and social networking services: 1. Promoting the open flow of personal information allows maximum profitability 2. Allowing user control over their information flows is counter to profit maximization 3. Provide some privacy controls, but make it hard This was in response to an excellent paper titled ?The Privacy Jungle: On the Market for Data Protection in Social Networks? by Joseph Bonneau and S?ren Preibusch. The authors propose a new economic model to explain the observed under-supply and under-promotion of privacy as a rational choice by competing social networking providers. They conclude that "websites seek to maximise their desirability to both populations by not raising privacy concerns for the majority of users, while minimising criticism from the privacy-sensitive." In short, SNS game their users by providing just enough privacy to appease privacy advocates, but make the controls obscure and difficult so users don't actually adjust (and thereby constrict) their information flows. Christian then suggests: > An alternative is in my opinion to build and support non-commercial, > non-corporate social networking sites and "Web 2.0" platforms as a > form > of anti-corporate struggle. This reminds me of #8 and #10 the "10 Web 2.0 Theses" just published by Geert Lovink , where Lovink and his collaborators call for injecting more "kaos" into Web 2.0, and the promotion of "peer-education that shifts the default culture of auto- formation to the nihilist pleasure of hacking the system". So, two queries for the list: 1) As I try to build the "Laws of Social Networking", how do I best articulate the tension between users' desire to control their information flows, and the providers' desire to capture those flows for profit? 2) Given the need to inject chaos into Web 2.0, and promote education of new users, how do we, in the words of Lovink, "avoid the double trap of blind technophilia and luddite technophobia"? Best, -michael -- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm at uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org On Jun 16, 2009, at 6:55 AM, Christian Fuchs wrote: > Dear all, > > I agree with Korinna that the issue of the terms of use is a complex > power problem. And I disagree with Cynthia that it makes sense to > write > down reasonable terms of use for social networking sites or other > Internet platforms. > > The problem is that the social relation between Internet companies and > users is one of fundamental inequality that is structured by class > power. It is an inequality in the power to define the terms of use > that > is based on corporate power. Strategies such as the commenting on > terms > of use now offered by Facebook are undemocratic legitimatization > strategies. The corporate player defines the rules and the users are > allowed to comment. This does not sound like participation, it sounds > like plebiscitary power. It somehow reminds me of a political model > with > the name Volksgemeinschaft that was popular some 70 years ago. > > There is an intrinsic capitalistic motivation of Internet corporations > to commodify users and user data in order to accumulate capital. As > long > as there is capitalism, there will be economic surveillance and the > self-set enlightenment goal of attaining privacy for individuals will > always be negated by corporate interests and resulting practices. This > is like a negative dialectic of the enlightenment of Web 2.0. > > The only reasonable thing to do is in my opinion to work towards the > abolishment of capitalism and to support and engage in anti-corporate > class struggle. It is an illusion to think that consumers can > negotiate > "fair" terms of use with Internet corporations. This is a false > liberal > illusion of reforming capitalism and of consumer sovereignty. An > alternative is in my opinion to build and support non-commercial, > non-corporate social networking sites and "Web 2.0" platforms as a > form > of anti-corporate struggle. It is not about reforming Facebook, > MySpace > etc - it is about engaging in a class struggle that creates viable > alternatives to these platforms so that corporate SNS will in the end > vanish. As long as such corporate platforms exist and people use them, > there will be problems with corporate surveillance, privacy, etc. I am > not optimistic that much will be done against corporate power, but I > am > sure that something needs to be done. > > Best, Christian > From uam2101 at columbia.edu Tue Jun 16 16:27:45 2009 From: uam2101 at columbia.edu (Ulises Mejias) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:27:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] =?utf-8?q?=22How_the_mammet_twitters!=E2=80=9D?= Message-ID: <937461.24406.qm@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> First a quick response to Brian (thanks for the feedback!), and then a digression related to play/labor sparked by Trebor's article on MTurk. Yes, the issue of defining exactly what one means by 'network' is a tricky one. On the one hand, a definition that is too specific limits the potential to extend the critique across various platforms and 'networks within networks.' On the other hand, a definition that is too broad can quickly lose meaning, because as someone said if everything is a network then nothing is a network. Lately, I've been using the phrase 'digital technosocial networks' to refer to assemblages of human and technological actors (the nodes) linked together by social and physical ties (the links) that allow for the transfer of digital information between some or all of these actors. It's not perfect, but it will have to do for the moment. Since you've asked, I will keep you posted on how this work progresses. There are actually two completed articles that will be coming out, hopefully, later this year. If you or anyone is interested enough to want to look at the drafts, let me know. What I should be doing at the moment is working on my book. Instead, I've been distracted by the convergence of three arguments: Trebor Schulz' thoughts on MTurk (http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc/1064), a paper by Asma Barlas (my wife) on 'Islam and Body Politics: Inscribing (Im)morality' and another paper by my friend Gil Harris titled 'The Untimely Mammet of Verona' (the last two papers are unpublished, unfortunately). The richness behind the image of the Mechanical Turk deserves a better treatment than what I can offer right now, but I wanted to quickly mull over some of the connections between mechanical/repetitive labor, sociable media, and notions of Otherness using these three authors. The title for this post ("How the mammet twitters!?) is actually a line by the character Hilario in Philip Massinger?s 1630 tragicomedy 'The Picture' (I learned this from Gil Harris' paper--the mention of 'twitter' was too much to resist using it as a title!). There is actually an interesting connection between the word 'mammet' and the Mechanical Turk. As Trebor points out, "MTurk was named after the 18th century chess playing automaton 'the Turk,' a wooden figure with a turban that seemed to have the ability to think." Walter Benjamin described the contraption as follows: "It is well-known that an automaton once existed, which was so constructed that it could counter any move of a chess-player with a counter-move, and thereby assure itself of victory in the match. A puppet in Turkish attire, water-pipe in mouth, sat before the chessboard, which rested on a broad table. Through a system of mirrors, the illusion was created that this table was transparent from all sides. In truth, a hunchbacked dwarf who was a master chess-player sat inside, controlling the hands of the puppet with strings" ('Illuminations.' New York: Schocken, 1969, p. 253 -- quoted in Harris). The fact that the figure was a 'Turk' was not accidental, since as Harris points out in his paper: "As [Kathleen] Biddick notes, medieval Christian theologians used the word 'mechanicum' as a synonym for Muslim sorcery: they regarded Islam as a mechanical religion incapable of true life and of a meaningful future, and thus consigned it to a dead, unusable past. Benjamin?s Turkish chess-playing machine eerily replays this typological gambit." These mechanical automata were also referred to as 'mammets.' Harris further explains that "In English Renaissance drama, a 'maumet' or 'mammet' was a common term for a doll, puppet, or mechanical homunculus" (interestingly, it was also used to describe young girls "in the grip of a transgressive desire"). The word 'mammet' derives from the proper name Mohamet or Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam. So there is a long history of using Islam and Muslims, those primordial alternates of the West, as signifiers for mechanical behavior and toughtlessness. In her paper, Asma Barlas argues that "offensive depictions of the Prophet have not changed much over time or, to put it more accurately, even when they have, their ideological premises have not and neither has their role in affirming the radical alterity of Islam in relation to the West. That is why I see these depictions as glimpses into Europe?s own history and as sites where Europeans displace some of its traumatic events." As the recent Danish cartoon controversy illustrates, it's OK (even defensible under 'Western' ideals such as Freedom of Speech) to portray the Other --in this case, Muslims-- as unthinking mammets bent on our destruction through acts of terrorism, invasion of the homeland, 'willingness' to accept low-paying jobs, etc. But as Barlas argues, these constructs allow the West to displace its own violence toward the Other and anchor its perceived epistemic privilege over it: It's OK to declare superiority over the Mechanical Turks and destroy/exploit them (while we very much fear that they will do the same to us, as science fiction repeatedly reminds us). I am probably not making much sense (because I'm still working this out), by I guess what I am trying to suggest is a connection between the idea of the sociable media user as a mammet intended for repetitive labor that willingly participates in its own exploitation. Trebor is correct in calling into question the discourse of the Internet as "a marketplace where folks who have work meet up with folks who want to do work." As he points out, this discourse hides the fact that companies facilitating these virtual sweatshops do not have to file taxes, abide by minimum-wage legislation, or provide health insurance to the 'Turkers.' In the new economics of 'mammet-generated content,' the users are mindless, sub-human. They are too small to count except in the aggregate. They performs mindless repetitive tasks; they twitter. But they are also dangerous. There is a potential threat living inside these Mechanical Turks, a dwarf genius. They are the masses who could potentially discover --if sociable media wasn't so much darn fun!-- that of all possible configurations, the network is being actualized as a machine for generating more, not less, inequality. In this economy, there is no difference between toil and play, and that's not accidental. The new mammet must be kept engaged in endless twittering--otherwise, it might go jihadi all over the network. -Ulises Mejias From brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr Tue Jun 16 16:35:44 2009 From: brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr (Brian Holmes) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:35:44 -0500 Subject: [iDC] The ambiguities of play In-Reply-To: References: <7CCCD597D0CC4CE790BB566E79AEA55F@Mrsmosh> <4A378846.7030306@sbg.ac.at> Message-ID: <4A37C9E0.4060803@aliceadsl.fr> Michael Zimmer wrote: > Given the need to inject chaos into Web 2.0, and promote education > of new users, how do we, in the words of Lovink, "avoid the double > trap of blind technophilia and luddite technophobia"? Net discussions are often about protocol and rightly so. But the question of what you throw into the mix, the words, the sounds, the images, and how you point outside the devices of capture -- well, I'd say that's important too. In echo and reply to Pat Kane's post yesterday, I put up a text on the ambiguities of play: http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/games-corporations-distant-constellations best, BH From gcox at plymouth.ac.uk Tue Jun 16 17:16:48 2009 From: gcox at plymouth.ac.uk (geoff cox) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:16:48 +0100 Subject: [iDC] more on MTurk Message-ID: <4A37D380.3000908@plymouth.ac.uk> Hi Following the digression of Ulises Mejias, I thought I'd jump in with a fuller context of the Mechanical Turk, that opens Benjamin's 'On the Concept of History' thus: 'The story is told of an automaton constructed in such a way that it could respond to each move in a game of chess with a countermove that ensured him victory. A puppet in Turkish attire, and with a hookah in his mouth, sat in front of a chessboard placed on a large table. A system of mirrors created the illusion of a table transparent from all sides. Actually a hunchback dwarf, who was an expert chess player, sat inside and guided the puppet's hand by means of strings. One can imagine a philosophical counterpart to this device. The puppet known as 'historical materialism' is always supposed to win. It can easily be a match for anyone if it ropes in the services of theology, which today, as the story goes, is small and ugly and must, as it is, keep out of sight.' (Esther Leslie translation of Benjamin, from _Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism_, 2000) History, and the history of technology, is full of the use of trickery to make it seem beyond the scope of human intervention. The figure of the dwarf is rather obscure, linked to technology and theology - evoking the labour of the operator - and that the success of the automaton is contingent on the recognition that the dwarf has to gain control of the technology. It's a complex allegory but an investigation of the history of the chess playing machine reveals more detail and the relative roles of puppet, puppeteer and opponent. Benjamin is drawing upon a well-known example of The Turk, a chess-playing automata built by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1769. It received widespread attention, and there was much speculation as to whether the machine was driven by magic or by some other illusory device - a spectre or demon. Part of the presentation involved Kempelen demonstrating the clockwork mechanism beneath the automaton, opening doors to compartments of the desk one by one and revealing what lay beneath the Turkish attire (engaging Orientalist fantasies of the time): the 'automaton stripped naked'. After Kempelen's death, Johan Nepomuk Maelsel added some improvements including speech - the announcement of '?chec' (check) by means of bellows. It is this version that Norbert Wiener refers to as a 'fraudulent machine' in his note on the accomplishment of artificial intelligence - part of the trick was that a machine could demonstrate intelligence sufficient to play chess and speech is used to authenticate intelligence. In this connection, the writer Edgar Allan Poe, compared the chess automata to Charles Babbage's calculating machine, asking what to think of a machine that operates, 'without the slightest intervention of the intellect of man? It will, perhaps, be said in reply, that a machine as we have described is altogether above comparison with the Chess Player of Maelzel. By no means - it is altogether beneath it - that is to say, provided we assume (what should never for one moment be assumed) that the Chess Player is a pure machine, and performs its operations without any immediate human agency.' For Poe, machine-like agency simply serves to conceal the underlying operating system. In Benjamin's allegory, the puppeteer appears to be in the service of the puppet - suggesting perhaps that it is not the machine that is life-like but that the human figure is machine-like unless action is taken to correct the illusion (the position of the historical materialist). This seems to concur with Esther Leslie in that the dwarf has to gain control of the technology as it is the autonomy of the machine that is fake. The theatrics simply reveal how technology masks the underlying processes. Pretending to reveal the actual mechanism has become an orthodoxy and indeed part of the illusion itself of the interface, masking the labour of people and machines. Amazon's Mechanical Turk is a willful example of a similar trick. -- geoff cox http://www.anti-thesis.net/work From sean at seanjustice.com Tue Jun 16 22:08:33 2009 From: sean at seanjustice.com (Sean Justice) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:08:33 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Introduction: Sean Justice Message-ID: Hello iDC I'm new on the list today and happy to be here. By way of a quick introduction: I'm a photographer and artist in Brooklyn, teaching the adjunct circuit in photography and digital art. I'm currently at NYU and the International Center of Photography, and occasionally work with Parsons New School University as well. In addition to teaching and my own personal creative work, I've done commercial photography for much of my career, though less so now. My current interests revolve around emerging media pedagogy, especially in relationship to the idea that we're "all photographers now," as has been said. My personal art work often touches on pictorial culture and some of its various manifestations. I'm intrigued by how learning and doing photography and art has changed over the last 20 years that I've been teaching, and current discussions on the list dovetail with stuff I deal with in the classroom, especially pertaining to how education in new media is both enhanced and frustrated by that new media. That topic is, in fact, propelling me back to the classroom for myself, as I hope to begin a doctorate at Teachers College/Columbia in art education, working on curricula and classroom design in emerging media education. I'm looking forward to joining this conversation. You can check out some of my work on the blog and websites below, if you're so inclined. Thanks. Sean Justice -- Sean Justice NYU Steinhardt Arts & Arts Professions Studio Art | Photography | Digital http://www.seanjustice.com/ Considering Pictures, an open journal about teaching and learning photography. http://seanjustice.blogspot.com/ The Scanning China Project: Learning to Live and Work in the Middle Kingdom http://scanningchinaproject.com/ M: 347/232-5471 From cbrubin at risd.edu Wed Jun 17 00:49:14 2009 From: cbrubin at risd.edu (Cynthia Beth Rubin) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:49:14 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Terms of Agreement: The Internet as Playground and Factory Message-ID: <79A5B5B8-CF52-43F6-B21F-8392DFA76436@risd.edu> In my previous post I was not referring to Facebook or to reforming one specific piece of software. The concept that I was putting forth was that there is a disconnect in the development of networking sites as software and the actual uses by the end-user. One of the consequences of this is that it leads to unreasonable Terms of Agreement. This is not the only problem, and of course we need to change society to be more open in other ways, including looking at how software development is financed and rewarded. Thanks to David Berry for pointing out that someone somewhere takes the time to write software, and that our current system of "open source" is dependent on University paid time, the free time of the unemployed, or the free time of those who are otherwise so fully employed and well-paid that they can spend surplus time donating it to the community. If you know any one working in a truly under- developed country developing software then you know that these individuals are totally cut out of the Open Source movement - which should present a dilema for true progressives. Smart people living in impoverished countries cannot afford to give away anything, and their Universities (should they be fortunate enough to have a position) rarely value "Open Source" as a worthwhile use of their time. The example I was using was of a networking site that has no interest in mining data, because what they were selling was for already defined communities. Their goal is to provide a turn-key service that appeals to defined groups, and these groups generally want control over their own data. Alumni groups are one example, teaching sites are another. Many of us have also used "google groups" and other closed groups. In the example I mentioned, iModules markets networking sites to groups of Alumni from the same University. The original user agreement was so absurdly one-sided that it was not even a questions of asking the company to cave. They just said yes. At the other end was a developer who was in total agreement that the Terms were unreasonable and too one-sided -- and probably was not too happy to see all of his hard work go up in smoke because of a poorly written agreement. (I was not the one who made the contact but I was the one who read the Terms and refused to Agree, and brought in a community of like-minded people) Power is certainly at the heart of some of this - but in the case that I was describing, the power was ours. We only had to use it. There was no resistance. We were paying money, and they were not selling us the right product. The history of all software development is that the developers imagine what the user wants, and then the users push