File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1997/97-01-27.165, message 125


Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 18:22:56 -0500
From: uzs106-AT-IBM.rhrz.uni-bonn.de
Subject: flowers from amsterdam      (fwd)


>From Speculative Media Theory To Net Criticism                                  
By Geert Lovink                                                                 
Lecture at ICC, Tokyo, 19.12.96                                                 
                                                                                
Arthur Kroker once pointed out that 'media' are 'too slow'. The term is         
no longer appropriate to express the speed culture of the digital age.          
'Media' still refers to information, communication and black boxes,             
not to pure mediation, straight into the body. Media, almost by                 
definition, are about filters, switches, technical limitations, silly           
simulations and heartless representations. Focussed on particular               
senses, they still need access and selection mechanisms. There are only         
particular media. We should therefore look for terms that are even more         
fluid, being able to break through all interfaces, geographical                 
conditions and human imperfections.                                             
This is the ultimate 'speculative' media theory, the wish to overcome           
the actual object of our studies and passions, heading for 'The World           
after the Media', as one of the early pieces of the Adilkno called it.          
                                                                                
This view defines the Net as the 'medium to end all media', the                 
'Metamedium'. But at this very moment, there is not yet a General Net           
Theory. Cyberspace is still a work in progress. We face the realisation         
(and therefore decline) of a specific kind of media theory (being 'too          
slow'). It is in this ideological vacuum that a temporary autonomous            
project called 'net criticism' shows up. A pragmatic form of negative           
thinking, in the aftermath of a period dominated by speculative                 
thinking that tried to define the 'new'.                                        
                                                                                
My generation, which entered the intellectual arena in the late 70s,            
witnessed the collusion of Marxism-in-crisis with the rising                    
post-modern theory and got crushed in between the two. The dirt of punk         
was still too political and existentialist for cool people and                  
free-thinking academics. Most issues centred around the writings of             
Louis Althusser, Antonio Gramsci, and Michel Foucault. We were obsessed         
with the question of power and ideology, beyond historicism, humanism           
and the deadly economic determinism. Media were a part of the                   
ideological realm (but nothing more than that). Like other instances,           
media had their own 'relative autonomy', a term that sounded like a             
profound revelation. And media were not only repressive, but                    
productive, as Foucault pointed out. So where to locate power, if it is         
no longer in the corporate headquarters and the government? Capitalism          
dominates through its ideology. And slowly ideology became more and             
more identical with the media and its emerging technologies.                    
                                                                                
When I got involved in the so-called 'new social movements', it became          
clear that is was no longer useful to reflect on the problems of the            
previous generation, the generation of 68. But it was not entirely              
clear whether we could use elements of the new French thinking. We did          
not practise 'micropolitics'. We did not just want a piece of the cake,         
but 'the whole bloody bakery.' It was not enough to be a 'patchwork of          
minorities'. The radical movements had much stronger desires. The fear          
and anger were much stronger, no future involved here, less theory,             
just action. Deleuze and Guattari only became popular in the nineties,          
after all these movements had dissolved into the virtual, to reappear           
as pop cultures, in rap, techno and jungle.                                     
                                                                                
During the political and social clashes of the 80s we also faced                
another change in society. We were well aware of the explosion of the           
media realm. I studied political science and mass communication and I           
remember we did not speak about media in plural, only about 'mass               
media' as a monolithic block. Our main concern was the change of                
'public opinion'. The movements of the early 80s questioned the rigid           
definitions of politics as such, but did not yet position themselves            
within the media realm. The mysterious laws of 'public opinion' dealt           
with mentality, consciousness, attitudes, a semiotic process that would         
ultimately bring about social and political changes, without requiring          
reformist compromises or self-marginalisation as embittered, dogmatic           
Marxists.                                                                       
                                                                                
