Sociability, or sex, mental disorders and code

The basic teaching of The Social Network is, probably, more or less: people go to extensive measures in order to get sex. And The Social Network presents one of the most complex ways of achieving that (and if you think "sex" is here too blunt, just replace it with "achieving social recognition", "status", etc.): to write the most successful social media platforms till yet, and make it into a billion+ business.

More seriously, the key thing to understand about the film is that it is not about The Facebook website or the company, nor about the real people behind these networks which themselves have created a load of global internet life; not about mark zuckerbergs, sean parkers, eduardo saverins, or the usually the faceless/nameless (or first name basis only) coders and girls which seem to be essential to any successful internet company.

To me, and what I tried to see the film as, it is about how to think the mental ecology of informational and networked "social" capitalism of 21st century. What it succeeds in showing is how messy the supposedly immaterial, and logical-driven mathematical society, i.e. society of code/software, is, and how affective labour and social relations are not only the object of those internet business models, but also its driving force. Now that sounds quite anthropocentric, I admit, but actually I want to point out to the messy ontologies in which the supposedly nice and "we-all-agree-its-good-for-us" sociability is about.

After broadcast media as the driving force of 20th century media landscapes, and the at least partial message of the media system of, well, broadcasting and catering for as many eyeballs as possible (both in the advertising logic but also public broadcasting version of this logic), The Social Network seems to imply that a driving force of this system is a feeling of exclusiveness; embedded in a system of closed institutions, invitations, rank, privilege, The Social Network shows the cruelty and dark sides in celebrated utopias of open internet and celebrated social ties. Cultivating on the idea of "clubs" into a software platform and a form of high tech neotribalism suggests not only the affective logic that might be driving the addiction economy of such social media but also the exclusiveness in terms of code which suggests that there are the creative whiz-kids (elite, billionaire, white), and the end-users (hot girls with no name, or a first name, who are the psychotic end-users, but also end-products of this affective economy). Naturally such a division is far from truth, as the relations demanded by social networks aim to blur the boundaries of producers and consumers, which works towards even a more affective entanglement. Recently Jodi Dean has made interesting points about this entanglement in her Blog Theory, but earlier already Tiziana Terranova as well.

What The Social Network is consistently about is the mental ecology of sociability - and especially sociability in the age of technological networks. Code is being born of labour and money - of some people getting paid, and some not; of some people getting laid, and some not; and some people at the high end of the power law curve, some not. That is why the descriptions of affective states, and even more so the various mental disorders at the core of this film are such a clue of thinking it in terms of impersonal affects -- the affective landscape of capitalism not reducible to representational figures: paranoia, compulsion, psychosis, depression. "Social pathologies are first of all a communicational disorder", writes Franco "Bifo" Berardi in The Soul at Work, and understanding the compulsion of communication as a state where again affect and business models conflate is a key way to understand contemporary infoscapes. Look at the disorders of minds and tech, of social relations and software to understand fundamental elements of how internet and high-tech cultures in general work, and this is where the fundamental impersonality in terms of Zuckerberg-the-film-character might just become a crucial symbol of current social media capitalism in a similar manner as Daniel Plainview in There Will be Blood (2007) is emblematic of capitalism through an understanding of its zombie-like, soulless man as the "vessel of Capital" of the industrial age, to borrow Steven Shaviro's words and insightful analysis.

Culture Synchronised: Remixes with Nick Cook and Eclectic Method

The room Hel 252 is starting to have good karma as the remix-class room at Anglia Ruskin. Not because its equipped with computers, editing equipment or such, but because it is starting to have a good track record as the room where we have now hosted both the screening and discussion of RIP: Remix Manifesto with Brett Gaylor, and now also discussed the work of Eclectic Method -- one of the most well known remix-acts.

