Re: FW: nettime rhizome: burn rate
On January 19, Ted Byfield wrote: one thing that hasn't come up in this discussion is history -- that is, the history of rhizome. for various reasons, i viewed this all from a safe and 100% uninvolved distance, so my memory is probably off when it comes to details. mark tribe and/or other rhizomatics are free to correct me, of course. mark and a few others 'founded' rhizome soon after he moved from berlin to NYC, in the spring of '96. i'm not exactly sure what founding rhizome actually involved, other than running a mailing list or two. rhizome started on feb 1 1996 as a mailing list, generously hosted by desk.nl (thanks to walter van der cruijsen). i was still living in berlin at the time. i moved to new york in march 1996 and began work on the web site. the idea was to build a web-based archive for the email discussion. on those lists, there was quite a bit of kvetching about the lack of state support for the arts in the US, which led people to suggest some sort of one-for-all, all-for-one collectivization. out of that, through the machinations of mark and a few others, was borne a dotcom by the name of stockobjects, which set out to take these vague ramblings and turn them into a business. the 'model' was sumarized in a WiReD article thus: Artists initially submit their work under either an exclusive or nonexclusive agreement, and get no money until sale. The exclusive model entitles the artist to 50 percent of the roy- alties when an object is purchased, but the nonexclusive op- tion offers only 25 percent - which, at US$25 for a stock photo, could be negligible. Users can sift through the site's library according to cri- teria such as subject matter or rubrics like Dreams and Competition. For a $100 starting fee, subscribers could pay from $25 for a simple image to $120 or higher for ani- mations and applets. Non-subscribers pay double the price, but [COO Garnet] Heraman is quick to note that all pricing is tentative until they can explore what pricing is pos- sible after the launch. stockobjects got some funding; a WiReD article from sept 97 mentions $500K, but i remember hearing much higher figures (~$8M rings a bell, but i can't back that up). total funding for stockobjects was about $2m over four years (1996-2000). anyway, with the establishment of stock- objects, rhizome mutated from a mailing list into a full-fledged in- house *tax shelter*. that was when it began actually hiring people. rhizome was never a tax shelter for stockobjects. rhizome and stockobjects were separate business units of one company. members of the rhizome community (among others) served as suppliers of stock animations, applets and graphics for stockobjects, a new media stock library. these digital objects were then licensed to commercial web developers for a fee. the suppliers got part of the fee. i still think it was a good idea, but it never really took off. stockobjects folded in 2000. dotcoms being what they were, stockobjects' finances began to fray, and through a messy process mark separated from stockobjects and, i think, took rhizome with him. the process wasn't so messy. in early 1998, adaweb and word both got shut down by their corporate parents. i was getting pressure to either shut rhizome down, turn it into a more commercial publication for web designers (something like web monkey) or spin it off. i felt that we were doing something worth-while, so i chose to spin rhizome off as a nonprofit. we created a new nonprofit entity called rhizome.org and rachel went with it. for most of 1998, rachel was the sole employee of rhizome.org. our total budget for that year was under $30,000. it was a very tough time for rhizome.org. our office was a desk in the back of postmasters gallery. for part of the summer, rachel and alex camped out at the thing (thanks, wolfgang!). in 1999, i left stockobjects and became rhizome's full-time executive director. i focused on developing new programs (such as the artbase) and on fundraising. we grew fairly quickly from that point on. various rhizomatics took to wagging their fingers and earnestly hectoring people about how 'it's rhizome dot *ORG* now, *NOT* rhizome dot *COM*...' as if people hadn't chuckled at the choice of '.com' to begin with. anyway, i suppose a lot has happened since then, but it's hard to imagine what the hell rhizome could possibly have done to justify burning through $307,000 in fiscal year 2000-2001 and, even more astonishingly, $444,000 in FY 2001-2002. our costs are actually relatively low for a new york-based nonprofit arts organization of our size (i.e. range of programs, number of people served, etc.). below are actual expenses for a few other ny-based nonprofit arts orgs: the kitchen spent $1,646,312 in 2001 creative time spent $965,967 in 2001 artists space spent $721,110 in 1999 bomb magazine spent $556,476 in 2001 turbulence spent $138,329 in
nettime War Economics 101