the software in new directions, and the companies respond. I am suggesting that sometimes the companies are just waiting for us to respond, but we have no way to do that. I have seen software grow and change over the years in other areas as well - and the pattern in similar. Would writing our own software be better? Yes, but remember that the history of Facebook was a little app written without thinking about making money - that part came later. So back to the Open Source problem. . . who exactly is in a position to do all fo this work for Free? I think that what Christian is asking is: Why did I focus on a little question instead of the BIG question? Progressives can engage in discourse on more than one level; we can be aware of the larger imbalances of the system while working to make small changes. . I am still buying some of my food to supplement what I can grow, even while I understand the drawbacks of Agri-business (and even while supporting local farmers... ). Right now I enjoy certain benefits from social networking software, which I will continue to use while trying to change it to fit my own needs. And I will use different methods to help that change come about. Cynthia Beth Rubin http://CBRubin.net From christina at christinamcphee.net Wed Jun 17 22:38:05 2009 From: christina at christinamcphee.net (Christina McPhee) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:38:05 -0700 Subject: [iDC] blogs, twitter, aphasia, speech Message-ID: <687A6F2E-9EE3-44AC-BF97-1458BF8783FD@christinamcphee.net> Trebor asked me to join all of you in this fascinating conference. Aliette writes, > it remains that for any social organization the principle of the > society is to connect people by the way to allow an increase of > productive power, because it is a device of mutual exploitation of > people who share it. This mutual exploitation is a free exchange > which constitutes the social pact. If you make paying the pact at > once the society loosing its object disappear becoming a > segregationist community. Internet is a virtual increased reality > from the society and increasing the Technics of which the source is > to get free of alienating work (i.e. Working for food). > > Internet may be sound as the part of evil of the materialist > society, the place of mutual donation even can be the poorest can be > to the richest: online indifference. What is exactly normal. I think about an aggregate 'voice' of the network as if it were in the position of 'speaking truth to power" (Parrhesia). If there is such a speaking collective 'subject' or subjective space, the common view holds it's semi-unintelligible and subordinate to global media capital. Google 'owns' your stuff. How can this be a powerful speech? Serious blogs .. " people are seriously following each others special focussed writing. Everyone reads each others' blogs first thing in the morning instead of the newspaper. Then they comment on it and write some more." (Colby Reece, architecture student ). Rhetoric : a community-based logic to find shared premise. Unserious blogs: Twitter, yah. But: isn't it amazing though how Twitter is working out so well in the midst of the Iranian electoral crisis? The messages slip in and out of 'radar'. The state can clamp down on Facebook for a while but there are always other ways. Writing is always on to someone and into the material community. It invents out there and back (bounce or retort or return). The speech is just 'out of phase' meaning not in sync with the present moment -- or almost in synch. The 'almost' is the productive spot. A slip, between the report and the action of the report, on Twitter, on Facebook, even on listservs, Networked speech like my haphazard attempts here are, to be precise !-- almost intelligible, but not, to some of us, not all of us, but close. intimate. Close but hard to get a grip on. Close to home. On your mobile, aphasia but also joke, pun, and play. Trebor asked me, if I understand him correctly, to perhaps speak to how precarious networked labour could resemble traditional 'women's work' (disappeared? silent? slaved? ). How precarious network labour weighs into the boxing ring, locks in tight embrace the material. with the material reality of putting long hours in front of the computer; or uploading mobile phone shots at the aftermath of civil disobedience; or writing on facebook while washing the dishes and scrubbing the floor. Garcia Marquez: Language as a material is as hard as wood and just as real. How everywhere people , male / femle/ transgendered == make argument: 'texting' . To text: not just through your mobile. Texting world. Even though you can't text the world. Writing is an enterprise leading to a messed up, incomplete, partial, almost-actualized piece of work. Getting at some kind of logic, arguing back to premises, in this case "the place of mutual donation " (Aliette). We can never get it 'right' but the mutual editing is fantastic, liberating. Naeem Mohaiemen: "My Mobile Weighs a Ton." The action of Web 2.0 makes if anythning a stronger claim on arguments that go back to the material. The more elaborate the ephemeral updates of twitter, the more intense the reference to the real hard world. If anything, new social tools make me live in even more diverse physical spaces than before. As difficult and exhilarating by turns. No one knows how the demographics work. Advertisers on Facebook are just guessing. There are no stats that are 'for sure.' Amy Wiley (writing coach, comparative lit scholar); "Writing is a social enterprise. Things are more or less effective. Principles of rhetoric are part of sustainability. They are not ego-driven, rather community driven. Composition is a spatial function. " Thanks for enjoying this brief divertissement. Christina about me: Christina McPhee interprets the remote landscape in multimedia streams. She creates topologic site explorations in layered suites involving on-site photographs, video, drawing, and envrionmental sound. Forthcoming in 2009: "Tesserae of Venus," a science fiction series on carbon-saturated energy landscapes, opens at Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, in late October 2009; "Pharmakon LIbrary Folio 2 :" is in preparation for New York Art Book Fair at PS1, early October 2009. Her films have most recently screened at Videoformes 09 Clermont- Ferrand, San Francisco Cinematheque at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and for ?Drift/In Transitions, Russia 2008? at the National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow and Ekaterinaberg, Russia. She has created video suites for the variable cinema project "Plazaville", a remake of Godard's "Alphaville" with GH Hovagimyan, which premiered at Pace Digital Gallery in New York City in April 2009, as a turbulence.org commission. A beta version of "Tesserae' will screen at ISEA Belfast this August 2009. Her media work is archived at the Rose Goldsen Archive for New Media Art, Cornell University; Rhizome Artbase/ New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Whitney Artport/ Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Thresholds Artspace, Scotland; Experimental Television Center, New York; and the Pandora Archive, National Library of Australia. Museum collections of her monotype and photographic prints, paintings and drawings include Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery-University of Nebraska, Taylor Museum/Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is represented by Silverman Gallery, San Francisco. She is a moderator of the Sydney based -empyre- list for digital media arts and culture http://subtle.net/empyre She is a visiting lecturer on the faculty of the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program, University of California-Santa Cruz. http://christinamcphee.net christina at christinamcphee.net naxsmash at mac.com From john at johnsobol.com Thu Jun 18 02:04:22 2009 From: john at johnsobol.com (john sobol) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:04:22 -0400 Subject: [iDC] =?windows-1252?q?=22How_=28bravely=29_the_mammet_twitters!?= =?windows-1252?q?=94?= In-Reply-To: <937461.24406.qm@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <937461.24406.qm@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <9C3F02B8-BBB8-4C1B-9821-304F157BA919@johnsobol.com> On 16-Jun-09, at 12:27 PM, Ulises Mejias wrote: > > In the new economics of 'mammet-generated content,' the users are > mindless, sub-human. > They are too small to count except in the aggregate. They performs > mindless repetitive tasks; > they twitter. But they are also dangerous. There is a potential > threat living inside these > Mechanical Turks, a dwarf genius. They are the masses who could > potentially discover --if > sociable media wasn't so much darn fun!-- that of all possible > configurations, the network is > being actualized as a machine for generating more, not less, > inequality. In this economy, there > is no difference between toil and play, and that's not accidental. > The new mammet must be > kept engaged in endless twittering--otherwise, it might go jihadi > all over the network. > > -Ulises Mejias > A couple of days ago I started writing an atypically benign response to the above, atypical as I have on this listserv been pretty hardcore in the past in challenging what I see as the extreme one- sidedness of the argument that Ulises so effectively articulates here, but the extraordinary events in Iran have been so distracting that I only now find myself with a few minutes to continue writing, and as I do so I see that these current events constitute a far more compelling real-world rejection of the mammet metaphor than anything I could have written. For lo, here we have the mammet rising up and almost literally 'going jihadi all over the network' but without leaving the Mechanical Turk! It is in fact the golem with a flower, the Mechanical Turk dancing for peace. Is it not so? How is it that these once 'mindless sub-humans' have ridden the back of Twitter to rise up and smite their oppressors? Does this not make a mockery of experts in theoretical revolution, who have insisted that capitalist networks are inherently anti-revolutionary, inherently anti-human, anti-inspiration? Not that cyberwarfare can't be waged from both sides. Or course it can. But these mammets bravely tweeting understand that human agency lies within human actors, and that 'the system' is never monolothic. That freedom is not necessarily abdicated by participating in a techno-social-network within a capitalist structure, especially when participation consists of telling a meaningful story to real human ears. In fact, it is enhanced, regardless of the ads inserted nearby. So may they tweet on in Iran, and come to enjoy the fruits of their user-generated revolt, even as Twitter gains value and somewhere stockbrokers giggle in anticipation of its IPO. John Sobol -- www.johnsobol.com From uam2101 at columbia.edu Thu Jun 18 11:36:33 2009 From: uam2101 at columbia.edu (Ulises Mejias) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:36:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] =?utf-8?q?=22How_=28bravely=29_the_mammet_twitters!?= =?utf-8?b?4oCd?= In-Reply-To: <9C3F02B8-BBB8-4C1B-9821-304F157BA919@johnsobol.com> References: <937461.24406.qm@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <9C3F02B8-BBB8-4C1B-9821-304F157BA919@johnsobol.com> Message-ID: <525031.25043.qm@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com> John, Thank you for your comments. But are we perhaps confusing the finger for the thing it is pointing at? What is remarkable about the events in Iran is that people have taken to the streets to challenge an illegitimate election. The fact that some people are using Twitter to disseminate the news about the events, by-passing traditional media, is important but has little to do with what has motivated the Iranian youth to take to the streets. Twitter is not what has made or will make this movement successful, although not surprisingly, we in the West have reframed this uprising to be all about us: it's about how *we* get the information, and about the 'revolutionary' potential of our latest technological gadgets (potential that always seems somehow to elude us here at home, unfortunately). Already the Internet is awash with opinions from Web 2.0 gurus about how Iran is the Twitter revolution (much like Estonia was the Facebook revolution, some other place was the YouTube Revolution, and so on). Maybe it's just me, but I find this kind of technophilic argument reductionist and self-serving. Please give people, not corporate tools, their due credit. Having said that, I also don't want to pretend that new technologies don't matter. I find Naeem Mohaiemen's piece on the Iranian protests quite insightful: "The Iranian state is getting desperate, and tries to throttle internet traffic, block SMS flow, scramble satellite TV feeds. But every few seconds there is a twitter giving new proxy addresses that can be accessed from inside Iran. Even with net speed down to a crawl, activists keep pushing information through. We will bypass all filters." http://unheardvoice.net/blog/2009/06/17/iran-filters/ Previously, Naeem says, "protests fade as the government waits until protestors are exhausted." Now, perhaps, Twitter keeps the momentum going. But let's not pretend that this is the kind of effect sociable media is intended to have on the masses. The fact that all we can do is consume tweets about what is *happening* elsewhere is an indication of how the system is really supposed to work. *We* (who failed to organize any kind of reaction against our own election fraud) are the mammets, not the people who--out of necessity or choice--revert back to the unmediated action of their bodies. -Ulises ----- Original Message ---- From: john sobol To: Ulises Mejias Cc: iDC at mailman.thing.net Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 10:04:22 PM Subject: Re: [iDC] "How (bravely) the mammet twitters!? On 16-Jun-09, at 12:27 PM, Ulises Mejias wrote: > > In the new economics of 'mammet-generated content,' the users are mindless, sub-human. > They are too small to count except in the aggregate. They performs mindless repetitive tasks; > they twitter. But they are also dangerous. There is a potential threat living inside these > Mechanical Turks, a dwarf genius. They are the masses who could potentially discover --if > sociable media wasn't so much darn fun!-- that of all possible configurations, the network is > being actualized as a machine for generating more, not less, inequality. In this economy, there > is no difference between toil and play, and that's not accidental. The new mammet must be > kept engaged in endless twittering--otherwise, it might go jihadi all over the network. > > -Ulises Mejias > A couple of days ago I started writing an atypically benign response to the above, atypical as I have on this listserv been pretty hardcore in the past in challenging what I see as the extreme one-sidedness of the argument that Ulises so effectively articulates here, but the extraordinary events in Iran have been so distracting that I only now find myself with a few minutes to continue writing, and as I do so I see that these current events constitute a far more compelling real-world rejection of the mammet metaphor than anything I could have written. For lo, here we have the mammet rising up and almost literally 'going jihadi all over the network' but without leaving the Mechanical Turk! It is in fact the golem with a flower, the Mechanical Turk dancing for peace. Is it not so? How is it that these once 'mindless sub-humans' have ridden the back of Twitter to rise up and smite their oppressors? Does this not make a mockery of experts in theoretical revolution, who have insisted that capitalist networks are inherently anti-revolutionary, inherently anti-human, anti-inspiration? Not that cyberwarfare can't be waged from both sides. Or course it can. But these mammets bravely tweeting understand that human agency lies within human actors, and that 'the system' is never monolothic. That freedom is not necessarily abdicated by participating in a techno-social-network within a capitalist structure, especially when participation consists of telling a meaningful story to real human ears. In fact, it is enhanced, regardless of the ads inserted nearby. So may they tweet on in Iran, and come to enjoy the fruits of their user-generated revolt, even as Twitter gains value and somewhere stockbrokers giggle in anticipation of its IPO. John Sobol -- www.johnsobol.com From editor at intertheory.org Thu Jun 18 12:41:09 2009 From: editor at intertheory.org (Nicholas Ruiz III) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:41:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] =?utf-8?q?=22How_=28bravely=29_the_mammet_twitters!?= =?utf-8?b?4oCd?= In-Reply-To: <9C3F02B8-BBB8-4C1B-9821-304F157BA919@johnsobol.com> References: <937461.24406.qm@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <9C3F02B8-BBB8-4C1B-9821-304F157BA919@johnsobol.com> Message-ID: <822105.89776.qm@web305.biz.mail.mud.yahoo.com> On the verge of existence, no?...what people want most is control...precisely the thing they will never have... all search in vain for a system (or its antithesis): of trade, of thought, of philosophy and theory - of certainty...what we fail to see, searching for systems of faith, emancipation, global love and the kitchen sink...is that a system itself is the crime...the perfect crime... The world scoffs at a system; will not tolerate it. The world scoffs at humanity - the system seekers. But all is not lost. The world loves - is forever amused - by forcing our adaptation to it. Of this, it will never tire. For this is the reason it keeps us around. Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D Editor, Kritikos http://intertheory.org ----- Original Message ---- From: john sobol To: Ulises Mejias Cc: iDC at mailman.thing.net Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 10:04:22 PM Subject: Re: [iDC] "How (bravely) the mammet twitters!? On 16-Jun-09, at 12:27 PM, Ulises Mejias wrote: > > In the new economics of 'mammet-generated content,' the users are > mindless, sub-human. > They are too small to count except in the aggregate. They performs > mindless repetitive tasks; > they twitter. But they are also dangerous. There is a potential > threat living inside these > Mechanical Turks, a dwarf genius. They are the masses who could > potentially discover --if > sociable media wasn't so much darn fun!-- that of all possible > configurations, the network is > being actualized as a machine for generating more, not less, > inequality. In this economy, there > is no difference between toil and play, and that's not accidental. > The new mammet must be > kept engaged in endless twittering--otherwise, it might go jihadi > all over the network. > > -Ulises Mejias > A couple of days ago I started writing an atypically benign response to the above, atypical as I have on this listserv been pretty hardcore in the past in challenging what I see as the extreme one- sidedness of the argument that Ulises so effectively articulates here, but the extraordinary events in Iran have been so distracting that I only now find myself with a few minutes to continue writing, and as I do so I see that these current events constitute a far more compelling real-world rejection of the mammet metaphor than anything I could have written. For lo, here we have the mammet rising up and almost literally 'going jihadi all over the network' but without leaving the Mechanical Turk! It is in fact the golem with a flower, the Mechanical Turk dancing for peace. Is it not so? How is it that these once 'mindless sub-humans' have ridden the back of Twitter to rise up and smite their oppressors? Does this not make a mockery of experts in theoretical revolution, who have insisted that capitalist networks are inherently anti-revolutionary, inherently anti-human, anti-inspiration? Not that cyberwarfare can't be waged from both sides. Or course it can. But these mammets bravely tweeting understand that human agency lies within human actors, and that 'the system' is never monolothic. That freedom is not necessarily abdicated by participating in a techno-social-network within a capitalist structure, especially when participation consists of telling a meaningful story to real human ears. In fact, it is enhanced, regardless of the ads inserted nearby. So may they tweet on in Iran, and come to enjoy the fruits of their user-generated revolt, even as Twitter gains value and somewhere stockbrokers giggle in anticipation of its IPO. John Sobol -- www.johnsobol.com _______________________________________________ iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) iDC at mailman.thing.net https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc List Archive: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ iDC Photo Stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ RSS feed: http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc iDC Chat on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From john at johnsobol.com Thu Jun 18 12:48:47 2009 From: john at johnsobol.com (john sobol) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:48:47 -0400 Subject: [iDC] =?windows-1252?q?=22How_=28bravely=29_the_mammet_twitters!?= =?windows-1252?q?=94?