Geert Lovink asks: “Networking or Notworking?”

Networking or Notworking: Currents in Critical Netculture
Lecture by Geert Lovink
May 12, 6pm
MIT Building 4-270
The Media Lab’s Computing Culture Group is pleased to present Dutch media theorist, net critic and activist Geert Lovink. Lovink has been at the forefront of internet and media studies since the 1980s, and has had a hand in several seminal network arts and culture groups, including Adlinko and Nettime.
In this talk Geert Lovink will present the research agenda of his newly established Institute of Network Cultures, which is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. What is ‘critical Internet culture’ as outlined in his books Dark Fiber and My First Recession, and how does it relate to the current technology and business agendas? It has been liberating to have a good laugh about the organized stupidity and criminal energy of the dotcom generation. After 911 the hegemony of techno-libertarianism has faded away. So how does the Internet economy looks like today? Wikis, blogs and podcasting still seem to be extenstions of the nineties’ philosophy in which content producers are kindly asked to give away their work for free. Can artists and activists only adapt or are there alternative new media agendas in the making?