Italian version
. bookGeert Lovink
my First Recession
<book> V2_NAi Publishers
ISBN 90-5662-353-2
In a prolific flow of productions on paper, Geert Lovink, founder of NetTime and coordinator of many initiatives of net criticism, has just published his third book in little more than one year. After 'Dark Fiber' and 'Uncanny Networks', published by MIT Press, 'My First Recession' represents a more contemporary and less historical effort compared to his two previous works and it succeeds in putting together the euphoria and skepticism which characterized, alternatively, almost all of the historical texts about the Net. Here, the criticism is crystallized around a fundamental archeology of media based on the materials of the more recent past by sampling a large set of media theories and contextualizing them in a clear political perspective. The radicalization on transversal practices, inspired by the algorithms used in computer programming, consolidates a set of strategies which succeed in demolishing the usual self-congratulating journalism, always ready to scream about the latest big successes and big failures, relegating it to the role of jester of the corporations and building a coherent and fascinating landscape of effective methods and situations for a sustainable technological development. The comprehension of the mechanisms of the Net is always fundamental, together with the analysis of the potential of this network structure, a structure which characterizes the daily exchanges of informations and goods and which, politically, economically and ideologically, contributes to shape the innovation. All of this was made by closely watching the developments and controversies of the mailing lists, one of Lovink's favorite fields of research. Probably, the lists are a sort of oral history for some contemporary events, told by multiple personal voices through which strong ideas emerge and spread in a viral way producing new meanings and, more and more often, new active aggregations ready to change their surrondings.