No. 12 I May 2010 DOSSIER
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The Humanities in the Digital Era No. 12 I May 2010 DOSSIER From the digitization of culture to digital culture Pau Alsina (coord.) Lecturer, Arts and Humanities Department, UOC [email protected] CONTENTS Presentation .......................................................................................................................... 1 Pau Alsina Some thoughts on Digital Culture .......................................................................................... 3 Charlie Gere Avatar = Pinocchio 2.0 or “The end of the Society of the Spectacle” ..................................... 8 Derrick de Kerckhove Another Life: social cooperation and a-organic life ............................................................... 14 Tiziana Terranova Democracy, innovation and digital culture ........................................................................... 20 Rodrigo Savazoni Digital culture as a converging paradigm for technology and culture: Challenges for the culture sector .......................................................................................... 25 Aleksandra Uzelac RECOMMended CitAtiON: ALSINA, Pau (coord.) (2010). “�F��������������rom the digitiz������������������������������������ation of culture to digital culture” [��������������online dossier]. Digithum. No. 12. UOC. [Accessed: dd/mm/yy]. <http://digithum.uoc.edu/ojs/index.php/digithum/article/view/n12-alsina/n12-from-the-digitization-of-culture-to- digital-culture> ISSN 1575-2275 Digithum No. 12 (May, 2010) | ISSN 1575-2275 A scientific e-journal published by the Arts and Humanities Department Universitat Oberta de Catalunya The Humanities in the Digital Era http://digithum.uoc.edu Presentation From the digitization of culture to digital culture Pau Alsina Lecturer, Arts and Humanities Department, UOC [email protected] Date submitted: April, 2010 Date accepted: April, 2010 Date published: May, 2010 Definitions of many kinds have been generated throughout his- culture itself: does it really need specific treatment depending on tory and by many disciplines for the broad term ‘culture’. These its underlying material substrates? Or does digital culture refer to definitions fall into two basic groups. First there is the humanistic a modus operandi and a specific essence that confers culture with concept of culture, which views culture as referring to all kinds of additional properties? If so, what is digital culture? And more to cultural productions, including arts such as literature, music and the point, given that so many areas of human action have been the visual and performing arts. Then there is the anthropological digitized and that the frontiers between the digitization of culture concept of culture, which understands culture to be any human and digital culture are melting away, does it make any sense to manifestation and the product of a specific way of living, feeling study the part without considering the whole? and doing. Since information and communication technologies (ICTs) Today these two basic concepts, with their many spinoffs and came into our lives, they have inspired technophiles and tech- offshoots, are juxtaposed in theoretical and practical discussions nophobes, utopias and dystopias of all kinds. In the long history of all kinds, causing a certain degree of confusion, debate and of humankind there have been fervent defenders of the inherent conflict in culture strategy plans, state support programmes and benefits of new technologies that offered the potential to change subsidies, action plans of culture centres, art institutions, cultural many of the foundations of culture and so develop a new cultural festivals, etc. ‘Culture’ as a term is difficult to define, contain or paradigm. As for the ICTs, they have many detractors who are confine; it aims to embrace all reality, in a failed attempt to bring critical of their alleged benefits and who fail to see technological it into an all-encompassing and universal culture. innovation as an agent for structural change or that the ICTs have If, rather than a fixed set of practices and interpretations, anything new to contribute to an already consolidated culture we understand culture to be a process in which meanings are and society. produced and exchanged —in other words, a process in which Since the advent of the ICTs, there have been fervently opti- meanings are appropriated, negotiated and contrasted— then mistic discourses associated with their impact on culture. They are culture is clearly a dynamic process rather than an immutable conceived as essentially democratizing and as devoid of power and essence. Culture, when understood as a dynamic system with control, as the result of their allegedly non-hierarchical horizontal- flows of people, information and products, adopts different forms ity. Recall the unrealistic expectations regarding e-commerce in in response to dynamic models of the relationships between indi- the early internet years and, more recently, regarding the partici- viduals, societies and territories. patory dynamics of the all-encompassing web 2.0; consider the The term ‘digital culture’ sits uneasily within the inherent dyna- expectations generated by the potential of computer simulation mism of culture, as it restricts and delimits something as free and and calculation in the context of virtual reality substituting for open as we understand culture to be. Does digital culture have physical presence, the exaggerated claims regarding developments a set of specific distinguishing characteristics of its own? Should in artificial intelligence, and experiments with artificial life repro- digital culture be treated separately from the rest of culture? And ducing the properties of what we understand to be life. Today Digithum, no. 12 (May 2010) | ISSN 1575-2275 A scientific e-journal published by the Arts and Humanities Department 1 PauFederico Alsina Borges Sáiz Universitat Oberta de Catalunya The Humanities in the Digital Era http://digithum.uoc.edu From the digitization of culture to digital culture we can up- or down-grade many such expectations generated Charlie Gere, from Lancaster University in the United King- in the early years of the development of digital culture —and dom, discusses some of the implications of the changes brought likewise with the influence of the ICTs on culture— given how about by digital technologies in relation to the concepts of subject, the potential attached to the imaginary of the digital compares consumer and community. Derrick de Kerckhove, director of the with the effectiveness of the real. McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Many kinds of technophiles and technophobes, technological Toronto, reflects on changes in the relationship between passive utopias and dystopias have arisen in response to the different types spectators and active participants in the mass popularization of of technologies prevailing at particular times in history. Adopting the three-dimensional technologies and in connection with the a stance that is neither fatalistically pessimistic nor exacerbatedly imaginary associated with virtual reality. optimistic, however, today we can state —in view of the knowl- From Naples, the academic Tiziana Terranova contrasts certain edge gained from our experience with ICTs in recent years— that key concepts of the political economy of culture, questioning the ICTs have undoubtedly brought and are bringing about significant alternative nature of new forms of cooperative social production changes in our sociocultural context. We are thus in a position to associated with the specific contributions of digital culture, and draw a sufficiently realistic picture of the transformations currently exploring how this cooperation may offer a real alternative to under way in culture and society. the logic of the competition-based market as the basis for new This dossier aims to provide a multifaceted view and a number forms of production. From São Paulo, Rodrigo Savazoni shares of perspectives on what has been termed ‘digital culture’ and on his thoughts and experiences regarding participatory dynamics the impact of the digital technologies in the field of culture in its in the Brazilian Digital Culture Forum, positing the existence of broadest sense. It contains contributions from leading theorists a close tie between democracy, innovation and digital culture. and activists involved in the development and analysis of digital Finally, Aleksandra Uzelak from Zagreb describes the potential of culture. Coming from different parts of the world, they depart digital technologies for the culture sector and argues for the need from the local yet offer a global vision of digital culture. to seek ways to properly fulfil that potential. Digithum, no. 12 (May 2010) | ISSN 1575-2275 A scientific e-journal published by the Arts and Humanities Department 2 Pau Alsina Universitat Oberta de Catalunya The Humanities in the Digital Era http://digithum.uoc.edu From the digitization of culture to digital culture Some thoughts on Digital Culture* Charlie Gere Head of the Department of Media, Film and Cultural Studies, Lancaster University (UK) [email protected] Submission date: April, 2010 Accepted date: April, 2010 Published in: May, 2010 Abstract This essay considers some of the implications of the momentous changes being brought about by new digital technologies, particularly in relation to conceptions of the subject, the consumer and community. Keywords web 2.0, digital culture, internet of things Algunes reflexions