25 research outputs found
Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village
No full text16 commissioned artworks by Alex Veness to accompany text by Richard Barbrook, coordinator of the Hypermedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster. In the book: "Imaginary Futures From Thinking Machines to the Global Village". About the bookThis book is a history of the future. It shows how our contemporary understanding of the Net is shaped by visions of the future that were put together in the 1950s and 1960s.Richard Barbrook argues that at the height of the Cold War the Americans invented the only working model of communism in human history, the Internet. Yet, for all of its libertarian potential, the goal of this high-tech project was geopolitical dominance. The ownership of time was control over the destiny of humanity. The potentially subversive theory of cybernetics was transformed into the military-friendly project of "artificial intelligence." Capitalist growth became the fastest route to the "information society." The rest of the world was expected to follow America's path into the networked future.Today, we're still being told that the Net is creating the information society---and that America today is everywhere else tomorrow. Barbrook shows how this idea serves a specific geopolitical purpose. Thankfully, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the DIY ethic of the Net shows that people can resist these authoritarian prophecies by shaping information technologies in their own interest. Ultimately, if we don't want the future to be what it used to be, we must invent our own improved and truly revolutionary future.Richard Barbrook is the author of a number of highly influential essays on the clash between commerce and cooperation within the Net, including "The Hi-Tech Gift Economy," "Cyber-communism," and (with Andy Cameron) "The Californian Ideology." He has recently published a book on the social groups shaping the information society, The Class of the New. Barbrook is Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Art and Design at the University Westminster and is a trustee of cybersalon.org/
Imaginary futures: from thinking machines to the global village
No full text16 commissioned artworks by Alex Veness to accompany text by Richard Barbrook, coordinator of the Hypermedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster. About the bookThis book is a history of the future. It shows how our contemporary understanding of the Net is shaped by visions of the future that were assembled in the 1950s and 1960s.Richard Barbrook argues that at the height of the Cold War the Americans invented the only working model of communism in human history, the Internet. Yet, for all of its libertarian potential, the goal of this high-tech project was geopolitical dominance. The ownership of time was control over the destiny of humanity. The potentially subversive theory of cybernetics was transformed into the military-friendly project of "artificial intelligence." Capitalist growth became the fastest route to the "information society." The rest of the world was expected to follow America's path into the networked future.Today, we're still being told that the Net is creating the information society---and that America today is everywhere else tomorrow. Barbrook shows how this idea serves a specific geopolitical purpose. Thankfully, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the DIY ethic of the Net shows that people can resist these authoritarian prophecies by shaping information technologies in their own interest. Ultimately, if we don't want the future to be what it used to be, we must invent our own improved and truly revolutionary future.Richard Barbrook is the author of a number of highly influential essays on the clash between commerce and cooperation within the Net, including "The Hi-Tech Gift Economy," "Cyber-communism," and (with Andy Cameron) "The Californian Ideology." He has recently published a book on the social groups shaping the information society, The Class of the New. Barbrook is Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Art and Design at the University Westminster and is a trustee of cybersalon.org/
The eradication of Asian longhorned beetle at Paddock Wood, UK
No full textAbstract In March 2012, an outbreak of Anoplophora glabripennis was detected at Paddock Wood, Kent, UK. The epicentre of the outbreak was adjacent to a site that a company had used for storing imported stone in wood packaging. An eradication campaign was initiated involving the agencies responsible for plant health and forestry in England and Wales. The area was initially surveyed by visual inspection of standing trees from the ground and 24 infested trees were detected. This method was more effective for detecting trees with A. glabripennis exit holes than trees at an early stage of infestation. A further 42 infested trees were detected when the infested trees and host trees within 100 m of them were felled and the felled material was inspected. The most important host tree species was