Stalder - Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks

The Notebook project
• new tech = new forms of collaborative work based on volunteering and gift economy
• from OS to human comm and prod @ large
• both are one-channeled

Intro
• culture - systems of meaning articulated through material and immaterial symbols -- is becoming digital; physical objects are designed digitally, digital works are easily copied, remixed, etc
• FLOSS good ex. of quality product w/out ownership (link to Bradley article)
• dev. of new grammar of digi culture
• new ideas of what it means to be creative
• artists are caught in the middle
• new comm tech - more and more of the processes we participate in or are affected by are organized as networks, rather than trad. hierarchies
• better collective undertakings
• critiques of open cultures
• Castells - space of flows i.e. the material infrastructure to organize translocality based on information flows

The Stuff of Culture
• What is culture made of (link to Terranova article)
• approaches to culture
• 1) discrete objects - meaning is inherent not relational
• timeless work of art, inventors, statement, recording
• 2) processes (continuous) chain reaction of events, what happens between people
• process of creation, scientific community, conversation, live performance
• these two are conflicting
• culture consists of both - objects and exchanges
• how do they relate to each other?
• does not need to be an either/or situation
• oral culture vs. writing (writing as a fixed idea)
• in oral cultures, maintaining culture was done through exchange, retelling, infinite versions of the same material
• writing means putting fluid into fixed
• printing press - which objects could spread
• mech recording of sound and images - a distinct class of producers was born = artists!
• authorship became an issue in the 18th C
• copyright introduced by mech rep of culture (link to Benjamin article)
• still too cumbersome so most culture remained as fluid as its materiality allowed
• issue of relevance only to specialists
• art became object and thus were circulated as objects
• this view was solidified in the 20th C through the "interlocking complex of moral legal and social practices" (14)
• all of this is now changing
• 1) now we seek to understand how to establish a new balance - increase in media literacy means more people are able to consume cultural objects
• increase in markets and industries dedicated to them
• 2) digital techs have made cultural prod cheap and distribution easy and cheap
• this means a transformation in the materiality of objects
• "from analogue objects to digital flows" (14) this means its harder to differentiate the object from the exchanges, diff relationship to source material ** (important when thinking about archives)
• object-oriented vs exchange oriented conceptions of culture --> not the same as the distinction between material and immaterial
• eg objects for circulation (trophies) - the value is within the social relationship it embodies
• eg. money as a means of comm
• digi techs enable infinite prefect copies, but non-rival in consumption (one copy doesn't deplete)
• global informational capitalism argues that the immaterial should be regulated like the material (link to Murray article and to Lessig)
• vs.
• open digital networked culture is exchange-oriented, more like a conversation
• two-way relationship bw fixed and fluid
• imposing a one-way relationship creates a culture of consumption , sellers n buyers
• broadcast - few channels in self contained medium- pervasive but isolated
• analogue quality supported object character of the products i.e. viewer can't change what is on TV (link to Willis book/ video art history)
• so there was no need to CONTROL the USER
• but now with network comms expanding, bringing together various media
• the Net is about private and public comm, work and play, business and activism
• social participation
• digital as 2way nature - enable anyone to transform fixed cultural objects into fluid cultural exchanges
• users now need to be controlled (link to Foucault)
• boundaries erode through personal uses, penetrates into social life

What is at Stake
• A) Lessig's permission culture
• hard distinction bw prod and cons, bw sender and receiver
• permission can be withheld for no particular reason
• digital rights management
• culture of media conglomerates and global stars
• place of the artist ambivalent
• control of source materials increasing
• artists - wealth and fame, gifted ind
• B) free access to raw material of creativity other people's work to be embodied in one's own
• collaborative
• reaching audiences and accessing other's works
• particularly important for specialized audiences
• double-edge sword//promise
• A) enlarges the range of people who can appreciate the works - good for rep building
• B) undermines an important income strea for artists - ie sale of works
• can artists become providers of specialized services?
• work on basis of commissions and grants
• some art has no sellable format
• creates new kinds o dependencies potentially undermining the freedom of art so crucial to the culture of modernity
• social capital for artists - eroding
• controversy bw object vs exchange visions of culture being fought legally, technologically (DMR) and economic, but also in the field of CULTURE itself - i.e. interpret and create new forms of meaning