= In-Reply-To: <525031.25043.qm@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <937461.24406.qm@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <9C3F02B8-BBB8-4C1B-9821-304F157BA919@johnsobol.com> <525031.25043.qm@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <9CB87CD5-2793-43B6-85F7-48E93C8085FC@johnsobol.com> Hi Ulises and all... On 18-Jun-09, at 7:36 AM, Ulises Mejias wrote: > > John, > > Thank you for your comments. But are we perhaps confusing the > finger for the thing it is pointing at? Not at all, as we shall see... > > What is remarkable about the events in Iran is that people have > taken to the streets to challenge an illegitimate election. The > fact that some people are using Twitter to disseminate the news > about the events, by-passing traditional media, is important but > has little to do with what has motivated the Iranian youth to take > to the streets. Well, motivation is a funny thing. On a very practical level, a message received indicating the otherwise unknown time and place of a popular protest, delivered via a mechanism that is inherently secretive and scalable such that the receiver knows that hundreds and thousands of others nearby are receiving the same message, may in fact be the vital trigger that 'motivates' someone to overcome fear and or/inertia to leave their home and try to fulfill a collective destiny in a repressive and risky context. Though if you think you are telling anyone anything they don't know by pointing out that such transmissions are the result of a series of complex social events, and are happening as part of a vast web of personal emotions and socio-political dynamics, then you are mistaken. > > Twitter is not what has made or will make this movement successful, > although not surprisingly, we in the West have reframed this > uprising to be all about us: it's about how *we* get the > information, and about the 'revolutionary' potential of our latest > technological gadgets (potential that always seems somehow to elude > us here at home, unfortunately). Already the Internet is awash with > opinions from Web 2.0 gurus about how Iran is the Twitter > revolution (much like Estonia was the Facebook revolution, some > other place was the YouTube Revolution, and so on). Maybe it's just > me, but I find this kind of technophilic argument reductionist and > self-serving. Please give people, not corporate tools, their due > credit. I fail to see how I was not giving people credit in my response (rejecting as it did your insistence that twitterers are engaged in sub-human activity that can never contribute to achieving social equality) by choosing to celebrate human agency and courage. Also, Obama's election was in fact a kind of web-fuelled social revolution. It is maybe not the revolution 'you' want, but it is the one millions did, so if we are talking about not giving people credit I think you might start there. > > Having said that, I also don't want to pretend that new > technologies don't matter. I find Naeem Mohaiemen's piece on the > Iranian protests quite insightful: > > "The Iranian state is getting desperate, and tries to throttle > internet traffic, block SMS flow, scramble satellite TV feeds. But > every few seconds there is a twitter giving new proxy addresses > that can be accessed from inside Iran. Even with net speed down to > a crawl, activists keep pushing information through. We will bypass > all filters." > http://unheardvoice.net/blog/2009/06/17/iran-filters/ > > Previously, Naeem says, "protests fade as the government waits > until protestors are exhausted." Now, perhaps, Twitter keeps the > momentum going. But let's not pretend that this is the kind of > effect sociable media is intended to have on the masses. This is, I am afraid, laughable. Who in the world uses terms like 'masses' anymore, or thinks that it could be relevant? And who thinks that the inventors of Twitter sat down and calculated the 'effect' it was going to have on the 'masses', in the way you mean it? Give me a break. And if as you acknowledge, Twitter 'keeps the momentum going', unlike failed revolts of the past, does this not seem rather significant? !!! > The fact that all we can do is consume tweets about what is > *happening* elsewhere is an indication of how the system is really > supposed to work. As your own quote by Naeem above points out, this is not what is happening. In fact there is a feedback loop of immense energy in play involving thousands of people in Iran and around the world, who are actively sharing information to and for each other, including redirecting news from Iran back into Iran via external agents, both corporate and atomic, to support the street-level actions. (props to Huffington Post!) > *We* (who failed to organize any kind of reaction against our own > election fraud) are the mammets, not the people who--out of > necessity or choice--revert back to the unmediated action of their > bodies. Maybe so, maybe so. Or maybe we, by participating in this techno- social network, are, like our brave cousins, something more, rather than something less. Cheers, John > > -Ulises > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: john sobol > To: Ulises Mejias > Cc: iDC at mailman.thing.net > Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 10:04:22 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] "How (bravely) the mammet twitters!? > > > On 16-Jun-09, at 12:27 PM, Ulises Mejias wrote: >> >> In the new economics of 'mammet-generated content,' the users are >> mindless, sub-human. >> They are too small to count except in the aggregate. They performs >> mindless repetitive tasks; >> they twitter. But they are also dangerous. There is a potential >> threat living inside these >> Mechanical Turks, a dwarf genius. They are the masses who could >> potentially discover --if >> sociable media wasn't so much darn fun!-- that of all possible >> configurations, the network is >> being actualized as a machine for generating more, not less, >> inequality. In this economy, there >> is no difference between toil and play, and that's not accidental. >> The new mammet must be >> kept engaged in endless twittering--otherwise, it might go jihadi >> all over the network. >> >> -Ulises Mejias >> > > A couple of days ago I started writing an atypically benign > response to the above, atypical as I have on this listserv been > pretty hardcore in the past in challenging what I see as the > extreme one-sidedness of the argument that Ulises so effectively > articulates here, but the extraordinary events in Iran have been so > distracting that I only now find myself with a few minutes to > continue writing, and as I do so I see that these current events > constitute a far more compelling real-world rejection of the mammet > metaphor than anything I could have written. For lo, here we have > the mammet rising up and almost literally 'going jihadi all over > the network' but without leaving the Mechanical Turk! It is in fact > the golem with a flower, the Mechanical Turk dancing for peace. > > Is it not so? > > How is it that these once 'mindless sub-humans' have ridden the > back of Twitter to rise up and smite their oppressors? Does this > not make a mockery of experts in theoretical revolution, who have > insisted that capitalist networks are inherently anti- > revolutionary, inherently anti-human, anti-inspiration? Not that > cyberwarfare can't be waged from both sides. Or course it can. But > these mammets bravely tweeting understand that human agency lies > within human actors, and that 'the system' is never monolothic. > That freedom is not necessarily abdicated by participating in a > techno-social-network within a capitalist structure, especially > when participation consists of telling a meaningful story to real > human ears. In fact, it is enhanced, regardless of the ads inserted > nearby. > > So may they tweet on in Iran, and come to enjoy the fruits of their > user-generated revolt, even as Twitter gains value and somewhere > stockbrokers giggle in anticipation of its IPO. > > John Sobol > -- > www.johnsobol.com > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From playethical at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 13:19:15 2009 From: playethical at gmail.com (pat kane) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:19:15 +0100 Subject: [iDC] : Internet as Boho Art-Space and Heaving Public Square: play, Iran, Twitter, cybernetics In-Reply-To: <525031.25043.qm@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <937461.24406.qm@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <9C3F02B8-BBB8-4C1B-9821-304F157BA919@johnsobol.com> <525031.25043.qm@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Some further notes on play and labor: Yes, Julian and Brian, play is a primordially ambiguous domain of human responsiveness. Indeed, in terms of its evolutionary role as maintaining a sense of energized possibility for the organism, the darkest power-plays as well as the most bucolic festivities have to be part of its repertory of simulations, repetitions, games and laughter. (I often, and no doubt contentiously, say that if the work ethic can take a bad trip and end up at the sign over the gates of Auschwitz, the play ethic can also terminate in the boudoirs and rape/ torture chambers of the good Marquis). Indeed, our multidisciplinary ludi-guru, Brian Sutton-Smith, would be the first to assert that, as Julian's quotation from him shows, the too-idealised zone of child's play is a pulsing phantasmagoria of transgression, insurrection, corporeal anarchy - if only adults could hear it. Part of my definition of a 'play ethic' is partly that the sheer non-moral openness of play compels us to think "ethically", in that Foucaultian sense of ethics as a practice of freedom. It's too powerful in our lives not to take, as it were, deadly seriously. So Julian, I do think I acknowledge play's murkier potentials - I'm not one of those legions of blithe boosters about its effects that appear in management circles, play as a toolbox for positive psychology. But you will know that that the final words of Sutton- Smith's The Ambiguity of Play, when he lays out his evolutionary thesis about play, is a confession that "despite my extensive criticisms of the rhetoric of progress, I have now invented yet another form of it, although this time as only the potentiation of adaptive variability". I keep my eye on play theory for the same reasons, I think, that Deleuze and Guattari kept their eye on fractal mathematics, non- linear systems theory, or neuroscience. That is, as a resource to confirm my assumptions about an immanent creativity in the human condition (which of course for D&G was part of that greater, concept- strewn plane of materiality). It's certainly about counterposing a more open and unpredicable bio-subject than the "Homer Economicus" of behavioural economics, that coming governmentality in Euro-America, which erects upon our evolved psychosomatic equipment some miserably limited (and easily governable) consumer-citzens, "nudged" this way and that ahead of their savannah atavisms by a mandarinate of "liberal paternalists". Some of you may think it's dangerously positivist to engage in the "politics of human nature" this way: I feel the opposition is too powerful not to. But to the "play-labor nexus". I urge you all to read Brian Holmes' very elegant essay on play, link previously posted here - http:// brianholmes.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/games-corporations-distant- constellations. And I want to take seriously Brian's, Ulises', Trebor's and others ludo-scepticism: That the absorption-in- possibility which defines the play experience is, through interaction design, a mechanism of identification with the social order - and one which could be, at worst, a willful mystification of our relationship with real-world exploitation ("Web 2.0 as ideology itself", as Brian says). In his new essay, Brian tries to establish some kind of opposition between play-as-identification, and play-as- disidentification. It's worth quoting at length, just for the prose: ".... Will a repressive hush fall back over the emergent world society, as the postmodern tool sets are gradually outfitted with surveillance mechanisms and encumbered with intellectual property laws, while dissident behaviors are pacified and normalized within corporate frames? Or will a resurgent artistic activism learn from its historical failures, and launch new and more effective techniques for the free and open transmission of countercultural knowledge? How to enlarge the circle of initiates? How to increase the possibilities of active participation? How ? and where ? to extend the terrains of struggle?" "...The procedures of deskilling and deconditioning, the anti- disciplinary revolts deployed by the early vanguards against the remains of a bourgeois ideal of ennoblement, then by mid-twentieth century artists against the quality standards and technocratic abstraction of the corporate capitalist societies, are only understandable as a struggle within this dominant politics of culture, conceived in Schiller?s terms as the psychic vector of a social status quo: ?free play? as the intimate and voluntarily cultivated instance of the state. This is what we are up against, if we seek, like the Situationists, to invent ?an essentially new type of games.? "... Now the urgency of deconditioning makes itself felt once again in vastly expanded cultural circles, even as the patronage of imperial capital exerts increasingly stronger channeling and framing effects. How to introduce a subversive ?free play? into circuits of exchange that have been built up on the dogma of dematerialization, liquidity, liberalism? How to twist the grids of expression outside the control of the managerial elites? How to eliminate the brokers?" Behind this is his reading of Schiller's theory (which he shares with Terry Eagleton) casting the play-drive is the ultimate civic seduction, the ultimate embourgoisifier: "The revolutionary individual is not to be crushed, but should ultimately *become* the new regime". Yet I do think we get into hard politics here. And I do have some sympathy for John Sobol's blast against "the experts in theoretical revolution, who have insisted that capitalist networks are inherently anti-revolutionary, inherently anti-human, anti- inspiration" ? particularly in the light of those "mammets" furiously using Twitter, Friendfeed, Typepad and every other corporate platform they can get, to sousveille and maintain the momentum of the Iranian uprising. In short, can one be a reformist in this discussion, as well as a revolutionary? And can play be developmental, as well as disruptive? Progressive as well as liminal? Bauwens' constant refrain on this list is that an autonomous digital counterculture can "fight/hack for user rights, open standards, free network service principles" with the commercial platforms: they can establish a 'social contract' (a social democracy?) from a strong base in which they build their own "radical distributed infrastructures". I go with Pekka Himanen that hackerism is the first real instantiation of a 'play ethic' in the network society. Isn't it this counterculture (which Fred Turner hymns) which presses externally and internally upon organisations like Twitter and Google? And hasn't hackerism deeply enabled - indeed, "conditioned" - the openness and iterability of the platforms currently being used by the Iranian people? And yes, there is a degree of yada-yada-yada about our ritual invocation of the Italian autonomists here. But surely one of the things they get right is that our new sense of collective power (see Kevin Kelly's 'New Socialism' thesis in Wired) is more than just a by- product of an increasing cyberneticized fabric of society. Techno- potboilers like James Harkin's Cyburbia try to claim (as many on this list do) that cybernetics is the core, militarily-originated episteme that keeps us phatically and pointlessly chattering to each other, over brightly-coloured networks. But as Micheal Hardt puts it (http:// www.vinculo-a.net/english_site/text_hardt.html), interactive machines aren't just "a new prosthesis integrated into our bodies and minds", but also "a lens through which to redefine our bodies and minds themselves". This presumes a seer-through-the-lens - meaning, to some degree, a subject who can gain some Enlightenment-style purchase on their embroilment in protocol and code. An autonomous, passional, strategic player, not just the heteronomous, befuddled and processual played. To bring it back to the moment of play: The point about the 'ambiguity of play', its necessary potentiation and proteanism, is that it encompasses (as Sutton-Smith says) *both* extreme agency *and* extreme envelopment. Play-as-fate-and-chaos, yes, the play of being caught up in cosmic mechanisms way beyond ones power to control or influence - but also play-as-progress, play-as-imagination, play- as-freedom. Cybernetics is indeed subtle and pervasive in its harnessing of human differentiation and singularity - but I'd content that play is more powerful, more generative and more constitutive of said difference and singularity. Because it is the 'difference engine' of our species, it always gives us enough cognitive and affective headroom - not just to generate better antagonisms to systems, but better systems as well. Which is what Brian Holmes, to me, exactly does at the end of his playpiece, when he invokes the map-makings of personal and political potential conducted by Felix Guattari: that is, he points to a better system to support richer play. Radical creatives might want to disidentify from the interactive funfair of the entertainment- military complex, asks Brian - but where, other than the metropolis as a stage for "processual social events" and "punctual encounters", can they go to practice, let alone theorise, their counter-play? I am touched by Brian's answer: "The art circuit today ? including not just museums, but the enlarged and diversified networks of experimentation, debate and display ? can function as a public site of initiation to this kind of reading, making it a new form of common knowledge, too broad and unpredictable to remain under corporate control. In this way, art can help reactivate the suspended promise that sixties? thinkers saw in the expansion of free time. If it can avoid capture and ?ennoblement? (or conversely, brutal repression) by the pervasive powers of the corporate capitalist state. "The artworks before your eyes appear irreducibly singular, tangential, distant; and everything else that gives consistency and dynamism to dissenting subjectivities ? the discourses, the technologies, the territories of intervention ? is necessarily elsewhere, displaced into another space. Yet even within the seeming calm and neutrality of the museum, these constellations of distant universes are inviting you to play an essentially different kind of game." This reminds me so much of that powerful essay that Habermas wrote about George Bataille in the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. (Google Books wont show me the relevant page - Bauwens' Chartists, advance!). But from misty memory, it's something about how Bataille's transgressive and illimitable practice ? which is hard-core, radically-potentiating play - is good for the steering systems of modernity, in that it reminds governance that there will always be challenges to its complacency about meeting human needs and desires. Art institutions need artists, system needs lifeworld (even at the Bataillian limit), and networks need play (and players), to develop, form and reform. We should be vigilant over forms of interaction labor that canalise the full spectrum of playful possibilities, yes. But it's a more exciting moment for systemic development, of all kinds, than a counsel of "control-society" despair. Precisely because we're players, and not laborers, in these playgrounds. On 18 Jun 2009, at 12:36, Ulises Mejias wrote: > > John, > > Thank you for your comments. But are we perhaps confusing the > finger for the thing it is pointing at? > > What is remarkable about the events in Iran is that people have > taken to the streets to challenge an illegitimate election. The > fact that some people are using Twitter to disseminate the news > about the events, by-passing traditional media, is important but > has little to do with what has motivated the Iranian youth to take > to the streets. > > Twitter is not what has made or will make this movement successful, > although not surprisingly, we in the West have reframed this > uprising to be all about us: it's about how *we* get the > information, and about the 'revolutionary' potential of our latest > technological gadgets (potential that always seems somehow to elude > us here at home, unfortunately). Already the Internet is awash with > opinions from Web 2.0 gurus about how Iran is the Twitter > revolution (much like Estonia was the Facebook revolution, some > other place was the YouTube Revolution, and so on). Maybe it's just > me, but I find this kind of technophilic argument reductionist and > self-serving. Please give people, not corporate tools, their due > credit. > > Having said that, I also don't want to pretend that new > technologies don't matter. I find Naeem Mohaiemen's piece on the > Iranian protests quite insightful: > > "The Iranian state is getting desperate, and tries to throttle > internet traffic, block SMS flow, scramble satellite TV feeds. But > every few seconds there is a twitter giving new proxy addresses > that can be accessed from inside Iran. Even with net speed down to > a crawl, activists keep pushing information through. We will bypass > all filters." > http://unheardvoice.net/blog/2009/06/17/iran-filters/ > > Previously, Naeem says, "protests fade as the government waits > until protestors are exhausted." Now, perhaps, Twitter keeps the > momentum going. But let's not pretend that this is the kind of > effect sociable media is intended to have on the masses. The fact > that all we can do is consume tweets about what is *happening* > elsewhere is an indication of how the system is really supposed to > work. *We* (who failed to organize any kind of reaction against our > own election fraud) are the mammets, not the people who--out of > necessity or choice--revert back to the unmediated action of their > bodies. > > -Ulises > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: john sobol > To: Ulises Mejias > Cc: iDC at mailman.thing.net > Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 10:04:22 PM > Subject: Re: [iDC] "How (bravely) the mammet twitters!? > > > On 16-Jun-09, at 12:27 PM, Ulises Mejias wrote: >> >> In the new economics of 'mammet-generated content,' the users are >> mindless, sub-human. >> They are too small to count except in the aggregate. They performs >> mindless repetitive tasks; >> they twitter. But they are also dangerous. There is a potential >> threat living inside these >> Mechanical Turks, a dwarf genius. They are the masses who could >> potentially discover --if >> sociable media wasn't so much darn fun!