GEERT LOVINK DYNAMICS OF CRITICAL INTERNET CULTURE (1994–2001) AN ARCHIVE OF CONTENT PRODUCTION PUBLISHED BY THE INSTITUTE OF NETWORK CULTURES ISSUE NO.: 1 GEERT LOVINK DYNAMICS OF CRITICAL INTERNET CULTURE (1994–2001) DYNAMICS OF CRITICAL INTERNET CULTURE 5 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 4 Introduction Currents in Critical Internet Culture 5 Chapter One 29 Theory on Demand #1 Post-speculative Internet Theory Three Positions: Castells, Dreyfus, Lessig Dynamics of Critical Internet Culture An Archive of Content Production Chapter Two 43 Anatomy of Dotcommania Author: Geert Lovink Overview of Recent Literature Editorial support: Ned Rossiter Chapter Three 69 Design: Katja van Stiphout The Amsterdam Digital City Printer: ‘Print on Demand’ Glory and Demise of a Community Network Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2009 ISBN: 978-90-78146-07-0 Chapter Four 89 Nettime and the Moderation Question Submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Boundaries of Mailinglist Culture November 2002, English Department University of Melbourne Chapter Five 123 Special thanks to: Scott McQuire and Nikos Papastergiadis and the University of Melbourne. Deep Europe and the Kosovo Conflict A History of the V2_East/Syndicate Network Contact Chapter Six 16 3 Institute of Network Cultures Principles of Streaming Sovereignty phone: +3120 5951863 A History of the Xchange Network fax: +3120 5951840 email: [email protected] Conclusion 193 web: http://www.networkcultures.org From Lists to Weblogs This publication is available through various print on demand services. Bibliography 217 For more information, and a freely downloadable pdf: http://networkcultures.org/theoryondemand. This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works 3.0 Netherlands License. No article in this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the author. 6 THEORY ON DEMAND DYNAMICS OF CRITICAL INTERNET CULTURE 7 INTRODUCTION CURRENTS IN CRITICAL INTERNET CULTURE “Are you living in today’s world?” Marshall McLuhan 90s Internet Culture The topic discussed here is set against the backdrop of a fast growing medium. Over a decade the Internet population has grown from a few million, mostly academics, to nearly half a billion.1 In 1993 the ARPANET Internet backbone was commercialized and companies established their presence on the Net. This development coincided with the release of Mosaic, the first World- WideWeb browser. From now on stand-alone desktop PCs were able to exchange information through the ‘network of networks.’ After storage and computation growth and the rise of graphic interfaces the IT-revolution got into network frenzy. With the WWW, users no longer had to learn commands and type them into UNIX command lines but could easily click buttons. It was Wired magazine, launched in January 1993, which successfully established a ‘cool’ interface between IT- geeks and the business world of venture capital. An explosive mix of software, underground culture and commerce was created. This technoculture had its epi centre on the US-Westcoast, Abstract but its concepts spread like wildfire over the globe. This study examines the dynamics of critical Internet culture after the medium opened to a broad- er audience in the mid 1990s. The core of the research consists of four case studies of non- The period of 1993-1997 could be considered the golden age of Internet hype. The ‘short summer profit networks: the Amsterdam community provider, The Digital City (DDS); the early years of of the Internet’ is a tale of electronic frontiers explored by early pioneers facing numerous techni- the nettime mailinglist community; a history of the European new media arts network Syndicate; cal obstacles (unstable connections and software) while fueling the collective imagination with and an analysis of the streaming media network Xchange. The research describes the search for utopian promises of seamless bandwidth, online freedom, global intelligence and unheard com- sustainable community network models in a climate of hyper growth and increased tensions and mercial opportunities. The dissemination of the Internet was perceived by many (non-US citizens) conflict concerning moderation and ownership of online communities. as a sign of American unilateral supremacy in the post-Cold War period. The myth of the Internet in this period is one of America’s invincibility.2 Internet users outside of the US had come to terms with the specific US-American values of this global medium. There were two responses. For some the Internet had to be appropriated and freed of specific US-American values in order to become Acknowledgements a truly global medium. For those who remained skeptical outsiders, the medium was just another I would like to thank my supervisors Scott McQuire and Nikos Papastergiadis for their enormous symbol of the victory of (US-led) neo-liberal free market capitalism. This study is written from the efforts to make this PhD happen. Without the support of the University