Social Broadcasting
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Randall Packer
Abstract
This essay examines a history of alternative media, experimental video, and communalist aspirations of the counter-culture from the 1960s and 1970s, who modeled and instigated a radical shift in media culture as a precursor to current day Internet broadcasting and social media. The concept of social broadcasting draws from this seminal history in which the first generation of media and video artists in the 1960s organized around socially-participatory and politically activist collectives, narratives and agendas. These media practitioners embraced the emerging electronic forms and tools as a call-to-action against the establishment, forming independent, decentralized, and mobilized collectives to make their own media. During the 1960s, and continuing throughout the 1970s, alternative media communities and artist-driven networks in the US were instrumental in driving the evolving social and cultural transformation of the time. These include: USCO, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, San Francisco Tape Music Center, Raindance Foundation, Kitchen Art Center, Videofreex, et al., who encouraged other artists and activists to create their own media and propel their own upheaval of the status quo. In the seminal video art journal Radical Software, Gene Youngblood proclaimed: “The videosphere will alter the minds of men and the architecture of our dwellings,”1 forecasting the transformative and politically revolutionary potential of emerging information networks. By looking back and analyzing the historic legacies of collective media art and activism, we see a still unfolding future for today’s networked and social media, not just as a corporate controlled delivery mechanism for reinforcing consumerism and mainstream popular culture, but as a collaborative platform for experimental invention and social broadcasting: an unfinished communications revolution.
Abstract
This essay examines a history of alternative media, experimental video, and communalist aspirations of the counter-culture from the 1960s and 1970s, who modeled and instigated a radical shift in media culture as a precursor to current day Internet broadcasting and social media. The concept of social broadcasting draws from this seminal history in which the first generation of media and video artists in the 1960s organized around socially-participatory and politically activist collectives, narratives and agendas. These media practitioners embraced the emerging electronic forms and tools as a call-to-action against the establishment, forming independent, decentralized, and mobilized collectives to make their own media. During the 1960s, and continuing throughout the 1970s, alternative media communities and artist-driven networks in the US were instrumental in driving the evolving social and cultural transformation of the time. These include: USCO, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, San Francisco Tape Music Center, Raindance Foundation, Kitchen Art Center, Videofreex, et al., who encouraged other artists and activists to create their own media and propel their own upheaval of the status quo. In the seminal video art journal Radical Software, Gene Youngblood proclaimed: “The videosphere will alter the minds of men and the architecture of our dwellings,”1 forecasting the transformative and politically revolutionary potential of emerging information networks. By looking back and analyzing the historic legacies of collective media art and activism, we see a still unfolding future for today’s networked and social media, not just as a corporate controlled delivery mechanism for reinforcing consumerism and mainstream popular culture, but as a collaborative platform for experimental invention and social broadcasting: an unfinished communications revolution.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter 1
- Contents 5
- Introduction 9
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Part I: Political Dimensions in Digital Imagery
- Image-Transaction 19
- Digital Art’s Political Impact 34
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Part II: “Freedom Act” Aestheticization of Surveillance, Counterveillance, and Participatory Agendas
- Coping with Uncertainty 55
- Cultural Politics of Games 78
- Artistic Research and Technocratic Consciousness 87
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Part III: Touching Communication Strategies
- Social Broadcasting 105
- From Celestial Maneuvers to Atmospheric Turmoil 126
- When Are We? 140
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Part IV: Technopolitics and Artistic Agency Global Ecology in New Media Art
- Physical Computing and the Political Economy of Machines 161
- Countering Capitulation 173
- Capitalocene Art 194
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Part V: Machine Learning, Data Visualizations, and Architecture The (In)visible Infrastructures of Information Systems
- Double-bind Information Systems in the Work of Teresa Burga 213
- Entangled Realities 228
- Facebook’s MPK 20 Headquarters designed by Frank Gehry 242
- Authors 257
- Illustrations Credits 264
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter 1
- Contents 5
- Introduction 9
-
Part I: Political Dimensions in Digital Imagery
- Image-Transaction 19
- Digital Art’s Political Impact 34
-
Part II: “Freedom Act” Aestheticization of Surveillance, Counterveillance, and Participatory Agendas
- Coping with Uncertainty 55
- Cultural Politics of Games 78
- Artistic Research and Technocratic Consciousness 87
-
Part III: Touching Communication Strategies
- Social Broadcasting 105
- From Celestial Maneuvers to Atmospheric Turmoil 126
- When Are We? 140
-
Part IV: Technopolitics and Artistic Agency Global Ecology in New Media Art
- Physical Computing and the Political Economy of Machines 161
- Countering Capitulation 173
- Capitalocene Art 194
-
Part V: Machine Learning, Data Visualizations, and Architecture The (In)visible Infrastructures of Information Systems
- Double-bind Information Systems in the Work of Teresa Burga 213
- Entangled Realities 228
- Facebook’s MPK 20 Headquarters designed by Frank Gehry 242
- Authors 257
- Illustrations Credits 264
