Geert Lovink - Lectures / Workshops / Seminars
POLITICS AND AESTHETICS OF THE WEB 2.0 (3 Credits)
Geert Lovink
Description: During this seminar we will look both at the general features of network cultures such comments and the role of criticism and look into specific internet platforms and functionalities such as blogging, search, Wikipedia, social media and online video. The critical understanding of 'Web 2.0' will then be used to get a better idea how the mainstream news and media industries are utilizing 'social media', how artists are responding to this new condition and how activists are using these tools, for instance during the so-called Arab spring and by the #Occupy Everything movement.
Required Reading:
Lovink, Geert. Networks Without a Cause. Polity Press. 2012. Paperback, 220 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0745649688. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Related publications of the Institute of Network Cultures will be handed out during the course. You can download them also here as pdfs: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/overview/
WEB 2.0: Critical Inquiries. (3 credits)
Geert Lovink, Ph.D.
Description: This workshop will focus on critical methodologies for studying Web 2.0. In relation to the contemporary Internet, there is an obvious need to move beyond cultural studies approaches to fandom, where ‘active consumption’ is simply recast as participatory culture without any assessment of the economic and technological forces driving ‘user-generated content’. Rather than relying on the Henry Jenkins- style models of convergence and the refrain of collective intelligence, this workshop will encourage participants to consider the alternative possibilities and theoretical problems facing a materialist understanding of network culture.
Objectives: We will attempt to understand to what extent can the ‘geek theory’ of software studies move from tech-heavy specifications to outline a broader analytics of power? What sort of creative concepts are available for understanding the everyday practices of blogging? How can organized networks transform their current dependence on free labor to reach greater economic sustainability?
Learning Outcomes: While the theme is framed in part by Geert Lovink’s ongoing theoretical work, this workshop additionally allows for the opportunity to discuss some of the more general difficulties facing Internet research, including questions of scale, speed and temporality, theories of technology, debates around networked politics and modes of collaboration.
Course Outline: The main themes and key topics include: Organized networks; Theories of blogging; Recent Web 2.0 literature (Lacy, Bruns, Jonathan L. Zittrain, Clay Shirky); Theories of collaboration and 'free cooperation'; Software studies and protocol (Buckminster Fuller, Galloway, Kelty); Distributed aesthetics; Youtube and the visual studies approach; Free labor and precarity.
Required Readings:
Geert Lovink, Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture, New York: Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 0415973163. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Geert Lovink, Zero Comments: Elemente einer kritischen Internetkultur. Transkript Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany. Language: German. ISBN: 3899428048. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Geert Lovink and Trebor Scholz (eds), The Art of Free Cooperation, New York: Autonomedia, 2007. ISBN: 978-15-7027-177-9. Paperback & DVD, 192 pages, $20. This publication is based on an event of the same name organised by the authors in Buffalo, New York, in April 2005. See also www.freecooperation.org. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Geert Lovink, The Principle of Notworking: Concepts in Critical Internet Culture, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005. Inaugural speech as director of the Institute of Network Cultures, also available in French, Hindu and Dutch. ISBN 90-5629-380-X. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Geert Lovink, My First Recession: Critical Internet Culture in Transition, Rotterdam: V2_NAi Publishers, 2003. ISBN: 9056623532. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Geert Lovink, Internet non e il paradiso: Reti sociali e critica della cibercultura, Milano: Apogeo srl, 2004. Language: Italian. ISBN 88-503-2273-9. Paperback, 320 pages. 8850322739. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Geert Lovink, Uncanny Networks: Dialogues with the Virtual Intelligentsia, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 0262122510. Paperback, 390 pages. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Geert Lovink, Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 0262621800. Paperback, 394 pages. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.