-- that of all possible >> configurations, the network is >> being actualized as a machine for generating more, not less, >> inequality. In this economy, there >> is no difference between toil and play, and that's not accidental. >> The new mammet must be >> kept engaged in endless twittering--otherwise, it might go jihadi >> all over the network. >> >> -Ulises Mejias >> > > A couple of days ago I started writing an atypically benign > response to the above, atypical as I have on this listserv been > pretty hardcore in the past in challenging what I see as the > extreme one-sidedness of the argument that Ulises so effectively > articulates here, but the extraordinary events in Iran have been so > distracting that I only now find myself with a few minutes to > continue writing, and as I do so I see that these current events > constitute a far more compelling real-world rejection of the mammet > metaphor than anything I could have written. For lo, here we have > the mammet rising up and almost literally 'going jihadi all over > the network' but without leaving the Mechanical Turk! It is in fact > the golem with a flower, the Mechanical Turk dancing for peace. > > Is it not so? > > How is it that these once 'mindless sub-humans' have ridden the > back of Twitter to rise up and smite their oppressors? Does this > not make a mockery of experts in theoretical revolution, who have > insisted that capitalist networks are inherently anti- > revolutionary, inherently anti-human, anti-inspiration? Not that > cyberwarfare can't be waged from both sides. Or course it can. But > these mammets bravely tweeting understand that human agency lies > within human actors, and that 'the system' is never monolothic. > That freedom is not necessarily abdicated by participating in a > techno-social-network within a capitalist structure, especially > when participation consists of telling a meaningful story to real > human ears. In fact, it is enhanced, regardless of the ads inserted > nearby. > > So may they tweet on in Iran, and come to enjoy the fruits of their > user-generated revolt, even as Twitter gains value and somewhere > stockbrokers giggle in anticipation of its IPO. > > John Sobol > -- > www.johnsobol.com > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From trebor at thing.net Thu Jun 18 15:54:52 2009 From: trebor at thing.net (Trebor Scholz) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:54:52 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Iran-- Closed Cinemas, A Filtered Internet, Kurastami, Blogging about Sex and Music in Farsi Message-ID: Ulises, Un-thinking the network, what an inspiring and difficult proposal! Your comments on the possibility of "deviation from social norms in private, non-surveilled spaces, away from the network," are definitely something I'd like to come back to. (What are your proposals to undermine the normative social milieus that so pervasive today? I think that withdrawal from the net is futile and largely a sign of privilege but let's keep that for later...) But then you write that "Now, perhaps, Twitter keeps the momentum going. But let's not pretend that this is the kind of effect sociable media is intended to have on the masses." This sounds a bit like you are suggesting a corporate master plan that determined the uses and effects of Twitter and I'd question that. I mean, let's look at it. In 2000, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey had the idea to make a "more 'live' LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. Akin to updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it." It's quite clear that Dorsey could not have possibly fathomed the various applications and effects that Twitter has today (e.g., http://is.gd/15lHE). Surely, in the end, the goal for any for-profit business is to earn a profit and as soon as large investors come on board, they have a say in all that but it's messy, largely unpredictable, and the people who use Twitter are also changing the tool as much as they are shaped by it. While I agree that all that talk of a "Twitter revolution" in Iran is completely overblown and self-serving, Twitter, Facebook, and SMS did affect protests in the Philippines (2003/2005), Ukraine (2005), Egypt (FB, April 6th Movement), February 15, 2003 (worldwide), the RNC in NYC (2004), France (2005), Spain (2004), Burma and -to an extent- Moldova (2009). I posted an overview here http://is.gd/15lPc and a few visual notes on the role of social media during the Gaza-Israel 'conflict'-- http://is.gd/15lUD In Iran, blogs became a space for its people to discuss alternative interpretations of the Koran (consider the link between expats and Iranians at home), and for women who are excluded from coffee houses, the Internet became a place where they can speak; new social media can facilitate some social and sexual freedoms. On the other hand, there are the astro-turfing attempts of the Iranian government that ordered over 10,000 conservative Basji paramilitary forces to start blogging. When you have a hard time preventing the distribution of content, then you try to make individual voices disappear in a sea of noise; that at least is the thought-- if it works is another question. A few notes on "Closed Cinemas, A Filtered Internet, Kurastami, Blogging about Sex and Music in Farsi: Social Media in Iran" http://is.gd/15h9K After studying the April 6th Youth Movement in Egypt I walked away with a nuanced, conflicting view of the way that Facebook functioned in this specific case. On the one hand, the Egyptian blogger Wael Nawara (http://weekite.blogspot.com/) wrote that ?in general, there?s this kind of apathy, a sense that there is nothing we can do to change the situation. But with Facebook you realize there are others who think alike and share the same ideals. You can find Islamists there, but it is really dominated by liberal voices.? (NYT) Some of the demonstrations that ensued attracted more than 10,000 people and that mattered!! Protesters were not simply triggered by the Facebook group, of course, but it clearly helped to mobilize activists on short notice. But then, of course, the FB group was also a convenient tool for the government to map activists and in that sense it severely hurt dissent. Activists need tools for secrecy. After unpacking the above mentioned examples, it's still unclear to me if positive or adverse effects of these tools dominated in the end. I have more questions than definite answers and I certainly don't have an essentialist stance on the "liberatory possibilities of these corporate social media." I think it's too early to tell. Trebor From mlucas at igc.org Thu Jun 18 16:14:45 2009 From: mlucas at igc.org (Martin Lucas) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:14:45 -0400 Subject: [iDC] =?windows-1252?q?Fwd=3A__=22How_=28bravely=29_the_mammet_tw?= =?windows-1252?q?itters!=94?= References: <19F96120-E438-464F-ABB1-1C1E2DB1DAD2@igc.org> Message-ID: > New arenas for social action/ interaction and yet the network > manufactures inequality? I would tend to support Sobol, but ask to > look carefully at cases. The fact is, we are jumping into pools of > social consciousness, not willy nilly, but not totally exploited > either. It is, and it will continue to be, difficult to make > overriding judgments of internet-based communications technologies > as either "machines for generating inequality" or as 'tools for > empowerment". The Iranian twitter campaign, and the Iranian use of > technology developed by/for the Falun Gong suggests that people use > the tools at hand. Are there limits to this kind of > consciousness? Does what's happening in Iran express a kind of > shared consciousness that is revolutionary? Only in a fairly > limited sense. And the current dilemma of the US government, which > doesn't want to support a movement too heavily when that support > would be the kiss of death in a context where all politics is anti > US, is suggestive of the problems of human rights/civil rights > discourses and their relation to mass politics. > > One thinks of the SMS-based rallies in Manila. In the Philippines > these suggest an over-riding popular desire for an end to a > politics that has been the fate of Philippine democracy since its > beginnings, and one that has everything to do with the continued > control of that society by a small land-owning elite that has no > more imagination than to export its citizens to pull capital from > other economies. Does the departure of Estrada change things? Yes, > but the networked consciousness, which can bring literally millions > of people out on the street at the same time, has yet to show > itself capable of replacing the oligarchy in a systemic way. On > the other hand, the amazing use of ringtones to de-legitimize > government coverup there suggests the long term creation of a > shared culture of playful resistance. http://www.pcij.org/blog/wp- > files/ringtones.php > > There are massive increases in subjectivity afloat in cyberspace. > The specific cases are often ambiguous. Look at China, where a > snappy logo went from cell phone to cell phone as part of a boycott > of Carrefour, (http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/16/ > chinacarrefour-under-boycott-threat/) a company that was French in > the run up to the Beijing Olympics when Tibet was an issue. Is > that mob think, incipient nationalism? > > A current human rights poster-child app is Ushahidi, an SMS/GPS > system used in Kenya in early 2008 to map election violence and > more recently in South Africa to map anti-immigrant violence. In > South Africa, SMS systems were first used to encourage violence. > So Ushahidi is a counter-mobthink tool. This starts to suggest > that what is created when one creates social networks is neither a > panacea nor a nightmare, but a new field of social action and > engagement. One that people people have to deal with the way we > often do, consciously, but playing a small role in a large drama > that we don't know totally. The politics are ones of greater > participation, always potentially scary, and potentially > liberatory. What that liberation consists of needs to be mapped. > And how we do that mapping is very key. What is a mass > consciousness in the factory of social networking? Can we run that > factory ourselves? Should we vote on it? > > Meanwhile, as John points out, the providers make out either way. > Globally, the average SMS message costs about 11 cents US to send, > and as you can imagine, the provider's costs are minimal. And what > about all that coltan? > > > Martin Lucas > martinlucas.net Begin forwarded message: > From: Martin Lucas > Date: June 18, 2009 11:12:51 AM EDT > To: john sobol > Subject: Re: [iDC] "How (bravely) the mammet twitters!? > > New arenas for social action/ interaction and yet the network > manufactures inequality. I would tend to support Sobol, but ask to > look carefully at cases. The fact is, we are jumping into pools of > social consciousness, not willy nilly, but not totally exploited > either. It is, and it will continue to be, difficult to make > overriding judgments of internet-based communications technologies > as either "machines for generating inequality" or as 'tools for > empowerment". The Iranian twitter campaign, and the Iranian use of > technology developed by/for the Falun Gong suggests that people use > the tools at hand. Are there limits to this kind of > consciousness? Does what's happening in Iran express a kind of > shared consciousness that is revolutionary? Only in a fairly > limited sense. And the current dilemma of the US government, which > doesn't want to support a movement too heavily when that support > would be the kiss of death in a context where all politics is anti > US, is suggestive of the problems of human rights/civil rights > discourses and their relation to mass politics. > > One thinks of the SMS-based rallies in Manila. In the Philippines > these suggest an over-riding popular desire for an end to a > politics that has been the fate of Philippine democracy since its > beginnings, and one that has everything to do with the continued > control of that society by a small land-owning elite that has no > more imagination than to export its citizens to pull capital from > other economies. Does the departure of Estrada change things? Yes, > but the networked consciousness, which can bring literally millions > of people out on the street at the same time, has yet to show > itself capable of replacing the oligarchy in a systemic way. On > the other hand, the amazing use of ringtones to de-legitimize > government coverup there suggests the long term creation of a > shared culture of playful resistance. http://www.pcij.org/blog/wp- > files/ringtones.php > > There are massive increases in subjectivity afloat in cyberspace. > The specific cases are often ambiguous. Look at China, where a > snappy logo went from cell phone to cell phone as part of a boycott > of Carrefour, (http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/16/ > chinacarrefour-under-boycott-threat/) a company that was French in > the run up to the Beijing Olympics when Tibet was an issue. Is > that mob think, incipient nationalism? > > A current human rights poster-child app is Ushahidi, an SMS/GPS > system used in Kenya in early 2008 to map election violence and > more recently in South Africa to map anti-immigrant violence. In > South Africa, SMS systems were first used to encourage violence. > So Ushahidi is a counter-mobthink tool. This starts to suggest > that what is created when one creates social networks is neither a > panacea nor a nightmare, but a new field of social action and > engagement. One that people people have to deal with the way we > often do, consciously, but playing a small role in a large drama > that we don't know totally. The politics are ones of greater > participation, always potentially scary, and potentially > liberatory. What that liberation consists of needs to be mapped. > And how we do that mapping is very key. What is a mass > consciousness in the factory of social networking? Can we run that > factory ourselves? Should we vote on it? > > Meanwhile, as John points out, the providers make out either way. > Globally, the average SMS message costs about 11 cents US to send, > and as you can imagine, the provider's costs are minimal. And what > about all that coltan? > > > Martin Lucas > martinlucas.net > > > > > > On Jun 17, 2009, at 10:04 PM, john sobol wrote: > >> >> On 16-Jun-09, at 12:27 PM, Ulises Mejias wrote: >>> >>> In the new economics of 'mammet-generated content,' the users are >>> mindless, sub-human. >>> They are too small to count except in the aggregate. They performs >>> mindless repetitive tasks; >>> they twitter. But they are also dangerous. There is a potential >>> threat living inside these >>> Mechanical Turks, a dwarf genius. They are the masses who could >>> potentially discover --if >>> sociable media wasn't so much darn fun!-- that of all possible >>> configurations, the network is >>> being actualized as a machine for generating more, not less, >>> inequality. In this economy, there >>> is no difference between toil and play, and that's not accidental. >>> The new mammet must be >>> kept engaged in endless twittering--otherwise, it might go jihadi >>> all over the network. >>> >>> -Ulises Mejias >>> >> >> A couple of days ago I started writing an atypically benign response >> to the above, atypical as I have on this listserv been pretty >> hardcore in the past in challenging what I see as the extreme one- >> sidedness of the argument that Ulises so effectively articulates >> here, but the extraordinary events in Iran have been so distracting >> that I only now find myself with a few minutes to continue writing, >> and as I do so I see that these current events constitute a far more >> compelling real-world rejection of the mammet metaphor than anything >> I could have written. For lo, here we have the mammet rising up and >> almost literally 'going jihadi all over the network' but without >> leaving the Mechanical Turk! It is in fact the golem with a flower, >> the Mechanical Turk dancing for peace. >> >> Is it not so? >> >> How is it that these once 'mindless sub-humans' have ridden the back >> of Twitter to rise up and smite their oppressors? Does this not make >> a mockery of experts in theoretical revolution, who have insisted >> that capitalist networks are inherently anti-revolutionary, >> inherently anti-human, anti-inspiration? Not that cyberwarfare can't >> be waged from both sides. Or course it can. But these mammets >> bravely tweeting understand that human agency lies within human >> actors, and that 'the system' is never monolothic. That freedom is >> not necessarily abdicated by participating in a techno-social-network >> within a capitalist structure, especially when participation consists >> of telling a meaningful story to real human ears. In fact, it is >> enhanced, regardless of the ads inserted nearby. >> >> So may they tweet on in Iran, and come to enjoy the fruits of their >> user-generated revolt, even as Twitter gains value and somewhere >> stockbrokers giggle in anticipation of its IPO. >> >> John Sobol >> -- >> www.johnsobol.com >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity >> (distributedcreativity.org) >> iDC at mailman.thing.net >> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc >> >> List Archive: >> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ >> >> iDC Photo Stream: >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ >> >> RSS feed: >> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc >> >> iDC Chat on Facebook: >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 >> >> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > From uam2101 at columbia.edu Thu Jun 18 16:17:33 2009 From: uam2101 at columbia.edu (Ulises Mejias) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:17:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iDC] Iran-- Closed Cinemas, A Filtered Internet, Kurastami, Blogging about Sex and Music in Farsi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <136040.79281.qm@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Trebor, Radio, film, and television also served revolutionary purposes at the beginning. And then they also served counter-revolutionary purposes and were used to alienate people. And then some other people found some other tools, and so on. I'm not saying there is an evil master plan with predetermined outcomes and every Internet entrepreneur is part of it, but I think if we want to change the way we change, we should be able to identify certain cycles and learn certain lessons from history. I suppose at the beginning of the day I'm with Ani DiFranco when she says that, in a pinch, every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. I applaud and celebrate the way people have used Twitter, Facebook, etc. in Iran, Egypt, Ukraine, Spain, Philippines... But at the end of the day, however (at least this day!), I'm with Audrey Lord when she says that the Master's tools won't dismantle the Master's house. Hence my interest in just *beginning* to theorize ways of un-thinking the network. By the way, I am not interested in a network-free utopia (which as you suggest, is pretty much an impossibility), but an atopia where un-thinking the network is possible everywhere. I'm sorry if I can't provide more details here. Meanwhile, I am NOT suggesting that we should abandon the use of these tools, just that we should be more critical about their long term potential and the epistemic enslavement they create. But perhaps this is what history is all about: find a tool, use it, see it being misused, throw it away, rinse and repeat. I love this quote at the beginning of Hardt and Negri's 'Empire:' "Men ?ght and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and then it turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to ?ght for what they meant under another name." --William Morris Now I beg your forgiveness as I return to being a lurker and focus my attention on writing. Regards, -Ulises From frank.pasquale at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 16:26:58 2009 From: frank.pasquale at gmail.com (Frank Pasquale) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:26:58 -0400 Subject: [iDC] Iran-- Closed Cinemas, A Filtered Internet, Kurastami, Blogging about Sex and Music in Farsi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7952bc610906180926i4d54d738i7d2ee1ffc50dd00e@mail.gmail.com> I find Trebor's points below on the double-edged nature of these technologies fascinating. Yes, they're empowering people. But an op-ed in the NY Times yesterday worried that ?the regime is prepared to detain dissidents ? reportedly using Facebook and Twitter to locate them.? Even if Twitter blocks such misuses of its data (it has apparently responded to US State Department requests that it schedule maintenance in order to maximize opportunities for dissent in Tehran), we should ask: 1) who owns the underlying physical communications infrastructure? 