The amount of channels on TV, radio and the growing availability of             
microelectronics and the PC in the mid-80s gave us more access to               
media, and this changed the nature of the political fight. The                  
Do-It-Yourself media strengthened the position of rising movements,             
specially in the ongoing attempt to influence the journalists of the            
established media, without depending on them entirely. For me, the rise         
and the expansion of this media experience went together with the birth         
of 'media theory'. When my (direct) involvement as a squatter and               
eco-activist transformed itself into a commitment to 'the media                 
question', I discovered the then emerging media theory in Germany. I            
even got involved in it, although I was not anymore on the university           
and had abandon all academic rituals like footnotes, PhDs, etc. One             
might be familiar with their names: Friedrich Kittler, now in Berlin,           
Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio from Paris. But also Avital Ronell            
>from the United States, the Jewish-German-Brazilian media philosopher           
Vilem Flusser, and Peter Weibel and Florian Roetzer, who made                   
connections to the arts.                                                        
                                                                                
It seems important now to summarise this specific type of media theory.         
It is not exactly academic or even scientific. There is a strong                
emphasis on style. At its best, it is techne-poetry, brilliant in its           
search for new, historical patterns. At its worst it is dry, academic           
hermeneutics. There is a strong affection for art and aesthetics, and           
it has a strong relationship to the history of literature and                   
philosophy. If our English-speaking colleagues could read this stuff,           
it would be fun to read their critique of its metaphysical, almost 19th         
century style and premises. Take the works of Heidegger, Carl Schmitt,          
Walter Benjamin, Ernst Juenger, Friedrich Nietzsche and J. W. Goethe,           
simmer them in the sauce of the media technologies, flavour with a dash         
of French Theory. That is the basic recipe. This postmodern media               
theory tries implicitly to escape its 68- past. Also typical is the             
rejection of the existence of rival media theories. It makes no                 
reference to the existing media studies like 'mass communication' or            
cultural studies (with McLuhan being the exception). Its dislike of             
social sciences remains a secret. The condemnation of the Frankfurt             
School is also standard. Media theory dislikes ideology criticism. It           
reduces media to the essence of the machine logic. It is no longer              
interested in the meaning of its message, which was once assumed to be          
propaganda.                                                                     
Speaking about the fascist past of some the authors in an open way,             
still seems highly problematic. It is not done to just enjoy dubious            
thinkers and appreaciate Heidegger as a fascist (not: despite his short         
fascist engagement). A secret or unconcious fascination for                     
authoritarian models is still there. Don't laugh about the totalitarian         
hertitage, it is still taken very serious. In that sense, the Cold War,         
being the project to freeze-dry the fatal European passions, had not            
yet ended in the this particular branch of theory.                              
                                                                                
Central to this theory is the definition of media as technical media.           
This should be seen as a polemic gestures to remove all references to a         
economic, political, social or even cultural context. First and                 
foremost, media have to be described in the language of the technical,          
in the language of the technology itself. Strangely enough, this is a           
precise expression of the further rise of media as an 'autonomous'              
realm, the victory of ideology over the other instances. When the media         
starts to float (and becomes 'immaterial'), it first of all has to cut          
all references to journalism, social sciences, ideas of progress and            
enlightment, state propaganda, public opinion, being a tool to educate          
and entertain the people. Media from now on are merely spin-off                 
products of the military that basically deal with the war of                    
perception. The rest is merely noise.                                           
                                                                                
It is important to see that there is a continuity from the debate about         
ideology and power as a first phase, the notions of discourse and               
structures as a second stage and the centrality of the technical media          
as the third. Crucial for all three stages is their relation to Jacques         
Lacan and the question of language. We can see a shift here and a               
continuous process of redefinition of 'language' from being just the            
spoken and written word, towards 'language' as a general structural             
mechanism, ending up with a very abstract definition, the language of           
the technology, which can no longer be deconstructed as an ideology so          
easily. Although 'language' became so crucial, at the same time these           
thinkers were confronted with the so-called crisis of linearity, the            
crisis of the text. With the rise of the personal computer, the status          
of the text in society changed and so did the role of writing in the            
electronic age.                                                                 
                                                                                
