Panel Statement
Panel: Sniff, Scrape, Crawl: Part 2
This talk will argue that media-activist initiatives from the late 1960s and early 70s (such as Ant Farm and Radical Software) share more in common with today’s social networking sites and reality TV shows than one might first suppose. I will investigate how the notion of ‘feedback’ works as a metaphor and a material condition which in both instances aims to produce a self-performing subject. Although the self-performing subject has been realized through media such as Twitter and Facebook, it is of a different character than the one envisioned by the media guerillas of the past. My presentation will further explain how the feedback loop of non-scripted TV serves as an aid to the neo-liberal political reasoning which promotes a culture of entrepreneurism, privatisation, volunteerism, and responsibilisation.
- Steve Rushton is a founding member of Signal:Noise, an experimental cross-disciplinary research project that aims to explore the influence of cybernetics and information theory on contemporary cultural life by testing out its central idiom, ‘feedback’, through debates, artworks, publications, performances, events and exhibitions. He has been a writer and editor for a range of projects with artists such as Rod Dickinson and Thomson & Craighead. His publications include the series ‘How Media Masters Reality’ for First/Last Newspaper, Issues 1-6, Dexter Sinister (2009); ‘New Walden,’ HB2, Issue 1, CAC, Glasgow (2008); ‘Experience, Memory, Re-enactment’, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam; Revolver, Frankfurt (with Anke Bangma and Florian Wüst) (2005); ‘The Milgram Re-enactment’, Revolver, Frankfurt (2003). He also teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, NL.
Full text (PDF) p. 2081-2086 [Title slightly different]