Re: <nettime> Institute of Network Cultures 2.0 - update on changes

[jo van der spek M2M via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

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-------- Oorspronkelijk bericht --------Van: Geert Lovink via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> Datum: 01-11-2026  16:48  (GMT+00:00) Aan: nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> Cc: Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl> Onderwerp: <nettime> Institute of Network Cultures 2.0 - update on changes Dear nettimers,it’s early in the process but we would like to update you about the recent changes at our Institute of Network Cultures.  As you may know: due to Geert's mandatory retirement at 67, the INC (founded in 2004) left the HvA/polytechnic over the summer and became an independent (legal) entity/NGO. There is now a board of the society (vereniging), a bank account and a collective. We will soon make next steps, hopefully together with new partners and authors, creating a larger support group for those not based in Amsterdam or the Netherlands. If you are interested in joining, please let us know.In the meanwhile, the website continues and is actually doing very well (https://www.networkcultures.org).However, many readers will not realize that INC has dropped down to zero staff, zero Euros and no office. For instance, we will no longer send out paper publications. In this situation we are particularly interested to get support from all of you. Think of us please. We are very keen to, for instance, join consortia in EU applications and other forms of collaboration. Should INC become a think tank, merge with others in order to get larger grants? How do you think in what direction independent research, theory and criticism, made in Euroipe, should go?There is an internal working document from summer 2026 (see below) that gives a detailed overview of the thematic directions of our current work (apart from working on the website).One of the first things that will happen is the launch of the Girl Theory Reader, published by Set Margins’ and edited by Mela Miekus and Mita Medri, on December 10. Then there is partication of INC members in the Transmediale project called Solidarity Economies Lab (live late January, in Berlin), there are the ongoing digital publishing expertiments (with a focus on Etherport). And, last but not least, the live stream art events of VOID, coordinated by Tommaso, Jordi and Giulia, will also continue.Some of the publishing will continue, like the Theory on Demand series and the INC Longforms. We might line up with publishers for paper publications in the near future.There is a core group, in Amsterdam, a collective of around seven members that is running the INC. As said, soon we will provide a bigger group for others, outside of Amsterdam and NL. We will have tools and possibilities how to join INC in the wider context and support it. For now, the most basic costs are covered but we urgently need our own meeting/work space and coordination person who do stuff, at least one day a week. There was an assembly during the successful INC Exit Fest late June and we are implementing the suggestions made there. What’s to be done? You can find the program and background here: https://etherport.org/publications/inc/Exit_Fest/chapters/program.html. Please contact us at info@networkcultures.org.Everyone can become a member of the INC society. The contribution is (at least) 12 euro every three months or 48 euro a year. If you live in an IBAN country you can sign up here:https://app.clubcollect.com/signup/978e9974-7b06-4260-9d90-f204cf0b4000If you are based in a non-IBAN country, please sign up here:https://app.clubcollect.com/signup/d1208433-0598-4bd4-ab64-5cf4d317e92dYours, the INC Collective—Here are some of the topics we will work on:1. Expanded publishing and the further development of EtherportDigital publishing has always been a core activity of INC. In recent years we’ve focusing on the research part and applied the hybrid-urgent-multimedia insights in a ever growing variety of series and combination of media and technologies. At the moment, full video integration is a hot item. This is done through/with our video collective VOID. Another emphasis is on the further development of the Etherport software (together with Gijs de Heij) that finally makes it possible to do book design without Adobe/InDesign . The Tactical Media reader is INC Etherport #4. We discuss if we this series continues or whether a new, even more simplified Etherport series will be developed. At the same time the Theory on Demand series is continued: much to our own surprise #62 is in production.Print on demand is here to stay. At the same time we will look for more collaborations with Set Margins’ (even though this already exists with the books of Silvio, Morgane and Maisa). Continuation of the website and perhaps start of a new website Is it good idea to continue the existing Tuxic hosted WordPress structure or do we want something else on the long run? Wordpress got recently hacked (and so did INC, but who didn’t?). There is something to be said to close and conserve the current WP site start from scratch – but we won’t do that (yet). That’s going to be hard considering we have find an office, funding etc. Over the past 6-10 months we have been working intensely to clean up the existing site and it is now stable. We are moving our videos from Vimeo to Internet Archive. All photos will be removed from Flickr. What else? How about the podcasts? The WordPress site will remain agile, around 50 GB, primarily blog postings, longforms and pdfs. The website runs well and attracts lots of visitors. Many reader may not even notice the transition into NGO status that is about to happen.2. The future of streaming, the VOID and podcastingRenting an indy space in 2025 at Surinameplein in Amsterdam was a strong and inspiring ‘spin-off’ gesture of the VOID collective to take the INC transition into their own hand. The VOID is important for the continuity of INC. At the same time, it is also a possibility to