Essential for these thinkers is that they have to introduce the 'new'           
in the terms of the old. They always have to proclaim the new and               
condemn the old, while still keeping a channel open to the traditional          
disciplines. So there is a constant oscillation between the new and the         
old, both of which must be incorporated in the theory. Also                     
characteristic is a melancholic position towards the old terminology            
and sources, combined with a deep, philosophic fascination for the new.         
But never in a truly futuristic manner. The destruction of the old              
seems an alien notion in this context. Being post-political                     
intellectuals, it is difficult for most of them to become prophets,             
visionaries or even propagandist for the new. They cannot so easily be          
transformed into salesmen for Siemens or Philips. Instead, their task           
remains the careful exploration and explanation of the objectives of            
the 'new' in the language of the old. Their success is in presenting            
this to the conservative (but enlightened) cultural elites.                     
                                                                                
This postwar generation is used to constantly undermining its own               
premises (an old leftist habit). In particular, the premises of their           
commitments of May 68. This became an obsession for most of them --             
especially for Baudrillard. They are even more influenced by the trauma         
of the Second World War. All of them are making references to the               
crucial period between the two world wars, both historically and                
theoretically. The War is the father of all media and the founding              
fathers of media theory are Heidegger and Benjamin (McLuhan being the           
good third). Combine all these elements and you have an impressive and          
productive research program for decades to come.                                
                                                                                
The media theory of the 1980s is in essence a philosophy of The End. It         
works its way up to its historical height in 1989. It contemplates The          
End (of the social, history, ideology etc.), but because of its refusal         
to be radically modern, it is unwilling to overcome its own ideological         
framework, which was formed in the period 68-89. As for many of the             
intellectuals of the same generation, it seems impossible to fit the            
Fall of the Berlin Wall into the aesthetic program. Most of them do not         
want to be bothered by the East and can only interpret it as an                 
atavistic, disturbing factor, just another sign of ongoing                      
disintegration and fragmentation. Technology is hardware in the first           
place. It has no users that play with it in a productive way. That is           
why pop culture can be ignored so easily. Hardware is the driving               
force, not people, let alone East Europeans. It sounds almost Marxist,          
this technological determinism, but that is what happens if theory              
lacks the categories of subjectivity.                                           
                                                                                
There are two methods used. On the one hand they are exercising the             
fascinating 'archaeology of media' (like in the works of Werner Kuenze,         
Siegfried Zielinski, Bernhard Siegert, Christoph Asendorf and Erkki             
Huhtamo). Examples of this can be found in Paul Virilio's 'War and              
Cinema', Friedrich Kittler's 'Grammophone, Film, Typewriter' and Avital         
Ronell's 'The Telephone Book'. On the other hand, there is the                  
tradition of hermeneutics, the essay or theory as such, which can               
easily be used to speculative about the future possibilities of new             
media, combining etymology with technological forecasts. But it can             
also go into the direction of the historical antropology (Dietmar               
Kamper, Peter Sloterdijk, etc.) or stay within the academic boarders of         
the science of literature (Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht, Jochen Hoerisch,              
etc.). And then there are the hard core scientists with literary                
ambitions like Otto Roessler, Heinz von Foerster and Oswald Wiener. It          
is impossible to give an overview here. 99% of all this has not been            
translated, but that's another story.                                           
                                                                                
A crucial term, if we want to study this media theory, seems to me the          
definition of aesthetics. Media theory rejects the classical definition         
of aesthetics used by art historians (a set of rules to judge the               
artwork) and comes up with a new one, focussing on the technical                
determination of perception. We can no longer speak about a pure                
aesthetics which is just an expression of visual pleasure. This kind of         
aesthetics is almost military. It is technical because it is defined by         
all the tools we are using. There is no aesthetics anymore besides or           
beyond the technical.                                                           
                                                                                
All these thinkers were relatively unknown until the late 80s. But this         
all changed when the Western societies went through a narcotic period           
of intense speculation -- in bonds and currencies, real estate, the             
arts and... theory. This happened exactly around the crucial year of            
1989. We see the academic theory bursting out of its small circle,              
making an alliance with the visual art scene and the emerging media-art         
scene, which was by then still mainly video art.                                
                                                                                
