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From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 16 May 2007 22:22 Subject: Newsletter of the Institute of Network Cultures --> Please note that this is a one-off mailing. If you would like to receive our future newsletters, please register at: http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/networkcultures-l_listcultures.org .-- Newsletter of the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam, NL). May, 2007 URL: http://www.networkcultures.org Upcoming Events: New Network Theory On June 28-30 2007, the Institute of Network Cultures, Media Studies (University of Amsterdam) and the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) will organize the New Network Theory conference. Please see http://www.networkcultures.org/networktheory/ for the full program and additional information. Registration for the conference has opened at http://www.networkcultures.org/networktheory/index.php?onderdeelID=12&paginaID=73. Due to limited capacity of the venue, we kindly advise you to register shortly. The New Network Theory discussion list has been set up in preparation of the conference. The list is meant for all those interested in the topic, and will possibly continue after the event in June 2007. To subscribe to the list, go to http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/networktheory_listcultures.org. Recalling RFID September 20-21 2007, in collaboration with De Balie, Rob van Kranenburg and Oliver Leistert. Seminar and workshops on the social, cultural and political implications of RFID (radio frequency identification). Speakers include people from the industry, researchers, artists, and programmers. They will address questions such as: What happens to privacy? How safe is a tag? What is the role of the designer in a smart environment? And is there something like RFID etiquette? More information: [log in to unmask] Urban Screens Manchester October 11-12 2007, in collaboration with BBC Public Space Broadcasting, Cornerhouse Manchester, MDDA. The next Urban Screens Conference focuses on the development of non-commercial content for big urban displays such as LED, LCD, plasma screens, media facades and projections onto buildings. What characterizes these huge displays as media platforms in urban space and which particular spatial and social situations do they create? How are they perceived? How does creative content flow from this? At the two-day international conference media experts, designers, artists, architects and broadcasters will present and explore the vast spectrum of potential content. Conference homepage: http://www.manchesterurbanscreens.org.uk/. Video Vortex: Artist Responses to YouTube On November 30 and December 1 2007 the INC, in collaboration with Seth Keen and Vera Tollmann, will organize the Video Vortex Conference at PostCS 11 in Amsterdam. The Video Vortex conference aims to contextualize these latest developments through presenting continuities and discontinuities in the artistic, activist and mainstream perspective of the last few decades. Unlike the way online video presents itself as the latest and greatest, there are long threads to be woven into the history of visual art, cinema and documentary production. The rise of the database as the dominant form of storing and accessing cultural artifacts has a rich tradition that still needs to be explored. The evening program will feature live performances under the banner of video slamming. We will trace the history from short film to one-minute videos to the first experiments with streaming media and online video, along with exploring the way VJs and media artists are accessing and using online archives. Please join the email discussion list on this topic: http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/videovortex_listcultures.org. For additional information, see http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/. Publications: Media Archive All audio and video documentation from our past events and conferences is currently available at the INC Media Archive. The November 06 MyCreativity documentation includes Video On Demand and podcasts of all sessions, and a PDF version of the newspaper. Also check the archive for audiovisual material on Urban Screens 05, The Art and Politics of Netporn, Incommunicado 05 and A Decade of Webdesign, at http://www.networkcultures.org/archive/ (VLC player recommended). Just out: Network Notebook nr.1 Network Notebooks is a series of publications on recent new media theory. INC proudly presents: Network Notebooks nr.1 by Rosalind Gill: Technobohemians or the new Cybertariat? New media work in Amsterdam a decade after the web. To order printed copies, please send an email to info (at) networkcultures.org. For more information and a freely available pdf of the book, visit http:// www.networkcultures.org/networknotebooks. Accounts of new media working draw heavily on two polarised stereotypes, veering between techno-utopianism on the one hand, and a vision of web-workers as the new 'precariat', victims of neoliberal economic policies and moves to flexibilisation and insecurity on the other. Heralded from both perspectives as representing the brave new world of work what is striking is the absence of research on new media workers own experiences, particularly in a European context. This report goes beyond the contemporary myths of new media work, to explore how people working in the field experience the pleasures, pressures and challenges of working on the web. Illustrated throughout with quotations from interviews, this research examines the different career biographies emerging for content-producers in web-based industries, questions the relevance of existing education and training, and highlights the different ways in which people manage and negotiate freelancing, job insecurity, and keeping up to date in a fast-moving field where software and expectations change rapidly. The research is based on 35 interviews, held in Amsterdam in 2005, and contextually draws upon a further 60 interviews with web designers in London and Brighton. The interviews were carried out by Danielle van Diemen and Rosalind Gill. Published in November 2006: Ned Rossiter, Organized Networks. Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions. First publication in the series 'Studies in Network Cultures', published by NAi Publishers, Rotterdam and Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam. Paperback, sewn, 250 pages, Size: 16 X 23 cm ISBN 90-5662-526-8 / 978-90-5662-526-9, Û 23.50 Order online: https://www.naipublishers.nl/ordering.html More information: http://www.networkcultures.org/naiseries About the book The celebration of network cultures as open, decentralized, and horizontal all too easily forgets the political dimensions of labour and life in informational times. Organized Networks sets out to destroy these myths by tracking the antagonisms that lurk within Internet governance debates, the exploitation of labour in the creative industries, and the aesthetics of global finance capital. Cutting across the fields of media theory, political philosophy, and cultural critique, Ned Rossiter diagnoses some of the key problematics facing network cultures today. Why have radical social-technical networks so often collapsed after the party? What are the key resources common to critical network cultures? And how might these create conditions for the invention of new platforms of organization and sustainability? These questions are central to the survival of networks in a post-dotcom era. Derived from research and experiences participating in network cultures, Rossiter unleashes a range of strategic concepts in order to explain and facilitate the current transformation of networks into autonomous political and cultural 'networks of networks'. Table of contents * Whose Democracy? NGOs, Information Societies and Non-Representative Democracy * The World Summit on the Information Society and Organized Networks as New Civil Society Movements * Creative Industries, Comparative Media Theory and the Limits of Critique from Within * Creative Labour and the role of Intellectual Property * Processual Media Theory * Virtuosity, Processual Democracy and Organized Networks * About the author Australian media theorist Ned Rossiter works as a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies (Digital Media), Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland and an Adjunct Research Fellow, Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney, Australia. About the book series 'Studies in Network Cultures' investigates concepts and practices special to network cultures. Exploring the spectrum of new media and society, we see network cultures as a strategic term to enlist in diagnosing political and aesthetic developments in user-driven communications. Network cultures can be understood as social-technical formations under construction. They rapidly assemble, and can just as quickly disappear, creating a sense of spontaneity, transience and even uncertainty. Yet they are here to stay. However self-evident it is, collaboration is a foundation of network cultures. Working with others frequently brings about tensions that have no recourse to modern protocols of conflict resolution. Networks are not parliaments. How to conduct research within such a shifting environment is a key interest to this series. -=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Institute of Network Cultures Amsterdam New Media Research Centre Director: Geert Lovink Manager: Sabine Niederer Producer: Shirley Niemans email: info(at)networkcultures.org phone: +31 20 595 1866 http://www.networkcultures.org - -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by the NorMAN MailScanner Service and is believed to be clean. 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