"Toward a Post-Post-Critical Future"

Trebor Scholz, Institute for Distributed Creativity

How can we overcome global social problems if we see them as secondary
in relation to technology? How can we divorce political and
technological discourses? The technological future cannot be discussed
in terms of de-contextualized (networked) objects because they are
everything but autonomous players.

It is equally unhelpful to create a dichotomy between two camps: those
with conformist views of technology and others who see technology as a
monster that swallows us. Marcuse as well as Foucault analyze society as
a life-draining machinery fueled by dominated people. The question about
technology is not whether "to take it or leave it." While the assembly
line was the long arm of management in 1913, today machines are powered
by networked technological systems. In 1941 the Ford Motor Company
experienced its first general strike at the River Rouge Plant and a
survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project predicts a movement
of "tech refuseniks" who live completely off the network and "will
commit acts of violence and terror against technology-inspired change"
in 2020. [1]

We could link such pessimism back to the late 1970s when
Langdon Winner and Jacques Ellul ask how technology has improved human
dignity, well-being, and freedom. Marx, who is otherwise sometimes
perceived as a technological determinist, writes in Manuscripts that
"The more the worker expends himself in the work the more powerful
becomes the world of objects which he creates in face of himself, the
poorer he becomes in his inner life, and the less he belongs to
himself." (Marx, p 122)

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'Organised Networks: Transdisciplinarity and New Institutional Forms'

Ned Rossiter

The social-technical dynamics of ICT-based networks constitute
organisation in ways substantively different from networked
organisations (unions, state, firms, universities). My interest in
this paper is to say a few things about the process of scalar
transformation and transdisciplinarity as they relate to the
invention of new institutional forms. Having established these
background conditions, processes and practices, I will then move on
to the topic of autonomous education.

Institutions function to organise social relations. It follows, then,
that the social-technical dynamics peculiar to a range of digital
media technologies (mailing lists, collaborative blogs, wikis,
content management systems) institute new modes of networked
sociality. It is easy to dismiss this process of emergent
institutionalisation. Many would assert that it simply results in a
bureaucratisation and rigidity of social-technical communication
systems whose default setting is one of flows, decentralisation,
horizontality, etc. I would suggest such knee-jerk, technically
incorrect responses risk a disengagement from the political and thus
from politics. There is a passivity that attends this kind of
position. Moreover, it is a position that fails the politics of
reappropriating the psychic, social and semiotic territory of
institutions. The process of instituting networks involves a movement
toward the strategic rather than tactical dimension of net politics.
Another reason to turn towards the strategic dimension has to do with
the short-termism that accompanies many tactical projects. The logic
of the tactic is one of situated intervention. And then it
disappears. There are of course some notable exceptions -- indymedia,
makrolab and the Yes Men come to mind as quite long-term experiments
in networks and tactical media; yet these exceptions are not, I would
suggest, instances of transdisciplinarity.

GNU/Linux Audio Workshop

The August Sound Coalition presents, the first GNU/Linux audio workshop
of the year in the new studio. Details are at this link. Please forward
to your friends or anyone you think will be interested

http://radio.socialtechnology.net/?q=node/12

Our first GNU/Linux audio workshop will be held this Saturday, April 8th
at 1PM. The address is 7 Clifford Place in Greenpoint. That's Brooklyn.
Take the L train to Bedford or the G to Nassau.

The topics will include:

What is Ubuntu? What is GNU? What is Linux? Why three words instead of one?

Key differences from proprietary systems. Bennefits and Detriments.

The Gnome Desktop.

The Jack Audio Connection Kit.

Compatible Hardware.

Simple recording with Alsaplayer, Jack and QArecord.

Simple recording with live input, Jack and QArecord.

Online Resources.

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons

18-20 April 2006- Bangkok,Thailand

During the last 20 years or so, the level, scope, territorial extent, and role of copyrights and patents have expanded into new sectors. There has been much discussion and debate on the impact of copyrights and patents at a micro level of economic activity while at a macro level, policy dialogue in several international fora, not least of which is WIPO, has been addressing barriers posed by copyrights and patents.

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons invites
researchers working in the area of copyrights and patents, promoters of collaborative models, development practitioners engaged in collaborative content creation and dissemination and custodians of public information to go beyond the current dialogue and debate to explore key issues and ideas related to access to knowledge and culture in Asia.

Participants are invited to explore key themes and questions related to the Asian Commons:

* What is the relationship between infrastructure and copyrights on access to culture and knowledge?

* How do software and business process patents affect innovation?

* What are the impacts of patents on software innovations in Asia? * What are the emerging Open Business Models for content production in Asia?

* Given existing legal, cultural and infrastructural environments both within and outside of Asia, how can we contribute to increasing access to knowledge and culture through an Asia Commons?

While we will be inviting a number of speakers who are seen as
thought-leaders in the field of Access to Knowledge and Culture, we will also look to innovative approaches to ensure a high degree of
interaction among participants in spaces and sessions which are designed to maximize the exchange of experiences and ideas.

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons

18-20 April 2006- Bangkok,Thailand

During the last 20 years or so, the level, scope, territorial extent, and role of copyrights and patents have expanded into new sectors. There has been much discussion and debate on the impact of copyrights and patents at a micro level of economic activity while at a macro level, policy dialogue in several international fora, not least of which is WIPO, has been addressing barriers posed by copyrights and patents.

