Author: Richard Barbrook
Hegel & The Ethical State
French victory over Prussians at 1806 battle of Jena: Hegel in crowds cheering Napoléon Bonaparte = “World Soul on horseback.” Editor of Bonapartist newspaper in Germany. Brother and brother-in-law killed during 1812 French invasion of Russia. Bonaparte’s liberal dictatorship = third way between Bourbon kings and Jacobin republic. 1789 French revolution = “the end of […]
Author: admin
GEORG HEGEL & THE ETHICAL STATE
French victory over Prussians at 1806 battle of Jena: Hegel in crowds cheering Napoléon Bonaparte = “Word Soul on horseback.” Editor of Bonapartist newspaper in Germany. Brother and brother-in-law killed during 1812 French invasion of Russia. Bonaparte’s liberal dictatorship = third way between Bourbon kings and Jacobin republic. 1789 French revolution = “the end of […]
Author: admin
THE CLASS OF THE NEW
Building upon the analysis in Imaginary Futures, this 2006 OpenMute book explains the historical predecessors and later remixes of Daniel Bell’s concept of the knowledge class. Download the pdf version for free
Author: admin
INTRODUCTION TO BRAZILIAN EDITION
The email came from the translators in Brazil: “We want you to write an introduction to the Portuguese version of Imaginary Futures – something special for the local readers.” What should I say? My immediate thought was that Suba, Marky and Patife were on the soundtrack during the all-night writing sessions which created this book. […]
Author: admin
Stuart Hall: Stalinist in theory and Blairite in politics
I suppose those who make their living out of teaching Cultural Studies have to mourn the demise of Stuart Hall. However, the airbrushing of Hall’s unpleasant politics in his obituaries cannot be allowed to pass without some attempt at correcting the historical record. Here are my thoughts which come from someone who – in more […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
Marx on the State
20th century Marxisms were a theology of state power with Marx’s anti-statist writings as holy texts. Social Democracy = parliamentary democracy and the welfare state. Bolshevism = totalitarian party and state planning. 19th century Marxism of Marx proposed two different concepts of state power: The Parasite State = “Strong government and heavy taxes are identical”. […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
THE MARXIST POLITICS OF KARL MARX
“The one thing of which I’m certain is that I’m not a Marxist.”- Karl Marx Post-Communist nostalgia for 1948 Cold War Marxisms. Social Democracy: parliamentary elections, welfare state and US imperialism. Bolshevism: totalitarian party, state planning and Russian imperialism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were ’48ers: the young radicals of the 1848 European revolutions against […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
Internet Ideology
REFF: Most of the technologies which are arising in these years are about knowledge and information. Do you think that they are the most revolutionary technologies of the last centuries? What do you think about it? RB: The first thing I would say is that if you look at the last century, the key technologies […]
Author: Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron
CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY: IL DOGMA LIBERISTA DELLA CLASSE VIRTUALE
“Non mentire sul futuro è impossibile e uno può mentire su esso a proprio piacimento”. Naum Gabo [1] COME IL CONTENUTO IDRICO DI UN SERBATOIO TRABOCCA … Alla fine del ventesimo secolo, la convergenza a lungo predetta dei media, del computer e delle telecomunicazioni nell’hypermedia finalmente si sta verificando. Ancora una volta, il movimento inesorabile […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
NJUJORŠKA PROROČANSTVA: ZAMIŠLJENA BUDUĆNOST VEŠTAČKE INTELIGENCIJE
Budućnost je ono što je i bila “Biološka inteligencija je nepromenljiva, zato što je u pitanju stara, zrela paradigma, dok nova paradigma nebiološkog ra?unarstva i inteligencije eksponencijalno raste. Prelaz će se odigrati 2020-ih a nakon toga, bar sa stanovišta hardvera, dominiraće nebiološko ra?unarstvo…“ Kurcvejl (Kurzweil), 2004, str. 3. Na po?etku 21. veka, san o vešta?koj […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
Imaginary Futures – Introduction to the Polish edition
I was sitting in a lecture theatre at University College London listening to the speakers at the final session of the Solidarity/solidarities conference on the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe. Jan Dzierzgowski had worked hard on this translation and I owed it to him to write a smart introduction for its Polish readers. Where better […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
ANARCHISM
The 1872 Hague Congress of the International Workingmen’s Association The split in the First International: British, German & Dutch Sections v. Swiss, Spanish & Italian Sections Socialism v. Anarchism Karl Marx v. Mikhail Bakunin mass party v. revolutionary conspiracy democratic republic v. local communes working class v. peasants, students & bandits organised labour v. spontaneous […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
CREATIVE CITY THESES
1) We Must Invent New Futures The information society has arrived – and the McLuhanist prophecy of the network utopia has been disappointed. The critical analysis of the creative city provides an opportunity to devise new futures to guide our actions in the present. 2) The New Class of the New Like their forebears who […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
