Update Sept.2014: Dieses Essay liegt nun auch in deutscher Übersetzung vor. Dank an die Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

Update Oct.2014: This essay is now also available as an epub. Thanks a lot to PJ :)

This extended essay, Digital Solidarity, responds to the wave of new forms of networked organisation emerging from and colliding with the global economic crisis of 2008. Across the globe, voluntary association, participatory decision-making and the sharing of resources, all widely adopted online, are being translated into new forms of social space.

This movement operates in the breach between accelerating technical innovation, on the one hand, and the crises of institutions which organise, or increasingly restrain society on the other. Through an inventory of social forms – commons, assemblies, swarms and weak networks – the essay outlines how far we have already left McLuhan’s ‘Gutenberg Galaxy’ behind. In his cautiously optimistic account, Stalder reminds us that the struggles over where we will arrive are only just beginning.

Talk at the Embros Theater, Athens, 30.09.2013 Spooky light and noisy sound, which fits the place and the theme of the talk. Check out as well Konrad Becker's talk, same event.

Lecture (86 min, including discussion) @ hexagram, concordia university, montreal, 5.11.2013

Thanks to Thomas Kneubühler for the excellent organization! What a pleasure!

While the current historical situation demands urgently a redefinition of authorship, the art world offers very little in terms of critique or alternative practice.

Much of the 20th century’s avant-garde art can be read as a revolt against the bourgeois conception of the artist as an exceptional individual who creates art through a mysterious process of introspection into his – mainly his – particularly sensitive soul. The introduction of mass-produced materials into artworks, of randomness, the exploration of the subconscious and, after WWII, the turn towards machinic and algorithmic processes, all served to decentre the process of making art away from the artist’s inner world and his or her complete control. In the 1960s, literary theory caught up and famously declared the death of the authoritative, omniscient author. The matter seemed to have been laid to rest by Foucault’s famous “murmur of indifference:” ‘What matter who’s speaking?’”

All of this has been debated to death and the issues have mostly been settled, but, now that the battles over the conception of authorship and associated constructions of rights and modes of ownership have moved from the field of cultural theory to the centre of society, the art world – in which “contemporary art” plays a minor supporting role – has fallen curiously silent. Not only that, the deeply neoliberal makeover of the last two decades have actually moved it into the opposite direction. Authorship and individuality are being asserted more strongly than ever. This is not due solely to the power of market forces with their predictable need for stars and commodities.

Sieht so Remix Radio aus? Andreas Brick hat sein Radion feature "</pasted> Wir sind die Zukunft der Musik" in eine Website umgewandelt, die nicht nur das gesamte Material enthält, sondern auch die jeweiligen Interviews in voller Länge, in Themenbereiche unterteilt und zugänglich gemacht. Die Interviews sind mit: Der Musikpartisane, Dirk von Gehlen,Karl Nikolaus Peifer, Mashpussy, Mashup Germany, Moritz Eggert, Mouse on Mars, und mir.

Sehr schön gemacht!

Lectures and Performance / Oμιλίες και Performance
(In english)
Δευτέρα, 30 Σεπτεμβρίου, 8:30 μ.μ.
@ Free Self-managed Theater EMBROS/ Ελεύθερο Αυτοδιαχειριζόμενο Θέατρο ΕΜΠΡΟΣ

Ο πόλεμος των δεδομένων (data) ενάντια στην επικοινωνία
- Felix Stalder

Η "επανάσταση του Διαδικτύου" συνίσταται ουσιαστικά από δύο επαναστάσεις. Η πρώτη ήταν η επανάσταση της επικοινωνίας, η οποία προώθησε οριζόντια τη συνεργασία και την αποκέντρωση. Υπό το πρίσμα αυτό, ήταν κατά κάποιον τρόπο αναρχίζουσα. Η δεύτερη φάση, στην οποία ζούμε σήμερα, είναι η επανάσταση των δεδομένων (data), η οποία προωθεί ένα νέο καταναλωτισμό, τον κεντρικό έλεγχο πάνω σε big data και δημιουργεί νέες μορφές εξουσίας/ισχύος που βασίζονται στη δυνατότητα πρόβλεψης και διαμόρφωσης περιβαλλόντων. Από πολιτική άποψη, πρόκειται για μια αντεπανάσταση.

[Das Interview gibt es auch in Deutsch]

Clemens Apprich gab der Springerin (Nr.3/2013) ein schönes Interview zu den "Netzkulturen der 1990er Jahren". Zentrales Thema ist die Hybridisierung von online und offline, und die lokale Spezifität, die sich daraus ergibt. Anlass dazu war die Publikation des Buches "Vergessene Zukunft. Radikale Netzkulturen in Europa", welches wir gemeinsam letztes Jahr herausgeben haben.

Interview bei BreitbandRadio.de (13.07.2013)

Wir müssen uns Gedanken über die Architektur des Netzes machen, sagt Felix Stalder, Professor für Digitale Kultur und Netzwerktheorien an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.

Unsere Daten sind nicht mehr sicher, weder vor der Privatwirtschaft noch vor der Politik. Das ist die Erkenntnis, die wir nun auch aus den Enthüllungen von Edward Snowden ziehen konnten. Der erste Reflex darauf ist: Wir versuchen alles, um uns dieser Kontrolle zu entziehen. Wo man sich umhört, überall geht es um Verschlüsselung. Und: Wir sind kritischer geworden angesichts der Kontrollsysteme der Geheimdienste, die uns jetzt so anschaulich offengelegt worden sind.

Aber können wir durch die Tatsache, dass wir nun mehr wissen über den Umfang staatlicher Kontrolle, auch selbst mehr kontrollieren? Wie viel Kontrolle haben wir überhaupt noch? In München fand gestern eine Tagung zu genau diesem Thema statt. Zu Gast dort war eben auch Felix Stalder.

Interview anhören (6'08'') oder MP3 Download (5.5mb)

At the moment, i think in the West (core and periphery) we can distinguish between three struggles in advanced stages.

One is against authoritarian regimes that force a closed set of values on their increasingly diverse societies. Within these societies, a new mind set is emerging that values, understands and can deal with this diversity.

Another one is against the subversion of the democratic processes through the capture of the traditional institutions of liberal democracy by financial markets, which includes the fight against austerity policies and the invention of new democratic institutions redrawing the balance between participation and representation.

And, one is against the increasing subversion of civil liberties through the militarization of the state. This process is certainly the most advanced in the US, and so is the resistance against also mainly coming from the US. However, not from organized interests, but from brave individuals who cannot tolerate the contradiction between what they are supposed to do (defend liberty) and what they are actually doing (destroy liberty).

Of these three, I think the first one we can win and many many people in networks like this and places too numerous to count are working on this. This is what the Internet was made for, particularly those layers that we all can access (aka the "front end of the internet")

The second one is really hard, but also manageable. Perhaps not winning, but it can redraw the balance of forces. The contradictions evident in society can be mobilized by us. A lot of people are working on this too, and there is an increasing mood, from what I understand, that the next step (for social movements) is about creating institutions that can realize the promises we all see.