Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions

Organized Networks studies in network cultures Geert Lovink, Series Editor This book series 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. The book series is a collaboration between the Institute of Network Cultures (inc) and NAi Publishers. The Institute of Network Cultures was founded 2004 by its director Geert Lovink and is situated at the Amsterdam Polytechnic (HvA), as a research program inside the School for Interactive Media. Since its inception the inc has organized international conferences: A Decade of Web Design, Incommunicado: Information Technology for Everybody Else, Urban Screens, The Art and Politics of Netporn and MyCreativity, a convention on creative industries research. Series Coordinator: Sabine Niederer, Institute of Network Cultures. For more information on the series please visit www.networkcultures.org/naiseries. Organized Networks Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions Ned Rossiter NAi Publishers Institute of Network Cultures Design: Studio Tint, Huug Schipper, The Hague Cover design: Léon & Loes, Rotterdam Type setting and printing: Die Keure, Bruges, Belgium Binding: Catherine Binding Paper: Munken Lynx, 100 grs. Project coordination: Barbera van Kooij, NAi Publishers Publisher: Eelco van Welie, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam © 2006 the author, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or oth- erwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For works of visual artists affiliated with a cisac-organization the copyrights have been settled with Beeldrecht in Amsterdam. © 2006, c/o Beeldrecht Amsterdam NAi Publishers is an internationally orientated publisher specialized in developing, producing and distributing books on architecture, visual arts and related disciplines. www.naipublishers.nl [email protected] It was not possible to find all the copyright holders of the illustrations used. Interested parties are requested to contact NAi Publishers, Mauritsweg 23, 3012 JR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Available in North, South and Central America through D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers Inc, 155 Sixth Avenue 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013-1507, Tel 212 6271999, Fax 212 6279484. Available in the United Kingdom and Ireland through Art Data, 12 Bell Industrial Estate, 50 Cun- nington Street, London W4 5HB, Tel 208 7471061, Fax 208 7422319. Printed and bound in Belgium ISBN 90-5662-526-8/978-90-5662-526-9 Contents Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 13 Transdisciplinarity and the Legacy of Form 17 Informational Labour in the Creative Industries 24 Informational Universities and Neoliberalism as a Condition of Possibility 28 Collaboration and Governance in New Institutional Forms 33 Institutions Beyond Democracy 37 Diagram of Thought 41 Part i 1 Whose Democracy? ngos, Information Societies and Non-Representative Democracy 46 The Network Problematic 46 Networks and the Limits of Liberal Democracy 49 Multi-Stakeholderism and the Architecture of Net Politics 56 Scalar Tensions 60 Information Flows, Intellectual Property and Economic Development 65 2 The World Summit on the Information Society and Organized Networks as New Civil Society Movements 70 Global Governance and the World Summit on the Information Society 78 Institutional Scale and the Technics of Governance 88 Part ii 3 Creative Industries, Comparative Media Theory and the Limits of Critique from Within 98 Creative Industries, Intellectual Property Regimes and the 'New Economy' 103 Post-Negativity and the Logic of Immanence 114 Comparative Media Theory and the Constitutive Outside 125 4 Creative Labour and the role of Intellectual Property 133 Reflexivity and Empirical Research 135 Creativity, What's in a Name? 138 Intellectual Property and Creativity 141 Intellectual Property and the Labour Contract 142 Intellectual Property and (Dis)Organized Labour 145 Multitudes and the Exploitation of Network Sociality 149 Immaterial or Disorganized Labour? 