Geoff Gamlen, a founding member of Eclectic Method, visited us in the context of Professor Nicholas Cook's talk on musical multimedia. Professor Cook continued themes that were addressed already in his 1998 book on the topic and now followed up in the form of a new book project that deals with performance. With a full room of excited audience, Cook gave a strong presentation on hot topics in musicology and the need to move to new areas of investigation, as well as showing how such ideas relate to the wider field of cultural production in the digital age. Remix-culture is not restricted to music but where such examples as Eclectic Method (or we could as well mention for example Girl Talk) are emblematic of software driven cultural production that ties contemporary culture with early 20th century avant-garde art practices, and shows how political economy of copyright/copyleft, of participatory and collaborative modes of sharing and producing, of aesthetics of image/sound-collages and synchronisations, all are involved in this wider musical assemblage. What Cook argued in terms of musicological approaches that, in my own words, are suggesting "the primacy of variation" was apt. Such performance practices as Eclectic Method's are important in trying to come up with up-to-date understanding of what is performance, what is the author, and how performance practices relate to wider media cultural changes that are as much about the sonic, as they are about pop cultural aesthetics -- hence the examples on Tarantino were apt in the presentation. We need to move on (whether in terms of the epistemic frameworks or the legal ones) from the 19th century romantic notion of the Creator as the source of the artwork to what I would suggest (in a kinda of a Henry Jenkins sort of way) to an alternative 19th century of folk cultures where sharing and participating was the way culture was distributed, and in continuous variation. Despite the increasing amount of skeptics from Andrew Keen to Jaron Lanier (and in a much more interesting fashion Dmytri Kleiner), who also rightly so remind us that Web 2.0 is not only about celebration of amateur creativity and sharing but a business strategy that compiles free labour through website bottlenecks into privatized value, I would suggest that there is a lot to learn from such practices of creation as remixing and their implications for a theoretical understanding of musical and media performance.

Eclectic Method's work...range from political remixes...


...to pop/rock culture synchronisations...

Operational Management of Life

Management of life -- in terms of processes, decisions and consequences -- is probably an emblematic part of life in post-industrial societies. Increasingly, such management does not take place only on the level individuality, but dividuality -- i.e. managing the data clouds, traces, and avataric transpositions of subjectivity in online environments. This is the context in which J. Nathan Matias' talk on operational media design made sense (among other contexts of course), and provided an apt, and exciting, example of how through media design we are able to understand wider social processes.

Nathan addressed "operationalisation" as a trend that can be incorporated in various platforms from SMS to online self-management and operationalisation. More concretely, "operational media" can be seen as a management, filtering and decision mechanism that can be incorporated into services and apps of various kinds. Nathan's talk moved from military contexts of "command and control" (operationalisation of strategic ways into tactical operations) to such Apps as the blatantly sexist Pepsi Amp up before you score which allowed the (male) user to find "correct" and functional responses to a variety of female types. In addition to such, Nathan's talk was able to introduce the general idea of computer assisted information retrieval and management which to me was a great way of branding a variety of trends into "operational media". He talked about visualisation of data, augmented reality, filtering of data, expert, crowd and computer assisted information gathering, and a variety of other contexts in which the idea works.

"Should I eat this croissant" considering its calories, the needed time I need to work out to get it again out of my system, the time available etc. is one example of operationalisation of decisions in post-fordist societies of high-tech mobile tools that tap into work and leisure activities.

Another example is the service offered by Nathan's employed KGB (not the spies, but Knowledge Generation Bureau. See their recent Superbowl ad here. The KGB service is one example of mobile based operational services which in the character space of an SMS try to provide accurate answers to specific questions and hence differ from e.g. search engines.

Of course, one could from a critical theory perspective start to contextualise "operational media". Is it a form of digital apps enhanced behavioralism that does not only assume but strengthens assumptions about the possibility of streamlining complex human actions? Is it a mode of media design that further distances management of life into external services? Is it hence a form of biopower of commercial kinds that ties in with the various processes from the physiological to cultural such as labour and provides its design-solutions for them? In any case, Nathan's expertise in this field was a very enjoyable, and a good demonstration of a scholar/designer working in software studies.

Beyond the Free Labour

During a week, two perspectives to digital economy.

1) Berlin Transmediale-festival, where I got to see and hear some of the panels in the Free Culture stream. Basically the question revolved a lot around very small scale projects and the question concerning creative as a motor for economic development. A question which touches so intimately on free labour as the actual driver for economic value - a point well elaborated by Tiziana Terranova years ago. This is where value is extracted and admittedly exploited in the age of celebrated digital culture, collaboration, participatory culture. Well, it was not all that small scale; after all, one panel featured a representative from the Benetton think tank Fabrica in Northern-Italy as well as a representative from MotorFM, among others. These are the success stories which do not even try to hide the elistist face of some of the contexts; Fabrica being a sandpit for young, successful young creators; MotorFM representative explaining how their listener basis of course depends on the accumulation of a certain brand of educated, creative and such people that often also come from wealthier backgrounds. Matteo Pasquinelli raised some nice critical points, but these could have been pursued a bit further. (I missed the Sunday's Liquid Democracies-discussion where Matteo tackled such themes in length).

