Comments on: AOIR 8 Vancouver, 50 Parties, etc. (Oct. 2007) http://clicknoise.net/aoir-8-vancouver-50-parties-etc-oct-2007/ Musings about music, technology, mobility, and culture, by Jean Hebert. Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:56:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Kate Milberry http://clicknoise.net/aoir-8-vancouver-50-parties-etc-oct-2007/comment-page-1/#comment-22115 Kate Milberry Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:17:15 +0000 http://clicknoise.net/aoir-8-vancouver-50-parties-etc-oct-2007/#comment-22115 I use/understand micropolitics in the context of the new activism, which Feenberg says is characterized by small interventions in social life that are numerous and diverse. Despite their humbler scale, these interventions represent moments of agency that could converge to produce long-term subversive impacts. “The tensions in the industrial system can be grasped on a local basis from ‘within’, by individuals immediately engaged in technically mediated activities and able to actualize ambivalent potentialities suppressed by the prevailing technological rationality” (Feenberg, 2002, p. 105). This promises the possibility of rationalizing technology, and hence society, in ways that enhance democracy rather than social control. Democratic rationalization proposes a new sort of agency, wherein members of social groups engage reflexively and dialectically with the technical framework that defines and organizes them, recognizing themselves no longer as passive objects of technology but as active subjects capable of redefining the technical order. In starting at the end - with the consequences of technology - it is possible to envision a new beginning. I use/understand micropolitics in the context of the new activism, which Feenberg says is characterized by small interventions in social life that are numerous and diverse. Despite their humbler scale, these interventions represent moments of agency that could converge to produce long-term subversive impacts. “The tensions in the industrial system can be grasped on a local basis from ‘within’, by individuals immediately engaged in technically mediated activities and able to actualize ambivalent potentialities suppressed by the prevailing technological rationality” (Feenberg, 2002, p. 105). This promises the possibility of rationalizing technology, and hence society, in ways that enhance democracy rather than social control. Democratic rationalization proposes a new sort of agency, wherein members of social groups engage reflexively and dialectically with the technical framework that defines and organizes them, recognizing themselves no longer as passive objects of technology but as active subjects capable of redefining the technical order. In starting at the end – with the consequences of technology – it is possible to envision a new beginning.

]]> By: Jean http://clicknoise.net/aoir-8-vancouver-50-parties-etc-oct-2007/comment-page-1/#comment-22099 Jean Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:08:28 +0000 http://clicknoise.net/aoir-8-vancouver-50-parties-etc-oct-2007/#comment-22099 yeah, it's Feenberg. how'm'I using it? well, if you know the concept, and you know about how music is made these days, you could guess that it centers around practices of sharing/sampling/mashing/open architectures vs DRM/licensing/takedown/walled content gardens. As technical practices they are in a sense non-ideological uses of the same code and the same networks, but they have far-reaching political and social implications. In the online music industry this struggle is obvious (examples - the battle over pricing and DRM in iTunes, corporate buyin and sellout of open arch. systems [CBS/Last.fm], the crackdown on Internet radio & other sites of distribution that are not monetized in ways that sync with old school economic regimes, the free giveaway of music files as a revolutionary/rupturous act, and so on. comments? Am I way off base on this technical micropolitics thing? yeah, it’s Feenberg. how’m'I using it? well, if you know the concept, and you know about how music is made these days, you could guess that it centers around practices of sharing/sampling/mashing/open architectures vs DRM/licensing/takedown/walled content gardens. As technical practices they are in a sense non-ideological uses of the same code and the same networks, but they have far-reaching political and social implications.

In the online music industry this struggle is obvious (examples – the battle over pricing and DRM in iTunes, corporate buyin and sellout of open arch. systems [CBS/Last.fm], the crackdown on Internet radio & other sites of distribution that are not monetized in ways that sync with old school economic regimes, the free giveaway of music files as a revolutionary/rupturous act, and so on.

comments? Am I way off base on this technical micropolitics thing?

]]> By: Milhaus http://clicknoise.net/aoir-8-vancouver-50-parties-etc-oct-2007/comment-page-1/#comment-22098 Milhaus Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:22:24 +0000 http://clicknoise.net/aoir-8-vancouver-50-parties-etc-oct-2007/#comment-22098 Is that Feenberg's micropolitics? If yah, how are you using it? I'm interested... I have used this nifty little concept myself, in discussing tech activism and the global justice movement. Is that Feenberg’s micropolitics? If yah, how are you using it? I’m interested… I have used this nifty little concept myself, in discussing tech activism and the global justice movement.

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