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons invites
researchers working in the area of copyrights and patents, promoters of collaborative models, development practitioners engaged in collaborative content creation and dissemination and custodians of public information to go beyond the current dialogue and debate to explore key issues and ideas related to access to knowledge and culture in Asia.

Participants are invited to explore key themes and questions related to the Asian Commons:

* What is the relationship between infrastructure and copyrights on access to culture and knowledge?

* How do software and business process patents affect innovation?

* What are the impacts of patents on software innovations in Asia? * What are the emerging Open Business Models for content production in Asia?

* Given existing legal, cultural and infrastructural environments both within and outside of Asia, how can we contribute to increasing access to knowledge and culture through an Asia Commons?

While we will be inviting a number of speakers who are seen as
thought-leaders in the field of Access to Knowledge and Culture, we will also look to innovative approaches to ensure a high degree of
interaction among participants in spaces and sessions which are designed to maximize the exchange of experiences and ideas.

U.S. Wraps up 'Cyber Storm' Exercise Testing Internet Defenses

Associated Press

The government concluded its "Cyber Storm'' wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.

Bloggers?

Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs'' include political rantings and musings about current events.

"Digital Universe
with L.A. at its Center"

Holly Willis, LA Weekly

"I¹m going to put the phone down now, "just hang on."

Media artist Michael Naimark was at LAX one morning a few weeks ago, on his
way to the Banff Centre¹s Refresh Conference on histories of new-media art.
Another artist, Simon Penny from UCI, was up ahead, also on his way to the
conference, and UCLA¹s Erkki Huhtamo, a new-media theorist, wasn¹t far
behind. Not wanting to lose our connection, Naimark put the phone into one
of those gray plastic containers and pushed it toward the X-ray machine.

Architecture and Philosophy of the Web:
IRW2006 - Identity, Reference, and the Web (IRW2006)

http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin/irw2006/

Co-located Workshop at WWW2006,
Edinburgh Scotland, May 22nd

Second Call for Papers:

=======================

Goal and Theme:

Our goal for this workshop is to explore the nature of identification, meaning, and reference on the Web, building on current work in Web architecture, the Semantic Web and informal community-based tagging (folksonomy), as well as current practice in XML and theory in
philosophy and linguistics. This workshop should bring together
researchers and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds in order to discuss and clarify these issues.

The greater goal of the workshop is to examine the architecture and philosophical basis of the Web by carefully inspecting how fundamental aspects of the Web can be clearly recognized and possibly improved.

URIs are the primary mechanism for reference and identity on the Web. To be useful, a URI must provide access to information which is sufficient to enable someone or something to uniquely identify a particular thing and the thing identified might vary between contexts. There is no doubt that as a mechanism for identifying web pages the URI has been wildly successful. Currently, URIs can also be used to identify namespaces, ontologies, and almost anything. However, important questions about the interpretation, use, and meaning of URIs have been left unanswered, questions that have important ramifications for everything from search engines to philosophy. As soon as matters get complicated, there is little or no consensus on issues of identification and reference on the Web. Put simply, given a URI, how should the nature of its intended referent be known in an interoperable and preferably automatic manner?

This is not an easy question to answer: for example, the Semantic Web and folksonomies present two distinctly differing viewpoints. On the Semantic Web a URI nominally identifies a single resource, while
folksonomies rely on a more informal group consensus. Notions of
identity will have even larger ramifications when privacy and trust become central issues for the Web. The management of this issue impacts practical issues of data integration on the Web and versioning and evolution for languages that use URIs, such as XML.

Hijacking the Internet: How Big Cable and Phone Companies' Plans for Broadband Threaten Democracy

Jeff Chester, Center for Digital Democracy/b>

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies have a vision for the Internet's future. Verizon, AT&T (formerly SBC), Comcast, and Bell South want to create a privately run and branded "pay-as-you-go" Internet, making everything we do online a "billable," revenue-generating service. Our every cyberspace move will be tracked and stored so we can be better marketed to (a data collection system that might even rival the NSA's!). Those with the deepest pockets--think corporate special interest groups and major advertisers--will get preferred treatment. Their content will show up (and be processed) the fastest on our computer and television screens. Content seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, may be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out, say "white papers" and other documents given to the cable and phone industry.

Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from large to small content providers to individual users--will have to pay more when surfing online, streaming videos, or perhaps even sending and receiving email. Companies are mulling the imposition of new subscription plans that will limit our online experience. There will be "gold," bronze," and "silver" forms of Internet access that tightly define what they call our "level of service" (limiting how much downloading we can do, etc.)

Gone will be the more open and nondiscriminatory network of today.

To help ensure that their "vision" succeeds, the phone and cable lobbies are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's communication policy laws. Both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have a far-reaching impact on the Internet's future. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as "private" networks--without policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Telephone and cable companies are now using the same kind of political snake oil that helped them pass the now-infamous 1996 Telecommunications Act (ten years ago on Feb 8, 1996). They have unleashed the tried-and-true rhetoric designed to lure compromised and clueless lawmakers. Our proposals, they claim, will "empower the consumer" and lead to "innovation." But these are code words used to cloak their real goal: to turn the Internet into a turbocharged digital retail machine.