Re: [-empyre-] Networked knowledge?

Mathieu O'Neil <oneil@homemail.com.au> · Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:56:51 +1000

Does the size of the dots on Marco's map depend on the length of the 
posts or on their frequency? I think the latter.
Some other possible functions of lists:
-testing grounds for ideas/concepts
-a form of conversation
-a form of play
I will continue to play the devil's advocate... criticizing technology 
on empyre may appear contradictory, but what the hey. It's better than 
working, right?
At the beginning, “technology” meant the study of technique 
(“technique” refers to any defined process allowing the deployment of 
means for a particular result; these can be simple or complex). Today 
technology has come to mean techno-science, the integration of 
technical development with science, and the mutual legitimation of 
both. We live in a world where the accumulated technical knowledge is 
astonishing, and yet, we are probably much more lacking in technical 
know-how than our ancestors: technology can only be created and 
repaired by *someone else*. In other words, technology means techniques 
which have escaped from our control. In the rich world, machinery tends 
to become more and more autonomous from people (the emptying of 
factories means that the working class has been dispersed, can no 
longer physically gather together or control the means of production; 
resistance becomes networked through society).
Even writers who are highly critical of the technological system – like 
Jacques Ellul or Günther Anders – believe that technology constitutes 
the destiny of humanity. We live in a world so dominated by technology 
that no solution to any problem can be other than technological.

It does not matter whether technology is presented as benign and 
utilitarian, or evil and oppressive: technology is all that there is, 
all it is possible to conceive. The ideology of technological 
development and progress constitutes what Pierre Bourdieu calls a 
“doxa”: a set of beliefs that are assumed to be self-evidently correct 
and are therefore impossible to question. If part of an artist’s role 
is to question the dominant narratives of society, then shouldn’t our 
society’s whole-hearted embrace of technology be questioned? Otherwise 
everyone ends up singing the same song, however “alternative” or 
“playful” that song may be.
It is in this context that I asserted that I was opposed to the idea 
that ICTs should "revolutionarize the whole of social practice". I am 
not saying we should get rid of them. Obviously the net offers 
fantastic opportunities... All I am saying is that for me the greatest 
value is human autonomy; that, as I argued above, technology may be 
seen as decreasing it, rather than enhancing it; and that therefore 
there should be areas of social practice where human agency is not 
mediated by technologies over which it has no control.
DIY: Arts and crafts? Cabinet-making? Pottery? MACRAME? OK, bring on 
the last upgrade already.
Charlotte - sorry I didn't really address any of the new points you 
brought up... Another feature of lists: there is no way to ensure that 
a point will be picked up by a respondent - the only option would be to 
keep posting over and over.
Mathieu

On 10/08/2004, at 7:47 AM, Charlotte Frost wrote:

I will hide my disappointment at not being included on Marcos' map, 
perhaps

because I fell off line for my day job and he wasn't mapping right 
from the

start?! I will try not to see it as a gender issue ;-) as other women 
are

present, although I see Nancy is missing too! But of course Sue's 
points

might be illustrated by Jim sitting right in the middle of everybody! 
;-)

But as I have rushed in late each night, and read each post and made 
notes

on points I was interested to advance, it feels kind of sad not to 
make the

grade! ;-)
So if I don't register, is list participation about what registers for 
me?
If so, I must take issue with Mathieu who argued against the notion 
that

'ICT must necessarily revolutionarize the whole of social practice', 
which I

am sure wasn't what I was suggesting, but as an art historian, I am 
hoping,

in fact basing my PhD on the idea that net art practice does offer a 
model

by which we can continue to make adjustments to - if not entirely 
recreate -

the discipline of the history of art. Where he stated that he is 
'actively

opposed to that notion', I would posit myself as someone willing to 
look at

the social evolutions that will inevitably occur, and if computers are 
our

prostheses, our tools for social practice, there surely will be change.
As far as questions regarding the use and citing of lists are 
concerned,

this again is something I am witnessing a change in, because the very 
notion

of creating a PhD thesis on paper is opposed to the nature of archive 
I am

studying. I realize that 'it's the norm to attribute quotes precisely' 
and

like the good student I am, I do, but the citation system itself, in 
the

light of hypertext and threaded debate seems an inadequate, if 
conflicting

method by which to deal with such networked data. And I guess this is 
my

point, academia uses systems which categorize and delineate, but the 
systems

of knowledge we are using online are hybrid and actively evade such

categories or archives.
I am interested therefore in Axel's notion of the list as a 
discipline. And

