"The Art and Politics of Netporn"

September 30 & October 1 2005

De Badcuyp, Amsterdam

www.networkcultures.org/netporn

For more information: nieke@networkcultures.org/ 020 5951866

Supported by: Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and Interactive Media, Hogeschool van Amsterdam.

In the weekend of September 30 and October 1, the ‘Badcuyp’ in
Amsterdam will host the first conference on Internet pornography, entitled ‘The Art & Politcs of Netporn’. This international event, organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, will include
presentations from a broad selection of artists and researchers from all over the world. All of them have been researching the subject of Internet pornography in their own individual ways. The event’s grand finale will be a ‘porn pour porn soiree’, a festive night with
various performances and screenings. The party will kick off with a presentation of Katrien Jacobs’ new book ‘Libidoc’, about her quest for sex artists all around the world.

Even in this modern age, Internet pornography is a subject that makes most people uncomfortable. The common image isn’t pretty, since the subject is mostly related to raunchiness, exploitation, ‘strange people’ with awkward sexual preferences, and dubious networks and practices. The Art and Politics of Netporn wants to draw attention to the other side of this phenomenon by focusing on the political and economical implications of netporn, as well as to the ethical and aesthetic aspects of digital communities (i.e. weblogs, chat groups, mailing lists and webzines). These relatively new forms of
communication enable people to meet up anonymously, form communities, or present themselves while having creative control over the process of communciation.To provide us with an alternative view on netporn, the conference organization has also invited artists whose work
reflects different ideas on sexuality and who have appropriated the language or specific qualities of Internet pornography. The Art and Politics of Netporn challenges the visitors to discuss the current social climate of heightened control over information processes and the power of censorship. Who gets to decide what we are allowed to see, and what are the limits to our freedom?

The Connection Between the War Against Terrorism, Economics and Media-Art

Researchers, activists and media-artists meet on the Trans-Siberian train from Moscow to Beijing September 11th –20th 2005.

The conference “Capturing the Moving Minds” gathers a pack of people … artists, economists, researchers, philosophers, activists … who are interested in the new logic of the economy, the new form of war against terrorism and in the new cooperative modes of creation and resistance, together in a space moving in time. Spatially moving bodies and bodies moving in time (through the different time zones) creates an event, a meeting that not really 'is' but 'is going on'.

Is this project about economics, is it political activity or a work of art? This “boundlessness” or “indeterminacy”, which always characterizes the creation of new, is where the energy of the project is coming: The enterprise expresses and exposes itself the “knowledge economy” in which it exists. It is something the orthodox conceptions about work, action, economy and art are unable to grasp. In this organizational experiment everybody is “alone together” like a pack of wolves around a fire having neighbours to the left and to the right but nobody behind their backs exposed to the desert.

Strategies of Refusal: Explorations in Autonomist Marxism

Bluestockings • 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington, NYC •

http://www.bluestockings.com • $25 – 50 sliding scale

Sundays 12 – 2 PM from October 9nd – December 4th

Instructors: Jack Z. Bratich & Stevphen Shukaitis

Since the publication of Hardt and Negri's Empire new attention has been brought to a previously ignored current of revolutionary theory and practice, namely that of autonomist Marxism. The attention paid to readings of Negri have tended to neglect the vast wealth of engaged theoretical reflection contained within the history of autonomist thought and organizing from which Negri's work emerges. The course will begin to explore this future behind our backs focusing on key concepts and practices with autonomst Marxism such as class composition analysis, spatial articulations and enclosures, mobility and exodus, the refusal of work, affective labor, biopower, communication and information theory, and current developments in autonomist organizing such as those around precarious labor. It will explore the writing of theorists as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno, the Midnight Notes Collective, Harry Cleaver, Silvia Federici, Bifo, Leopoldina Fortunati, Ferrucio Gambino, Raniero Panzieri, Sandro Mezzadra, George Caffentzis, Maurizio Lazzarato, Mariarosa Dallacosta, Toni Negri, Félix Guattari, and Alisa Del Re. Having at least a working knowledge of Marxist concepts (and a willingness to critique them) would be very helpful. A majority of the reading will be made available electronically and/or in scanned form.

For more information / readings:
http://www.refusingstructures.net/strategies.htmor strategies@refusingstructures.net

Sponsored by Autonomedia: Substructing the Planetary Work Machine Since 1983