[-empyre-] interactivity and Digital Futures

[Gabriela Vargas-Cetina]

The fact that we have new media does not mean that we have, as Derrida would
put it, a new archilanguage: the language behind our world languages
continues to be informed by capitalism, if by capitalism we understand a
world system of inequality where money is the means to the end of money.
People continue to be at the same time absolutely necessary for the creation
and continuation of wealth, but they are not expected to participate in the
wealth they create and sustain.  New media within the criminal logic of our
type of capitalism, which seems to be based more than anything on war and
the justification for it, is put to old uses and even enhances the
possibilities for the expansion of the system.  Apparently, war creates
great wealth.  In the 1890s and the beginning of the 20th century in Yucatan
rich people lit candles and prayed for war to start and then continue
somewhere, because Yucatecan henequen sold better when ships had to go into
battle (henequen was used to make ropes of all kinds).  The world economy,
it could be argued (Virilio has dedicated much time to the importance of war
in the development of technology and wealth), needs war to function.  As
long as we have this crazy system, new technologies will promise some
possibilities for new thinking (as all of us in -empyre- are trying to
develop) but they will always be amenable to the same type of uses that lead
to war, inequality, colonialism, and the generation of wealth for wealth's
sake.

As some of you know, even The Guardian in the U.K. Is now letting its
reporters go and asking them to create blogs the content of which they can
then sell to the newspaper.  This way the newspaper only purchases specific
contents, and is doing away, like many others have done, with the union,
workers' benefits and pension plans.  This is how new media is impacting
even the most radical old media, too, and not in the best of ways for the
interests of working people.

Gabriela Vargas-Cetina


On 1/11/09 9:33 PM, "sdv at krokodile.co.uk" <sdv at krokodile.co.uk> wrote:

> humm an interesting challenge is being posed here with the words
> "critical" and "tactical".
> 
> I am interested in the increasing normalization of the new media,  with
> the consequence that I was not to surprised to read that the Israeli
> State is making use of New Media, Twitter  and networks to manipulate
> opinion and legitimise it's colonial and imperial invasion of the Gaza
> Strip (urbicide). Not so much a "paradigm change implied by
> participatory play/ creativity" but  more another medium in the arsenal
> of capital. Surely this confirms that politicians no longer think solely
> in terms of geopolitical entities but increasingly also think of
> themselves as networks.
> 
> A sensible resolution then might be to ask - how we might prevent the
> new media becoming the network arm of the geopolitical nightmare ?
> 
> sdv
> 
> Timothy Murray wrote:
>>> Johannes,
>>>     
>> 
>> If I read between the lines, I sense that your
>> "resolution" would be for "interactivity" to
>> respond to social questions about "how to care to
>> act, how to give and how to receive" but that you
>> are pessimistic about this possibility.  While
>> "interactivity" could surely result in non-social
>> behavior, I suspect that a good many subscribers
>> to -empyre- are invested in new media platforms
>> precisely for their social promise, whether it be
>> through "critical spatial practice," "eco-art,"
>> "tactical media," etc.
>> 
>> We would be very interested in receiving more
>> resolutions that detail the possibility of such
>> practices.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>>   Tim and Renate
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>   
>>> A few years ago it seemed inevitable that digital
>>> culture and new media arts would
>>> be based on interactivity and the paradigm
>>> changes implied by participatory play/ creativity
>>> and networking. The promise of a new aesthetics
>>> of interaction made me think that technically
>>> derived interface performances could adopt the
>>> digital into social processes that also taught us
>>> new techniques of behavior, new "acting"
>>> techniques. So over the past few years, my lab in
>>> Germany has been trying to publish a manifesto on
>>> "interaction"
>>> (http://interaktionslabor.de/manifesto.htm).
>>> While we try, we also become more disillusioned.
>>> In the new year, I want to examine why
>>> interactivity (the technical kind) is not
>>> working. And why the growth of virtual reality,
>>> gaming environments and second lives does not
>>> answer any social questions about how to care to
>>> act, how to give and how to receive.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> (bio)
>>> 
>>> Johannes Birringer (UK)  is a choreographer and
>>> media artist. As artistic director of the
>>> Houston-based AlienNation
>>> Co.(www.aliennationcompany.com), he has created
>>> numerous dance-theatre works, video installations
>>> and digital projects in collaboration with
>>> artists in Europe, the Americas, and China. His
>>> most recent production, the digital oratorio
>>> Corpo, Carne e Espírito,  premiered in Brasil in
>>> 2008. He is founder of Interaktionslabor
>>> Göttelborn in Germany
>>> (http://interaktionslabor.de) and director of
>>> DAP-Lab at Brunel University, West London, where
>>> he is a Professor of Performance Technologies in
>>> the School of Arts. His new book, Performance,
>>> Technology and Science, was released by PAJ
>>> Publications in 2008.
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Renate Ferro and Tim Murray
>>> Co-Moderators, -empyre- a soft-skinned-space
>>> Department of Art/ Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
>>> Cornell University
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>     
>> 
>> 
>>   
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