Download the notes of my speech Digital Neofeudalism: Crisis of Network Politics and the New Topology of Rent for Transmediale 2010 from here.
TRANSMEDIALE 2010: Liquid Democracies conference
Date: Sunday 7 Feb. 2010, 17:00 – 19:00
Location: Auditorium, House of World Cultures
Web: www.transmediale.de
Participants: Matteo Pasquinelli (it), Steve Lambert (us), Sascha Lobo (de)
Moderator: Tiziana Terranova (it)
To raise a question about the future always also implies to ask for the actualisation of the political and, in particular, ethical concepts for the society that we live in today. We are about to lose our operational sense for ethics, politics and culture. Rather, we see ourselves confronted with a depersonalised politics and a ‘desubjectified’ communication as the result of two factors: the disappearance of the political body with institutions capable of acting on the one hand; and increasingly faster digital social media tools that reduce the space for reaction and reflexion on the other hand. This is a moment of crisis where we must think about the role of social media. Due to the recent events in which social networking sites have replaced traditional news coverage it seems worthy to closely examine the ‘radical’ role of tools like Twitter and Facebook as ‘revolutionary’ media. Are we dealing with a new force, a new social mechanism for the exchange of information, a new truth? Or are we only listening to a new siren song?