KAUTSKY IN CAMBRIDGE
“How was the conference?”, Simon Schaffer asked. “Very interesting”, I replied. “The Autonomists have finally come out of the closet as reformists!”At the opening session of the Immaterial Labour conference in Cambridge, Andrea Fumagalli had told us that Toni Negri and the other gurus of the movement now advocated a commendably pragmatic political programme: a […]
Author: John Barker
UP FOR GRABS: Richard Barbrook’s Imaginary Futures, From Thinking Machines to the Global Village
The imaginary future is invariably a claim to the present by its dominant political and economic class. In the case of Cold War America, there was an urgency to its creation, because although it was outdoing the USSR in all conventional economic and productive indices, the distorted Marxist veneer maintained in Moscow had a stronger […]
Author: IPE
INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY LECTURES
1POL547 INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY SEMESTER 1 2007-2008 Dr. Richard Barbrook Room 408 Wells Street Extension 2313 R.Barbrook (a) wmin.ac.uk Option: International Political Economy Code: 1POL547 Staff: Richard Barbrook and Nik Howard Time and Location: Thursdays 2.00pm – 5.00pm Fyvie Lecture Theatre Assessment Scheme: Essay (2,500 – 3,000 words): 30% Unseen Examination: 70% Assessment Criteria: Full […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
Cronopis Associats Interview
Andrés Lomeña of Cronopis Associats interviewed Richard Barbrook on 13th September 2007. Question 1 AL: Franco Bifo Berardi criticises your The Holy Fools. In his opinion, you simplify the rhizomatic thought of Deleuze and Guattari, making equal it to technonomadism and The Californian Ideology. Berardi argues that the state cannot solve the self-organisational structure of […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
NEW YORK PROPHECIES: THE IMAGINARY FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The Future Is What It Used To Be ‘Biological intelligence is fixed, because it is an old, mature paradigm, but the new paradigm of non-biological computation and intelligence is growing exponentially. The crossover will be in the 2020s and after that, at least from a hardware perspective, non-biological computation will dominate…’ Kurzweil 2004, p. 3. […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
Virtual Dreams, Real Politics
‘What are we fighting Communism for? We are the most Communist people in world history.’ – Marshall McLuhan, 1969. In 1961, at its 22nd Congress, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union formally adopted the goal of spreading the benefits of computerisation across the whole economy. Over the next two decades, the information technologies being […]
Author: Cybersalon
CYBERSALON MANIFESTO
Manage Your Own Medium 1.0 Genesis. In March 1960 J.C.R Licklider envisioned a network of computers connected together where human and machine would work together in intimate association. He prophesised that this era would be intellectually the most creative and exiting in the history of mankind. We are living in this time. Our group is […]
Author: Cybersalon
MOBILE MANIFESTO
1.0 Is WAP crap? Early adopters can only access the pleasures of new technologies by accepting the pains of beta-testing the future. 2.0 When will the hardware come up to speed? Net users assume that large screens, colourful icons, pop-down menus and all the other features of the PC interface should be available on mobiles […]
Author: Cybersalon
F.A.Q. WEARABLE COMPUTING
1. Why are there never enough pockets to carry my mobile, my PDA, my MP3 player and my Gameboy? We should weave talking, organising, listening and playing into the fabric of our clothing. 2. Can’t we have something better than “one-size-fits-all? technology? Wearable computers will know our desires – and therefore also know how to […]
Author: Cybersalon
CYBERSEX CATECHISM
“I fuck therefore I am” (Shu Lea Cheang – 2000) 1.0 Do you want to play with your self? Shift your identity, be on top, attach an extra port. 2.0 Is the pussy the matrix? We are jacking into the Big Daddy mainframe so we can jerk off. 3.0 Is one-hand typing the best form […]
Author: John Blower
RESPONSE TO THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY by FEnix
Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron have provided a provocative and necessary contribution to the emerging debate over the future of ‘Cyberspace’ (or Hypermedia). It is unfortunate that the authors’ strident anti-Americanism somewhat detracts from the validity of their final conclusion – that the ‘State’ has a role in fostering the development of the new medium, […]
Author: Jeffrey Kaplan
THE COUNTER-CULTURE WRITES BACK by Jeffrey Kaplan
Bay Area counter-culture veteran responds to the Californian Ideology I was one of the demonstrators at People’s Park in Berkeley in 1969. And I now make my living as a computer consultant in the San Francisco Bay area. I share your dismay at the rise of the cyber-libertarian market ethic. At the same time, I […]
Author: Mark Stahlman
THE ENGLISH IDEOLOGY AND WIRED MAGAZINE by Mark Stahlman