2) Beyond the Soundbite-Cambridge Media Industry event on Friday and Saturday. Loads of interesting perspectives, where none really discussed the question of cultural work, labour. Whereas I enjoyed enormously some of the talks, from Alan Moore to day 2 talks on Crowdfunding and Film, I could not help noticing that celebrating collaborative and participatory culture did not in any way discuss how actual cultural work is going to be funded on a large scale. Such projects as Swarm of Angels and in a different fashion the Hunt for Gollum depend on the participation of a wide range of volunteers who based on their affective investment, the true e-factor (i.e. enthusiasm), are willing to contribute their time and skills to the project. There is nothing wrong in this, and I enjoyed the projects a lot. However, in terms of a wider cultural sustainability of such precarious jobs in arts and cultural production sector, the possibilities in using crowdsourced labour does not produce any viable income streams for the participators. This fact is taken at face value, which is scary to me, especially with the economic situation being what it is at the moment. The affective investment that has been part and parcel of film cultures from the start - fanaticism and cinephilia - turns easily into involvement in such products that revolve often around a specific genre that already attracts an enthusiastic relation to the product, or them an existing product like the Lord of the Rings-films and books on which Hunt for Gollum attaches itself. The symbiotic attachments of cultural production extend however to the parasitic attachment to the potentials of the skilled and non-skilled cultural workers whose investments might smell of "free culture" but actually "free" is only an euphemism for non-monetary investments (time, skill, energy etc.) Its far from free in those other kinds of investments.

This is where collaborative cultures and open source are the ideal models for appropriation for the capitalist logic. In short, collaborative cultures is not "free" in the sense of freedom, but free in the sense of free beer (to use the worn example turned the other way).

And yes, for a different perspective, such projects as RIP - Remix manifesto present a more politically tuned image of the powers of collaborative production. (Later, I had a chance to exchange an email with Matt Hanson (Swarm of Angels) about this where he flagged in his response that he has been developing models of meritocratic nature that also support payments for professional practice, while continuing how "something many of the less thought out, immature crowdfunding models do not take into account.") Good point, and looking forward to learning more of such developments!

From Cybertext to Produsage. Functioning and Production of Digital Texts

ArcDigital and Cultures of the Digital Economy (CoDE) institute guest talk:

From Cybertext to Produsage. Functioning and Production of Digital Texts
By Dr Robert Arpo, Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Monday 30/11, 16.00-17.30
Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge
Room: Helmore 252

Norwegian Espen Aarseth formulated his theory of cybertext and ergodic literature in mid 1990´s and focused his attention on how user, verbal sign and medium form a textual machine called cybertext. His point of view to the digital texts was user oriented, but the user was seen as an individual reader, whose actions were in the center of textual meaning construction.

Australian Axel Bruns has been formulating his theory of produsage recently and in context of so called social media. Bruns´s point of view raises questions on collective production of digital texts and is linked strongly to the dynamics of participatory economy.

When we look at theories of Aarseth and Bruns, they show us the changes in thinking on digital cultures. Technologies give nowadays users much more freedom to produce their own digital contents whereas in 1990´s user did not have access to for example source code of a publication platform like now the situation is with open access applications. Freedom brings also the need for taking responsibility of one´s own actions. Produser cultures are good examples of ways to control, direct and negotiate practices and principles in collective digital content production communities.

Robert Arpo, Ph.D. is principal lecturer in MA programme for media production and management, Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Finland. His research interests are in the area of virtual communities, digital dialogue, theories of information society and social media.

On Network Politics -- notes to self and the unknown reader

Our network politics networking-project kicks off officially October 1st, and we are in the midst of organizing some of the activities and themes which will form the backbone of the project. The project will feature both online-presence and activities, as well as events taking place in Cambridge and New York. We had yesterday the interesting idea of using the Request for Comments-format (RFC) as a media theoretical method of sorts, that kicks off from the initial question of "what is network politics?" and then proceeds through the RFC method - forking into new questions, streams, agendas. As the project is about networking, we find its important to map the field and crucial agendas, not just yet hope to provide final solutions. This is why the RFC idea (to quote from Wikipedia!) is intriguing: "Through the Internet Society, engineers and computer scientists may publish discourse in the form of an RFC, either for peer review or simply to convey new concepts, information, or (occasionally) engineering humor. The IETF adopts some of the proposals published as RFCs as Internet Standards." To adopt that to media theoretical and practical aims to facilitate discussion is an idea worthwhile to have a shot at, and to use it to develop concept-labs/networks for conveying new concepts, information...