2) is anything anyone does on these networks safely private? Perhaps the twitter protests can be seen in the way that Vaclav Havel modeled the "grocer who refuses to put up a sign" in his essay Power of the Powerless--as open civil disobedience that assumes the risk of persecution. However, we can question the architecture that may make digital samizdat an impossibility. On that score, I recommend Michael D. Birnhack's and Niva Elkin-Koren's paper The Invisible Handshake, which describes new and hidden exchanges of information for power that are key to government-business relations: "Law enforcement agencies seek to enhance their monitoring capacity and online businesses seek to prevent fraud and combat piracy while strengthening their ties with authorities. . . . The invisible hand [of market-based communications] turned out to be very useful for the State, and it is now being replaced with a handshake, which, likewise, is invisible. . . . The use of private parties for executing government roles may create an unholy alliance between governments that wish to exercise their power and large online players that seek to maintain and strengthen their dominant role in the market." at http://www.vjolt.net/vol8/issue2/v8i2_a06-Birnhack-Elkin-Koren.pdf So even if "corporate social media" try to promote freedom, there are many other layers of monitoring and control online. -Frank On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Trebor Scholz wrote: > Ulises, > > Un-thinking the network, what an inspiring and difficult proposal! > Your comments on the possibility of "deviation from social norms in private, > non-surveilled spaces, away from the network," are definitely something I'd > like to come back to. > > (What are your proposals to undermine the normative social milieus that so > pervasive today? I think that withdrawal from the net is futile and largely > a sign of privilege but let's keep that for later...) > > But then you write that "Now, perhaps, Twitter keeps the momentum going. But > let's not pretend that this is the kind of effect sociable media is intended > to have on the masses." > > This sounds a bit like you are suggesting a corporate master plan that > determined the uses and effects of Twitter and I'd question that. I mean, > let's look at it. In 2000, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey had the idea to make > a "more 'live' LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. ?Akin to > updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it." > > It's quite clear that Dorsey could not have possibly fathomed the various > applications and effects that Twitter has today (e.g., http://is.gd/15lHE). > Surely, in the end, the goal for any for-profit business is to earn a profit > and as soon as large investors come on board, they have a say in all that > but it's messy, largely unpredictable, and the people who use Twitter are > also changing the tool as much as they are shaped by it. > > While I agree that all that talk of a "Twitter revolution" in Iran is > completely overblown and self-serving, Twitter, Facebook, and SMS did affect > protests in the Philippines (2003/2005), Ukraine (2005), Egypt (FB, April > 6th Movement), February 15, 2003 ?(worldwide), the RNC in NYC (2004), France > (2005), Spain (2004), Burma and -to an extent- Moldova (2009). > I posted an overview here http://is.gd/15lPc and a few visual notes on the > role of social media during the Gaza-Israel 'conflict'-- http://is.gd/15lUD > > In Iran, blogs became a space for its people to discuss alternative > interpretations of the Koran (consider the link between expats and Iranians > at home), and for women who are excluded from coffee houses, the Internet > became a place where they can speak; new social media can facilitate some > social and sexual freedoms. > > On the other hand, there are the astro-turfing attempts of the Iranian > government that ordered over 10,000 conservative Basji paramilitary forces > to start blogging. When you have a hard time preventing the distribution of > content, then you try to make individual voices disappear in a sea of noise; > that at least is the thought-- if it works is another question. > > A few notes on "Closed Cinemas, A Filtered Internet, Kurastami, Blogging > about Sex and Music in Farsi: Social Media in Iran" http://is.gd/15h9K > > After studying the April 6th Youth Movement in Egypt I walked away with a > nuanced, conflicting view of the way that Facebook functioned in this > specific case. On the one hand, the Egyptian blogger Wael Nawara > (http://weekite.blogspot.com/) wrote that ?in general, there?s this kind of > apathy, a sense that there is nothing we can do to change the situation. But > with Facebook you realize there are others who think alike and share the > same ideals. You can find Islamists there, but it is really dominated by > liberal voices.? (NYT) Some of the demonstrations that ensued attracted more > than 10,000 people and that mattered!! Protesters were not simply triggered > by the Facebook group, of course, but it clearly helped to mobilize > activists on short notice. > > But then, of course, the FB group was also a convenient tool for the > government to map activists and in that sense it severely hurt dissent. > Activists need tools for secrecy. > > After unpacking the above mentioned examples, it's still unclear to me if > positive or adverse effects of these tools dominated in the end. I have more > questions than definite answers and I certainly don't have an essentialist > stance on the "liberatory possibilities of these corporate social media." I > think it's too early to tell. > > Trebor > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > From rdom at thing.net Thu Jun 18 17:27:26 2009 From: rdom at thing.net (rdom at thing.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:27:26 -0000 (UTC) Subject: [iDC] Electronic Sit-in In Solidarity with Iranians Protesting against the Rigged 2009 Presidential Elections In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53229.98.209.1.55.1245346046.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> -- please forward widely -- Electronic Sit-in In Solidarity with Iranians Protesting against the Rigged 2009 Presidential Elections http://iran2009election.opinionware.net/ Please join us in this urgent action in solidarity with the large numbers of Iranian people who have been taking to the streets since June 13, 2009 to claim their right to free and fair elections. This electronic sit-in targets the websites of the Guardian Council, the Interior Ministry, the Presidency of Iran, Ali Khamenei, Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. Our demands: * Ahmadinejad must resign immediately. * All political prisoners, including all of the people who have been arrested on political charges in the past several days must be immediately released. * A new and independently monitored election must be held. * The list of presidential candidates must be open and free of interference by the Guardian Council. This action is NOT in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi or other presidential candidates in the 12 June 2009 election. The race for presidential candidacy was itself fundamentally flawed. The Guardian Council, a clerical body overseeing the governance of Iran, rejected 90% of eligible candidates the right to run in the election, leaving only 4 candidates on the list, all of whom are connected to one or other of the factions of the ruling theocracy and should equally be held accountable for the atrocities committed against Iranians over the past 30 years and for the countless social and economic ills that are inflicting the country. This action is in solidarity with hundreds of thousands of Iranians from diverse social groups and classes who, since Saturday, 13 June 2009, have been defying the official ban on mass rally and taken to the streets in many cities across Iran to voice their anger at seeing their right as citizens to have their votes counted trampled upon in a rigged election. Sirens of Solidarity http://iran2009election.opinionware.net/ Ricardo Dominguez Associate Professor Hellman Fellow Visual Arts Department, UCSD http://visarts.ucsd.edu/ Principal Investigator, CALIT2 http://calit2.net Co-Chair gallery at calit2 http://gallery.calit2.net CRCA Researcher http://crca.ucsd.edu/ Ethnic Studies Affiliate http://www.ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/ Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies Affiliate http://cilas.ucsd.edu Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Board Member http://hemi.nyu.edu University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0436 Phone: (619) 322-7571 e-mail: rrdominguez at ucsd.edu Project sites: site: http://gallery.calit2.net site: http://pitmm.net site: http://bang.calit2.net site: http://www.thing.net/~rdom blog:http://post.thing.net/blog/rdom From brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr Thu Jun 18 20:35:34 2009 From: brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr (Brian Holmes) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:35:34 -0500 Subject: [iDC] : Internet as Boho Art-Space and Heaving Public Square: play, Iran, Twitter, cybernetics In-Reply-To: References: <937461.24406.qm@web30803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <9C3F02B8-BBB8-4C1B-9821-304F157BA919@johnsobol.com> <525031.25043.qm@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3AA516.2000109@aliceadsl.fr> Dear all - It seems to me we are making progress here. Play, labor, cybernetics, the Internet, popular uprisings: we are seemingly recognizing that all of these things are as multivalent, as ambiguous as something like the the human brain. Marty Lucas writes: "It is, and it will continue to be, difficult to make overriding judgments of internet-based communications technologies as either 'machines for generating inequality' or as 'tools for empowerment'." I agree, and I think that in addition to the case-by-case approach to the uses of technology that Marty advocates, one can proceed by aspects. That is, rather than defending A against B, or vice versa, one can look at how A and B (say, "play" and "labor," or "control" and "emancipation") are opposing aspects of a single human reality. Why adopt such a weird and inconclusive approach? Because almost all social phenomena are multi-causal, they are generated by a multiplicity of agents and give rise to states of unstable compromise in which principled actions can easily have unwanted consequences when they are interpreted and redeployed by others. Pat Kane writes: > Part of my definition of a 'play ethic' is partly that the > sheer non-moral openness of play compels us to think "ethically", in > that Foucaultian sense of ethics as a practice of freedom. Ethics as I understand it involves first of all a continuous awareness of the actual social effects produced by the necessary expression of one's own singular will; and then additionally, a necessarily willful judgment of the effects that others, and groups of others, are producing, as a way both of revealing those effects and of helping the others and ourselves become more aware of what they/we are doing. In simpler words, ethics involves both the assertion and the continuous critique of power. Power is always part of the equation because the expression of any human faculty, even one as seemingly innocent and indeterminate as play, will always transform the environment that others exist in; so there is no escape from power. Continuous critique, of oneself not least of all, is equally necessary not only because of the malignant designs of ill-intentioned individuals and groups, but also because of the frequency of undesired consequences stemming from the expression of power in any form. "Resistance is the secret of joy," reads a picture that I see when I raise my eyes to look out the window. A feeling of solidarity immediately draws my attention to the experiences of those demonstrating in the great Iranian cities. I am certain from the many testimonies I read that these events are changing the lives of hundreds of thousands, and that those personal changes will have aggregate effects both on character of day-to-day life and the institutional exercise of power in Iran. That people should seize whatever media are available and necessary is fantastic! Maybe someday I will participate, somehow, in Iranian society, there in the country itself or through encounters and exchanges with diasporic communities and individuals whom I may meet elsewhere. But for once, I approve of the stance taken by the US government and by the Democratic party. John Kerry's op-ed in the NYT today warns very wisely of the unwanted consequences that any official US government interference in the Iranian electoral process could easily have. The possibility of Tiananmen-style repression is clearly real. Just because I can receive messages from English-speaking Iranian bloggers does not mean I understand the politics enough to throw myself into their movement. More could be gained, for someone in my position of ignorance, by learning how to positively influence the government here in the US where I reside. More could be gained by learning about the situation in Iran, why the revolution happened in 1978-79 and the effects it has had over thirty years. As the norms of world society -- expressed through telecommunications among other vectors -- impinge increasingly on the national and regional scales, the great challenge is to avoid the bloodbaths that were so widespread in the twentieth century. Pat Kane continues: > Bauwens' constant refrain on this > list is that an autonomous digital counterculture can "fight/hack for > user rights, open standards, free network service principles" with > the commercial platforms: they can establish a 'social contract' (a > social democracy?) from a strong base in which they build their own > "radical distributed infrastructures". I go with Pekka Himanen that > hackerism is the first real instantiation of a 'play ethic' in the > network society. ... And hasn't hackerism deeply enabled - > indeed, "conditioned" - the openness and iterability of the platforms > currently being used by the Iranian people? What is so very interesting about the word "play" is that it frequently describes situations where the activity depends on an awareness and a conscious encouragement of the other players' pleasurable expression of their own potentials. When it works like that it becomes a model and a real experience of positive social relations. I am writing on a PC running Ubuntu Linux and through the long process of learning to use it I have come to think that in addition to a play ethic there are really interesting relations of emulation going on behind the functioning of this OS that I start up every day -- social relations where the respect for the excellent work of others drives you to do better, not for personal gain or aggrandizement, but for everyone. These kinds of social relations permeated various professional/ cultural/ intellectual/ political circles in the 1990s, including but not limited to the counter-globalization movements, and they launched something very interesting indeed, which I still feel part of, gladly so. Could those ethics of consciously critical play and respectfully exuberant emulation be deepened, extended, made into a more powerful social force? Could they help clean up the horribly inegalitarian mess that the predatory economies of networked society have fallen into? Can grassroots communications continue to be a force for peace in this dangerous period of expanding world society? These are among the key questions of our debate, I would say. They make that debate important, they pull it free of the atrocious clich?s and refusals to think or even perceive that one so frequently encounters in the contemporary public spheres. My approach as a cultural producer is to set seemingly opposite aspects of social existence off against each other: tightly analyzed descriptions of deterministic traps on the one hand, because they abound under present circumstances; strategies of rupture, freedom and cooperation/emulation on the other, because it's the only way to go on imagining egalitarian social change and pressing for it in a complex reality. It is very interesting to find a cooperative space like this list, where through both friction and conviviality we achieve a more coherent and useful understanding of a damn confusing world! best to all, Brian From trebor at thing.net Fri Jun 19 15:08:36 2009 From: trebor at thing.net (Trebor Scholz) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:08:36 -0400 Subject: [iDC] The Internet as Playground and Factory - ACT I Message-ID: Dear Brian, Kindly forgive my slow response and please all note that the following conversation, based on our discussions of the past two weeks, is entirely fabricated. What would you add? =================================== ACT I Brian Holmes: Our experience of the Internet itself may in some way actually hide what's going on. http://is.gd/12Plv Christian Fuchs: [T]he social relation between Internet companies and users is one of fundamental inequality that is structured by class power. http://is.gd/13pKB Trebor Scholz: Class? BH: Why do we _tolerate_ being included in this networked society? http://is.gd/12Plv Jodi Dean: We are captured because we enjoy. http://is.gd/12ReH TS: Only the rich and powerful can escape the participation imperative; refusal is futile and irresponsible. Education! Jonathan Beller: The only way out, short of complete expropriation of the expropriators, a radical redistribution of wealth and complete overhaul of the human network (whatever that would look like), is to drop out completely, that is, for all practical purposes, to cease to exist, to cease to speak, write or be written as the discourse of the spectacle. (Beller 295) JB: In other words, the fight is also here and now. We are being called by the o/re-pressed that lies both within and without "us." http://is.gd/11AMO Michel Bauwens: Beyond what a radical minority may wish, there are constraints of 'realism' in what can be achieved and expected http://is.gd/12UJa BH: Those of us who like dancing in the face of cops and speaking pie to power are not exactly averse to a little humor! http://is.gd/12Plv Gabriella Coleman: Piracy! http://is.gd/16kB6 Pat Kane: Play! http://is.gd/16lpU Ellen Goodman: Discussions about ... noncommercial production and amateur/citizen participation ... are central to ... public media reform. http://is.gd/16lbv Mark Zuckerberg (not on the iDC List yet): The next hundred years will be different for advertising, and it starts today. http://is.gd/16jHZ BH: [MTURK?] isn't this just the everyday experience of the consumer in the networked economy of neoliberal globalization? http://is.gd/12Plv TS: The heart of digital economy is not about waged micro-labor; the future of value is unpaid and invisible social participation. Tiziana Terranova: If the users' activity [in the] web economy is misrepresented as labor, what would be a better way to describe it? http://is.gd/12tMl Howard Rheingold: I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr. http://is.gd/16jR3 Frank Pasquale: Some say that platforms like Google and Facebook were always inevitable, and those companies just happened to be in the right place at the right time. http://is.gd/12qgw BH: Obviously I'm not convinced by the emancipatory possibilities of really-existing corporate social media. http://is.gd/12Plv HR: How many times a day were YOU exploited by searching for something without paying a charge for the service? http://is.gd/16jR3 BH: Some of us look only at the web itself, while others look at the whole tissue of networked society. Not only exploitation is an issue, but also an ideology that promotes conformity, that makes dis-identification and dissent extremely rare. http://is.gd/12Plv Ulises Mejias: We need to question how network processes normalize monocultures. http://is.gd/12ukg Martin Lucas: It is, and it will continue to be, difficult to make overriding judgments of internet-based communications technologies as either "machines for generating inequality" or as "tools for empowerment." http://is.gd/16kx7 --to be continued From michael at goldhaber.org Fri Jun 19 18:44:33 2009 From: michael at goldhaber.org (Michael H Goldhaber) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:44:33 -0700 Subject: [iDC] blogs, twitter, aphasia, speech References: Message-ID: <82E682DD-2906-4357-8F20-EFAB46849BFC@goldhaber.org> Christina, implicit in what you say is the view ( which I think is