User:Darija Medic/notwork

Antisocial Applications: Notes in support of antisocial notworking

Defining the social in terms of communication technologies, and the problematic view of horizontality in networks. Questions of ownership and security in the social web bring up questions about it’s function and friendliness. The production of subjectivity ceases to be only an instrument of social control and becomes directly productive, because the goal of our postindustrial society is to construct the consumer/communicator – and to construct it as "active" (quoting Maurizio Lazzarato). The networked computer has redefined social relations, bringing up antagonisms in the relation. The author stresses that we need to identify those antagonisms and redefine the “well assembled collective” (Latour). Work outside of traditional production processes blurs the line between work and nonwork -work and action become indistinct. The author sees potential to transform server-client relations into peer-to-peer relations but only if held within the public realm, outside of private ownership and as part of the commons.

Geoff Cox, March 2008. Art & Social Technologies Research