[spectre] MULTITUDES 21 (2005) [u]

[Geert Lovink [c]]

MULTITUDES 21 (2005)
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The French journal "Multitudes" describes itself as a publication for
"the internet and globalization age, turning politics upside-down". In
the new issue, the editors live up to this motto and present a packed
thematic section on new technologies' impact on the political practices
of both individuals and groups: "The subjectivation of the net:
post-media, networks, sharing".

The hypothesis of "Multitudes" is that the new technologies -- above all
mobile phones and the internet -- have radically changed the way we form
ourselves and are formed by society, and has thus opened up new
possibilities to bypass or even change the hegemonic media system
established in the last century. Emmanuel Videcoq, Bernard Prince, and
Matteo Pasquinelli all try to show that the collective actors of a
post-media society once imagined by the philosopher Felix Guattari are
taking shape. Thanks to "radical machines", it is now possible to bring
resistance to the very centre of the "Techno Empire".

Hypermedia theorist Jean Louis Weissberg spells out the implications of
this development. In the article, "The financial crisis of mass media. 
'I
experiment, therefore I believe'", he interprets new models for direct
production of information, and emerging forms of experimental media, as
symptoms of the corrosion of the pyramidal model of media power. Weblogs
and politically realistic video games are on the point of undermining 
the
legitimacy of traditional media and entertainment. However, writes
Weissberg, this new media landscape is not without its dangers. The
negative extreme, represented by conspiracy theories and historical
revisionism, are just as much part of the picture as the positive 
effects
of a more diverse representation of competing points of view.

Art critic Brian Holmes is also ambivalent. He reminds us of the fact
that the internet was a military invention, and claims that it remains a
control technology, overwhelmed and subverted by the constituent powers.

However, it is the more enthusiastic tone that dominates among
"Multitudes'" contributors. "Syndicate yourselves!" urges sociologist 
and
activist Olivier Blondeau. Thanks to the syndication of contents -- for
example via RSS feeds used by many weblogs -- it is now possible to
create a common space without giving up the autonomy and individual
character of any of the persons, groups, or sites involved, writes
Blondeau. Political activism on the internet until now has been hampered
by the solitude of cyberspace and the accompanying split between the
digital world and the street. With the means of syndication, this gap 
can
finally be bridged. "Media", Blondeau concludes, is the perfect name for
this phenomenon, situated as it is between the intimacy of the 
individual
weblog and the "extimacy" of the street.

In a second thematic section, "Multitudes" brings out a previously
unpublished article by Louis Althusser, in which the Marxist philosopher
pursues his aim to break from the tradition of "dialectic materialism"
and instead proposes a new approach: "matérialisme aléatoire" (aleatory
materialism) or "a Marxism of encounter". Alongside Althusser's text --
written in 1986, four years before he died -- are several commentaries
dealing with his later philosophy.

Finally, in a more direct encounter with aesthetics, dance historian and
theorist Myriam van Imschoot traces the debate on the ontology of
performance art and dance back to Jacques Derrida's "Archive Fever", and
tries to see what implications it has for the practical question of how
to archive dance choreographies. Imschoot's article is accompanied by a
collection of dance scores that illustrate how complex this art form is.
In order not to petrify the gesture of dance, a choreographic archive,
rather than reproducing the past, must be directed towards the future,
towards new encounters between body and movement.

For the full table of contents of "Multitudes" 21 (2005):

>> http://www.eurozine.com/partner/multitudes/current-issue.html