<nettime> Net Crit. 2.0

[alex galloway <alex@rhizome.org>]

>Regarding the Net Criticism 2.0 dialog:
[...]
>Net Criticism 2.0 is spoken about as if it could facilitate the "design"
>of something -- specifically, that it could be about "making free space
>to design new forms of (collective) subjectivity."  As if!  An
>alternative position would be to place oneself in the fray, and rather
>than facilitate the design of new forms of subjectivity, the objective
>would be to discover the new forms of subjectivity that are emerging -
>and these not apart from, but deep within the guts of consumer society.
>How is contemporary subjectivity defined today?  You can bet it is not
>"outside" of market culture in any sense.  You have to come down off the
>perch and enter into the market to understand it.  Otherwise, you are
>losing the ability to speak to an entire generation.

jordan - you didn't get the response you wanted, did you?! ;-)

i'm glad you spoke up because i'm also a little skeptical of the old school
speak.

here's what i heard you saying:

enter in strategic ways
organize and set our own prices
develop critical and resistant market ideologies
extend the market as a network

i like this model... articulation rather than rejection. i think one of the
most exciting things about new media is that it allows us, the programmers,
the freedom to manufacture the core substance of our work. at rhizome (and
i guess at blast too) the model is actually to produce an *organization*
that facilitates cultural production. nettime, with no employees, no
offices, etc., i guess would be the opposite of that--although both are
successful in different ways.

to the skeptics of engagement, a perfect example: rtmark. they are
completely embracing both a corporate aesthetic and a corporate business
model, and they're still punk rock. others like etoy, BIT and technologies
to the people are also embracing the corporate aesthetic.

the responsibility of Net Crit. 2.0 should be to analyse the real workings
of the new media--the "logics" of computer networks, how technology
produces subjects, new aesthetic forms, the structure of online
communities, biometrics, collaborative filtering. i'm less interested in
the back and forth arguments around economics and consumerism.

alex galloway
www.rhizome.org
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