Not being an economist, but intrigued by the buried news that Iraq linked its oil trade to the euro at the expense of the dollar in late 2000, I looked around for some truth to this story. Sure enough, in October of 2000 the UN opened an Iraq account in euro, after Iraq had indicated that it would cut its oil supply if this was not done. (The mere threat resulted in soaring oil prices, as Iraq accounts for 5% of the world's supply.) At the time, the euro was weak in relation to the dollar, and the move cost Iraq an estimated $270 million. Hussein, however, had proclaimed the dollar an enemy currency, and switched all trade to the euro through the UN escrow account. Jordan quickly joined Iraq and announced that its non-UN sanctioned trade with Iraq would be in euro, or another european currency. Iran has mumbled about the same move. On January 15 this year, upon the announcement that 11 empty warheads had been found by the UN inspectors, oil prices rose to a two-year high, with the fear of war looming. At the same time, the dollar hit a three-year low against the euro, weighing in at $1.06 (versus $0.82 back in 2000). If more countries decided to fix their oil price against the euro and accept payments in euro, the dollar's role as the world reserve currency would be seriously threatened, there would be a flight from the dollar, long-term asset portfolios would move toward the euro, the cost of the US trade deficit would loom, and the stock market would seriously deflate along with the dollar -- together they would most likely collapse. There are many complex angles to report on this, and nowhere did I find an article that covered it in detail, but suffice to say that the US imports 59% of its oil, that a dollar crash in the current climate would effectively be the end of the US as we know it, and that a long-term rise in oil prices would quickly wipe out reserves, with roughly the same effect. I think the euro link, even if it is somewhat misconstrued from my non-economist point of view, brings home a useful perspective on Showdown Iraq. -af + + + + + http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/ U.N. to let Iraq sell oil for euros, not dollars October 30, 2000 Web posted at: 8:45 PM EST (0145 GMT) UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- A U.N. panel on Monday approved Iraq's plan to receive oil-export payments in Europe's single currency after Baghdad decided to move the start date back a week. Members of the Security Council's Iraqi sanctions committee said the panel's chairman, Dutch Ambassador Peter van Walsum, would inform U.N. officials on Tuesday of the decision to allow Iraq to receive payments in euros, rather than dollars. + + + + + http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/background/chron.html 31 October 2000: The Security Council's 661 Committee authorises the UN Treasury to open an UN Iraq account in euro . It also requests an in-depth report within three months on the costs and benefits for the Programme and other financial and administrative implications of the payment for Iraqi oil in euro . + + + + + http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/11/01112000160846.asp But he says Saddam may feel the strategy is worth the price because it allows him to draw a clear line between what Iraq sees as two camps in world opinion regarding the UN sanctions. One camp, led by the U.S. and Britain -- a country also outside the euro zone -- wants to maintain strict trade sanctions on Iraq until Baghdad proves it has no more weapons of mass destruction. The other camp, led by euro-user France -- along with Russia and China -- favors easing the sanctions on humanitarian grounds while still pursuing disarmament. + + + + + http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_00/hickel092900.html Iraq decided to no longer accept dollars for oil... what do you think will be the effect on the greenback and on the Euro? The burning question in cyber-space today is Will this policy be limited to just Iraq? + + + + + http://www.millennium-money.com/pmupdate_3oct_00.htm Jordan to switch from dollar in trade with Iraq - a move is in response to an earlier Iraqi decision to stop trading with the US currency - October 25, 2000, 02:25 PM BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Jordan has decided to stop using the US dollar in trade dealings with Iraq and replace it with the euro or another European currency, the state news agency INA reported on Wednesday. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime Fwd: sms, pimp, etc