Last year, a critical essay entitled The Californian Ideology by Richard Barbrook and Andrew Cameron (University of Westminster) appeared on the Internet and quickly became a focal point for growing criticism of the glossy and widely influential Wired magazine. However, the author’s difficulty in sorting out the origins of the ideas behind Wired and it’s […]
Author: Celia Pearce
AN INSIDER’S VIEW ON THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY by Celia Pearce
I first read a draft of ‘The Californian Ideology’ given to me by Andy Cameron during his visit to Los Angeles last summer for the SIGGRAPH ’95 Convention. At that time, Andy was showing Anti-Rom at SIGGRAPH on my invitation as part of an exhibition of alternative new media called the lounge@siggraph which I organized […]
Author: John Barker
RESPONSE TO THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY by John Barker
I’m in broad agreement with the argument of ‘The Californian Ideology’ and its attack on that ideology in which “the ahistorical dogmas of neo-liberalism are beefed up with added techno-determinism.” The argument does have a weakness in the alternatives it presents: – an idealistic view of the French Minitel system of which there is evidence […]
Author: Bifo
RESPONSE TO THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY by the author of Neuromagma
1: Proliferating Futures What about the Becoming of the Net? We cannot describe the Net as one single process of Becoming, but as proliferation of different coexisting processes. Therefore we can’t make a statement about the future of the Net. Many different futures will coalesce within it. Different intentions can enter the Net, different processes […]
Author: Louis Rossetto
RESPONSE TO THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY by Louis Rossetto
A seeming understanding of the Digital Revolution’s crucial left-right fusion of free minds and free markets, followed by a totally out-to-lunch excursion into discussions of the role of the government, racism, and the ecology in California, ending with a startling admission of the need to marry “some of the entrepeneurial zeal and can-do attitude” of […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
THE HI-TECH GIFT ECONOMY by Richard Barbrook
Abstract During the Sixties, the New Left created a new form of radical politics: anarcho-communism. Above all, the Situationists and similar groups believed that the tribal gift economy proved that individuals could successfully live together without needing either the state or the market. From May 1968 to the late Nineties, this utopian vision of anarcho-communism […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
THE::CYBER.COM/MUNIST::MANIFESTO by Richard Barbrook
A spectre is haunting the Net: the spectre of communism. Whatever their professed political beliefs, every user dreams of the digital transcendence of capitalism. Yet, at the same time, even the most dedicated leftist can no longer truly believe in communism. The horrors of totalitarianism have discredited its promises of social emancipation. Seizing this opportunity, […]
Author: Gillian Mciver
MEDIA AND THE SPECTACULAR SOCIETY by Gillian McIver
in the beginning… The expansion of industrial capitalism led to the realisation of the consumer society, which creates a society split between leisure and labour, a leisure society in which we work to obtain the instruments of leisure, the machines of pleasure, and this split organises our thoughts in every way. Eventually everything has to […]
Author: Matt Eley
VIDEOGAME MODIFICATION by Matt Eley
MA Hypermedia Dissertation (Short) – Matt Eley 2005 Download a Microsoft Word version of this dissertation, including all illustrations and footnotes Q – What does the growing consumer culture of videogame modification reveal about changes in the culture industry, and does this offer the possibility for a radical new artistic form? Abstract This paper offers […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
CYBER-COMMUNISM by Richard Barbrook
HOW THE AMERICANS ARE SUPERSEDING CAPITALISM IN CYBERSPACE ‘…is the impact of the …information revolution on capitalism not the ultimate exemplification of… Marx’s thesis that: “at a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces come into conflict with the existing relations of production…”? …does the prospect of the… “global village” not signal the […]
Author: Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron
THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron
“Not to lie about the future is impossible and one can lie about it at will” – Naum Gabo [1] As the Dam Bursts… At the end of the twentieth century, the long predicted convergence of the media, computing and telecommunications into hypermedia is finally happening.[2] Once again, capitalism’s relentless drive to diversify and intensify […]
Author: Richard Barbrook and Pit Schultz
THE DIGITAL ARTISANS MANIFESTO by Richard Barbrook and Pit Schultz
European Digital Artisans Network 1st May 1997 Making The Future 1. We are the digital artisans. We celebrate the Promethean power of our labour and imagination to shape the virtual world. By hacking, coding, designing and mixing, we build the wired future through our own efforts and inventiveness. 2. We are not the passive victims […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
THE REGULATION OF LIBERTY by Richard Barbrook
