[spectre] Fwd: Felix Stalder: Netbase (1995-2006)

[Eric Kluitenberg]

bad news from Vienna...

eric
:(((

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Felix Stalder <felix at openflows.org>
> Date: February 19, 2006 0:37:08 GMT+01:00
> To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net
> Subject: <nettime> Netbase (1995-2006)
> Reply-To: Felix Stalder <felix at openflows.org>
>
>
> Yesterday, there was a party in Vienna. It was a small, at times  
> sombre, at times
> exuberant affair, fitting for the occasion. The final call for  
> netbase, the
> institute for cultural technologies. Today, the doors remained  
> closed and the
> website turned static.
>
> After more than a decade sailing hard against the currents,  
> suffering countless
> near-death experiences, it's hard to believe that the fall of the  
> curtain is now
> final. No more publicity stunts.
>
> With the netbase, one of the last 'free radicals' of the early  
> internet culture
> disappears, an institution which understood art as necessarily  
> critical, both of
> the commercial hype and the old and new centers of power.
>
> Insisting on the freedom of art, defining its value as cultural  
> intelligence,
> probing alternative futures, netbase refused play along with the  
> neo-liberal
> redefinition of culture into 'services' to be measured by tourism  
> boards, economic
> development agencies, or ministries of education.
>
> Rather, what characterized netbase was an insistence on acting in  
> public, engaging
> the public directly and on its own terms. That such an approach is  
> ultimately
> doomed, particularly in a country like Austria, is hardly a  
> surprise. Like a crash
> in a formula one race, it's easy to say "i saw it coming."
>
> Even if the real surprise is probably that netbase lasted that  
> long, witnessing
> its closure is a sad affair nevertheless. Particularly for many  
> nettimers, who
> enjoyed, at one time or another, its particular kind of hospitality  
> in here
> Vienna.
>
>
> Felix
>
>
> ----+-------+---------+---
> http://felix.openflows.org
>
>
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