Description

Public Netbase: Non Stop Future
New Practices in Art and Media
Edited by Konrad Becker, Branca Curcic, Zoran Pantelic, Felix Stalder, & Martin Wassermair
New information technologies have become ubiquitous and thoroughly established in our everyday lives. This marks the end of a period of intense experimentation and speculations related to the introduction of global communication systems more than a decade ago. Artists and cultural workers were the first to explore their liberatory dimensions and to apply their emancipatory potentials. These early pioneers developed a range of interdisciplinary models and practices in order to expand the scope of social participation in information society cultures. Initiatives like the radical Viennese mediaculture institution Public Netbase became important nodes in a global network dedicated to critical art, culture and science based on new media practices.

A virtual world is possible, but never without real spaces and tangible social interaction. This publication is both a review of the pioneer days from the perspective of Public Netbase as well as an outlook into the future of art and culture in digital networks. It provides an overview of a critical information economy discourse, insights into Tactical Media strategies and a critique of the loss of public domain and the commons. Based on the extensive archives of Public Netbase, the book features some of the most spectacular and controversial art projects and interventions from 1994 to 2006. It also
offers historical documents and manifestos critical of commercialisation and control society issues, together with a view into the digital world of tomorrow. “Non Stop Future” raises awareness for a need to invest in new and diverse practices in art and media.

Extensive contributions from many art and media theorists and practitioners to this book relate to long lasting collaboration with Public Netbase through different formats of conferences and projects, reflecting some of the most relevant problematics in constellation of art and tactical media practices and theories within communication technologies. The broad spectrum of themes regarding politics of digital media culture, art practices, networking, participation and self-organizing make the “Non Stop Future” an important contribution to forming the critical digital heritage of the future.

List of Contents
DISCOURSE
20 A Virtual World is Possible: From Tactical Media to Digital Multitudes
Geert Lovink and Florian Schneider
28 Market-ideology, Semiocapitalism and the Digital Cognitariat, Franco Berardi Bifo
32 Byzantium 550 AD, Paulina Borsook
36 Seduction of the Cyber Zombies, Hakim Bey
42 Spiritual Telegraphs and the Technology of Communication: Tuning into The
Electromagnetic Imagination, Erik Davis
48 Which Democracy in a Post-political Age?, Chantal Mouffe
54 Free Software, Free Culture: After the dotCommunist Manifesto, Eben Moglen
60 The Information War, Peter Lamborn Wilson
70 Gray Markets and Information Warlords, Bruce Sterling
76 Economics, Computers and the War Machine, Manuel De Landa
86 Free Bitflows: Editorial, Konrad Becker, Felix Stalder
88 Torrents of Desire and the Shape of the Informational Landscape, Felix Stalder
96 A Topography of E-space – Electronic Networks and Public Space, Saskia Sassen
102 Free Software, Free Hardware, Free Bandwidth, Interview with Eben Moglen
106 Frequently Asked Questions about the Public Domain, Eric Kluitenberg
120 Myths about Copyright, Lawrence Liang
130 Bits of Freedom, Sjoera Nas
NEW ART PRACTICES
134 New Art Practices: Editorial, Branka Ćurčić
136 Becoming Nike? The Fake Behind the Swoosh, Vera Tollmann
138 On the S77CCR-Consortium, Marko Peljhan
140 Information War in the Age of Dangerous Substances, Sadie Plant
146 TextFM: Open Broadcasting System, An interview with Graham Harwood and Matt Fuller, Michelle Kasprzak
150 Posthuman Development in the Age of Pancapitalism, Critical Art Ensemble
158 Space Travel – By Any Means Necessary, Jason Skeet
162 An Interview with Stelarc, Miss M
170 Synworld, Konrad Becker
174 General Statement on Synworld, Faith Wilding
178 “Play with me!” or: Cyberspace as Toyspace, Oliver Marchart
182 Interface as the Key Category of Computer Culture, Lev Manovich
TACTICAL MEDIA
190 30 Years of Tactical Media, Felix Stalder
196 Various Documents, New Kunstsektion
200 The Nature of Art… Public Netbase’s Hidden Manoeuvres, Martin Wassermair
204 Inverted Towers. Strategies for a Reappropriation of Urban Space, Gerald Raunig
210 Blown Into Peaces. Virtual Cow Kidnapping – a Drama in Four Acts, Lisa Mayr
214 Swarmachine, Activist Media Tomorrow, Brian Holmes
222 Reboot Your Radio!, Pit Schultz
DIGITAL MEDIACULTURE, NETWORKING AND PARTICIPATION
234 Introduction Meaning of Digital Networks, Saskia Sassen
236 Report of the Work Group on “Cultures of Electronic Networks”, Cultural
Competence, Linz
242 Reclaiming Spaces and Symbolic Culture, Netbased Public Interventions in Vienna
Konrad Becker
250 The Free Media Camp – Picturing Protest, Patricia Köstring
254 Reflections on Building the European Cultural Backbone, Andreas Broeckmann
256 A Look at Vienna’s Ruins of Future, Andreas Broeckmann
258 wahlkabine.at, An Online Orientation Tool Awakens a New Interest in Politics
Karin Liebhart, Martin Wassermair
262 The Past – A Servant Of The Future, Katharina Wegan
264 Period After – A Review, Branka Ćurčić
PUBLIC NETBASE
268 Let it RIP! Obituary of an Endless Myth: Public Netbase, 1994-2006, Brian Holmes
272 Building a Netbase from Scratch, Francisco de Sousa Webber
276 Public Netbase. A Political Controversy, Konrad Becker, Martin Wassermair
280 Opposing Nest Culture: The Political Conflicts of Public Netbase, 1994-2006
Katharina Ludwig
286 Intermission at the Combat Zone, A Review of Public Netbase’s Urban and Symbolic Lines
of Conflict, Clemens Apprich
294 Open Letter to the Austrian Public
300 Notice Served to Public Netbase in the Museumsquartier
302 Public Netbase t0 Moves Into Position
304 Open Letter to Michael Häupl, Mayor of Vienna, and the Vienna City Government
306 Discussion on Public Funding and Critique, Branka Ćurčić
WORLDINFORMATION.ORG
308 World-Information.Org, World-Information.Org
310 World InfoCon Brussels (2000): An Annotated Report, Steve Kurtz
316 World Information Forum Vienna (2000): Conference Report, World-Information.Org
318 The Vienna Document, Xnational Net Culture and “The Need to Know” of Information
Societies , Open Cultures Working Group
322 World-InfoCon 2002 Amsterdam, Eric Kluitenberg
326 World-Information.Org mission in Serbia, Dejan Sretenović
328 When State of Emergency Becomes a Constant, Branka Ćurčić
330 Cultural Intelligence and the Urban Multitudes, “World-Information City”
World-Information.Org
336 Bangalore and Back, Reflections on World-Information-City, Bangalore, Felix Stalder
348 List of Contributors
352 Web Sources