nettime: on speculative media theory

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

>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