hot new topics?

"Privacy and surveillance are the new hot topics, Mr. Tribe said". If this is an accurate report of what Mark Tribe said on the subject of the undeadness of net art, then I disagree with him on a number of points.

First of all, yes of course, privacy and surveillance are massively important areas of concern, but within a very specific critical framework.

I would argue that issues of privacy and surveillance are related to the intensification of commodification, and that artists' ownership of the processes of commodification is critically important.

It is critically important, because the commodification of parts of our lives previously untouched by capitalism is intensifying, and those areas being affected are areas such as