FROM V. v..@... wrote .. RE: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0301/msg00037.html ... CUT ... . Anyways, I will press ahead regardless. The sms system used in sydney was called SMUG, I think it was released as free software (or at least it is based on free software). It consisted of one mobile fone connected to a computer. The mobile received msgs, parsed them, then took action. If the message started with the word `SMUG', it was broadcast (i.e. re-sent) to all subscribers. Problems here included the cost of sending messages (ended up costing a few hundred dollars; 80 subscribers = $20 per broadcast), and also latency in sending messages; SMS is _not_ a realtime system, some messages were received several hours after they were sent. I personally had no part in the development of SMUG, but am currently working on a similar system which will (among other things) interface to indymedia. To solve the cost of broadcasts problem I am working on using free internet-sms gateways where possible, and charging for the service where this is not available. Latency is basically unavoidable. Another point to consider is that the system is _not_ decentralised; it relies on telco infrastructure, and could be remarkably easily shut down if the powers that be shut down a particular mobile fone cell at the time of an action (the iXpress group at s11 feared this and subsequently did not rely on mobiles for communication). The PIMP system was used at sydney, and is being further refined. There will shortly be a single national PIMP number to dial which will service all australian indymedia sites. ... CUT ... - There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad. Salvador Dali # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime blinded by science digest [galanter, geer]
Thanks but sorry... Coming back I have just seen that the Canadian link is not available anymore at this address.. I can tell that Jean-Jacques Kupiec is the author of the concept of this research (first thinking from a critical analysis to Aristotle and second about the Darwinian theory, then working on the question of the babies in vitro before he meet Sonigo... etc.) I would not quote them because I was afraid to be supposed spamming but at last I do it for more info: Here they are his own pages about his early articles: http://www.criticalsecret.com/jjk/ And his editorial contribution to criticalsecret (his own line and as art) http://www.criticalsecret.com/n3 And his anglophone pages requesting his name as bioologist on Google: http://www.google.fr/search?q=biology+and+Jean-Jacques+Kupiecie=ISO-8859-1; hl=frbtnG=Recherche+Googlemeta= First page (from a lot more): Medicine -- La médecine - [ Traduire cette page ] ... (Jean-Jacques Kupiec Pierre Sonigo) For reductionist biology, macroscopic structures are the result of the integration of molecular interactions. ... www.bioethics.ws/medicine.htm - 28k - 20 jan 2003 - En cache - Pages similaires Tufts Journal: Features: Strange bedfellows? - [ Traduire cette page ] ... on that mid-April day, besides Sarkar and Gilbert, were Jean-Jacques Kupiec of the ... and Dr. Ana Soto, both professors of anatomy and cellular biology at Tufts ... tuftsjournal.tufts.edu/archive/2002/ may/features/strangebed.shtml - 35k - En cache - Pages similaires France-diplomatie [Label France, magazine] - [ Traduire cette page ] ... Neither God nor gene, for another theory of heredity], by Jean-Jacques Kupiec and Pierre ... Towards new paradigms in biology], by Henri Atlan, INRA, Paris, 1999. ... www.france.diplomatie.fr/label_france/49/gb/05.html - 27k - 20 jan 2003 - En cache - Pages similaires Science Generation - Bio Library - The Bibliography - Opinions - ... - [ Traduire cette page ] ... Ni Dieu, ni gène. Pour une autre théorie de l'hérédité. ** Jean-Jacques Kupiec Pierre Sonigo - - 2001 The progress achieved in molecular biology has ... en.science-generation.com/biotbopi.xml - 34k - En cache - Pages similaires NEWS 4/10/2002 - [ Traduire cette page ] ... Jacques Kupiec (Institut de Biologie Moleculaire, Hospital Cochin, Paris), Sahotra Sarkar (philosophy, University of Texas at Austin), Scott Gilbert (biology, ... medicine.tufts.edu/oit/news020410.html - 11k - En cache - Pages similaires Robotique, vie artificielle, réalité virtuelle : La revue ... ... Peter J. Bentley Digital Biology Simon and Schuster 2002. ... Jean-Jacques Kupiec, Pierre Sonigo Ni Dieu ni gène pour une autre théorie de l'hérédité Seuil ... www.admiroutes.asso.fr/larevue/publiscopie.htm - 33k - 20 jan 2003 - En cache - Pages similaires Le bulletin de la SFG ... MÉDECINE/SCIENCES 12 (5) : I - X. *Department of Cell Biology, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Suisse. ... Août-Septembre 1997 Jean-Jacques Kupiec*, Pierre Sonigo ... sfg.chez.tiscali.fr/bulletin.html - 16k - En cache - Pages similaires Séminaire criticalsecret ... -- Thursday December 12/ 10 am to 8 pm Morning - Biology 1 Neither god, nor gene Jean-Jacques Kupiec (Biologist, Engineer Researcher, Institut Cochin ... www.criticalsecret.com/seminaire/seminaire_index.html - 41k - En cache - Pages similaires Automates Intelligents : Biblionet ... Peter J. Bentley Digital Biology Simon and Schuster 2002. ... Jean-Jacques Kupiec, Pierre Sonigo Ni Dieu ni gène pour une autre théorie de l'hérédité (Seuil ... www.automatesintelligents.com/biblionet/archives.html - 74k - 20 jan 2003 - En cache - Pages similaires Causalité et finalité ... NYAS. Radical constructivism in biology and cognitive science in Foundations of science 2000, 6, p. 99-124, ... Jean-Jacques Kupiec : L ... sfp.in2p3.fr/CP/PIF/Bibliopif7/ - 61k - En cache - Pages similaires QUOTE (about the failed link): (...) « Neither God nor gene » is the tittle of their book (Ed Seuil, Paris, 2000) Canadians Searchers are translating to English (could be still finished) http://www.iforum.umontreal.ca/Forum/ArchivesForum/2001-2002/020422/article1 052.htm For another theory of heredity... One believes more and more in the reign of the genome. It is to count without the chance. However the man depends especially on a decentralized company of cells. CNRS/INSERM Cochin, Paris (National Institute for Health and Medical Research) (...) # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime revenge of the concept
