Technotopia A Media Genealogy of Net Cultures [Paperback]

This remarkable book reformulates what network theory is and can be by uncovering the forgotten futures of early 1990s net cultures.? It reveals the importance of social and political experimentation to the building of alternative network infrastructures and inspires us to action.? A must-read for anyone who cares about the networked future.This is that rare book that combines close attention to the materiality of digital media, with careful attention to reinterpreting theory and a sustained engagement with artistic and political practices. The book creatively reminds us that there is a genealogy of alternative models by which to envision networks and the internet, while developing an original and sophisticated critique of contemporary ubiquitous computing. Technotopia thus makes timely and important interventions into rethinking discourses of both smartness and infrastructure that will be informative to media theorists and practitioners alike.? Apprich reminds us that the future is not technically ordained; there might yet exist other worlds and other networks, possibilities for critique that will also be critical in providing different forms of information infrastructures for more plural and just worlds.? ??Finally, a history of our present mined from the golden decade of network cultures: the 1990s. The indie music scene had the Pixies, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and Radiohead. For radical technocultures, it was collaborative text filtering of Nettime, The Yes Men, DIY tactical media, barcamps, hackers, movemements, and an all-out critical assault on the Californian Ideology. Scouring the vanishing archives and forgotten concepts of this lost decade, Clemens Apprich returns to our miserable century the experimental horizon of a past whose autonomy is not so long lost.As surveillance capitalism is undermining our democracies, alternatives are urgently needed. Apprich provides an insightful account of early net-cultures and their radical experiments. This book helló5