Nettime
Nettime is an internet mailing list that was founded in 1995 during the second meeting of the Medien Zentral Kommittee at the Venice Biennale. Founded by Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz, the list was meant to provide a space for a new form of critical discourse on and with the nets. Since 1995, Nettime has been recognized for building up the discourse of Netzkritik or Net Critique, providing a backdrop and context for the emergence of net.art and influencing critical net culture in general.
Often understood as a European "on-line" salon, Nettime was initially a pre-publishing platform for international critical thinkers. Originally a mainly English language mailing list, other lists have been created for other languages. While the subscribers have changed over time, the list and lists have had the regular participation of such notable figures as: Rachel Baker, John Perry Barlow, Hakim Bey, Natalie Bookchin, Heath Bunting, Ted Byfield, Vuk Ćosić, Critical Art Ensemble, Ricardo Dominquez, Matthew Fuller, Coco Fusco, David Garcia, Gomma, Brian Holmes, Fran Illich, Jodi, Olia Lialina, Geert Lovink, Douglas Rushkoff, Pit Schultz, Alexei Shulgin, DJ Spooky, Fran Ilich, Bruce Sterling, Janos Sugar, Faith Wilding, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Ana Peraica among others.
Send a message to the majordomo software that runs the Nettime list and it will promptly respond with this very out-of-date message in reply:
Nettime
is not only a mailing list, but an attempt to formulate an international, networked discourse, that is neither promoting the dominant euphoria (in order to sell some product), nor to continue with the cynical pessimism, spread by journalists and intellectuals working in the ‘old’ media, who can still make general statements without any deeper knowledge on the specific communication aspects of the socalled ‘new’ media. We intend to bring out books, readers and floppies and websites in various languages, so that the ‘immanent’ net critique will not only circulate within the internet, but can also be read by people who are not on-line”
Real life Meetings
Additional Nettime meetings were held during events like HackIt, (Amsterdam) the Chaos Computer Congress (Berlin), ISEA, the Ars Electronica Festival (Linz), The MetaForum Conferences (95-96) in Budapest. Nettime's one unique event was the Nettime May Conference - Beauty and the East, organized by Ljudmila (Ljubljana). The Hybrid Workspace drew heavily from Nettime during the Documenta X in Kassel.
Nettime Publications
Contributions to the mailinglist were periodically collected, usually in connection with a conference. In 1999, nettime contributions were anthologized in a book form published by Autonomedia press.
- ZKP1 The Next 5 Minutes (2) Amsterdam, Netherlands January 1996
- ZKP2 Cyberconf 5 Madrid, Spain June 1996
- ZKP3 Metaforum III Budapest, Hungary October 1996
- ZKP3.2.1
- ZKP4 The Beauty and the East Ljubljana, Slovenia May 1997
- ZKP5 ReadMe! ASCII Culture and the Revenge of Knowledge. Autonomedia; NYC (February 1,1999)556 pages ISBN 1570270899 Online Version
- ZKP6 Catalogue of the Slovenian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2001.
References
Arns, Inke (2002). Netzkulturen. Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. p. 76. ISBN 3-434-46107-8.
Geert, Lovink (2002). Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-62180-9.