It is also exactly in this period, dominated by speculation, that we            
see the growth of cyberculture, virtual reality, multimedia and                 
computer networks. Until the late 80s there were only the rumours one           
could read in the books of William Gibson and other cyberpunk writers.          
But this suddenly changed in 1989 with the appearance of visionaries            
like Steward Brand, Timothy Leary, Jaron Lanier and Howard Rheingold.           
After a certain delay, their concepts and buzzwords also reached Europe         
and in the early 90s we see media theory becoming more and more                 
popular. Historians and philosophy professors overnight became art              
world celebrities, then marketing advisers -- praised for their in              
depth view of the 'essence' of digital technology.                              
                                                                                
A good example might be the German media philosopher Norbert Bolz. In           
the early 80s he was a professor at the Free University in West-Berlin,         
giving classes about Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno or Carl Schmitt.           
He was especially interested in the history of religion, working                
together with Professor Jacob Taubes. This was his period of the                
discourse, one could say. After he met Friedrich Kittler, he joined the         
Kassel research group that shaped German media theory. This resulted in         
his book 'Theory of the New Media', in which he linked Richard Wagner's         
Gesamtkunstwerk, Walter Benjamin's media theory with the writings of            
Marshall McLuhan. This is still within the framework of a rather                
academic way of working: combining the two elements I described before,         
media archaeology on the one hand; the philosophical, hermeneutical             
approach on the other hand. But then he changed. He started to write            
about chaos theory, hypertext and multimedia. He headed off in the              
direction of a truly speculative media theory. Finally, Norbert Bolz            
accepted a post as a professor of design in Essen and is presently              
publishing about design, advertisement and marketing strategies.                
                                                                                
This is of course only one example. But we are speaking here about a            
general trend in society, connected to the 'emancipation' or 'coming            
out' of the media realm. It is related to the rise of the conceptual            
aspects of electronic space, called cyberspace, in which concepts are           
absolutely crucial as a first stage, in order to develop products out           
of it later. So we cannot judge this speculative media theory on a              
merely scientific level. We have to study its impacts on information            
capitalism in an early stage, when cyberspace is not anymore a rumour,          
good for literary phantasies, but still has not yet been implemented            
fully into society. For the developers of software and computer systems         
and multimedia products, it seems essential to work with the proper             
metaphors. And these metaphors are not given by the technology, by the          
hardware as such. It is up to creative intellectuals to develop those           
metaphors. This is where speculative theory plays such a decisive role.         
                                                                                
It is all too easy to accuse some authors for having sold out to the            
industry, and make a quick analysis of a period which is really only            
five or ten years ago. I myself was also involved in speculative media          
theory, perhaps not as an academic, but more as a free floating                 
intellectual. I was unemployed at the time, being an editor of the              
magazine _Mediamatic and a member of the Adilkno group, the 'Foundation         
for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge'. We had a lot of fun writing          
numerous so-called Unidentified Theory Objects, the UTOs, brought               
together in the book 'The Media Archive', which was originally                  
published in 1992. One could call this the period of Gay Media Science,         
in which we developed concepts like 'wetware', the 'data dandy',                
'sovereign media' or the 'extra medial', being a space or condition             
outside of the media realm. Perhaps Adilkno is embodying the most pure          
and extreme form of speculative thinking, not being hindered or                 
censored by any academic or journalistic rule.                                  
                                                                                
The year 1989 was more important because of the introduction of virtual         
reality than for the fact that the Berlin Wall came down.                       
                                                                                
[ a somewhat unreal claim! I don't think it adds much to your                   
argument. I'd delete it.]                                                       
                                                                                
The Gulf War in early 91 was a first sign that this particular media            
theory had come to an end. The ideas of William Gibson, which were              
science fiction at the time, were becoming all too real. 'The future is         
now' and we had from now on to (re)read those books as conceptual               
computer manuals, no longer just as fictional stories about a possible          
future.                                                                         
                                                                                
