[-empyre-] Post-Digital Listings
Florian Cramer
flrncrmr at gmail.com
Sun Feb 16 04:04:42 EST 2014
It might make sense to add a historical dimension. Cascone introduced
"post-digital" in the early 2000s to refer to glitch music and low-tech
digital aesthetics while today it has different connotations. I'd still
maintain that the term sucks, but the great resonance that it has (even
here on this list where we're supposedly discussing something else,
although publishing is perhaps the strongest example of ambiguous states
between analog and digital) proves its relevance.
Just a sketch, highly simplified and polemical:
# digital 1995-2004 | post-digital 1995-2004
interactive installation art (Jeffrey Shaw) | net.art (jodi)
virtual reality | mailing lists
MAX/MSP | glitch
techno | 8-bit
multimedia | codework
true color | ASCII
Generation Flash | shell scripts
MIT, ZKM | self-organized spaces
gaming | modding
Wired | Neural
Edge.org | Nettime
# digital 2005-2014 | post-digital 2005-2014
blogs | zines
4chan | Dexter Sinister
Ubuweb | artist-run bookstores
Vimeo | handmade film labs
mp3 | vinyl, cassettes
mobile device | offline
Computer Music Journal | The Wire
Singularity Movement | Object-Oriented Ontology
Pirate Parties | Occupy movement
Bitcoin | timebanks
My own preferred view on post-digitality would be something that bridges a
couple of the 2005-2014 opposites. That could be a plan for 2015-2024.
-F
(Note that this posting doesn't take itself too seriously.)
-
On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 11:34 AM, Michael Dieter <M.J.Dieter at uva.nl> wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> I want to ask some questions about the lists that were posted this
> week. To recap:
>
> From David's post -
>
> +-----------------+------------------+
> | DIGITAL | POST-DIGITAL |
> +------------------------------------>
> | Non-zero sum | Zero-sum |
> | Objects | Streams |
> | Files | Clouds |
> | Programs | Apps |
> | SQL databases | NoSQL storage |
> | HTML | node.js/APIs |
> | Disciplinary | Control |
> | Administration | Logistics |
> | Connect | Always-on |
> | Copy/Paste | Intermediate |
> | Digital | Computal |
> | Hybrid | Unified |
> | Interface | Surface |
> | BitTorrent | Scraping |
> | Participation | Sharing/Making |
> | Metadata | Metacontent |
> | Web 2.0 | Stacks |
> | Medium | Platform |
> | Games | World |
> | Software agents | Compactants |
> | Experience | Engagement |
> | Syndication | Push notification|
> | GPS | Beacons (IoTs) |
> | Art | Aesthetics |
> | Privacy | Personal Cloud |
> | Plaintext | Cryptography |
> | Big data | Real-time |
> | Responsive | Anticipatory |
> | Tracing | Tracking |
> +------------------------------------>
>
> From Rita's Post -
>
> Physical media Streaming media
> Local servers Clouds
> GUI and WIMP Other multimodal
> interfaces (affective, conversational, haptic, immersive, direct
> manipulation, perceptual)
> Storyspace iOS
> Floppy disks Apps with bonus
> features
> Amateurism Venture capital
> Listservs
> CommentPress, SocialBook
> Monograph Excerpts,
> chapters, paragraphs
> Library Repository
> Xerox copies Open Access as
> idea; paywall as practice
> Transcription Digitization
> Adaptations, versioning (sequential) Transmedial storytelling
> (simultaneous)
> File structures Slider bar
> Collage aesthetic (static) Networked books,
> liquid books (dynamic)
> Artists books The neo-analog
> Book as artifact The expanded book
> (not-codex, not-digital, not-game, not-conversation, not-collaborative
> content creation but situated in the interstitial field)
> Pay to read Pay to publish
> Editions Browser
> and system compatibility
> Bookseller Amazon
> Project Gutenberg Google books
> Borrower records, purchasing history Granular data collection
> File sharing File sharing
> Market monopolies Market monopolies
> -------------------------
>
> Thanks David and Rita for these,
>
> I guess diagrammatics or concept maps are always something of a last
> resort during any period of disorientation, so thanks for putting
> together this thought-provoking set of distinctions to provide some
> coordinates.
>
> For whatever it's worth, I find Rita's map a bit more recognizable, if
> only because I'm ultimately not sure how some of these binaries are
> supposed to operate in David's model. I can't tell if something like
> "games | world", for instance, should be considered more along the
> lines of, say, Kostas Axelos or Jane McGonigal (maybe both?).
> Similarly, "art | aesthetics" also seems problematic: art discourses
> have always been deeply intertwined with aesthetic frameworks since
> Kant's engagements with Baumgarten; and the concept of media,
> moreover, itself arises alongside these genealogies of aesthetic
> thought. I wonder what kind of distinction is being made here, unless
> this is just a veiled reference to Bridle's New Aesthetic project? On
> the more technical side of things, why place a distinction between
> "Web 2.0 | The Stack"? Besides the fact that your list already recalls
> Tim O'Reilly's own set of marketing distinctions, surely this is
> actually a more or less consistent trajectory of intensification
> towards the consolidation and enclosure of internet infrastructures
> through corporate services. A key moment here would be the
> introduction of Amazon Web Services geared toward selling server-space
> to corporate clients in 2006, more or less contemporaneous with the
> user-generated content hype.
>
> On the other hand, maybe I'm just being a bit nit-picky. Perhaps it's
> best to just take the list as a provocation or speculative map for
> discussion. In this case, one thing I want to ask about is what kind
> of references are you drawing from to sketch out the post-digital. As
> opposed to the art-orientated definition from Alessandro and Florian -
> which they tend to trace back to Kim Cascone's 'Aesthetic of Failure'
> essay - there is a competing corporate literature that you're alluding
> to here. Can unpack that discourse in a bit more detail, especially
> when it comes to these points about it being a zero-sum game?
>
> For Rita's set of terms, meanwhile, I also wondered how I should read
> these - should I take it as a straight transition from left to right?
> Or something more like a dialectical situation, or Greimasian binary
> oppositions? The latter approaches actually might not be too
> far-fetched with some of these terms, since artist books and
> booksellers, for instance, are being recontextualized and revived in
> specific ways as a result of whatever's going on to the right. Just
> think about the fetishization of the print book as technical object by
> Visual Editions, or the maker-like slow theory artisanal processes of
> Univocal Publishing, or the revival of post-digital Xeroxed zines with
> Motto.
>
> I wonder if I could ask Rita whether it might be useful to also
> provide some explicit case studies, artworks, books or projects that
> might populate or transform the set up you've provided? There's
> material I know you've taught and written criticism on, but it might
> be useful to explicitly propose some cases to help us to grasp the
> stakes of the formation you're proposing.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Michael Dieter
> Lecturer
> Media Studies
> The University of Amsterdam
> Turfdraagsterpad 9
> 1012 XT Amsterdam
> http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.j.dieter/
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
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