A few notes on the present (work in progress)
Networks:
The emancipatory potential of networks has proven false: in domains from social networks to communications to infrastructure to "hypertext", to thought, we find networks leading to the hardening of relationships, the insulation of dreams, the extension of modes of exploitation. Networks operate via a "tyrrany of nodes", they privilege "peers", or consumers, people like us. They end up recuperating and formalising: reifying, what is already known, already present.
Many of us will remember in the last decade a moment of waiting, outside a "network", to be let in... understanding that the network form persists on back-patting or mutual protection, to the exclusion of modes of self-exposure, trespass and leakage.
The network is snake oil in the market of power. The global "network of terror" does not exist, even the so-called Al Qaeda network operates in "cells", not networks.
Many other models already exist in response to the urgent need for other forms, other languages, to escape this tyranny: from Ulises Meijas' paranodality to older ideas such as Michel Serres' parasite, ###
The network is now the given: the dominant, heirarchical order-- that must be surpassed.
Communication:
The few cases of truly revolutionary networks eschew "communication".
File-sharers don't "communicate", they partake, they take part. ### On the other hand, bloggers "communicate"... but their chatter may produce what Jodi Dean calls "communicative capitalism", to the exclusion of politics.
The question about communication lies prior to it: in the form of an "address". The direction in which communication travels...and temporally the point at which it can be refused, where one can say no to it. Being able to say no is the key component of "participation".
Collectives / Collaboration:
Much like the network, the collective is guilty of enclosure. If the collective has the hard edges and sealed entrances of a pure body, the collective is no better than an individual, or "corporation". ##
Locations / Borders: In the past years, the de-territorialization information led to an attraction towards what remains: borders. Border crossings and transmissions, human-cannons, and border camps populate the last decade or more of art practice. But in this retreat to the border we may be missing the proximate borders present everywhere... in the protection of products through property, in the distancing of neighbours via privacy. ##
If all culture is geo-political, the key question for media forms is to consider where they may "act", what are the locations we imagine them occupying?
###
Comments
the 'form of the network'
dear anna
thanks for this thought inspiring text.
my first impression was, and this is consolidating now, as I have reread the text, that your are mixing very sharp observations with things that are so generalised that I would personally find it hard to subscribe to such a view. this relates especially to the very first sentence:
the emancipatory potential of networks has proven false.
as an analytical approach I would consider this as a one sided and prejudiced approach (sorry for harsh words, i dont mean it like that, as you will see in next sentence)
as a manifesto which tries to provoke discussion it could be a good opener. sometimes I think myself I need to totally withdraw from the net. there is also almost a 'terror of connectivity' as in this horrible book 'interact or die' where the authors seem to imply a social Darwinist principle of 'be connected'.
however, if we leave the terrain of poetic sweeping manifesto language, I think this needs a bit of unpicking. what do you mean by network?
the irrigation channels that watered the Hindus valley and the Euphrat and Tigirs valley already 6000 years ago, they are also networks. and the surplus of wheat and livestock that could be produced through irrigation made people take notes on clay tables (and the digging of the irrigation channels probably made necessary some clay drawing in the first place).
in short, in a more analytic discourse I think it is important to differentiate between a specific type of network and the 'form of the network' as such. do you think the 'form of the network' has failed, that the network as abstract principle is the new hegemon? but there is not just one type of network, there are centralised, centrally controlled networks, and there are distributed, decentralised networks. in the analysis of networks there is a 'topology' but there are also 'routes' that communication flows take and that must not coincide. A network which is on its underlying basic layer highly distributed and decentralised, can still be manipulated to support a totalitarian system (like Google;- ). I think this is mostly a criticisms of or disappointment with Web 2.0 user generated content which led to gigantic consolidation and formation of new centers - such as youtube. in the network economy there is a tendency that the winner takes all, that only a very small number of players remains left. but this is maybe a property of capitalism which already Marx observed.
to sum it up (as I got other things to do quite urgently such as accounting, aarrgh) networks are
layered, the original internet was conceived following a model of four layers - physical, network, transport, application - it is an old pet idea of me but one which has served me well is to thinlk about and make clear on which layer the argument is put forward. Is it an argument about the network topology or about the social power networks - and how do the structures of those relate? I would be carfeul to avoid simple analogies - to say that a decentralised newtork by necessity fosters a decentralised society. such 'dodgy analogies' are the thorny issue where many problems started in the newtork discourse. and maybe there the disillusionment.
because if you ask me, where do I prefer to live, in a strictly hierarchical society where everybody follows the leader or in a very non-hierarchical, decentralised world where everything needs to be sociall negotiated, etc. despite the difficulties that this brings I would still very much opt for the second option. and in this regard I think, if we talk about the internet, despite the problems that there are, it is still a hugely emancipatory force. as I am currently following discussions on a list between a person in Pakistan and a person in Indonesia, two countries only millimeters away from being military dictatorships, it is beuatiful to follow their debate about local knowledge and craft and social history, just to give one example. those exist in the millions. 20 years ago, this simply wasn't there.
part of my own disappointment with networks has been downloaded into Network 404
http://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas/ideas_articles/pdf/medosch_networ...