right on) that while aware that many Net media are owned by corporations that hope to make a profit, we should not overlook their more subversive potentials. In that vein also, I think we should not take corporations or even governments to be as sure of what to do as they pretend. We should be careful not to ascribe to such entities more strength than they have, for that only weakens any kind of independent action. For instance, much "data mining" is done strictly in the hope that the mined data will be of value. But just because an ad that supposedly is customized for you appears in front of you, that does not mean you must fall for it. And it may well be customized on the basis of absurd misreadings, which tell us the programs are pretty easily confused. Data mining might be much over hyped. ( Of course any look at the recent calamities on Wall St. and in Detroit reveals the same fallibility. ) Best, Michael On Jun 17, 2009, at 3:38 PM, Christina McPhee wrote: > > Trebor asked me to join all of you in this fascinating conference. > > > Aliette writes, > >> it remains that for any social organization the principle of the >> society is to connect people by the way to allow an increase of >> productive power, because it is a device of mutual exploitation of >> people who share it. This mutual exploitation is a free exchange >> which constitutes the social pact. If you make paying the pact at >> once the society loosing its object disappear becoming a >> segregationist community. Internet is a virtual increased reality >> from the society and increasing the Technics of which the source is >> to get free of alienating work (i.e. Working for food). >> >> Internet may be sound as the part of evil of the materialist >> society, the place of mutual donation even can be the poorest can be >> to the richest: online indifference. What is exactly normal. > > > I think about an aggregate 'voice' of the network as if it were in > the position of 'speaking truth to power" (Parrhesia). If there is > such a speaking collective 'subject' or subjective space, the common > view holds it's semi-unintelligible and subordinate to global media > capital. Google 'owns' your stuff. > > > How can this be a powerful speech? > > Serious blogs .. " people are seriously following each others special > focussed writing. Everyone reads each others' blogs first thing in > the morning instead of the newspaper. Then they comment on it and > write some more." (Colby Reece, architecture student ). Rhetoric : a > community-based logic to find shared premise. > > Unserious blogs: Twitter, yah. But: isn't it amazing though how > Twitter is working out so well in the midst of the Iranian electoral > crisis? > > The messages slip in and out of 'radar'. > > The state can clamp down on Facebook for a while but there are always > other ways. Writing is always on to someone and into the material > community. It invents out there and back (bounce or retort or > return). The speech is just 'out of phase' meaning not in sync with > the present moment > -- or almost in synch. The 'almost' is the productive spot. A > slip, between the report and the action of the report, on Twitter, on > Facebook, even on listservs, > > Networked speech like my haphazard attempts here are, to be > precise !-- almost intelligible, but not, to some of us, not all of > us, but close. intimate. Close but hard to get a grip on. Close to > home. On your mobile, aphasia but also joke, pun, and play. > > Trebor asked me, if I understand him correctly, to perhaps speak to > how precarious networked labour could resemble traditional 'women's > work' (disappeared? silent? slaved? ). How precarious network > labour weighs into the boxing ring, locks in tight embrace the > material. with the material reality of putting long hours in front > of the computer; or uploading mobile phone shots at the aftermath of > civil disobedience; or writing on facebook while washing the dishes > and scrubbing the floor. Garcia Marquez: Language as a material > is as hard as wood and just as real. > > How everywhere people , male / femle/ transgendered == make > argument: 'texting' . To text: not just through your mobile. > Texting world. Even though you can't text the world. > > > Writing is an enterprise leading to a messed up, incomplete, > partial, almost-actualized piece of work. Getting at some kind of > logic, arguing back to premises, in this case "the place of mutual > donation " (Aliette). > We can never get it 'right' but the mutual editing is fantastic, > liberating. Naeem Mohaiemen: "My Mobile Weighs a Ton." The action > of Web 2.0 makes if anythning a stronger claim on arguments that go > back to the material. The > more elaborate the ephemeral updates of twitter, the more intense the > reference to the real hard world. > > If anything, new social tools make me live in even more diverse > physical spaces than before. As difficult and exhilarating by > turns. No one knows how the demographics work. Advertisers on > Facebook are just guessing. There > are no stats that are 'for sure.' > > Amy Wiley (writing coach, comparative lit scholar); "Writing is a > social enterprise. Things are more or less effective. Principles of > rhetoric are part of sustainability. They are not ego-driven, rather > community driven. Composition is a spatial function. " > > > Thanks for enjoying this brief divertissement. > > > > Christina > > > > > about me: > > > Christina McPhee interprets the remote landscape in multimedia > streams. She creates topologic site explorations in layered suites > involving on-site photographs, video, drawing, and envrionmental > sound. Forthcoming in 2009: > "Tesserae of Venus," a science fiction series on carbon-saturated > energy landscapes, opens at Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, in late > October 2009; "Pharmakon LIbrary Folio 2 :" is in preparation for New > York Art Book Fair at PS1, early October > 2009. > > Her films have most recently screened at Videoformes 09 Clermont- > Ferrand, San Francisco Cinematheque at Yerba Buena Center for the > Arts and for ?Drift/In Transitions, Russia 2008? at the National > Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow and Ekaterinaberg, Russia. She > has created video suites for the variable cinema project "Plazaville", > a remake of Godard's "Alphaville" with GH Hovagimyan, which premiered > at Pace Digital Gallery in New York City in April 2009, as a > turbulence.org commission. A beta version of "Tesserae' will > screen at ISEA Belfast this August 2009. > > Her media work is archived at the Rose Goldsen Archive for New Media > Art, Cornell University; Rhizome Artbase/ New Museum of Contemporary > Art, New York; Whitney Artport/ Whitney Museum of American Art, New > York; Thresholds Artspace, Scotland; Experimental Television Center, > New York; and the Pandora Archive, National Library of Australia. > Museum collections of her monotype and photographic prints, paintings > and drawings include Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery-University of > Nebraska, Taylor Museum/Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Kemper > Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is represented by Silverman > Gallery, San Francisco. > > She is a moderator of the Sydney based -empyre- list for digital media > arts and culture http://subtle.net/empyre > > She is a visiting lecturer on the faculty of the Digital Arts and New > Media MFA program, University of California-Santa Cruz. > > http://christinamcphee.net > > > christina at christinamcphee.net > naxsmash at mac.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr Fri Jun 19 22:26:10 2009 From: brian.holmes at aliceadsl.fr (Brian Holmes) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:26:10 -0500 Subject: [iDC] The Internet as Playground and Factory - ACT I In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3C1082.5010000@aliceadsl.fr> Trebor Scholz asked: > What would you add? Well, if that was Act I, then Act II would be interesting! This has been the most stimulating list-discussion I've been involved in for years. Maybe because of the orientation to a future event, the range of specifically invited contributors and the general anarchy of an open discussion, at a time when things are happening fast in the world. The string of snippets from our exchanges shows a focus on the production of value, a set of unresolved questions about exploitation, a debate over whether ideology critique has anything left to say, and a concern, no longer over whether social media can be a political force - that question has been answered by the daily news - but how, in which directions, and I'd add along with Ulises, what about here? (Here being wherever each of us lives.) Among many many others we are certainly left with Tiziana's question, or I am anyway: "Is it possible to 'relativize' the notion of labor without succumbing to the idea that we are all 'free' to produce, share and contribute, and hence all is fine with the Internet economy which in this way becomes an economic Eden separated from the rest?" And I'm also left with Christina's observation: "Writing is an enterprise leading to a messed up, incomplete, partial, almost-actualized piece of work. Getting at some kind of logic, arguing back to premises, in this case "the place of mutual donation " (Aliette). We can never get it 'right' but the mutual editing is fantastic, liberating." For Act II, one approach would be to let it sink in a little, then try a more sustained confrontation with the work (and not just the posts) of somebody, or a couple people, as a way to go more deeply and precisely into things. I guess that's what I will do. Try to read somebody's book, or check out their art or their programming or their activist practice, and see if it's possible to start a debate or a collaboration or a longer and more sustained conversation. What I recall from the Free Cooperation conference -- along with the many friendships that started right there -- is a fascinating set of experiments with the forms of presentation, the way possibilities were stated in gestures as well as words. The shape of a debate is rarely chosen by the participants, but that's one of the things this particular event allows us to do. The idea of mutual editing brings back experimental echoes from other times, intriguing. So thanks to all for the ideas! Brian > =================================== > > ACT I > > Brian Holmes: > Our experience of the Internet itself may in some way actually hide what's > going on. > http://is.gd/12Plv > > Christian Fuchs: > [T]he social relation between Internet companies and users is one of > fundamental inequality that is structured by class power. > http://is.gd/13pKB > > Trebor Scholz: > Class? > > BH: > Why do we _tolerate_ being included in this networked society? > http://is.gd/12Plv > > Jodi Dean: > We are captured because we enjoy. > http://is.gd/12ReH > > TS: > Only the rich and powerful can escape the participation imperative; refusal > is futile and irresponsible. Education! > > Jonathan Beller: > The only way out, short of complete expropriation of the expropriators, a > radical redistribution of wealth and complete overhaul of the human network > (whatever that would look like), is to drop out completely, that is, for all > practical purposes, to cease to exist, to cease to speak, write or be > written as the discourse of the spectacle. (Beller 295) > > JB: > In other words, the fight is also here and now. We are being called by the > o/re-pressed that lies both within and without "us." > http://is.gd/11AMO > > Michel Bauwens: > Beyond what a radical minority may wish, there are constraints of 'realism' > in what can be achieved and expected http://is.gd/12UJa > > BH: > Those of us who like dancing in the face of cops and speaking pie to power > are not exactly averse to a little humor! > http://is.gd/12Plv > > Gabriella Coleman: > Piracy! > http://is.gd/16kB6 > > Pat Kane: > Play! > http://is.gd/16lpU > > Ellen Goodman: > Discussions about ... noncommercial production and amateur/citizen > participation ... are central to ... public media reform. > http://is.gd/16lbv > > Mark Zuckerberg (not on the iDC List yet): > The next hundred years will be different for advertising, and it starts > today. > http://is.gd/16jHZ > > BH: > [MTURK?] isn't this just the everyday experience of the consumer in the > networked economy of neoliberal globalization? > http://is.gd/12Plv > > TS: > The heart of digital economy is not about waged micro-labor; the future of > value is unpaid and invisible social participation. > > Tiziana Terranova: > If the users' activity [in the] web economy is misrepresented as labor, what > would be a better way to describe it? > http://is.gd/12tMl > > Howard Rheingold: > I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that I'm > entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr. > http://is.gd/16jR3 > > Frank Pasquale: > Some say that platforms like Google and Facebook were always inevitable, and > those companies just happened to be in the right place at the right time. > http://is.gd/12qgw > > BH: > Obviously I'm not convinced by the emancipatory possibilities of > really-existing corporate social media. > http://is.gd/12Plv > > HR: > How many times a day were YOU exploited by searching for something without > paying a charge for the service? > http://is.gd/16jR3 > > BH: > Some of us look only at the web itself, while others look at the whole > tissue of networked society. > > Not only exploitation is an issue, but also an ideology that promotes > conformity, that makes dis-identification and dissent extremely rare. > http://is.gd/12Plv > > Ulises Mejias: > We need to question how network processes normalize monocultures. > http://is.gd/12ukg > > Martin Lucas: > It is, and it will continue to be, difficult to make overriding judgments of > internet-based communications technologies as either "machines for > generating inequality" or as "tools for empowerment." > http://is.gd/16kx7 > > --to be continued > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref > From JDEAN at hws.edu Fri Jun 19 22:06:39 2009 From: JDEAN at hws.edu (Dean, Jodi) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:06:39 -0400 Subject: [iDC] blogs, twitter, aphasia, speech Message-ID: A couple of folks have warned against installing an intentionality or an agent (big Other) operating behind or within networked communications. This is ostensibly a problem for a couple of reasons: 1. it's inaccurate (and thus obfuscates a more complex reality) 2. it's politically harmful (because it can make people give up) Clarification and obfuscation are 2 sides of the same coin--some elements are brought into focus, others fade into the background. And, inseparable from each are elements of imagination, that is, suppositions that go in different directions. Basing one's critical energies around getting the most accuracy, the most information, is like the trap of the poor guy in Synecdoche, NY. I say this because it could be productive to think in terms of a monolithic conspiracy operating behind the scenes: what would it take to subvert or escape it? Does imagining such a force make opposition harder than if one imagines a complex multiplicity of forever undecideable and changeable nodes and paths? Why? If one proceeds as if evil bad guys devised a system to capture attention and energy, and that made this capture totally enjoyable, that made it seem like power (empowerment) when it wasn't, when it actually was providing free labor and content for the bad guys, what would follow? What sorts of tactics of evasion? What sort of alternatives not just for playing at resistance but from over-throwing the bad guys would emerge? Would one be able to discern the ways what appears as a radical practice in one setting is a precursor to more entrapment in another setting, that is, is confined with a view that can only imagine within the terms of entrapment? Additional thoughts on some of the political points raised in the discussion: --that Obama won was in no way a revolution; there is nothing surprising about the Democratic candidate beating the Republican candidate in the wake of an unpopular Republican president and an economic meltdown; --folks in the US should be mindful of election-contestation envy Jodi ________________________________________ From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net] On Behalf Of Michael H Goldhaber [michael at goldhaber.org] Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 2:44 PM To: idc at mailman.thing.net Subject: [Junk released by User action] Re: [iDC] blogs, twitter, aphasia, speech Christina, implicit in what you say is the view ( which I think is right on) that while aware that many Net media are owned by corporations that hope to make a profit, we should not overlook their more subversive potentials. In that vein also, I think we should not take corporations or even governments to be as sure of what to do as they pretend. We should be careful not to ascribe to such entities more strength than they have, for that only weakens any kind of independent action. For instance, much "data mining" is done strictly in the hope that the mined data will be of value. But just because an ad that supposedly is customized for you appears in front of you, that does not mean you must fall for it. And it may well be customized on the basis of absurd misreadings, which tell us the programs are pretty easily confused. Data mining might be much over hyped. ( Of course any look at the recent calamities on Wall St. and in Detroit reveals the same fallibility. ) Best, Michael On Jun 17, 2009, at 3:38 PM, Christina McPhee wrote: > > Trebor asked me to join all of you in this fascinating conference. > > > Aliette writes, > >> it remains that for any social organization the principle of the >> society is to connect people by the way to allow an increase of >> productive power, because it is a device of mutual exploitation of >> people who share it. This mutual exploitation is a free exchange >> which constitutes the social pact. If you make paying the pact at >> once the society loosing its object disappear becoming a >> segregationist community. Internet is a virtual increased reality >> from the society and increasing the Technics of which the source is >> to get free of alienating work (i.e. Working for food). >> >> Internet may be sound as the part of evil of the materialist >> society, the place of mutual donation even can be the poorest can be >> to the richest: online indifference. What is exactly normal. > > > I think about an aggregate 'voice' of the network as if it were in > the position of 'speaking truth to power" (Parrhesia). If there is > such a speaking collective 'subject' or subjective space, the common > view holds it's semi-unintelligible and subordinate to global media > capital. Google 'owns' your stuff. > > > How can this be a powerful speech? > > Serious blogs .. " people are seriously following each others special > focussed writing. Everyone reads each others' blogs first thing in > the morning instead of the newspaper. Then they comment on it and > write some more." (Colby Reece, architecture student ). Rhetoric : a > community-based logic to find shared premise. > > Unserious blogs: Twitter, yah. But: isn't it amazing though how > Twitter is working out so well in the midst of the Iranian electoral > crisis? > > The messages slip in and out of 'radar'. > > The state can clamp down on Facebook for a while but there are always > other ways. Writing is always on to someone and into the material > community. It invents out there and back (bounce or retort or > return). The speech is just 'out of phase' meaning not in sync with > the present moment > -- or almost in synch. The 'almost' is the productive spot. A > slip, between the report and the action of the report, on Twitter, on > Facebook, even on listservs, > > Networked speech like my haphazard attempts here are, to be > precise !