this is something I wanted to lead towards with my initial discussion 
of how

researchers use lists. Josie Berry Slater from Mute magazine whose

impressive PhD can be found at

http://daisy.metamute.com/~simon/mfiles/mcontent/josie_thesis.htm used 
the

nettime mailing list to publish chapters and ideas, making her research

process utterly networked. I wonder if a thesis conducted in this way 
works

better in relation to the subject, if it is more synchronous, or 
whether

synchronicity matters? I wonder if my thesis is your responsibility 
too? ;-)
Likewise, having made notes on previous posts and attempted to 
understand

people's ideas in relation to my own, I have begun my own 'more 
disciplined,

regular engagement', as Axel calls it. And I have observed list 
contributors

on many of the lists who offer an additional skill of 'feeding' lists 
with

fresh fodder. Some people appear to have impressive skills in trawling 
the

net, digesting information and passing it on the appropriate sources. 
I have

always found Marc Garrett, who is often vocal on Rhizome and 
netbehaviour

particularly good at this, supplying links to articles, news stories 
and

information that conceptually relate to wider discursive threads.
I wonder if this is the emergence of the type of knowledge that 
centres on

the intimate understanding of links and systems rather than 
necessarily all

the information supplied within the nodes of the links or systems. In 
an

essay called "Pulling Down" Books vs. ' "Pulling Up Files" : textual

databanks and the changing culture of classical scholarship' - in Susan

Leigh Star (eds) The Cultures of Computing - Karen Ruhleder notes that 
with

electronic indexing, to create keywords and search criteria, scholars 
less

and less have knowledge of entire texts, but more so the topography of 
the

area. They know about links, the passages that can exist between

information, and have adept skill at tracing such links, but 
increasingly

the knowledge of such links takes precedent over those who can divulge

massive amounts of text.
Is the ability to serve a list a skill in itself, and if so, is it one 
that

requires cultivation?
Is this sort of praxis a truly networked knowledge?
And if the knowledge of 'links' is fast becoming a revered knowledge in

itself, are Marcos' maps more important than the content of the list? 
- of

course not, but do they tell us about the way in which knowledge is

evolving?
And if we increase the tools we use at such a pace, is Jim's quest for

better software an inevitable requirement? Jim's musings on whether 
lists

offer enough rooms/folders for the expansion of debates might be 
illustrated

by this email, because rather than answer each email individually, I am

attempting to enfold all my responses into one email...which might 
prove

harder than I think!
Likewise, if I refer to everyone in one email, but they don't in turn 
reply

to me, will I still be isolated from the network, as per Marcos' 
diagram?
I met Jim recently and we discussed the very issues he has raised here,

about the tech-side of list encouragement/advancement, and I have a 
project

too embryonic to submit for critique yet, relating to the gaps in 
service

the list serve creates.
At the moment, there seem to be a lot of artworks relating to, or based

around blogs, but still so few that look at the mailing list. When I 
made my

selection on lists for http://www.low-fi.org.uk I found firstly that 
it is

hard to find what lists are out there. I asked for people to tell me 
all the

lists they could think of on various lists, and received VERY few 
answers,

and when I went looking for list related art/research projects, I 
found only

the ones I knew of already. So there seems to me such huge scope for 
work in

this area.
I also feel that we might be overlooking the fact that lists generate 
the

artworks to which they pertain and that this as Axel notes, makes it

impossible to view them in isolation. Firstly many projects come about

through list interaction. Christina Ray from Glowlab tells me that the

Conflux was originated in this way, and Lewis LaCook's (possibly 
dormant)

Screenburn produced several collaborative projects, but more than this 
even,

I have suggested elsewhere that in the absence of physical 
institutions with

which to validate art, text, and perhaps more precisely lists, become 
the

default validation system, perhaps the art gallery of the internet. 
With

this in mind I feel we have to start making decisions on whether to 
advance

the software and safeguard the archive or whether the dynamics of the 
list,

such as they are, are merely characteristics of this type of practice, 
and

whether a knowledge of the network will suffice?
Charlotte
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Mathieu O'Neil
Visiting Fellow
Centre for New Media Arts
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200
T 61 2 62 60 61 24