156 Part iii 5 Processual Media Theory 166 New Media Empirics 169 Processual Aesthetics as Radical Empiricism 173 Feedback Loops and Dissipative Structures 181 The Art of Day Trading 185 Towards a Politics of Processual Time 192 6 Virtuosity, Processual Democracy and Organized Networks 196 Virtuosity and Processual Democracy 200 Organized Networks 205 Translation, Transduction and Individuation 208 Notes 216 Bibliography 240 Acknowledgements This book began as a PhD thesis, and I have Brian Shoesmith to thank for his long-term support and patience. Sean Cubitt, Helen Grace and McKenzie Wark examined that thesis, and their feedback has been most helpful in revising the texts gathered here. My writing has benefited from deadlines and audiences associated with many conferences, events and seminar papers, and I thank all those who either invited me to un- dertake some work or accepted my proposals. Much of this book has been published in earlier versions. Thanks to the many who have done editorial work on those texts, especially Jodi Dean, Chris Healy, Chris- tiane Paul, editors at RealTime broadsheet as well as various journal and conference reviewers. Two images from Michael Goldberg’s installation catchingafallingknife.com appear in this book, and I appreciate his permission to use them here. The University of Ulster has provided working conditions that en- able writing and research to be undertaken. For their ongoing support with funding and research, I thank Professor Máire Messenger Davies, Director of the Centre for Media Research and Professor Bob Welch, Dean of the Faculty of Arts. My colleagues at the Centre for Media Re- search and School of Media and Performing Arts have made an important difference to my life in Northern Ireland, especially Robert Porter, Daniel Jewesbury, Paul Willemen and Valentina Vitali. Thanks also to Paul Moore, Tony Langlois, Gail Baylis, Martin McLoone, Sarah Edge, Amy Davis, Barbara Butcher and Vladan Zdravkovic. I thank Dan Flem- ing for getting me to Northern Ireland in the first instance, even if he did leave shortly afterwards. This book has a long prehistory that I am certain tested the limits of my dear friends: Robyn Barnacle, Brent Allpress, Pia Ednie-Brown, Gina Moore, Gillian Warden, Daniel Palmer, Mike Hayes, Simon Cooper and David Holmes. Over a period of many years Jody Berland, Allen Chun and, more recently, Ien Ang and Sally Jane Norman have been particularly supportive. 7 organized networks Life in Europe and Australia has also been supported by the friendship and intellectual feedback from Julian Kücklich, Maren Hartmann, Katrien Jacobs, Dominic Pettman, Akseli Virtanen, Carlos Fernández, Linda Wallace, Mieke Gerritzen, Renata Kokanovic, Grisha Dolgopolov, Brian Holmes, Sandra Braman, Simon Busch and John Hutnyk. And life in China wouldn’t be the same without the friendship of Du Ping. These texts have benefited enormously from the critical feedback of Fibreculture and Nettime mailing lists. In so many ways this book was born on those lists, which have been a source of much inspiration and learning. Fibreculture in particular provided, for the first time in my life, a sense of material connection with broader intellectual and political currents. Esther Milne, Andrew Murphie, Anna Munster, Lisa Gye, David Teh, Chris Chesher, Gillian Fuller and Danny Butt have all taught me a lot and been wonderful friends. Feedback and critique from Esther and Andrew has been crucial in bringing this book to completion, and I thank both enormously for their help. Esther provided an especially close reading of the manuscript. Thanks also to respondents to the Fibreculture survey discussed in chapter 4. Much of this book was finished at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/Institute for Advanced Study in July 2006. I would like to thank Christine von Arnim for making arrangements that made that stay possible. Conversations and martinis with Catherine David and Samah Selim made all the difference. Sabine Niederer at the Institute of Network Cultures has negotiated this book through to publication, and I thank her for all her help. Thanks to Barbera van Kooij at NAi Publishers for taking this book on, and for guiding it through to print. D’Laine Camp did a fine job with copy-editing and I thank her for the hard work and care she put into this book. This book is in so many respects a collaborative effort. This is particularly the case with the guiding political concept and project of organized networks. Geert Lovink, Brett Neilson and Soenke Zehle have been immensely important friends and intellectual companions. I have a special thanks for Geert who has been an intellectual mentor and support- er of my work over the years. This book wouldn’t have happened without him. 8 acknowledgements My father, Richard Rossiter, and mother, Miranda Hamilton, and brothers Tom and Will have given me an incredible life and their love. My dad has been particularly supportive throughout this long period of research. He has also taught me how to read, how to teach and how to keep the madness of university personas at a distance. Ned Rossiter October, 2006 Previous versions or parts of chapters in this book have been published in other volumes, journals or magazines. I acknowledge the editors and publishers for permission to bring these texts together in this book. All chapters have been revised and developed for this book.

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