-- almost intelligible, but not, to some of us, not all of > us, but close. intimate. Close but hard to get a grip on. Close to > home. On your mobile, aphasia but also joke, pun, and play. > > Trebor asked me, if I understand him correctly, to perhaps speak to > how precarious networked labour could resemble traditional 'women's > work' (disappeared? silent? slaved? ). How precarious network > labour weighs into the boxing ring, locks in tight embrace the > material. with the material reality of putting long hours in front > of the computer; or uploading mobile phone shots at the aftermath of > civil disobedience; or writing on facebook while washing the dishes > and scrubbing the floor. Garcia Marquez: Language as a material > is as hard as wood and just as real. > > How everywhere people , male / femle/ transgendered == make > argument: 'texting' . To text: not just through your mobile. > Texting world. Even though you can't text the world. > > > Writing is an enterprise leading to a messed up, incomplete, > partial, almost-actualized piece of work. Getting at some kind of > logic, arguing back to premises, in this case "the place of mutual > donation " (Aliette). > We can never get it 'right' but the mutual editing is fantastic, > liberating. Naeem Mohaiemen: "My Mobile Weighs a Ton." The action > of Web 2.0 makes if anythning a stronger claim on arguments that go > back to the material. The > more elaborate the ephemeral updates of twitter, the more intense the > reference to the real hard world. > > If anything, new social tools make me live in even more diverse > physical spaces than before. As difficult and exhilarating by > turns. No one knows how the demographics work. Advertisers on > Facebook are just guessing. There > are no stats that are 'for sure.' > > Amy Wiley (writing coach, comparative lit scholar); "Writing is a > social enterprise. Things are more or less effective. Principles of > rhetoric are part of sustainability. They are not ego-driven, rather > community driven. Composition is a spatial function. " > > > Thanks for enjoying this brief divertissement. > > > > Christina > > > > > about me: > > > Christina McPhee interprets the remote landscape in multimedia > streams. She creates topologic site explorations in layered suites > involving on-site photographs, video, drawing, and envrionmental > sound. Forthcoming in 2009: > "Tesserae of Venus," a science fiction series on carbon-saturated > energy landscapes, opens at Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, in late > October 2009; "Pharmakon LIbrary Folio 2 :" is in preparation for New > York Art Book Fair at PS1, early October > 2009. > > Her films have most recently screened at Videoformes 09 Clermont- > Ferrand, San Francisco Cinematheque at Yerba Buena Center for the > Arts and for ?Drift/In Transitions, Russia 2008? at the National > Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow and Ekaterinaberg, Russia. She > has created video suites for the variable cinema project "Plazaville", > a remake of Godard's "Alphaville" with GH Hovagimyan, which premiered > at Pace Digital Gallery in New York City in April 2009, as a > turbulence.org commission. A beta version of "Tesserae' will > screen at ISEA Belfast this August 2009. > > Her media work is archived at the Rose Goldsen Archive for New Media > Art, Cornell University; Rhizome Artbase/ New Museum of Contemporary > Art, New York; Whitney Artport/ Whitney Museum of American Art, New > York; Thresholds Artspace, Scotland; Experimental Television Center, > New York; and the Pandora Archive, National Library of Australia. > Museum collections of her monotype and photographic prints, paintings > and drawings include Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery-University of > Nebraska, Taylor Museum/Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Kemper > Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is represented by Silverman > Gallery, San Francisco. > > She is a moderator of the Sydney based -empyre- list for digital media > arts and culture http://subtle.net/empyre > > She is a visiting lecturer on the faculty of the Digital Arts and New > Media MFA program, University of California-Santa Cruz. > > http://christinamcphee.net > > > christina at christinamcphee.net > naxsmash at mac.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity > (distributedcreativity.org) > iDC at mailman.thing.net > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc > > List Archive: > http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ > > iDC Photo Stream: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ > > RSS feed: > http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc > > iDC Chat on Facebook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 > > Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref _______________________________________________ iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org) iDC at mailman.thing.net https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc List Archive: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ iDC Photo Stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/ RSS feed: http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc iDC Chat on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647 Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref From trebor at thing.net Sat Jun 20 11:09:02 2009 From: trebor at thing.net (trebor at thing.net) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:09:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [iDC] The New Socialism Message-ID: <56864.173.2.143.75.1245496142.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> Hi all, Kevin Kelly recently argued that the culture around new social media amounts to a new form of digital socialism. Having grown up under real existing socialism I'd say that he may be missing a thing or two but you tell me... best, Trebor http://www.wired.com/print/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online By Kevin Kelly Email 05.22.09 Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a "new modern-day sort of communists," a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos. Yet there is some truth to his allegation. The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism. Communal aspects of digital culture run deep and wide. Wikipedia is just one remarkable example of an emerging collectivism?and not just Wikipedia but wikiness at large. Ward Cunningham, who invented the first collaborative Web page in 1994, tracks nearly 150 wiki engines today, each powering myriad sites. Wetpaint, launched just three years ago, hosts more than 1 million communal efforts. Widespread adoption of the share-friendly Creative Commons alternative copyright license and the rise of ubiquitous file-sharing are two more steps in this shift. Mushrooming collaborative sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, the Hype Machine, and Twine have added weight to this great upheaval. Nearly every day another startup proudly heralds a new way to harness community action. These developments suggest a steady move toward a sort of socialism uniquely tuned for a networked world. We're not talking about your grandfather's socialism. In fact, there is a long list of past movements this new socialism is not. It is not class warfare. It is not anti-American; indeed, digital socialism may be the newest American innovation. While old-school socialism was an arm of the state, digital socialism is socialism without the state. This new brand of socialism currently operates in the realm of culture and economics, rather than government?for now. The type of communism with which Gates hoped to tar the creators of Linux was born in an era of enforced borders, centralized communications, and top-heavy industrial processes. Those constraints gave rise to a type of collective ownership that replaced the brilliant chaos of a free market with scientific five-year plans devised by an all-powerful politburo. This political operating system failed, to put it mildly. However, unlike those older strains of red-flag socialism, the new socialism runs over a borderless Internet, through a tightly integrated global economy. It is designed to heighten individual autonomy and thwart centralization. It is decentralization extreme. Instead of gathering on collective farms, we gather in collective worlds. Instead of state factories, we have desktop factories connected to virtual co-ops. Instead of sharing drill bits, picks, and shovels, we share apps, scripts, and APIs. Instead of faceless politburos, we have faceless meritocracies, where the only thing that matters is getting things done. Instead of national production, we have peer production. Instead of government rations and subsidies, we have a bounty of free goods. I recognize that the word socialism is bound to make many readers twitch. It carries tremendous cultural baggage, as do the related terms communal, communitarian, and collective. I use socialism because technically it is the best word to indicate a range of technologies that rely for their power on social interactions. Broadly, collective action is what Web sites and Net-connected apps generate when they harness input from the global audience. Of course, there's rhetorical danger in lumping so many types of organization under such an inflammatory heading. But there are no unsoiled terms available, so we might as well redeem this one. When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism. In the late '90s, activist, provocateur, and aging hippy John Barlow began calling this drift, somewhat tongue in cheek, "dot-communism." He defined it as a "workforce composed entirely of free agents," a decentralized gift or barter economy where there is no property and where technological architecture defines the political space. He was right on the virtual money. But there is one way in which socialism is the wrong word for what is happening: It is not an ideology. It demands no rigid creed. Rather, it is a spectrum of attitudes, techniques, and tools that promote collaboration, sharing, aggregation, coordination, ad hocracy, and a host of other newly enabled types of social cooperation. It is a design frontier and a particularly fertile space for innovation. Socialism: A History 1516 Thomas More's Utopia 1794 Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason 1825 First US commune 1848 Marx & Engels' The Communist Manifesto 1864 International Workingmen's Association 1903 Bolshevik Party elects Lenin 1917 Russian Revolution 1922 Stalin consolidates power 1946 State-run health care in Saskatchewan 1959 Cuban Revolution 1967 Che Guevara executed 1973 Salvador Allende deposed 1980 Usenet 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost 1991 Soviet Union dissolves 1994 Linux 1.0 1998 Venezuela elects Hugo Chavez 1999 Blogger.com 2000 Google: 1 billion indexed pages 2001 Wikipedia 2002 Brazil elects Lula da Silva 2003 Public Library of Science 2004 Digg 2005 Amazon's Mechanical Turk 2006 Twitter 2008 Facebook: 100 million users 2008 US allocates $700 billion for troubled mortgage assets 2009 YouTube: 100 million monthly US users In his 2008 book, Here Comes Everybody, media theorist Clay Shirky suggests a useful hierarchy for sorting through these new social arrangements. Groups of people start off simply sharing and then progress to cooperation, collaboration, and finally collectivism. At each step, the amount of coordination increases. A survey of the online landscape reveals ample evidence of this phenomenon. I. SHARING The online masses have an incredible willingness to share. The number of personal photos posted on Facebook and MySpace is astronomical, but it's a safe bet that the overwhelming majority of photos taken with a digital camera are shared in some fashion. Then there are status updates, map locations, half-thoughts posted online. Add to this the 6 billion videos served by YouTube each month in the US alone and the millions of fan-created stories deposited on fanfic sites. The list of sharing organizations is almost endless: Yelp for reviews, Loopt for locations, Delicious for bookmarks. Sharing is the mildest form of socialism, but it serves as the foundation for higher levels of communal engagement. II. COOPERATION When individuals work together toward a large-scale goal, it produces results that emerge at the group level. Not only have amateurs shared more than 3 billion photos on Flickr, but they have tagged them with categories, labels, and keywords. Others in the community cull the pictures into sets. The popularity of Creative Commons licensing means that communally, if not outright communistically, your picture is my picture. Anyone can use a photo, just as a communard might use the community wheelbarrow. I don't have to shoot yet another photo of the Eiffel Tower, since the community can provide a better one than I can take myself. Thousands of aggregator sites employ the same social dynamic for threefold benefit. First, the technology aids users directly, letting them tag, bookmark, rank, and archive for their own use. Second, other users benefit from an individual's tags, bookmarks, and so on. And this, in turn, often creates additional value that can come only from the group as a whole. For instance, tagged snapshots of the same scene from different angles can be assembled into a stunning 3-D rendering of the location. (Check out Microsoft's Photosynth.) In a curious way, this proposition exceeds the socialist promise of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" because it betters what you contribute and delivers more than you need. Community aggregators can unleash astonishing power. Sites like Digg and Reddit, which let users vote on the Web links they display most prominently, can steer public conversation as much as newspapers or TV networks. (Full disclosure: Reddit is owned by Wired's parent company, Cond? Nast.) Serious contributors to these sites put in far more energy than they could ever get in return, but they keep contributing in part because of the cultural power these instruments wield. A contributor's influence extends way beyond a lone vote, and the community's collective influence can be far out of proportion to the number of contributors. That is the whole point of social institutions?the sum outperforms the parts. Traditional socialism aimed to ramp up this dynamic via the state. Now, decoupled from government and hooked into the global digital matrix, this elusive force operates at a larger scale than ever before. III. COLLABORATION Organized collaboration can produce results beyond the achievements of ad hoc cooperation. Just look at any of hundreds of open source software projects, such as the Apache Web server. In these endeavors, finely tuned communal tools generate high-quality products from the coordinated work of thousands or tens of thousands of members. In contrast to casual cooperation, collaboration on large, complex projects tends to bring the participants only indirect benefits, since each member of the group interacts with only a small part of the end product. An enthusiast may spend months writing code for a subroutine when the program's full utility is several years away. In fact, the work-reward ratio is so out of kilter from a free-market perspective?the workers do immense amounts of high-market-value work without being paid?that these collaborative efforts make no sense within capitalism. Adding to the economic dissonance, we've become accustomed to enjoying the products of these collaborations free of charge. Instead of money, the peer producers who create the stuff gain credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and experience. Not only is the product free, it can be copied freely and used as the basis for new products. Alternative schemes for managing intellectual property, including Creative Commons and the GNU licenses, were invented to ensure these "frees." Of course, there's nothing particularly socialistic about collaboration per se. But the tools of online collaboration support a communal style of production that shuns capitalistic investors and keeps ownership in the hands of the workers, and to some extent those of the consuming masses. The Old Socialism The New Socialism Authority centralized among elite officials Power distributed among ad hoc participants Limited resources dispensed by the state Unlimited, free cloud computing Forced labor in government factories Volunteer group work a la Wikipedia Property owned in common Sharing protected by Creative Commons Government- controlled information Real-time Twitter and RSS feeds Harsh penalties for criticizing leaders Passionate opinions on the Huffington Post IV. COLLECTIVISM While cooperation can write an encyclopedia, no one is held responsible if the community fails to reach consensus, and lack of agreement doesn't endanger the enterprise as a whole. The aim of a collective, however, is to engineer a system where self-directed peers take responsibility for critical processes and where difficult decisions, such as sorting out priorities, are decided by all participants. Throughout history, hundreds of small-scale collectivist groups have tried this operating system. The results have not been encouraging, even setting aside Jim Jones and the Manson family. Indeed, a close examination of the governing kernel of, say, Wikipedia, Linux, or OpenOffice shows that these efforts are further from the collectivist ideal than appears from the outside. While millions of writers contribute to Wikipedia, a smaller number of editors (around 1,500) are responsible for the majority of the editing. Ditto for collectives that write code. A vast army of contributions is managed by a much smaller group of coordinators. As Mitch Kapor, founding chair of the Mozilla open source code factory, observed, "Inside every working anarchy, there's an old-boy network." This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some types of collectives benefit from hierarchy while others are hurt by it. Platforms like the Internet and Facebook, or democracy?which are intended to serve as a substrate for producing goods and delivering services?benefit from being as nonhierarchical as possible, minimizing barriers to entry and distributing rights and responsibilities equally. When powerful actors appear, the entire fabric suffers. On the other hand, organizations built to create products often need strong leaders and hierarchies arranged around time scales: One level focuses on hourly needs, another on the next five years. In the past, constructing an organization that exploited hierarchy yet maximized collectivism was nearly impossible. Now digital networking provides the necessary infrastructure. The Net empowers product-focused organizations to function collectively while keeping the hierarchy from fully taking over. The organization behind MySQL, an open source database, is not romantically nonhierarchical, but it is far more collectivist than Oracle. Likewise, Wikipedia is not a bastion of equality, but it is vastly more collectivist than the Encyclop?dia Britannica. The elite core we find at the heart of online collectives is actually a sign that stateless socialism can work on a grand scale. Most people in the West, including myself, were indoctrinated with the notion that extending the power of individuals necessarily diminishes the power of the state, and vice versa. In practice, though, most polities socialize some resources and individualize others. Most free-market economies have socialized education, and even extremely socialized societies allow some private property. Rather than viewing technological socialism as one side of a zero-sum trade-off between free-market individualism and centralized authority, it can be seen as a cultural OS that elevates both the individual and the group at once. The largely unarticulated but intuitively understood goal of communitarian technology is this: to maximize both individual autonomy and the power of people working together. Thus, digital socialism can be viewed as a third way that renders irrelevant the old debates. The notion of a third way is echoed by Yochai Benkler, author of The Wealth of Networks, who has probably thought more than anyone else about the politics of networks. "I see the emergence of social production and peer production as an alternative to both state-based and market-based closed, proprietary systems," he says, noting that these activities "can enhance creativity, productivity, and freedom." The new OS is neither the classic communism of centralized planning without private property nor the undiluted chaos of a free market. Instead, it is an emerging design space in which decentralized public coordination can solve problems and create things that neither pure communism nor pure capitalism can. Hybrid systems that blend market and nonmarket mechanisms are not new. For decades, researchers have studied the decentralized, socialized production methods of northern Italian and Basque industrial co-ops, in which employees are owners, selecting management and limiting profit distribution, independent of state control. But only since the arrival of low-cost, instantaneous, ubiquitous collaboration has it been possible to migrate the core of those ideas into diverse new realms, like writing enterprise software or reference books. The dream is to scale up this third way beyond local experiments. How large? Ohloh, a company that tracks the open source industry, lists roughly 250,000 people working on an amazing 275,000 projects. That's almost the size of General Motors' workforce. That is an awful lot of people working for free, even if they're not full-time. Imagine if all the employees of GM weren't paid yet continued to produce automobiles! So far, the biggest efforts are open source projects, and the largest of them, such as Apache, manage several hundred contributors?about the size of a village. One study estimates that 60,000 man-years of work have poured into last year's release of Fedora Linux 9, so we have proof that self-assembly and the dynamics of sharing can govern a project on the scale of a decentralized town or village. Of course, the total census of participants in online collective work is far greater. YouTube claims some 350 million monthly visitors. Nearly 10 million registered users have contributed to Wikipedia, 160,000 of whom are designated active. More than 35 million folks have posted and tagged more than 3 billion photos and videos on Flickr. Yahoo hosts 7.8 million groups focused on every possible subject. Google has 3.9 million. These numbers still fall short of a nation. They may not even cross the threshold of mainstream (although if YouTube isn't mainstream, what is?). But clearly the population that lives with socialized media is significant. The number of people who make things for free, share things for free, use things for free, belong to collective software farms, work on projects that require communal decisions, or experience the benefits of decentralized socialism has reached millions and counting. Revolutions