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Where do we talk about the internet?

06:32 / 11.05.07

Yea yea, maybe it's a little pretentious to have an Internet forum on the Internet, so I'm wondering if there's a place I can take my inquests about it that exists already.

Does torrenting go to music? What if I'm downloading a comic? Is doing one or the other different? What do we do with digital art?

Bloggers aren't exactly my bag, but I'm thinking that others might want to compare and contrast. Same with other websites, maybe stuff that's been hidden by the darknet. Shopping sites I think are also nice to share. But there's more than that, and stuff that I wouldn't even be able to come up with that someone else would.

Basically, I'm interested in getting a better and more complete understanding of the medium, one that is capable only through an interaction with a community, which is what in essence all of the forums on Barbelith accomplish. Is it worth it to make a new forum dedicated to the Internet and its tangents? I mean, obviously I think so, and I'm wondering what others think.

Feast!

Whisky Priestess

07:27 / 11.05.07

Does the internet still count as a "new technology", I wonder? If not, should it still be discussed in the Laboratory?

Closed for Business Time

08:21 / 11.05.07

WP, I would hardly call it new tech anymore, but inasmuch as it's still a work in progress, surely there's a place in the Lab for it.
Tho some part of me would have it all out in the Headshop.
Quickly, is the internet 1st comms tech and then an identity brokering device or is it switcharoo'ed?

08:40 / 11.05.07

I would say it's any and all. Just because the Internet expands in a different way than other media doesn't mean it isn't singular in itself.

It wouldn't make sense to judge film by the standards of radio, and so I see no need to make a rigid definition of what the Internet is and what it is not. Basically, any content that is accessible by connecting to the World Wide Web is fair game.

08:49 / 11.05.07

Tho some part of me would have it all out in the Headshop.

In what sense? Sociological implications perhaps. But pretty much everything about the internet seems to fit the Lab remit the best.

Closed for Business Time

09:39 / 11.05.07

In the sense of HS. Ie "cultural studies and identity politics". The media/culture aspects of consuming and producing 1/0'ed multimedia info, and the sociocultural shifts in structures of selves, small groups, big groups and the emergence (or not) of a Hive.

Leaves plenty of geek-space for Lab purposes, no?

Closed for Business Time

09:40 / 11.05.07

whatever: could you try and be a little more expansive when you say that the Internet is a singular, unto-itself thingie? interesting choice of words s'all.

Whisky Priestess

10:04 / 11.05.07

WP, I would hardly call it new tech anymore, but inasmuch as it's still a work in progress

Exactly - I mean that it's a continuously evolving entity to which new technologies will always be being applied and from and for which they will, increasingly emerge and be developed. It will always involve new technology although whether to classify the internet itself as technology or sociology (or history, or whatever, or none or all of the above) is a tough call.

10:08 / 11.05.07

I'll give it a try, but it might be kind of... big.

So, I basically come from the point of view that dominant ideology exists as some kind of ultra-text; an everything of everything. Within it there are a lot of different spheres of influence interacting with each other and building an overall whole.

This would include television, film, the internet, fine art, etc.

Our mode of viewing depends wholly upon the medium, which itself exists as a dialectic between the technologies of its expression and individual innovation/application. So for me, it's tough to put the Internet in any category. There are certainly aspects of business, identity formation, music, politics, and so on. It leads me to believe that the best way to talk about the Internet would most likely be in terms of the Internet.

Try not to think about it as an extension of previous technologies so much as something wholly new in itself.

Closed for Business Time

10:15 / 11.05.07

whatever, I suggest we (you?) make a new thread for the discussion of the Internet, and leave this for your original query - namely where on the Blabberlith do we best discuss all or part of the #NT#RN#T. Makes the sense?