It was shocking to see that theories can indeed come true. The crisis           
of intellectuals, the end of ideology and the end of the big stories            
had questioned indirectly the power of discourse. Highly successful             
export products from Paris, nothing more. But the power of writing had          
not (yet?) vanished. Ideals can be implemented in society, despite the          
final 'defeat of the intellectuals' and their political power after             
1989. Currently, we are facing the triumph of the new conceptual                
engineer ('the philosopher with the mouse'), who is working with all            
the various existing intellectual tools, all the available creativity           
and personal fantasies, on the forefront of the technology. At the same         
time, the old-style intellectuals are in deep crisis over their loss of         
power over the global society and its media.                                    
                                                                                
During the Gulf War, two of our heroes, Jean Baudrillard and Paul               
Virillio, suddenly appeared everywhere in the media. It seemed that             
their whole program, their whole way of thinking finally came to the            
surface, becoming instant reality. But this reality was a very                  
disturbing one. So what is the epiphany of speed and simulation, their          
true essence? Was this live television at its best? It was a shock for          
them also and the Gulf War became a turning point for both of them in           
their writing.                                                                  
                                                                                
While some of the thinkers became commercial and conceptual, others,            
like Baudrillard and Virilio, became more and less pessimistic, one             
could even say melancholic. A shift appeared: while some media theorist         
metamorphosed into professional 'cultural optimists', others, with the          
same background, showed they truly desperate, sometimes cynical face,           
becoming old-style 'cultural pessimists'. Some even rewrote the leftist         
Frankfurt School writings and incorporated them into a deeply                   
resentful, anti-media, anti-computer philosophy. Adorno and                     
Horkheimer's analysis of the 'culture industry' gradually became a              
programmatic text of all those who look down on pop culture, being              
trash, junk and pulp. This resulted in an open conflict between                 
experimental media aesthetics and High Art.                                     
                                                                                
We see a clear shift here between people who are getting involved in            
these new technologies and others, who are criticising the consequences         
of these technologies from the outside and warn us for the upcoming             
apocalypse (from the fatal crash on Wall Street to real time                    
dictatorships of the New Dark Age). A true fight has not yet taken              
place. All attention is (still) focussed on Paris. Many of the our              
heroes have died. The defensive climate amongst intellectuals nowadays          
seems to make a productive debate on the nature of media and technology         
highly unlikely to take place. There seems to be a growing critique on          
Virilio and Baudrillard for the pessimistic stand they take. On the             
other hand, Pierre Levy takes the opposite position, coming up with             
unprecedented sales talk, presenting the digital technologies as a              
solution for all our problems.                                                  
                                                                                
The same can be said about the role of media art. One could make a              
similar chronology, from the underground, through a phase of                    
experiments towards a close link with the commercial sector. Places             
like Ars Electronica in Linz, The InterCommunication Center in Tokyo            
and ZKM in Karlsruhe have become true institutions with huge budgets            
and buildings, defining themselves as 'Museums of the Future'. These            
are some of the many signs that the phase of speculation and                    
introduction is coming to a close. Now that they no longer hidden in            
the margins of an avant-garde, new media are now entering society and           
coming face-to-face with all the current political and cultural                 
conflicts. It is within this change that we have to position the rise           
of 'net criticism'.                                                             
                                                                                
Net criticism, as Pit Schultz and I have defined it, does not want to           
take the outsider's point of view. It positions itself within the Net,          
inside the software and wires. On the other hand, it isn't a promo for          
any of the technologies or their visionaries. It is part of a wider             
movement for public access to all media and their content. Net                  
criticism tries to formulate criteria about the politics, aesthetics,           
economics and architecture of multimedia and computer networks. This is         
necessary if we want to go beyond the stage of hype and do not want to          
fall back into a state of scepticism. Most of all, we have to clarify           
the terms many of us use. Of course there might be some parallels with          
genres that deal with old media, like literary criticism, book reviews,         
film critique, following the developments within its own medium.                
                                                                                