I found Brian's paper very interesting. Here are a few thoughts: Gift exchange and commodity exchange seem to me to be mutually implicated in each other. No commodity system exists without the gift. Economic doctrine treats the commodity system as 'pure' when a good deal of the production of use values occurs in a gift exchange form. Not surprisingly most of what women caregivers and others who work within the home do is excluded. Likewise, the commodity was always implied in the gift form. This is Deleuze and Guattari's argument in Anti-Oedipus, that the commodity form stalks the gift economy as a possibility, as a potential for abstraction. I would like to reverse their formula. I think we have reached a technological threshold where the gift stalks the commodity. We have arrived at the posibility of the abstract gift. Having abstracted information from any particular material support, information becomes (potentially) a new kind of gift. One that economists can only describe with an oxymoron: a 'non-rivalrous good'., i.e. not a good a all. The utopian promise of a universal gift economy strikes me as romantic, at best, Stalinist at worst. But the possibility of an atopian information gift economy is very real and within our grasp. The vigorous struggle of the vectoralist class to use extraordinary legal and technical means to commodify information, 'against its will', is the great unheralded struggle of our times. I very much like Brian's idea of the 'flexible personality', which seems to me related to the commodification of information, and hence the transformation of all relations into subject-object relations. The vectoralization of information has taught us all to be 'subjects', i.e. consistent nodes in a network of property relations. I don't find the concept of 'real subsumption' that Negri takes over from Marx at all adequate. It makes of capital a transhistorical essence. As if commodity exchange were not as transformed by what it subsumes as the cultural world was by its subsumption! It is a way of thinking that is, ironically enough, dated precisely because it is unhistorical. Rather, we need to think the historical phases of commodification. Then we can discover why Benkler's 'commons-based peer production' is romantic when applied to the production of things, but progressive when applied to the production of information. The new social movement has yet to think through this hetereogeneity in its thought. There is indeed something of interest in Situationism and Conceptual Art, which at the moment is not strongly integrated into Brian's argument. A topic for another time Just as we must distinguish information as non-rivalrous gift from other gifts, one must distinguish gift from potlatch. The gift is a temporality, an exchange that implies a future and a past, woven together by obligation. Potlach as it has come to be practice in the overdeveloped world is more like Bataille's bonfires of pure consumption. Potlatch is a singular moment, spectatcular and final. I think it worth distinguishing commodity exchange also from capitalism. (Some will remember Marx's two formulas: C-M-C = commodity echange, M-C-M = capitalism, or the use of money to make money.) A long line of petit-bourgeois argument accepts the value of the former but attacks the monopolization of exchange under capitialism. DeLanda revived this position, among other places, here on Nettime, in 1996. Ironically, for all its up to date theorization, De Landa was reverting to 19th century petit-bourgeois thinking -- commodity yes, capital, no. Its still a powerful force in the movement, not surprising given its class origins, Keith is right to insist that we re-evaluated liberalism. The liberals were in favor of commodity exchange and against the state. But there is a wrinkle. They were opposed to a state that was in partnership with a previous stage of monopoly over the commodity system -- the agrarian landlord class. Ironically, it is the opponents of 'neo-liberalism' ( a badly chosen name) who best embody this aspect of the liberal program. The vectoralization of commodity exchange seems to me the missing object of analysis. 'Globalization' is only one aspect of it. The other is a micro-vectoral extension of the commodity form into everyday life (hence flexible personality). It strikes me as entirely symptomatic that there should be an as yet somewhat incoherent new social force opposed to vectoralized commodity relations, and their monopolization by an emerging new ruling class formation. Follow the line of resistance and you find the new line of development. ___ http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html ... we no longer have roots, we have aerials ... ___ _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk
nettime Revenge of the Concept
[hi, nettimers -- someone kindly pointed out brian's original message, below, had somehow been lost in the nettime.org ar- chives and replaced with keith hart's response. since We Do Not Meddle With The Archives, the simple solution is to send it to the list again. sorry for the noise. -- cheers, t] [Following is the lecture I gave at the expo Geography - and the Politics of Mobility in Vienna. It revists the gift economy debates, via Karl Polanyi, with some new ideas thanks to the talks at the WorldInfoCon, all in the hope of understanding networked mobilizations. Plenty of things for nettimers to disagree with anyway! - BH.] The Revenge of the Concept: Artistic Exchanges and Networked Resistance Since June 18, 1999, I have been involved in a networked resistance to the globalization of capital. This resistance has been inextricably connected to art. It has taken me from London to Prague, from Quebec City to Genoa and Florence. It has given me an interest in experimental uses of advanced technology, like the Makrolab project. It has pushed me to explore new organizational forms, like the research network developed by Multiplicity. It has encouraged me to support cross-border solidarity movements, like Kein Mensch ist illegal. And it has resulted in collaborations with Bureau d'études, in their attempts to map out the objective structures of contemporary capitalism. But the experience of the movement of movements has also led me to ask a subjective question. What are the sources of this networked resistance? And what exactly is being resisted? Is revolution really the only option? Or are we not becoming what we believe we are resisting? Are the multitudes the very essence and driving force of capitalist globalization, as some theorists believe? To look deeper into this question, consider the work of Anthony Davies and Simon Ford, who observed how artistic practice was being integrated to the finance economy of London during the late 1990s. These critics pointed to the establishment of convergence zones, culture clubs sponsored by private enterprise and the state. In these clubs, so-called culturepreneurs could seek new forms of sponsorship for their ideas, while businessmen sought clues on how to restructure their hierarchical organizations into cooperative teams of creative, autonomous individuals. Basing themselves on the new culture clubs, Davies and Ford claimed that we are witnessing the birth of an alliance culture that collapses the distinctions between companies, nation states, governments, private individuals - even the protest movement. For unlike most commentators from the mainstream artworld, these two critics had immediately identified a relation between the activism of the late 1990s and contemporary forms of artistic practice. But what they saw in this new activism was the expression of a conflict between the old and the new economy: Demonstrations such as J18 represent new types of conflict and contestation. On the one hand you have a networked coalition of semi-autonomous groups and on the other, the hierarchical command and control structure of the City of London police force. Informal networks are also replacing older political groups based on formal rules and fixed organisational structures and chains of command. The emergence of a decentralised transnational network-based protest movement represents a significant threat to those sectors that are slow in shifting from local and centralised hierarchical bureaucracies to flat, networked organisations. The alliance theory of Davies and Ford combines the notion of a network paradigm, promoted by people like Manuel Castells, with an anthropological description of the culturalization of the economy, as in British cultural studies. But what they portray is more like an economization of culture. In fact their network theory draws no significant distinction between contemporary protest groups and the most advanced forms of capitalist organization. As they conclude: In a networked culture, the topographical metaphor of 'inside' and 'outside' has become increasingly untenable. As all sectors loosen their physical structures, flatten out, form alliances and dispense with tangible centres, the oppositionality that has characterised previous forms of protest and resistance is finished as a useful model. These kinds of remarks, which came from many quarters, were already quite confusing for the movement. But they took on an even more troubling light when the Al Quaeda network literally exploded into world consciousness. On the one hand, the unprecedented effectiveness of the S11 action seemed to prove the superiority of the networked paradigm over the command hierarchies associated with the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. But at the same time, if any position could now be called oppositional, it was that of the Islamic fundamentalists. Their
