User:Cristinac/ThesisOutline

The discreet charm of bureaucracy

The fortification of information structures

…cybernetics gets more and more complicated, makes a chain, then a network. Yet it is founded on the theft of information, quite a simple thing. (Michel Serres, The Parasite)

“Network” here is at once a metaphor and more than a metaphor. … In a system of cells or boxes interconnected by pathways, it is possible, as in the case of the simplest of schemas – family tree – that there may never be more than one way of going from one cell to another, so that in order to return to the starting-point we have to retrace our path. There are thus no closed circuits, and the “network” scarcely deserves the name. But as soon as the schema becomes more complicated, closed circuits (also termed “loops” or “meshes”) make their appearance. The presence of such loops in the schema of a servo-mechanism is quite fundamental; it is from them that “reflex” and “reactive” structures are formed. (George T. Guilbaud, What is Cybernetics?)

The utopian goal of the internet as a space of borderless knowledge exchange and democratic playground has long been adapted and commodified to serve corporate interests. However, there are initiatives that function at the fringe of the knowledge economy, working collectively to add to the mass of the digital commons.

This thesis aims to identify how a platform determines the rights and responsibilities of the user on information distribution platforms of the shadow economy by drawing a parallel between citizenship and usership. What are the rules and regulations under which self organised groups function? How are they influenced by the technological circumstance of the platform?

1. Open for business

The first chapter will speak about the etymology of the 'open knowledge/access' movement. Coming from the free software movement, how have the 'sources' of culture opened up? Example MIT classes: ideology of the open, openness as a marketing tool for visibility. Values promoted by 'openness': collaboration, transparency, competition easily adopted by the neoliberal discourse

2. The autonomy of pirates, the boundary of the platform

Hakim Bey's essay 'Temporary Autonomous Zones' is often quoted by pirate groups as a fundamental example for a self governed space in which there is a suspension of rules. The essay was written at a time after Bey had lived in several communes and took inspiration from the anarchist groups that were rejecting control structures amongst themselves. His ideas were adopted by file sharing platforms that operated outside of the legal market. However, as Alexander Galloway is arguing in his book “Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization”, the technical framework determines both the boundaries of the platform and the social relationships between the actors of the network. Galloway identifies networks as being “any system of interrelationality, whether biological or informatic, organic or inorganic, technical or natural—with the ultimate goal of undoing the polar restrictiveness of these pairings” (Galloway,2007). This rhizomatic stretch of networks as defined by Galloway is not committed to materiality and seems not to need contextualization. There is a general understanding that networks annex differences and include them into their model of wholeness. They function on the basis of fluidity and continuum. There is an illusion of openness to change inherent in networks, that will be identified through practical examples.

3. User citizenship

Protocol, Accessibility, Terms of Service, Interface, Labour

Bibliography:

• Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates and Pirate Utopias - Peter Ludlow
• Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralisation - Alexander Galloway
• The Temporary Autonomous Zone - Hakim Bey
• The Network Society - Jan van Dijk