kuda.org (eds.): tektonik: New Social Onthology in the Time of Total Communication (2004) [English/Serbian]

“tektonik is a collection of texts, transcripts of lectures and interviews with researchers, theoreticians, artists and activists who have been guests of the kuda.lounge program between 2001 and 2004 at the kuda.org New Media Center. The selected texts, lectures and interviews in this edition are a kind of research intersection in the domain of new technologies, culture and society, research of phenomena such as globalization, technological systems of control, mass communication and the Internet, new social movements, the new proletariat and new economy, the problem of intellectual property rights, and biotechnology. Given that society at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a media-saturated global society, particular focus has been directed towards the problem of the mediation of information which creates current reality.

From the very outset kuda.lounge has been a platform for discussion, argumentation and dialog, in the framework of which more than fifty presentations, lectures and workshops have been organized. In inviting key names involved in critical thinking and social theory and practice, kuda.org has attempted to offer the local public an insight into contemporary social questions in the world and to establish frequent and lasting communication and cooperation between local theoriticians and activists and an international network. At kuda.org the public has had the opportunity to hear lectures from Saskie Sassen, Steve Kurtz, Geert Lovink, Konrad Becker, Cindy Cohn and many others.

The development of information and communication technologies has introduced a new social ontology which has manifested itself on the political, cultural, economic and psychological plane. In a time when the promises of a techno-utopia are being transformed into highly-operationalized intelligent machines which serve economic interests, or into trainee virtual units for future conflicts (parallel education and training via computer games as combat simulation, unmanned flying craft – predators), the question is, to what extent can new technologies be used to fulfill some of the promises, pressing in the eighties and early nineties, in the prime of the so-called California ideology? Those promises included social prosperity, creative work, the creation of new workplaces, shortened working hours, global peace in an era of global enlightenment enabled by technology.

Via the texts in this collection we come face to face with warning projections of a dehumanized future determined by the interests of capital, a telling critique of technical-science as the ultimate generator of the capitalist machine. In opposition to this, we can see models of how the potential of new information and communication technologies can be used for democratization and realization of the project of a “better society”.

During the nineties the Balkans was a real battlefield where these global theories “fell in the water” and intersected with specific local interests. A particular idiosyncracy of the local context in the countries of the former Yugoslavia was the comprising of socialism as an idea, the direct or indirect threat of war, life in authoritarian centralism or in a neo-liberal framework of roughshod transition, which also precipitated distrust in broader social action. Parallel with the wars of the nineties, in Serbia a model of accelerated privatization of the public space and an ‘accelerated end’ of the industrial society was carried out, after which Serbian society found itself in limbo between its industrial past and an information-based future, waiting for the reopening of factories that would never be reopened.

The goal of the lectures and discussions was to critically analyze certain socio-political phenomena, to point to the root of the problem and present this to a wider public. The kuda.org center opens the possibility and space of different interpretations and models of the past, present and future social context, mapping those processes which could potentially endanger human freedom using the sophisticated methods of a high-tech society in a time of the knowledge economy. With the publication of this collection we conclude a cycle which has integrated subjects detecting general social problems, and in a “classical” print medium present them to a wider public.”

Contributions by Saskia Sassen, Micz Flor, Geert Lovink, Konrad Becker, Steve Kurtz, Kristian Lukic, Relja Drazic, Raqs Media Collective.

Serbian title: tektonik: Nova društvena ontologija u vreme totalne komunikacije
Publisher Futura publikacije, Novi Sad, 2004
kuda.read series, 001
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0 License
ISBN 8671880265
150 pages

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Freiheit vor Ort: Handbuch kommunale Netzpolitik (2011) [German]

Freiheit beginnt vor Ort. Dies gilt gerade auch für Freiheit in der digitalen Gesellschaft. In acht Kapiteln widmen sich fünfzehn AutorInnen kommunaler Netzpolitik in all ihren Facetten: von Freien Funknetzen, Creative Commons, offenen Lehrunterlagen, Open Source Software, Blogs und Wikis bis zu Open Government, Open Data und dem Web als Kompetenz- und Forschungsfeld.

Im Anschluss an die Beiträge kommen in Interviews Menschen zu Wort, die global oder lokal in den genannten Bereichen tätig sind, u.a. der Gründer der Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, Creative-Commons-Initiator Lawrence Lessig oder Wendy Hall, Mitinitiatorin der neuen Studien- und Forschungsrichtung Webwissenschaften.

Konkrete Projektvorschläge schließen die Kapitel ab. Sie richten sich an lokale EntscheidungsträgerInnen und netzpolitisch Interessierte, die die Potentiale digitaler Technologien für Wirtschaft, Bildung, Kunst und Kultur ausschöpfen möchten. Vor Ort.

Bearbeitete Neuauflage des Bandes Freie Netze. Freies Wissen, Echo media verlag, Wien 2007.

Editors: Leonhard Dobusch, Christian Forsterleitner, Manuela Hiesmair
Publisher: Open Source Press, München, 2011
ISBN: 978-3-941841-40-6
266 pages
Licensed under Creative Commons License BY-SA 2.0 AT

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Mohammed A. Bamyeh: Anarchy as Order: The History and Future of Civic Humanity (2009)

This original and impressively researched book explores the concept of anarchy—”unimposed order”—as the most humane and stable form of order in a chaotic world. Mohammed A. Bamyeh traces the historical foundations of anarchy and convincingly presents it as an alternative to both tyranny and democracy. He shows how anarchy is the best manifestation of civic order, of a healthy civil society, and of humanity’s noblest attributes. The author contends that humanity thrives on self-regulation rather than imposed order, that large systems are inherently more prone to tyranny than small systems, that power is the enemy of freedom, and that freedom and community are complementary rather than opposing values. He concludes that a more rational world is produced not by delegated representatives but by direct participation in common affairs.

Bamyeh offers a concise philosophy of anarchy in the context of war, civil society, global order, experiences of freedom, solidarity, the evolution of modern states, and tax systems. He distinguishes anarchy from more familiar ways of thinking about the relationship between state and society that highlight the importance of power and control for social order. Further, he argues that the necessity for expert guidance or social collaboration in some areas of common public life does not require such areas to be run by a grand, overarching, or representative state. A cogent and compelling critique of the modern state, this provocative book clarifies how anarchy may be both a guide for rational social order and a science of humanity.

Publisher Rowman & Littlefield, 2009
World Social Change series
ISBN 0742556735, 9780742556737
241 pages

review (David Baronov)

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