Acer pseudoplatanus (43 of the 66 infested trees). Tree climbers inspected the trees between 100 and 300 m of infested trees three times. They found damage caused by native pests that it had not been possible to detect from the ground but no A. glabripennis. Other surveillance techniques used were the regular inspection of favoured host trees over a wide area and the planting and regular inspection of favoured host trees in the core of the outbreak area. Pheromone trapping and the use of detection dog teams were trialled during the outbreak. Public meetings, leaflet drops, press releases, television features and school visits were all used to communicate with local residents and other stakeholders. No A. glabripennis were detected after the initial removal of trees in 2012 and eradication was declared after seven years of surveillance in 2019. The outbreak was likely to have been present for 10 or 11 years, but population development is likely to have been limited by the sub-optimal climatic conditions, especially the UK’s relatively cool summers
Ateliê da Aurora criança, mídia e imaginação: uma proposta de metodologia para construção de uma publicação na internet /
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico.Esta dissertação busca situar o debate atual sobre a Internet, nos aspectos da arquitetura da rede, organizações de mídia, jornalismo on-line e comunidades virtuais. Procura também mostrar algumas experiências que envolvem o usuário na produção de publicações na web. Tal enfoque visa embasar a sistematização de um modelo para a construção de um gênero informativo/comunicativo, desde o planejamento até a implementação em um caso real, destacando-se os atores e recursos envolvidos. É relatada a experiência de concepção e produção do web site "Ateliê da Aurora: criança, mídia e imaginação"
Class Wargames (Richard Barbrook and Ilze Black) play Guy Debord's Game of War, September 2008.
No full textA xenographic image that Veness originated and produced was used as the cover image for a 2018 book publication: 'Don't Network, the Avant Garde after Networks', author: Marc James Léger
Combining complexity-framed research methods for social research
No full text\ua9 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Research methods with roots in complexity science are increasingly popular in social research. However, they are not widespread and have potential to deliver value more fully and consistently to social research and methodology. One reason for this is that methods are often used alone, or only with traditional social research methods. We attempt to support and catalyse the use of complexity-framed methods in combination in social research, by systematically reviewing which methods framed in the language of complexity (not including traditional social research methods) have been combined, how, and why. We do this to make clear the state-of-the-art of combinations and to consider gaps and potential new combinations. We find many examples of different methods used together, with simulation methods well-represented. Most examples appear in recent years despite the methods, and interest in complexity, being around much longer. We identify four types of combination, seven purposes, and consider future directions
An investigation into contemporary online anti-feminist movements
No full textIn the early years of the popular internet, in the spirit of Donna Harraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (1985), many theorists then called “cyberfeminists” were optimistic about its potential for women’s liberation (Plant 1998, Spender 1995). This came as part of a broader wave of optimism about the information age and its democratic and economic potential (Wellman 1988, Castells 1996, Negroponte 1995, Kelly 1998). While a significant body of critical literature emerged in response to what was seen as a utopian narrative in general (Van Zoonen 2001, Henwood 2003, Barbrook and Cameron 1995), much of this early utopian and cyberfeminist fervour has seen a re- emergence in popular political and cultural discussion again in recent years, with the Arab Spring, framed as a series of social media revolutions, the emergence of the internet-centric Occupy movement, “hacktivism” and the explosion of online feminism (Penny 2013, Mason 2011). However, along with this renewed feminist optimism, there had also been a less discussed growth of anti-feminist online cultures. Expressions of misogyny previously unthinkable in the public sphere now appear anonymously on popular social media platforms, such as Twitter. Interestingly, this new transgressive antifeminism identifies as countercultural more than conservative and pro-family or men’s rights based as it has done in the past, and its locus, an infamous taboo- busting forum called 4chan/b/, is also the point of origin of the hackers known as Anonymous and of the symbolism of the egalitarian Occupy movement. With reference to existing analyses on online misogyny and anti-feminism (Shaw 2014, Jane 2014, Penny 2014) on the relevant geek and hacker online spaces (Coleman 2014, Phillips 2012) and drawing on a wealth of literature about historical cultural parallels (Reynolds and Press 1995) this study aims to investigate this transgressive countercultural-identifying antifeminism, to locate it, understand its origins and to unpack its cultural politics
