[iDC] Autonomous spaces online?

[Rozalinda]

Hi there, I am usually a listener on the list, and a
fairly low-tech one at that..

The comparison with the bands is interesting – similar
to conversations artists have about big venues/big
business/big collectors and so forth. The bands sell
out inasmuch as part of their larger creative project
resides outside of the stuff coming out of the cd
player when I press “play” – if there is a concern or
interest in the ways music is produced, framed,
mediated, consumed, exported, in the ways art become
commodified, canonized, normalized and so forth. 

I am told repeatedly by many artist friends that their
work deals with images, language or culture, yet can
somehow keep its distance from the social (just like
“political art” that somehow remains unaffected by the
economic, material aspects of cultural production and
exchange). “selling out” makes no sense to me in this
context: you either prove yourself on the market, or
you do not, and that is the very stuff of your
project.

To what extent something is autonomous, or even
alternative, just because it is built with free
software? To what extent is open source as a social
process really an alternative to capitalist forms of
production? If the desires, criteria or function of
(online) social space are inseparable from the
capitalist imperatives of speed, convenience,
efficiency and reliability, can we really speak of it
becoming corrupted by its own success?

I remember Niranjan Rajah’s websites from the mid
‘90’s – manipulated to increase load time up to  an
hour, the completion of the “picture” deferred in
favor of reconfiguration, rhythm, pattern – if I
remember correctly he was reaching for the possibility
of the online devotional experience. This is somewhat
hokey, but suggests perhaps a limited range for
understanding social function (on or off line) in
overdeveloped societies.  In this case, there is an
attempt to open up the possibilities of online space
in relation to other practices, traditions, social
infrastructures or discourses, other definitions of
“success”. 

Perhaps it is naïve of me to think there may be
aspects of our lives that are not commodifiable
.??
but i am troubled by the ways in which  any of this
process of maturation, as john calls it, is indeed
"natural". this is a big problem, no?  this does not
allow for analysis, for looking with any precision at
the material conditions within which people live,
work, communicate, organise, exchange and build tools,
or at the way existing tools are ideologically
encoded. nor does it allow us to question the results
of these efforts, their effects or lack thereof, as
anything but inevitable? 

Cheers 
Rozalinda

--- Isabelle Arvers <zabarvers at bluewin.ch> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> thanks for the invitation to participate to the list
> 
> reading your last posts, the main problem seems to
> be time acting  
> like a "rouleau compresseur" on the autonomy
> process, as if things  
> have to remain little otherwise after a certain time
> of growth, their  
> shape will change.
> 
> autonomy seems possible temporary, because then
> things are escaping  
> to other states,
> time and size,
> a natural process against autonomy?
> 
> the utopian experience of "montagne verdi" with
> anarchists &  
> libertarians gave equally birth to extreme left
> ideas and nazism
> 
> coming back to the idea of open source and free
> software community,  
> and to the idea of autonomy in technology: systemic
> enclosure seems  
> to be part of the deal
> 
> a bit like art when it is perceived as holy and
> unreachable by the  
> massive part of the population,  those who are
> autonomous technically  
> can today be compared to the new clericans of our
> age, they have a  
> very rare knowledge but their attitude is not always
> open and  
> tolerant which is quite schysophrenic if they want
> to enlarge the use  
> of free softwares and open source, if there is no
> bridge, there won't  
> be a large use
> 
> in france, where state funding is the more common
> way to fund art  
> projects, i guess that a solution towards more
> autonmy could be to go  
> in direction of mixte fundings: state and private
> fundings, to  
> diversify the ressources, in order to reduce the
> power of each
> 
> i agree that with the money of the net economy, a
> lot of good  
> projects emerged, even if they were financed by the
> "devil" (just for  
> fun), it gave a lot of ressources for creativity,
> since that period,  
> many good creators were obliged to move from the art
> or research  
> world to fund themselves...
> 
> Isabelle Arvers
> 
> www.isabelle-arvers.com
> 
> 
> 
> Le 23 mars 06 à 03:22, john sobol a écrit :
> 
> >>
> >>> A few days ago YouTube was bought by MTV.
> >>> MySpace is now in Rupert Murdoch's hands.
> >>> ICQ was obtained by AOL.
> >>> Google acquired Writely as part of their online
> vision.
> >>> Blogger is of course in Google's pocket for a
> long time.
> >>> Del.icio.us and Flickr are now owned by Yahoo.
> >>
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > Is it necessarily the case that developing new and
> appealing social  
> > networking communities, watching them flower and
> then selling them  
> > off, is an inherently unsustainable or negative
> socio-economic  
> > pattern? Has the quality of these services
> decreased substantially  
> > since being bought? Do you foresee that it will?
> Does it even matter?
> >
> > Might we make a valid comparison to, say, bands
> gaining local or  
> > cult followings and then signing with major labels
> and going  
> > mainstream? The idea that bands who do this are
> 'selling out' is  
> > pretty outdated by now, right? We all know that
> bands can be rich  
> > and famous and still have creative integrity and
> artistic merit.  
> > But we also know that newer, fresher and more
> relevant bands will  
> > emerge to renew the process again and again. And
> audiences will  
> > move from one band to the next, or stay with their
> favourites, (as  
> > they may stay with or move on from MySpace) but
> the churn is  
> > desirable and lucrative and feeds creative and
> economic growth  
> > within the music industry.
> >
> > If we don't look at the buyout of what were once
> cult-fave sites as  
> > selling out but rather as a kind of natural
> maturation leading  
> > towards eventual natural obsolescence and
> replacement then all this  
> > money being injected into the gift economy may be
> a good thing.  
> > Sure some people will take the bucks and run but
> others will invest  
> > in new cool sites and projects, (i.e. Langlois,
> Skoll, Glaser et  
> > al.). We'll miss the good sites that once were in
> a nostalgic kind  
> > of way perhaps (hello Bolt.com? Hello Psyche?
> etc.etc.etc.) but  
> > only in the same we enjoy hearing songs from our
> youth (or  
> > don't) .  The companies that buy the eyeballs that
> come with these  
> > sites will milk their investments as hard and long
> as they can (and  
> > not always being complete idiots they will not
> always rape and  
> > pillage their investment but may even support and
> amplify its  
> > strengths) until people are tired of it or
> something better comes  
> > along, which is likely to be sooner rather than
> later. And might  
> > not the gift economy then gain greater and greater
> economic scope  
> > and influence as the list of online communities
> that 1) thrive 2)  
> > are successfully economically leveraged and 3)
> pass away, grows  
> > longer and longer?
> >
> > Getting bought by Salon didn't destroy the Well,
> but its importance  
> > has greatly diminished because the networked world
> around it has  
> > caught up and surpassed it in magnetic and
> catalytic and discursive  
> > power. Maybe this is not regrettable but entirely
> normal and  
> > desirable. What is the natural decay rate of a
> networked community?  
> > What comes after Flickr with ads? Check back in 6
> or 12 months and  
> > we'll see.
> >
> > No doubt a more balanced analysis would highlight
> many reservations  
> > about this model but I thought I'd throw it out
> there for  
> > consideration...
> >
> > js
> >
> > --
> > www.johnsobol.com
> > bluesology • printopolis • digitopia
> >
> >
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