Janos Sugar on Mon, 1 Dec 1997 15:50:29 +0100 |
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Syndicate: <nettime> bulldozer - a media theory publication in hungarian |
In October 97 the Media Research Foundation published BULLDOZER, a 220 pages anthology of contemporary media theory in Hungarian. (ISSN: 1417-6033). Although the material in the book is also available (readable + downloadable) for free, in the spirit of anti-copyright, on two sites on the net (http://www.mrf.hu and in the Hungarian Electronic Library) BULLDOZER became an immediate hit, and was the 3rd among the bestsellers in October in one of the most prestigious bookstores in Budapest. In the following you will find the table of contents, and the introduction by Janos Sugar. The Media Research Foundation would like to thank all the authors for their contributions and C3 for its financial support. We hope we can go further with the bulldozer! further info: mrf@mrf.hu or http://www.mrf.hu ------- Bulldozer an anthology of mediatheory edited by: Agnes Ivacs and Janos Sugar in cooperation with: Diana McCarty, Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz biographical notes by: Diana McCarty layout: Balazs Boethy using Heath Buntings graphic ------- introduction by J. Sugar preface by G. Lovink I. Gilles Delueze - Postscript on the Societies of Control Thomas Pynchon - Is it O.K. to be a Luddite? Tjebbe van Tijen - Ars Oblivivendi Bruce Sterling- The Brief History of the Internet II. Richard Barbrook - Andy Cameron - Californian Ideology Manuel De Landa - Markets and Antimarkets closing debate of MetaForum 3 Felix Stalder - Financial Networks Matthew Fuller- Spew- Excess and Moderation on the Networks Critical Art Ensemble - Net Realities - Utopian Promises Data Trash an interview with Arthur Kroker by Geert Lovink Janos Sugar - Paradigm Shift Interruptus III. Pit Schultz - The Final Content Geert Lovink - A Push Media Critique Alexei Shulgin - Art, Power, and Communication Calin Dan - Journey through a Data Room David Garcia / Geert Lovink - ABC of Tactical Media Miklos Peternak - In Medias Res - The Man without Interface Lev Manovich - Digital Reality Hans-Christian Dany - Schizos Still Wanna Have Fun Michael Heim - Anxieties IV. Attila Kotanyi - Is There Any Media Criticism That Isn't Suicidal? Gabor Bora - AI Service Alpar Losoncz - Digitalization of Borders Erik Davis - Technoculture and the Religious Imagination Peter Lamborn Wilson - Net-Religion - War in Heaven ------- Introduction by Janos Sugar The past regime bequeathed a huge void to us. Certain philosophers, sociologists, and artists got stuck in the riddle of ideological control, and because of this whole movements, branches of science, and other would-be theoretical directions have stayed away from fields of general knowledge and information that have become the basis of contemporary thought elsewhere. This lack has hardly decreased, in spite of the texts which have been translated into Hungarian, and has been transformed into a lag behind. For the dedicated researchers, of course, those new developments of the interdisciplinary approach in media theory were not unknown, but because of the lack of background knowledge caused by the previous era of censorship those new and inspirative ideas could not generate a larger, deeper discussion. And as a long term effect of the former ideological control, nowadays, just the freshest results remain unknown. At the same time that new communicational techniques radically transformed the world around us, after telephone, radio, and television; the global network which allows for the contestant exchange of information including the most mundane of our daily practices, consciously designed communication permeates all levels of our life. The appearance of the personal computer, and the evolving of global network have thoroughly reworked our way of thinking and our social life. The technology dissolves the accustomed regularities to such a scale that, paradoxically, the main subsidizer of development became the potential buyer, and his/her decisions have come to define the directions of development. Hence the enormous significance of we, the user/developer, thinking about our digital toys, not just on the level of volunteer and naiv promotion due to novelty, but we have to see the results of our new tools produced at the end of the millennium technical boom in a broader, social-historical context. The writings of our volume are derived from two sources. The Media Research Foundation organized an international conference series called MetaForum in 1994-95-96 (organizers: Geert Lovink, Diana McCarty and Janos Sugar). The topic of the first conference was interactive multimedia. In Hungary, the first CD-ROM was produced in 93, domestic Internet access was limited to the academic networks. MetaForum 94' was the first public introduction to the World Wide Web in Hungary, the newly developed multimedia protocol of the Internet. A year later the speakers of MetaForum II. addressed the culture of the aggressively expanding net, how it transcends and redefines the social, political and commercial borders. The theme of the third and final MetaForum was content, the notion indicates that besides access, the most essential element of net culture is what that access leads to. The key function of the Information technologies is quality information that attracts and holds the attention of users equaling hits on a website. Because of this, the content is the point where commercial aims could be enforced as well. Since the main characteristic of the net is being beyond territoriality, popularity isn't necessarily linked to physical access or to direct possession. In this way the minimal amount of consumers which are necessary to the profitability of a particular product is added together from a global public. The other half of writings of our book came from the Nettime mailing-list. In the Spring of 1995, following the second meeting of the Medien Zentral Kommittee (ZK), Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz started the network list, which became in the enormous oversupply of info production, a success story. The approximately 500 readers of the English language Nettime list receives on a weekly or rather a daily basis from the other list members, author's essays, texts, and writings inspired by our medialized environment. Someone reading, even in a superficial manner, the essays, interviews, and reports published here, could participate in the highest level of media theory discourse of the past three years. On the basis of the growing popularity and impact of Nettime the volumes of ZKP (ZK Proceedings) compilations from the selected texts of the list came out- in a rather simple Xerox technique, with small print runs of 1-200. Those volumes of theorie direkt are now anxiously guarded collector items. The ZKP4 published this year on the occasion of the Nettime Spring Meeting *Beauty and the East* in Ljubljana, a run of ten thousand, and was distributed by snail mail, hand carried parcels, media festivals, and during the hundred days of Hybrid Workspace at Documenta X. of Kassel. The two sources of our book concur in many ways, the Media Research Foundation and Nettime are in a close cooperation. The major part of the participants of MetaForum are themselves listmembers and although the lectures of the conference series were first published in Hungarian in Bulldozer, most of them were already published in English in the ZKPs and some of them in the fall of 96 in the ZKP3 on the occasion of MetaForum III. in Budapest. Until now, NetzKritik , a selection of Nettime texts, published by the German Edition ID-Archiv Verlag, was the only actual Nettime book, but even now the editorial processes for the Nettime Bible are underway. Therefore, we tried to published from both sources the best, the most inspiring writings, our selection touches the historical, cultural, philosophical, and economical aspects of the topic. The interdisciplinary approach of media theory is uniquely suitable so that our new and referenceless tools are wound around by comprehension and the context of intelligent use. The venture of Media Research wants to be consciously heroic, with the presentation of the freshest yield we aimed to produce just a momentary synchronicity. Since the interest of our foundation is not institutional we can afford, with the financial support of C3, the luxury up to one gesture to forget the painful financial realities and present without any thriftiness, the maximum amount of fresh texts. However, we hope that this volume will be followed by further ones. --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de