Netbase (1995-2006)

xposting warning - a forward from nettime

Begin forwarded message:

> Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 18:37:08 -0500
> From: Felix Stalder <[email protected]>
> Subject: <nettime> Netbase (1995-2006)
>
> Yesterday, there was a party in Vienna. It was a small, at times
> sombre, at times
> exuberant affair, fitting for the occasion. The final call for
> netbase, the
> institute for cultural technologies. Today, the doors remained closed
> and the
> website turned static.
>
> After more than a decade sailing hard against the currents, suffering
> countless
> near-death experiences, it's hard to believe that the fall of the
> curtain is now
> final. No more publicity stunts.
>
> With the netbase, one of the last 'free radicals' of the early
> internet culture
> disappears, an institution which understood art as necessarily
> critical, both of
> the commercial hype and the old and new centers of power.
>
> Insisting on the freedom of art, defining its value as cultural
> intelligence,
> probing alternative futures, netbase refused play along with the
> neo-liberal
> redefinition of culture into 'services' to be measured by tourism
> boards, economic
> development agencies, or ministries of education.
>
> Rather, what characterized netbase was an insistence on acting in
> public, engaging
> the public directly and on its own terms. That such an approach is
> ultimately
> doomed, particularly in a country like Austria, is hardly a surprise.
> Like a crash
> in a formula one race, it's easy to say "i saw it coming."
>
> Even if the real surprise is probably that netbase lasted that long,
> witnessing
> its closure is a sad affair nevertheless. Particularly for many
> nettimers, who
> enjoyed, at one time or another, its particular kind of hospitality in
> here
> Vienna.
>
>
> Felix
>
>
> - —-+——-+———+—
> http://felix.openflows.org