// Armin Medosch
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>> LECTURE & PANEL PARTICIPATION:
THU.25.10.2007 @ DOM IM BERG
Lecture: 45 RPM/ Revolutions per Minute
In the 1930ies Bert Brecht and Walter Benjamin tried to formulate a participatory and anti-fascist media theory. Benjamin demanded thatevery author should also be a producer of new formats and techniques which would enable people to find their own voice and express themselves. And Brecht thought that "through continuous, never ending proprosals how to better use the apparatuses in the interest of the general public" the left could shake up and destroy the social basis of those apparatuses, and "discredit their use in the interest of the few." 70 years later the participatory media paradigm that Brecht and Benjamin envisioned seems to become possible. Dissident politicized media activists and free software developers not only own the means of production, they/us/we actually produce them. Can we change the relationship of the means of production by producing participatory and emancipatory technologies? Can capitalism be unspun from within? Or will this movement be another victim of capitalism's capacity to absorb progressive and critical movements and divert their power, a tendency we can already see with Web 2.0.
A lecture supported by audio interviews with discussion afterwards. 45 RPM is an interim result of The Next Layer research project, an independent research project into the art and politics of Free Software.
Long text: http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/RevolutionsPerMinute
( http://www.thenextlayer.org this is under construction, not ready yet)
Armin Medosch, born 1962, Graz, Austria
Armin Medosch is a London based writer, artist and curator. In 2003 he has written the book "Freie Netze - Free Networks", a non-fiction book about the politics, history and culture of (wireless) community networks; published in German language by Heise Verlag, Oct. 2003.
In 2003 he also edited "DIVE - - collaborative tools for online communities" a printed catalogue and cd rom with texts, art projects and software. DIVE is a project by "Kingdom of Piracy" <KOP>; DIVE was co-produced by FACT, Liverpool, commissioned by Virtual Media Center and launched at Ars Electronica 2003. <KOP> is jointly curated by Armin Medosch, Yukiko Shikata and Shu Lea Cheang.
He is a regular speaker at international conferences on digital culture and frequently involved in organising and curating conferences. He presented a paper at the conference Open Cultures, Vienna (June 03), at Transmediale 04, at 'Crosstalks', Brussels, among many other places. In 2002 he co-organised "BerLon" - Berlin/London wireless community networking workshop, bootlab, Berlin (Oct 02).
He has contributed articles and essays to many books, catalogues, magazines and newspapers. One of his latest pieces is 'Not Just Another Wireless Utopia' for 'THE FUTURE OF COMPUTER ARTS', edited by Marina Grzinic and published by MKC, Maribor and Maska, Ljubljana. In November 2003 he wrote and edited the catalogue for the DMZ Media Arts Festival London. He is currently working on a new book on the relationships between science, technology and societal change.
He is currently holding a NinePin research residency by Scan Network in the South West of England, investigating real and virtual ports and their role as cultural socio-economic hubs of transmission, gatekeeping and control.
From 1996 to 2002 he was co-editor of telepolis, the award winning 'magazine of net-culture'.
Since 1997 based in London, he is co-initiator of the monthly Cybersalon events, co-organiser of conference Art Servers Unlimited, @backspace and ICA 1998; member of University of Openness, a self-learning institution, and associate senior lecturer at Ravensbourne College's postgraduate MA course on Interactive Digital Media. [source]