Networked redefined > 19/10/09
In the light of the newly published experiment for a networked book at http://networkedbook.org, a few thoughts about the word “networked” and a possible (re)definition of networked in a networked culture.
The idea of a networked book on networked art “proposes,” the editors Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington say, “that a history or critique of interactive and/or participatory art must itself be interactive and/or participatory; that the technologies used to create a work suggest new forms a “book” might take.” The new technology is a WordPress blog that collects a select number of articles. So, we have a number of Word[Press] documents/posts collected into a networked book/blog. It may be a new technology, skinned, themed and customized, but in what way does it differ from a print edition of those Word documents? And, in what way is it networked?
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Produser, I Prosume > 19/10/09
I recently bumped into the word ‘prosumer,’ a neologism for the internet user who is (supposedly) both a producer and a consumer. The prosumer is at once a consumer of internet content - for instance, in consuming videos at YouTube - and a producer of content - for instance, by uploading content to YouTube. Prosumers are no longer passive recipients of information but users who interact with data and social media. Still, they are users who produce user-generated content. Produsers, maybe, but still users.
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The Pleasure of the Social Web > 25/07/09
In 1982, Jauss proposed the term geniessen in his Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics to identify aesthetic pleasure. It was a reaction against Adorno’s “aesthetics of negativity,” which he rejected as “aesthetic purism,” as well as against the Barthesian pleasures of the text which, in Jauss’ words, is the “French counterpart to Adorno’s aesthetics in certain aspects” (29).
Jauss’ critique emphasizes the communicative character of art in which he finds aesthetic pleasure. Pleasure, he argues, is produced by affects and is as such the foundation for communication, thus, pleasure of communication is art’s social function (35).
Pleasure is produced by affects and is the foundation for communication. This sentence might just as well be applied to the social web. Is the social web a geniessen, a geniessen in communication?
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