Ambivalent elites and conservative modernizers : studying sideways in transnational contexts ; paper for the conference 'Alltag der Globalisierung. Perspektiven einer transnationalen Anthropologie', January 16-18, 2003, Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main
No full textSpacially dispersed transnational professional communities can be perceived of as cultural formations living in a global frame of reference, transgressing existing political and cultural boundaries. In their capacity as members of local technical and knowledgebased elites, they take part in circulating and connecting cultural meanings that are both locally produced, and continuously re-working non- local flows. I argue that those elites can be described as actors at cultural interfaces, taking part in shaping and mediating social change. The aim is twofold: one, to point to mutually opposed tendencies, and ambivalences in the framework of a „culture of change“, and two, to look into the question how such situations and groups can be methodologically approached
From page to screen : placing hypertext fiction in an historical and contemporary context of print and electronic literary experiments
No full textOnly recently has our perception of the computer, now a familiar and ubiquitous element of
everyday life, changed from seeing it as a mere tool to regarding it as a medium for creative
expression. Computer technologies such as multimedia and hypertext applications have
sparked an active critical debate not only about the future of the book format, ("the late age
of print" {Bolter} is only one term used to describe the shift away from traditional print
media to new forms of electronic communication) but also about the future of literature.
Hypertext Fiction is the most prominent of proposed electronic literary forms and strong
claims have been made about it: it will radically alter concepts of text, author and reader,
enable forms of non-linear writing closer to the associative working of the mind, and make
possible reader interaction with the text on a level impossible in printed text.
So far the debate that has attempted to put hypertext fiction into a historical perspective
has linked it to two developments. Firstly the developments in computer technology that
made hypertext not only possible but also widely accessible and secondly a tradition of
postmodern theory, where characteristics attributed to hypertext echo concepts of
fragmentation, multiplicity and instability that theorists like Barthes and Derrida have
formulated previously and that have led to the notion of hypertext as an "authentic, yet
functional postmodern form" {Roberts}
A third element that is not generally subject to critical evaluation is the practice of
(post)modern writing in which a number of authors consciously break with the linearity of
print conventions in favour for a more fragmented narrative and presentation as well as
actively inviting the reader's participation in what Barthes calls "writerly" text. There are two
reasons why these "proto-hypertexts" have been widely ignored or dismissed: Hypertext is
still widely define as exclusive to the electronic realm and is furthermore generally
perceived in oppositional pairs in contrast to print, i.e. non-linear vs. linear and interactive
vs. passive, which conceptually does not leave room for a study of an "evolution" out of
existing forms of writing practice.
By examining hypertext fiction in a context of print experiments (Cortazar, Borges, B.S.
Johnson, Andreas Okopenko, Raymond Queneau, Miroslav Pavic, Italo Calvino) and also in
a context of other forms of digital literary experimentation (collaborative projects and
computer-generated writing), this thesis aims to, on a diachronic level, reincorporate
hypertext fiction into an evolutionary (though radical) literary tradition and examines the
manner in which concepts which originated in this tradition have been taken over often
very literally and without much redefinition. On the a-historical, synchronic level, this study
explores some of the possible formats for literature in the new electronic textual media:
hypertext fiction, collaborative writing projects, computer-generated writing and the
different challenges these present to our understanding ofliterature.
After an introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and 3 discuss two of the keywords of
hypertext theory, its "grand narratives' (non-linearity and interactivity) and the
appropriation of the terminology to hypertext theory and to hypertext fiction. Chapter 4
and 5 will look at alternative, though related, approaches to electronic fiction: Chapter 4 will
examine aspects of collaborative writing in both a print and a digital environment while
computer-generated writing stands at the centre of Chapter 5