We should increase the quality of cyber discourse, beyond sales talk,           
beyond easy complaints and of course beyond earlier speculations. One           
of the places for this is the nettime mailing list, which is also a             
social network where media activists, theorists, programmers and                
net.artists meet. This group was created in the spring of 95 and held           
its first meeting during the Biennale in Venice. It combines radical            
criticism with the building up of independent computer networks and net         
projects. But we could also mention the magazine Mute from London,              
which is taking a similar stand. Important sources are the book _Data           
Trash, by Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein (in which they developed          
the notion of the 'virtual class'), Hakim Bey's 'Temporary Autonomous           
Zone', the works of Critical Art Ensemble and Mark Dery's _Escape               
Velocity. The most controversial contribution so far has been the essay         
'Californian Ideology', written by Andy Cameron and Richard Barbrook, a         
true European (or British?) critique of the Wired magazine from a               
radical, though social-democratic point of view.                                
                                                                                
These are all first attempts to describe the hidden ideological                 
premises of the virtual class, gathered around the magazine Wired. But          
it quickly became clear that we should do more than just criticise the          
neo-liberal hippie capitalism. We should try to analyse why they appeal         
to a worldwide group of young white males,. We should examine their             
fascination with the technology. What is this "desire to be wired"? Of          
course it is way too easy project this on others, take an anti-American         
stand and come up with some antique European truth or moral. This               
should be an American-European dialogue and we are trying to involve as         
many people from as many countries as possible, without pretending that         
we are 'global'. There is no European alternative to American                   
cyberculture, and we hope there never will be. It is unwise to project          
all the evil on California, or even the Californians. Instead, is seems         
more important to study one's own virtual class, everywhere, the nearby         
monopolies and various attempts by all state authorities to regulate            
and censor the Net.                                                             
                                                                                
At the moment, nettime is debating the framework for a 'political               
economy of the Net', once we move into the new stage of brutal                  
commercialisation, state regulation, which will lay the groundwork for          
a true massification of the Net. Like Ailkno's saying, 'It cannot be            
the future everyday', net criticism is not predicting some future, but          
trying to formulate diverse critiques of the present. Its aim is to             
come up with working models and implement them, before others will take         
over. It seems important not to repeat the failures of past                     
generations. Politics and aesthetics can no longer go separate ways.            
Many political activists are looking for ways to include digital                
aesthetics, while at the same time many artists are very unhappy with           
the isolated position of this very experimental media art.                      
                                                                                
It is very tempting and dangerous to describe net criticism as a global         
affair. Most of us are Europeans. It is hard enough establishing some           
independent channels for exchange between the East Europe and the West.         
Unlike the still very western media theory, we are trying explicitly to         
include people and projects from East Europe. Hence projects like the           
Next Five Minutes conferences, Press Now and the network V2_East.               
Despite the fact that the Internet might be a global medium, the                
cultures on it are still very much based on different languages and             
separate user groups.                                                           
                                                                                
It is not enough to speak about copyright and censorship. It is not             
enough to complain about the rise of power of big telecommunication             
companies. It is not even enough to charge the rising gap between the           
information poor and the information rich. Most important for me now is         
to come up with working models, truly utopian, root level projects that         
can be realised on the spot. For example: public access to the Net,             
your own domain name, free content, or the inclusion of unwired                 
countries. Net criticism also means fun, specially if it comes through          
our own desires to be wired, if it comes through our own will to                
connect to other people and cultures and to ultimately meet each other,         
face to face, 'breast to breast' as Hakim Bey uses to say. Net                  
criticism should not end up as an ideology or belief system. Or to put          
it more accurately for these times: net criticism should not end up as          
an identity lifestyle or fashion. Then it is time again to disappear,           
into the darkness of cyberspace, speeding up, slowing down, into                
multiple, hybrid realities.                                                     
                                                                                
Nettime: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime                                            
Adilkno: http://thing.desk.nl/bilwet                                            
Adilkno, Cracking the Movement, Autonomedia, New York, 1994                     
Adilkno, The Media Archive, Autonomedia, New York, 1997                         
Please contact: p.o.box 10591, NL 1001 EN Amsterdam, tel/fax ++ 31 20           
6203297 or geert-AT-xs4all.nl                                                      
                                                                                
                                                                                


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