Jacques Ellul: The Technological Bluff (1990)

This poignant critique of modern society shows how we have mistakenly allowed technology to fool us into thinking about all of our problems in terms of technical progress. This technological bluff, Ellul claims, deprives us of active adaptation to and criticism of technical growth.

The author argues that “an easily distracted consumer society is caught up in a rapidly developing, uncontrollable technological system. … Everyproblem generates a technological solution; computers breed ever larger, morefragile, and vulnerable systems. But the solutions raise more and greater problems than they solve. … Responsibility, contemplation, civility, and spirituality suffer.” (Choice)

Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1990
ISBN 080280960X, 9780802809605
436 pages

Key terms:
Minitel, telematics, Le Monde, Third World, technopolis, genetic engineering, independent local radio, technocrats, videotex, microcomputers, entropy, Testart, Jacques Ellul, gross national product, Nomenklatura, artificial intelligence, University of Bordeaux, technostructure, vitro fertilization, Paris

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Ágnes Ivacs, János Sugár (eds.): Buldózer: Médiaelméleti antológia (1997) [Hungarian]

An anthology of contemporary media theory in Hungarian, derived from the Metaforum conference series and Nettime mailing list.

Contents:
Introduction by Janos Sugar (English)
Preface by Geert Lovink (English)
I.
Gilles Deleuze: Postscript on the Societies of Control
Thomas Pynchon: Is it O.K. to be a Luddite?
Tjebbe van Tijen: Ars Oblivivendi
Bruce Sterling: The Brief History of the Internet
II.
Richard Barbrook, Andy Cameron: Californian Ideology
Manuel De Landa: Markets and Antimarkets
closing debate of MetaForum 3
Felix Stalder: Financial Networks
Matthew Fuller: Spew- Excess and Moderation on the Networks
Critical Art Ensemble: Net Realities – Utopian Promises
Data Trash an interview with Arthur Kroker by Geert Lovink
János Sugár: Paradigm Shift Interruptus
III.
Pit Schultz: The Final Content
Geert Lovink: A Push Media Critique
Alexei Shulgin: Art, Power, and Communication
Calin Dan: Journey through a Data Room
David Garcia, Geert Lovink: ABC of Tactical Media
Miklós Peternák: In Medias Res – The Man without Interface
Lev Manovich: Digital Reality
Hans-Christian Dany: Schizos Still Wanna Have Fun
Michael Heim: Anxieties
IV.
Attila Kotányi: Is There Any Media Criticism That Isn’t Suicidal?
Gábor Bora: AI Service
Alpár Losoncz: Digitalization of Borders
Erik Davis: Technoculture and the Religious Imagination
Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey): Net-Religion – War in Heaven

Edited by Agnes Ivacs and János Sugár, in cooperation with Diana McCarty, Geert Lovink, and Pit Schultz
Biographical notes by Diana McCarty
Publisher Media Research Foundation, Budapest, October 1997
Layout: Balazs Boethy using Heath Bunting’s graphics
ISSN 1417-6033
220 pages

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Rob van Kranenburg: The Internet of Things. A critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID (2008)

The Internet of Things is the second issue in the series of Network Notebooks. It’s a critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID by Rob van Kranenburg. Rob examines what impact RFID and other systems, will have on our cities and our wider society. He currently works at Waag Society as program leader for the Public Domain and wrote earlier an article about this topic in the Waag magazine and is the co-founder of the DIFR Network. The notebook features an introduction by journalist and writer Sean Dodson.

In Network Notebook #2, titled The Internet of Things, Rob van Kranenburg outlines his vision of the future. He tells of his early encounters with the kind of location-based technologies that will soon become commonplace, and what they may mean for us all. He explores the emergence of the “internet of things”, tracing us through its origins in the mundane back-end world of the international supply chain to the domestic applications that already exist in an embryonic stage. He also explains how the adoption of he technologies of the City Control is not inevitable, nor something that we must kindly accept nor sleepwalk into. In van Kranenburg’s account of the creation of the international network of Bricolabs, he also suggests how each of us can help contribute to building technologies of trust and empower ourselves in the age of mass surveillance and ambient technologies.

Table of Contents:
1. Forward: A tale of two cities Sean Dodson
2. Ambient Intelligence and its promises
3. Ambient Intelligence and its catches
4. Bricolabs
5. How to act

Network Notebooks editors: Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer. Copy editing: Sean Dodson. Design: Studio Léon&Loes, Rotterdam http://www.leon-loes.nl. Print: Telstar Media, Pijnacker. Publisher: Insitute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam. Supported by: Amsterdam School of Design and Communication, Interactive Media (Hogeschool van Amsterdam) and Waag Society, Amsterdam.
Network Notebooks 02, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2008. ISBN: 978-90-78146-06-3.

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