of Melbourne, which pro- first position. It looks into the way developers and early- user communities tried to acquire and vided me with an international scholarship, this research would not have happened. Intellectual then shape the rapidly growing and changing Internet environment, supporting some of the liber- and editorial support also came from Ned Rossiter. Thanks also to Mr. Snow and Felipe Rodriguez tarian values (anti-censorship), while criticizing others (neo-liberal market populism). for crucial computer tech support. It was my wife, Linda Wallace, who carefully read through the manuscript and gave me the love, support and confidence to focus on writing throughout 2002. The thesis is dedicated to our son Kazimir who was born on January 22, 2002. 1. See www.isc.org for statistical details. When counting started in August 1981 there were 213 Internet hosts. In January 1991 this had grown to 376.000. This number grew to 43.230.000 in 1999. For a Melbourne, November 29, 2002 brief history of the Internet, see:www.isoc.org/internet-history/brief.html and Bruce Sterling’s short his- tory of the Internet from 1993: http://www.forthnet.gr/forthnet/isoc/short.history.of.internet. Geert Lovink 2. US invincibility is symbolized in the Microsoft slogan “The Best just got Better”. 8 THEORY ON DEMAND DYNAMICS OF CRITICAL INTERNET CULTURE 9 The material and reflections assembled here take as their starting point the economic and po- through thousands of individual postings, looking for general patterns and significant quotes. litical bias and blind spots of the still dominant cyber-libertarian ideology. This is why the prime From the list archives I selected a number of significant threads and then did a close reading of a object of net criticism remains techno-libertarianism, despite its demise after the dotcom crash particular debate. The basis for selection has been motivated by instances whereby the discursive and 911. Central to techno-libertarianism is the belief that the state is the main enemy of the limits of online debate manifested in terms of an articulation of social, political, economic and Internet and only market forces can create a decentralized communication system, accessible for cultural dimensions within the time and space of the mailinglist itself. Email filtering and critically everyone. Even now, despite the dotcom crash and growing monopolies, the Net is still presented selecting website links are essential activities in order to not get overwhelmed by the vast amount to an ever expanding group of (usually young, white and male) developers as a ‘pure’ medium; of online information. This problematic is addressed throughout this thesis. In the filtering process an abstract mathematical environment, untouched by society, neutral of class, gender or race, I searched for general discursive patterns and shifts in the exchanges, and then selected a limited capable of ‘routing around’ the problems caused by the dirty old world outside.3 number of postings. I combined a detailed analysis of web archives with my personal knowledge as a participant in each of these networks. In each of the four cases it has been essential that I Around the mid-nineties the discursive emphasis of techno-libertarianism shifted from the Cali- have had first-hand knowledge about the players. There is a curious proximity here with regard fornian alternative underground culture to the rightwing-libertarian agenda, symbolized by the to the presence of the event within a technicity of deterritorialized information flows. And it is author and technology newsletter publisher George Gilder. The ‘New Economy’ movement found precisely this relationship which drives both theoretical and methodological considerations in this its political leader in the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The agenda was one of organized study. greed, deregulation, less state and more market. There was a common belief amongst techno- libertarians that by further pushing the technological revolution onto society, social inequalities No matter how urgent or attractive, it is not my intention to do a discourse analysis of the domi- and the ‘digital divide’ would disappear over time.4 Many Internet developers were not interested nant techno-libertarian Internet agenda with its anti-statism and preoccupation with biological in, or even aware of, the conservative agenda of these Wired cover idols. As Europe and most metaphors. My aim is a limited one. I am mapping out the diverse spaces that constitute critical of the world lagged behind the uptake of the Internet there was little or no critical discourse that Internet culture. What is presented here is a ‘communicology’ (Vilem Flusser) or grammar (Mar- could formulate an alternative agenda. Al Gore’s 1992 dream of an ‘information superhighway,’ shall McLuhan) of the Internet. I am looking into the internal dynamics of those who did not follow built as a public project, comparable to the motor highways of the thirties, quickly faded away.