Open Source Open Society
• society relies more and more on software
• FLOSS - collab w/ diff motivations - money, recognition, pleasure, politics, etc
• prop software - also dev large group, diff ind. reasons but single dominant collective agenda, that of company
• hidden devs like NSAkey or real.com
• these features are hidden and they are hidden bc people don't want them
• FLOSS - features exposed to users (open code)
• FLOSS license
• GNU - works stay accessible
• empowers user
• more stable, cleaner, more neutral
• cheap/low $ allows social groups to use the power bw devs and users
• link bw money and knowledge
• dev countries using FLOSS
• BUT requires high tech expertise
• aiming to expand - the more ubiquitous, the more important
• diverse interest access to same code (link to Benkler book) [does this imply that code is neutral?] [are there feminist critiques of copyright?]
• general shift from commodity to service-based economy
• doubts that FOSS represents a prod paradigm that can transform the fundamentally capitalist character to the info economy
• culture without commodities
• punk rock as short lived resistance
• conflict bw commodity culture and culture without commodities
•
• rational and global conglomerates
• rapid growth w/ constrained creativity
• need to predict profits --> "rational investments"
• mode of mainstream more conservative - bc investments only high certainty of positive returns
• eg. formulaic Hollywood films
• cultural industry as franchise = reduced risk
•
Culture w/out commodities
• selling not central, rather recognition by small # of people (who matter) = cultural niche eg. fan zines
• Dada art praised the creativity of children and punk .. destroying the myth of the artists as a specially gifted
• lack of access to diff means of comm kept these cultures in the margins (link to Benkler book)
• mainstream vs. elitist (art for art's sake)
•
• Bypassing the Gatekeepers
• 90s Internet as rare hist moment
• Internet as new cultural space
• Internet as rival/exceed global reach + efficiency of the dist mechanisms of cult. industries
• bypassing gatekeepers (ubu)
• "information wants to be free"
• serious threat to economic foundations of established order
•
Freedom of Creation vs Control of Consumption
• control of content needs to be airtight bc once it is out, it is impossible to control
• IP "is the new gate which the cultural ind want to erect in order to regain their strategic and highly profitable position" (27)
• 1) new laws - extension of IP regimes, extending copyright
• public domain getting smaller
• new tech - under DRM, restricting use
• no copies made under any circumstances
• voids fair use/fair dealings provision
• for edu + art purposes
• piracy as terrorism
• prohibitionist mentality (has always failed)
• totalitarian tendencies - narrow self-interest
• "criminalizing behaviour that seems natural to the large majority is incompatible w/ a democracy and ultimately disastrous for a civil society" (27)
• cult. indus vested in obsolete business model
•
• Two Essentials
• 1) fighting repressive legal regimes
• 2) develop new modes of production that encourage cultures of freedom which are sustainable, long term and growth
• FLOSS good eg
• need time and freedom to experiment
•
Cultural Innovation b/w copyleft CC and PD
• new models of prod and use of digi goods applied
• "immaterial producers"
• transfer of CR to 3rd party - publisher and label
• innovation - friendly model as new framework
• Internet allows for new treatment of IP
• produce consume and distributed in digi form
• first changes - don't need a middleman or vendors
• second change - context of digi media - "it is impossible to differentiate bw the end product of one process and the source material of another" (30)
• collage - as "central cultural technique"
• sampling and remixing - new genres
• asking for consent is not practical (link to Lessig)
• huge discrepancy bw legal status and everyday practice = grey zone
• open models - free copying and wide dissemination as starting pt, dev. fundamentally diff intellectual products(31)
• underlying assumption about intellectual works that they "represent relatively clearly separable entities, which can always be attributed to a single, clearly definable author,..." (32)
• "individuality" of a work
• open prod model sees work as end result of processing and altering already existing works
• i.e. author defined by context
• open and dynamic discussion
• combines diy with profess reliability
• discussion not about sum of arguments but rather about what happens bw speakers
• science is built on prior knowledge
• necessitate a license allowing free uses of works
• GPL from mid 8s free flow bw software dev
• impossible to write a software prog on one's own -