take this activity in another direction, entirely separate from INC 2.0 itself. This can also be said of the publishing house and the research institute itself (as a separate think tank). Live streaming and doing hands-on applied video research is an integral part of the INC legacy, going back to Geert’s early 1990s Mediamatic Years (hopefully out soon as a collection), the Next Five Minutes tactical television saga up to the VideoVortex network (the longest active INC network, since 2006), leading up to the Stream Art Network that hopefully will grow in the coming period. More members, streaming theory and software are a priority here.3. The discussion on art and precarityThis has always remained a core mission of INC 1.0, also for INC 2.0. A strategic ‘bridge’ moment was the launch of Sepp Eckenhaussen’s book Goodbye Poverty Jetset (https://humdrumpress.com/goodbye-poverty-jetset). With the slow but devastating dismantling of the arts and cultural institutions plus education, on top of rising costs and budget cuts, this topic will only get more urgent. See also the upcoming Solidarity Economies Lab at Transmediale.4. Focus on girl theorySlowly INC has been building up a strong publishing practice around ‘girl theory’. This is culminating late 2026 in the publishing with Set Margins’ of the Girl Theory Reader, edited by Mela Miekus and Mita Medri. We did not have girl theory as a separate theme during Exit Fest on the topic itself as we’ve covered it already in 2025 during one of the VOID nights at OT301. However, it is also a section in the INC Reader #18, This Can’t be the Place: https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/this-cant-be-the-place-alternative-theories-of-the-internet/. 5. Beyond ethics and the refusal gesture: alternatives to the AI logicDue to high demand it is inevitable that we continue and expand the work of Jordi Viader, Eke Reebergen and others around the ‘critique and refusal of AI’ topic. The pressure on INC to do ‘something’ with AI from outside should not be underestimated. However, a closer look at the website learns that quite a high percentage of the postings deal directly with AI-related topics. However, most associate INC with ‘the internet’ as a topic of the past. There is a popular belief amongst officials that people no longer use platforms, they work with AI.  Authorities have tried to convince INC to stop working on social media. This may be an understandable sentiment: in the fashion logic things come and go (and return as vintage tech). Platform will go out of fashion, as networks and new media once did (but is this in fact wishful thinking?). This still presumes a hypergrowth pre-2016 dynamics that does not take recession, stagnation and the rise of reactionary Big Tech aka techno-fascism into account. Beyond the burst of the AI financial bubble, automation of mediocre jobs is going to stay with us. For INC, this is a tricky subject to include: people love talking about ‘AI’ and soon there will be no other topic to talk about (incl. funding). Still, what’s to be done if one looks down on the poverty of vectorial capitalism?6. From mapping social media blues to alternativesThe turning point here is 2016. Until then, INC focused on expansion of the internet and the critique of applications such as online video, Wikipedia, crypto, social networking, search engines etc. For a decade the focus has shifted to the mental turn, when user culture itself became the object of extractivist business and surveillance. In line with changing funding structures and the political climate, INC started to look inwards and map the disturbing mental landscape inside the abyss, resulting into the INC Reader #18, This Can’t Be the Place. and the reader Fragments of Tactical Media. We will continue with this track; the issues are simply too huge, and the real existing depression invite lots of interesting artists and writers to send us material. However, we need to get more visibly involved in the promotion of alternatives. To break the silence over the monopoly of Instagram in the art world could be one. We got Etherport but what else could be a unique INC contribution in this field? How to create/join coalitions that promote the long-awaited exodus?7. The Spanish-language section Internet Core (written by Diana Millán)In 2025, INC opened a space for decentralized internet art in Spanish called Internet Core (https://networkcultures.org/internetcore/). This dedicated website caters to digital native practices with -core from the dark forest to the clearnet and the digital exodus to new federated social media platforms since 2020-now. In this period, IC is a political and collective tool that, from commercial networks and online subcultures, seeks to return to the critical core of the network through creation, reflection, and hybrid spaces of encounter (academic, artistic, and community-based) that escape the programmatic isolation of Big-Tech. In one year the project posted a dozen essays from artists and colectives and did 4 events in different important venues like Hangar, Santa Mònica (Barcelona), Medialab Matadero (Madrid) and Medialab (Mexico City). After the first meeting arranged by Diana Millán, Geert Lovink and Ezequiel Soriano in Barcelona, the institute has received stays from two predoctoral researchers: Raquel Luaces and Laura Subirats. It is a powerful node for continuing to materialize meeting spaces that encourage reflection on current i-Gen issues. During Diana Millán's PhD thesis process, it could be materialized as a book and we are working now on zines and a alternative website. Actualy, we are going to present Doreen A. Ríos and Valentina Tanni books in Spain and we applied to some open calls for founding. Some institutions like Medialab Madrid are open to host INC/IC. The IC members has been shaped through encounters and evolves according to the actions it undertakes. -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets# more info: https://www.nettime.org# contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
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