*The Dark Side would involve artists being broke, apparently. Or, at least, broker than programmers.
*If there’s still a difference.
*Geert Lovink:
(…)
MR: On one hand, new media offer creativity and self-realization to users, but on the other hand they exert power and control over them. Could we say that new media strengthen neoliberal capitalism in this way?
GL: True. But the problem is that evangelists of new media will never admit this. We need harsh critique and a thorough deconstruction of business and marketing strategies here. The free and open preachers always circumvent these discussions. This is why we need plenty of space for Hegelian, dialectical, Žižek’s style negative energy to attack the agenda of these corporate consultants. A unique opportunity for more Slovenian critics to come on board. (((That would be some wry Dutch humor from Geert there.)))
We need to get a better idea what exactly attracts average users in the techno-libertarian rhetoric that we find on Techcrunch and related websites. The problem is that especially young people have no idea that they are undermining their own livelihood. I’m not saying that we can go back to the Microsoft-backed intellectual property right regimes. In my talk here in Linz I present projects that come up with concrete proposals to invent new revenue models. This is my main critique of Creative Commons. It is OK to develop the licenses and so on but they should be launched together with concrete proposals how artists are going to make a living. We cannot draw our hands from this issue and make it an individual problem. (((Perhaps a Tunisian-style creative-artist bread-riot is in order.)))
MR: What was the main reason that you quit with centralized social networks? I’m referring to the Quit Facebook Day of 31 May 2010, which you also joined.
GL: The main reason is the way Facebook is treating privacy. The whole business model of Facebook sucks to the core. But for me that was not the main reason to join Quit Facebook Day. There is a critical mass building up with Facebook alternatives such as GNU Social, Diaspora, Appleseed and Crabgrass. Maybe it is my background as a squatter and tactical media activist, but I believe that radical critique in this field is only effective if you have powerful prototypes of alternatives in the making. We are in the unique position that we can develop these alternatives. We are not powerless victims or passive spectators in this social media game. This is the amazing side how the internet operates. There is still this possibility to develop alternative platforms within the same technological framework—though I am not sure for how long.
MR: What’s the solution to the current situation of quasi-serviceability of media, which has huge consequences on society as a whole by controlling, managing personal data and generating information on our lives? Maybe it lies in the Rousseauean ‘back to nature’ moment? Is this perhaps the highest level of openness as an idea?
GL: Depending on how you look at it, the highest state of openness is either complete noise, or, following Jamie King, a perfect mirror of existing inequalities, neither of which is particularly desirable. There are no indications that ‘back to nature’ implies that we become less depending on technology. We do not see Luddite undercurrents in the current movements and subcultures. The desire to radically disconnect has always existed. Certain subcultures like travelers, gypsies, ravers and punks have always existed.
But I’m not so much into that identity spiel. I’m more interested in how we can develop radical alternatives for those who live under the dominant neoliberal regime. That is our challenge. It’s much easier in new media compared to, for instance, changing the educational system where you have all these endless institutional restraints and delays. One of the good things about our field is that it’s still quite fluid. If you have a good idea, come together, conspire and start to organize something initiatives often takes off and scale up easily. And we also benefit from the fact that things are so easy to copy. We can build appealing, viral alternatives to Facebook that are decentralized.
MR: You are an advocate of the Slow Media Manifesto. Can you explain the main idea behind it, what objectives it tries to achieve and what possible results/solutions it might have for the future?
GL: Slow communication is a response to the development on the level of real-time internet exchange. It is a paradigm shift that we see happening with Twitter and the availability of internet on mobile phones that people carry with them. If it’s done in a playful way there is nothing wrong with real-time but we all know it is quite addictive. These days ‘labour’ and ‘play’ are difficult to distinguish and this has been theorized at the New York 2009 iDC conference (organized by Trebor Scholz). We emphasize the playful level of these communications while attacking their constraints in terms of neoliberal labour conditions. That is quite difficult.
I think it would be interesting to create more widgets between them, maybe also to make clear that what starts off as something playful that people like will soon dominate their daily lives and will not only infiltrate their private lives – that’s the privacy aspect – but will also dominate the pace of their work life.
Because it’s harder and harder to separate private life – the offline life and work online. That separation absolutely doesn’t exist anymore. People are going to find out after a while that this necessity to always be online, to tell where you are, what you do, what you think, how you feel is also an incredible constraint, not only a possibility. It becomes an obligation. People will perhaps regain freedom. I’m not a Luddite, I’m not preaching the merits of the beautiful offline life. But what I do advocate is the mastery. …
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