[-empyre-] Post-Digital Listings
mez breeze
netwurker at gmail.com
Sun Feb 16 08:09:40 EST 2014
A quick aside...
Funny how no-one identifies my 1996 term "post-modemism" here, though I can
see why (given it was a net.art element + avatar label & not a theoretical
posture): http://www.artelectronicmedia.com/artwork/cutting-spaces +
http://xchange.re-lab.net/xchange4/xchange4.html. Maybe it's not relevant
here?
Chunks,
Mez
On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Florian Cramer <flrncrmr at gmail.com> wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> 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/
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>>
>
>
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