have grown out of much smaller numbers. On the face of it, one might expect a lot of political posturing from folks who are constructing an alternative to capitalism and corporatism. But the coders, hackers, and programmers who design sharing tools don't think of themselves as revolutionaries. No new political party is being organized in conference rooms?at least, not in the US. (In Sweden, the Pirate Party formed on a platform of file-sharing. It won a paltry 0.63 percent of votes in the 2006 national election.) Indeed, the leaders of the new socialism are extremely pragmatic. A survey of 2,784 open source developers explored their motivations. The most common was "to learn and develop new skills." That's practical. One academic put it this way (paraphrasing): The major reason for working on free stuff is to improve my own damn software. Basically, overt politics is not practical enough. But the rest of us may not be politically immune to the rising tide of sharing, cooperation, collaboration, and collectivism. For the first time in years, the s-word is being uttered by TV pundits and in national newsmagazines as a force in US politics. Obviously, the trend toward nationalizing hunks of industry, instituting national health care, and jump-starting job creation with tax money isn't wholly due to techno-socialism. But the last election demonstrated the power of a decentralized, webified base with digital collaboration at its core. The more we benefit from such collaboration, the more open we become to socialist institutions in government. The coercive, soul-smashing system of North Korea is dead; the future is a hybrid that takes cues from both Wikipedia and the moderate socialism of Sweden. How close to a noncapitalistic, open source, peer-production society can this movement take us? Every time that question has been asked, the answer has been: closer than we thought. Consider craigslist. Just classified ads, right? But the site amplified the handy community swap board to reach a regional audience, enhanced it with pictures and real-time updates, and suddenly became a national treasure. Operating without state funding or control, connecting citizens directly to citizens, this mostly free marketplace achieves social good at an efficiency that would stagger any government or traditional corporation. Sure, it undermines the business model of newspapers, but at the same time it makes an indisputable case that the sharing model is a viable alternative to both profit-seeking corporations and tax-supported civic institutions. Who would have believed that poor farmers could secure $100 loans from perfect strangers on the other side of the planet?and pay them back? That is what Kiva does with peer-to-peer lending. Every public health care expert declared confidently that sharing was fine for photos, but no one would share their medical records. But PatientsLikeMe, where patients pool results of treatments to better their own care, prove that collective action can trump both doctors and privacy scares. The increasingly common habit of sharing what you're thinking (Twitter), what you're reading (StumbleUpon), your finances (Wesabe), your everything (the Web) is becoming a foundation of our culture. Doing it while collaboratively building encyclopedias, news agencies, video archives, and software in groups that span continents, with people you don't know and whose class is irrelevant?that makes political socialism seem like the logical next step. A similar thing happened with free markets over the past century. Every day, someone asked: What can't markets do? We took a long list of problems that seemed to require rational planning or paternal government and instead applied marketplace logic. In most cases, the market solution worked significantly better. Much of the prosperity in recent decades was gained by unleashing market forces on social problems. Now we're trying the same trick with collaborative social technology, applying digital socialism to a growing list of wishes?and occasionally to problems that the free market couldn't solve?to see if it works. So far, the results have been startling. At nearly every turn, the power of sharing, cooperation, collaboration, openness, free pricing, and transparency has proven to be more practical than we capitalists thought possible. Each time we try it, we find that the power of the new socialism is bigger than we imagined. We underestimate the power of our tools to reshape our minds. Did we really believe we could collaboratively build and inhabit virtual worlds all day, every day, and not have it affect our perspective? The force of online socialism is growing. Its dynamic is spreading beyond electrons?perhaps into elections. Senior maverick Kevin Kelly (kk at kk.org) wrote about correspondences between the Internet and the human brain in issue 16.07. From arminbw at mail.tuwien.ac.at Sat Jun 20 12:12:26 2009 From: arminbw at mail.tuwien.ac.at (Armin B. Wagner) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:12:26 +0200 Subject: [iDC] The New Socialism In-Reply-To: <56864.173.2.143.75.1245496142.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> References: <56864.173.2.143.75.1245496142.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> Message-ID: <044F732E-A4B6-4619-A986-72B52E148DF6@mail.tuwien.ac.at> AW: Someone said that Brecht wanted everybody to think alike. I want everybody to think alike. But Brecht wanted to do it through Communism, in a way. Russia is doing it under government. It's happening here all by itself without being under a strict government; so, if its working without trying, why can't it work without being Communist? Everybody looks alike and acts alike, and we're getting more and more that way. I think everybody should be a machine. I think everybody should like everybody. GS: Is that what Pop Art is all about? AW: Yes. Its liking things. GS: And liking things is like being a machine? AW: Yes, because you do the same thing every time. You do it over and over again. Andrew Warhola, interviewed by Gene R. Swenson, 1963 Am 20.06.2009 um 13:09 schrieb trebor at thing.net: > Hi all, > > Kevin Kelly recently argued that the culture around new social media > amounts to a new form of digital socialism. Having grown up under real > existing socialism I'd say that he may be missing a thing or two but > you > tell me... > > best, > Trebor > > > http://www.wired.com/print/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism > > The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online [...] From JDEAN at hws.edu Sat Jun 20 13:39:40 2009 From: JDEAN at hws.edu (Dean, Jodi) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:39:40 -0400 Subject: [iDC] The New Socialism In-Reply-To: <56864.173.2.143.75.1245496142.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> References: <56864.173.2.143.75.1245496142.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> Message-ID: Problems with Kevin Kelly: 1. The presence of communal aspects of digital culture is not an indication of an emerging collectivism. Kelly's point presumes a prior rampant individualism, as if there were no community or group based practices and activities and as if the use of an available media tool automatically implies collectivism rather than multiple individual uptakes. Communal aspects of digital culture run deep and wide. Wikipedia is just one remarkable example of an emerging collectivism?and not just Wikipedia but wikiness at large. Ward Cunningham, who invented the first collaborative Web page in 1994, tracks nearly 150 wiki engines today, each powering myriad sites. Wetpaint, launched just three years ago, hosts more than 1 million communal efforts. Widespread adoption of the share-friendly Creative Commons alternative copyright license and the rise of ubiquitous file-sharing are two more steps in this shift. Mushrooming collaborative sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, the Hype Machine, and Twine have added weight to this great upheaval. Nearly every day another startup proudly heralds a new way to harness community action. These developments suggest a steady move toward a sort of socialism uniquely tuned for a networked world. 2. The notion of socialism without the state is inseparable from a notion of mass culture. All Kelly is highlighting is the way that mass culture does not only happen top down--but this is an old point from cultural studies. We're not talking about your grandfather's socialism. In fact, there is a long list of past movements this new socialism is not. It is not class warfare. It is not anti-American; indeed, digital socialism may be the newest American innovation. While old-school socialism was an arm of the state, digital socialism is socialism without the state. This new brand of socialism currently operates in the realm of culture and economics, rather than government?for now. 3. Hard to call the chaos of the free market 'brilliant' today unless by brilliant one means a machinery of destruction that reappropriates the work and energy of the majority in order to enrich the few. The type of communism with which Gates hoped to tar the creators of Linux was born in an era of enforced borders, centralized communications, and top-heavy industrial processes. Those constraints gave rise to a type of collective ownership that replaced the brilliant chaos of a free market with scientific five-year plans devised by an all-powerful politburo. This political operating system failed, to put it mildly. However, unlike those older strains of red-flag socialism, the new socialism runs over a borderless Internet, through a tightly integrated global economy. It is designed to heighten individual autonomy and thwart centralization. It is decentralization extreme. 4. Collective worlds? Or, individuated media spheres in which we can maintain a happy, idiotic isolation? Collective worlds? at a time when over a billion people are starving? when union membership is (in the US) at its lowest point since it began? Meritocracies? Umm--like the one that rewards CEOs with giant golden parachutes? that dumps tons of money into failed banks? that gives medals to war criminals? Instead of rations and subsidies--which belong to the banks, we have a bounty of free goods? Really? Oh--maybe he means the millions of houses standing empty since their owners couldn't pay the mortgage. Instead of gathering on collective farms, we gather in collective worlds. Instead of state factories, we have desktop factories connected to virtual co-ops. Instead of sharing drill bits, picks, and shovels, we share apps, scripts, and APIs. Instead of faceless politburos, we have faceless meritocracies, where the only thing that matters is getting things done. Instead of national production, we have peer production. Instead of government rations and subsidies, we have a bounty of free goods. 5. And who are the owners, then? Stockholders? This is a stretch--particularly today. Or maybe he means contingent labor, migrant labor, those who pick up work by the piece. When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism. 6. Kelly is trying to give us neoliberalism with a human face--he's picked up (smart boy) on the rage against the banks and is trying to throw out the bath water of finance talk while keeping the baby of entrepreneurialism. In the late '90s, activist, provocateur, and aging hippy John Barlow began calling this drift, somewhat tongue in cheek, "dot-communism." He defined it as a "workforce composed entirely of free agents," a decentralized gift or barter economy where there is no property and where technological architecture defines the political space. He was right on the virtual money. But there is one way in which socialism is the wrong word for what is happening: It is not an ideology. It demands no rigid creed. Rather, it is a spectrum of attitudes, techniques, and tools that promote collaboration, sharing, aggregation, coordination, ad hocracy, and a host of other newly enabled types of social cooperation. It is a design frontier and a particularly fertile space for innovation. 7. To call sharing the mildest form of socialism omits the way practices of sharing always play a role in the lives of those who rely on language--kids wouldn't survive into adulthood without some kind of sharing. Again, this kind of remark evinces Kelly's bizarre underlying assumption about a totally atomistic individualized capitalism wherein any kind of human contact indicates incipient collectivism. I. SHARING The online masses have an incredible willingness to share. The number of personal photos posted on Facebook and MySpace is astronomical, but it's a safe bet that the overwhelming majority of photos taken with a digital camera are shared in some fashion. Then there are status updates, map locations, half-thoughts posted online. Add to this the 6 billion videos served by YouTube each month in the US alone and the millions of fan-created stories deposited on fanfic sites. The list of sharing organizations is almost endless: Yelp for reviews, Loopt for locations, Delicious for bookmarks. Sharing is the mildest form of socialism, but it serves as the foundation for higher levels of communal engagement. 8. The product isn't free--we pay in different ways: one way, by our digital traces/footprints, the information we leave whenever we access something. Another way we pay-- attention, the lack of attention to other things, for tools and access. Adding to the economic dissonance, we've become accustomed to enjoying the products of these collaborations free of charge. Instead of money, the peer producers who create the stuff gain credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and experience. Not only is the product free, it can be copied freely and used as the basis for new products. Alternative schemes for managing intellectual property, including Creative Commons and the GNU licenses, were invented to ensure these "frees." 9. Who are the workers who have this ownership that he's talking about? Of course, there's nothing particularly socialistic about collaboration per se. But the tools of online collaboration support a communal style of production that shuns capitalistic investors and keeps ownership in the hands of the workers, and to some extent those of the consuming masses. 10. And, the real core: he doesn't really think any of this socialism--and that's fine with him!! Indeed, a close examination of the governing kernel of, say, Wikipedia, Linux, or OpenOffice shows that these efforts are further from the collectivist ideal than appears from the outside. While millions of writers contribute to Wikipedia, a smaller number of editors (around 1,500) are responsible for the majority of the editing. Ditto for collectives that write code. A vast army of contributions is managed by a much smaller group of coordinators. As Mitch Kapor, founding chair of the Mozilla open source code factory, observed, "Inside every working anarchy, there's an old-boy network." This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some types of collectives benefit from hierarchy while others are hurt by it. Platforms like the Internet and Facebook, or democracy?which are intended to serve as a substrate for producing goods and delivering services?benefit from being as nonhierarchical as possible, minimizing barriers to entry and distributing rights and responsibilities equally. When powerful actors appear, the entire fabric suffers. On the other hand, organizations built to create products often need strong leaders and hierarchies arranged around time scales: One level focuses on hourly needs, another on the next five years. 11. Wouldn't it be great if capitalists never had to pay workers anything! The dream is to scale up this third way beyond local experiments. How large? Ohloh, a company that tracks the open source industry, lists roughly 250,000 people working on an amazing 275,000 projects. That's almost the size of General Motors' workforce. That is an awful lot of people working for free, even if they're not full-time. Imagine if all the employees of GM weren't paid yet continued to produce automobiles! 12. Good thing that we realized that we could pool mortgages, break apart their risks, insure them, and then creates markets in all these things. This worked a lot better than going door to door asking folks if you could borrow their mortgage. And prosperity in recent decades? The average worker in the US is worst off than he was in the mid 70s. Seems like the prosperity was for the top .0001 percent. A similar thing happened with free markets over the past century. Every day, someone asked: What can't markets do? We took a long list of problems that seemed to require rational planning or paternal government and instead applied marketplace logic. In most cases, the market solution worked significantly better. Much of the prosperity in recent decades was gained by unleashing market forces on social problems. 13. I wish I could send SMS messages to a porn call center and watch hot people following my instructions on television. Now we're trying the same trick with collaborative social technology, applying digital socialism to a growing list of wishes?and occasionally to problems that the free market couldn't solve?to see if it works. So far, the results have been startling. At nearly every turn, the power of sharing, cooperation, collaboration, openness, free pricing, and transparency has proven to be more practical than we capitalists thought possible. Each time we try it, we find that the power of the new socialism is bigger than we imagined. We underestimate the power of our tools to reshape our minds. Did we really believe we could collaboratively build and inhabit virtual worlds all day, every day, and not have it affect our perspective? The force of online socialism is growing. Its dynamic is spreading beyond electrons?perhaps into elections. Jodi From injulim at buffalo.edu Sat Jun 20 16:02:44 2009 From: injulim at buffalo.edu (Kevin Lim) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:02:44 -0400 Subject: [iDC] The New Socialism In-Reply-To: References: <56864.173.2.143.75.1245496142.squirrel@webmail.thing.net> Message-ID: <314a904e0906200902i6b5c9a1bvb0766222a15f31a7@mail.gmail.com> Please don't miss Lessig's response to KK's New Socialism: http://www.lessig.org/blog/2009/05/et_tu_kk_aka_no_kevin_this_is.html Here's an excerpt which I believe is the root of his argument against the use of the term "socialism": "Words have meaning. We don't get to choose their meaning. If you call something "X" people will hear the equation. They won't read the fine-print which says ("By X, I mean really not-X). Kelly says: When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism. That statement is flatly wrong. It is completely unreasonable to call that "socialism" -- at least when the behavior described is purely voluntary. It's like saying "Because Stalin set up a competition between different collective farms, it's not unreasonable to call that free market capitalism." Both statements are wrong because they point to a feature that is common, and ignore the feature that is distinctive. At the core of socialism is coercion (justified or not is a separate question). At the core of the behavior Kelly celebrates is freedom." -- Kevin Lim http://theory.isthereason.com This email is: [ ] bloggable [X] ask first [ ] private email locator: ?????? ??????? ??????? On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Dean, Jodi wrote: > > Problems with Kevin Kelly: > > 1. ?The presence of communal aspects of digital culture is not an indication of an emerging collectivism. Kelly's point presumes a prior rampant individualism, as if there were no > community or group based practices and activities and as if the use of an available media tool automatically implies collectivism rather than multiple individual uptakes. > > Communal aspects of digital culture run deep and wide. Wikipedia is just > one remarkable example of an emerging collectivism?and not just Wikipedia > but wikiness at large. Ward Cunningham, who invented the first > collaborative Web page in 1994, tracks nearly 150 wiki engines today, each > powering myriad sites. Wetpaint, launched just three years ago, hosts more > than 1 million communal efforts. Widespread adoption of the share-friendly > Creative Commons alternative copyright license and the rise of ubiquitous > file-sharing are two more steps in this shift. Mushrooming collaborative > sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, the Hype Machine, and Twine have added > weight to this great upheaval. Nearly every day another startup proudly > heralds a new way to harness community action. These developments suggest > a steady move toward a sort of socialism uniquely tuned for a networked > world. > > 2. ?The notion of socialism without the state is inseparable from a notion of mass culture. ?All Kelly is highlighting is the way that mass culture does not only happen top down--but > this is an old point from cultural studies. > > We're not talking about your grandfather's socialism. In fact, there is a > long list of past movements this new socialism is not. It is not class > warfare. It is not anti-American; indeed, digital socialism may be the > newest American innovation. While old-school socialism was an arm of the > state, digital socialism is socialism without the state. This new brand of > socialism currently operates in the realm of culture and economics, rather > than government?for now. > > 3. ?Hard to call the chaos of the free market 'br