Tue 24 August 2010
15:00–16:30h
Volkshochschule Dortmund, L 103

Hosted by DATA browser and Neural
Moderated by Geoff Cox and Alessandro Ludovico (gb)

The panel explores some of the paradoxes of social media and intends to engage critically with really existing examples. Although popular platforms facilitate unprecedented levels of sharing, the social relation is arguably produced in restrictive form, and personal and collective exchanges are further commodified. But instead of refusal we should recognise that this is another site of struggle unfolding under particular conditions and with a particular history.

1. 15:00h | Geoff Cox (gb): Introducing Really Existing Social Media
2. 15:15h | Alessandro Ludovico (it): [Id]entities as a Multilayered Self. The Individual Pervasiveness of Social Networks
3. 15:30h | Rui Guerra (pt/nl): Online Communities and Client-Server Architectures
4. 15:45h | Katrien Jacobs (cn): Lizzy Kinsey and the Adult Friend Finders
5. 16:00h | Florian Cramer (nl): Analog Media as (Anti-)Social Networking

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | P22 Really Existing Social Media (PDF, 98.3 KB)

Geoff Cox (gb)

Introducing Really Existing Social Media

The panel explores some of the paradoxes of social media, its promises and its shortcomings. Although popular platforms facilitate unprecedented levels of sharing, the social relation is arguably produced in restrictive form, and personal and collective exchanges are further commodified. But is refusal to use such platforms effective? The intention is not to make the mistake of imagining utopian alternatives as such (as the analogy to socialism might suggest, and only be disappointed with the lived reality) but to engage critically with really existing examples.

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | Introducing Really Existing Social Media (PDF)

Geoff Cox is currently a Researcher in Digital Aesthetics, Center for Digital Urban Living, Aarhus University (DK), Associate Curator of Online Projects, Arnolfini (GB), adjunct faculty of Transart Institute (DE/US), and a co-editor of the DATA browser series (with Autonomedia).

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Alessandro Ludovico (it)

[Id]entities as a Multilayered Self. The Individual Pervasiveness of Social Networks

The dissolution of the identity as we used to know it (before the networks) has led to an ongoing fragmented and fast evolution. In a networked society, identities can be formed by extremely varied and juxtaposed layers of what results finally as an enriched self. In fact there's a constant mediation that is applied to every single identity through multiple platforms and standards usually identified with the popular web 2.0 expression.

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | [Id]entities as a Multilayered Self. The Individual Pervasiveness of Social Networks (PDF)

Alessandro Ludovico is a media critic and chief editor of Neural magazine since 1993. He is one of the founders of the Mag.Net (Electronic Cultural Publishers) organization, has been a research fellow at the Willem de Kooning Academy, and served as an advisor for the Documenta 12's Magazine Project.

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Rui Guerra (pt)

Online Communities and Client-Server Architectures

Exchange on on-line social networks occurs under the auspices of equal participation on platforms that in fact are privately owned and controlled. The centralization of control existing in communities based on the Web is not specific to some platforms but it is inherent to the Web client-server architecture. In order to change the power relations existing on on-line communities it is fundamental to revise the ownership of their foundations. Networks based on peer-to-peer architectures are an alternative to privately owned infrastructures and an alternative to server-client architectures.

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | Online Communities and Client-Server Architectures (PDF)

Rui Guerra is involved in open source culture with a critical view on communities. Besides teaching at the The Royal Academy of Art (the Hague) and working at V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam), he has initiated several self-organized events and developed participatory art projects.

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Katrien Jacobs (cn)

Lizzy Kinsey and the Adult Friend Finders

This project investigates web users, their sexual behaviours and self-representations as observed on the sex and dating site adultfriendfinder. Lizzy Kinsey plunges into the site and its euphoric Web 2.0 rhetoric to monitor hidden tensions behind a collective adoption of raw and raunchy cybertypes.

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | Lizzy Kinsey and the Adult Friend Finders (PDF)

Katrien Jacobs is a scholar, curator and artist in the field of new media and sexuality and works as assistant professor at City University of Hong Kong. She has written books about sex art and internet pornography. Her work can be found at libidot

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Florian Cramer (nl)

Analog Media as (Anti-)Social Networking

The current renaissance of low-tech analog media - xerox fanzines, DIY audio cassettes, Super-8 film - should not simply be seen as a retro phenomenon, but as an artistic reclaiming of the notion of social media.

ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | Analog Media as (Anti-)Social Networking (PDF)

Florian Cramer is head of the research programme Communication in a Digital Age at the Piet Zwart institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam University, the Netherlands.

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