Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concepts of assemblages, rhizomes
and nomads; Jacques Derrida's analysis of thinking as writing;
the Autonomist Marxist's ideas about the General Intellect and
Immaterial Labour; Donna Haraway's conception of the cyborg
as a model for thinking about gender and identity in a high-tech
world, and Hakim Bey's concept of 'Temporary Autonomous Zones',
which act as enclaves against the powers that be, and are dissolved
before they can be repressed or co-opted. Punk in the late '
s,
itself a response to the dislocations of capitalism as it shifted to an
informational mode, inspired many of these developments, includ-
ing the sci-fi genre Cyberpunk, musical styles such as Industrial
Rock and Techno and other electronic genres, as well as deconstruc-
tionist graphic design and fashion. Out of these different elements
there has emerged a distinctive digital style in which the extraordi-
nary social and cultural developments of the last twenty years
have been reflected. This style has entered the mainstream of con-
temporary culture, finding expression in film, television, topic and
magazine design.
These are, then, some of the main elements out of which our
current digital culture has been assembled: Cold War defence
technologies; avant-garde art practice; counter-cultural techno-
utopianism; postmodernist critical theory; new wave subcultural
style. Though, as time goes on, their presence becomes harder to
detect. Each of these elements is immanent within the technologies
we use and the means we use to understand them. To acknowledge
the heterogeneous nature of digital culture is increasingly necessary,
as the technology through which it is perpetuated becomes both
more ubiquitous and more invisible. The less aware we are of the
social and cultural forces out of which our current situation has
been constructed the less able we are to resist and question the
relations of power and force it embodies. If, on the other hand, we
can see that these forces are culturally contingent and in no sense
natural and inevitable then we have the basis for asking questions.
70