The State In Cyberspace The rapid expansion of e-commerce depends upon effective legal regulation of the Net. As in the rest of the economy, courts and police are needed to enforce the ‘rules of the game’ within on-line marketplaces. Theft remains theft even when committed with the latest technology. Since the Net encourages its own […]
Author: Rachel Collinson
ON THE JOYS OF PIXEL POPPING by Rachel Collinson
Ever done cross stitch? Followed a knitting pattern? Made a wee tapestry? Maybe the thought of such lame activity brings a smug smile to your face. It’s the sort of thing you just can’t admit to and stay fashionable. What on earth’s it got to do with new media culture, anyway? Such homely, farmhouse crafts […]
Author: Rachel Collinson
WHAT EVERY NEW MEDIA WORKER MUST KNOW: “CYBERSPACE” IS NOT A SPACE by Rachel Collinson
(or, why I am against 3D navigation) Think back to the moment when you first heard all the fuss about the net. For your humble author the first memory is of seeing the film Jumping Jack Flash – and it’s not so much memorable for the image of Whoopi Goldberg brandishing a mansize toothbrush against […]
Author: Willem Von Weelden
ARS ELECTRONICA ’96 INTERVIEW with Richard Barbrook and Mark Dery
The Liberalism Discussion MD: I would simply add as a kind of hypertext link to that statement, the term ‘liberal’ in America means something very different [from the European use of the term. WvW] and I think the boilerplate phrase ‘liberal economics’ is more usefully phrased for Americans as a ‘laissez-faire’ Ayn Randian deregulated economics. […]
Author: Undercurrent Online Journal
UNDERCURRENT INTERVIEW: the contradictions of media freedom
Eric Heroux You hold that the new media made possible by the Internet heralds a new day that might well overcome the “contradictions of media freedom.” One of these contradictions is that while the political rights of free public speech arrived, the means of disseminating free speech rested in the of very few who could […]
Author: Simon Schaffer
OK COMPUTER by Simon Schaffer
‘Imagine that human beings were used as reading machines. Assume that in order to become reading machines they need a particular training’ (Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1934). Machines are predictable and humans are not. In celebrated papers of the late 1940s the English mathematician Alan Turing questioned this notion. Having been a wartime cryptographer at Bletchley Park, […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
CULTURAL BABBAGE BOOK REVIEW by Richard Barbrook
Cultural Babbage: Technology, Time and Invention edited by Francis Spufford and Jenny Uglow, Faber and Faber, London, pp 290. This book is a collection of essays inspired by Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine – a never-completed Victorian mechanical calculator which is often claimed as the ancestor of the modern PC. In London’s Science Museum, a working […]
Author: Simon Schaffer
BABBAGE’S INTELLIGENCE by Simon Schaffer
“Mr Babbage’s invention puts an engine in place of the computer” In summer 1823 the new and controversial Astronomical Society of London decided to award its gold medal to one of its own founder members, the equally controversial Cambridge-trained mathematician Charles Babbage. The award formed part of an energetic campaign to launch the construction of […]
Author: Simon Schaffer
BABBAGE’S DANCER by Simon Schaffer
Introduction In a very well-known passage of Capital, Marx described labour as ‘a process between man and nature’ through which man ‘acts upon external nature and changes it, and in this way he simultaneously changes his own nature.’ Intelligence made the labour process distintively human. ‘What distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees,’ […]
Author: Vincent Porter
ADDING UP THE BITS by Vincent Porter
The Changing Balance of Interests The laws protecting intellectual property rights (IPRs) will play a key role in shaping the economy of the information superhighway, or the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) as it is now called in international circles. Although the technologies themselves are protected by patent rights, it is the details of copyright law […]
Author: Simon Evans
THE MATHEMATICS OF DESIRE by Simon Evans
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Author: Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron
BASIC BANALITIES by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron
Common sense for the digital age Information technology has no destiny – it simply mediates social relations between people. Cyberspace is not a consensual hallucination, it is a construction site created by human labour. People create their own technology, but not in circumstances of their own choosing. Cyberspace is where the imaginary can become real. […]
Author: Richard Barbrook
HYPERMEDIA FREEDOM by Richard Barbrook
Turn On, Log In and Drop Out! As with any other law, the Telecommunications Reform Act will face the problem of enforcement. The ‘War on Drugs’ hasn’t stopped Americans from voraciously consuming billions of dollars of illegal chemicals every year. There must be similar doubts about the practicality of the censorship measures in the new […]
Within this MySpace version of the electronic agora, cybernetic communism was mainstream and unexceptional. What had once been a revolutionary dream was now an enjoyable part of everyday life.