Anyhow, I need to start writing some notes to self in terms of possible ways to go with the agenda, of what could be relevant in terms of topics to be covered somehow:

- politics of new networks and code platforms such as Twitter. E.g. Greg Elmer has been actively involved in this research. What kind of modes of organization, action and for example campaigning for political agencies such forms offer? This stream perhaps focuses on the question of how such technologies might deterritorialize the political landscape and praxis.

- Politics of networks as politics of invisibility: what kinds of forms of politics there are out there that are not even recognized as politics? This is a multilayered question, and relates both to perception of politics as well as the tactics of politics in the age of surveillance, visibility and software. Firstly, how should we address certain forms of tactical media, net art, etc. as forms of politics (and what are the tools to develop such understanding). Secondly, take Galloway and Thacker: "Future avant-garde practices will be those of nonexistence." Network politics can take as its form also becoming-invisible, becoming-nonexistent in order to avoid both the politics of representation as well as the techniques of trackings, surveillance and control. All of this relates to thinking of modes of activism, as well.

- Biopolitics of network culture that is characterized by "immaterial projects, including ideas, images, affects and relationships" (Hardt and Negri); how do such forms of production take form through social media as a standardisation and distribution of specific forms of relations, sociability, affects, and community? There is a wide range of excellent work already on this stream, from Tiziana Terranova's Network Culture-book (2004) to the forthcoming The Internet as Playground and Factory-conference in New York. (For a taste of what's coming, see e.g. McKenzie Wark's video interview on the topic.)

- The need for new tools for academic interaction -- tools which do not only quantifiably ease distribution and storage of research etc., but qualitatively enact a change in how academic institutions work in the age of late capitalism. Gary Hall's Digitize This Book! is a good point of entry to these debates, and what we hope to address somehow (e.g. through methods such as RFC potentially) is how the modes of relating to other scholars and production of information can be rethought in the context of network culture. Taking aboard Jodi Dean's excellent "warnings" in her "Communicative Capitalism"-article, this mode of academic interaction should not fall prey to any automated sociability that is offered as part of the assumption of goodness of all communication in network culture, but it should critically inspect ideas of open source, multimodal forms of academic debate and possibilities of network technologies to facilitate not just more-of-the-same but visions of 21st century arts and humanities agenda (which are not detached from science and tech.)

An aberrant text on social media -- to note the launch of Cool Mediators platform

Lesson 1 of social media culture: sociability is not inherent, its produced. All the discourse about naturality of belonging, participation, sociability should be taken as a product, not the starting point. In historical perspective things immediately turn out trickier. One could even say that the current "social turn" (referring to Web 2.0, social media, and all that) is even a bit surprising, understanding how recently crowds were deemed as dangerous, mindless and threatening. The hive mind was more of an index of dangers to democracy (both pre and post WWII). Swarms, human animality of irrational social groupings (the animality in us), collectives and such, were not automatically sources of creativity, hive minds of late capitalist sorts, but articulated together as a threat of Western civilization. Of course, the earliest examples of a much more positive stance towards e.g. emergence were to be found already in the 1910s research into insect worlds; for example the ant researcher's Wheeler's work is exemplary. Yet, the idea of mindless drone animality as represented as late as in the 1950s horror movies was an effective way of framing the non-human in us as dangerous. It seems like there would be a long way from such dangerous animalities to the productive, communicative, distributed animality of social media culture. Its the animality in current high tech media culture -- social media. Naturally Kropotkin knew this already a while ago, and his book from 100 years back Mutual Aid should be a key reference point in any genealogy of social media.

The realization that sociability must be produced and maintained is behind some ideas that try to consolidate possibilities of participation and novel communities; hence, I want to flag the launch of a cross-media platform project to catalyze discussions, a social media tool for academics, activists, etc. I would assume, knowing something about the creators Tania Goryucheva and Eric Kluitenberg's interests. It is planned as a tool to facilitate communication between online and offline communities, and equipped with tools that will probably turn out handy for the critical social media generation; web casting, automated archiving, etc. Might be of good relevance to our starting Network Politics project.

Launch at the De Balie, Amsterdam, September 10, 20.30, and online: www.coolmediators.net .