Publisher's Summary
My First Recession starts after the party is over. This study maps the transition of critical Internet culture from the mid to late 1990s Internet craze to the dotcom crash, the subsequent meltdown of global financial markets and 9/11. In his discussion of the dotcom boom-and-bust cycle, Geert Lovink lays out the challenges faced by critical Internet culture today. In a series of case studies, Lovink meticulously describes the ambivalent attitude that artists and activists take as they veer back and forth between euphoria and skepticism. As a part of this process, Lovink examines the internal dynamics of virtual communities through an analysis of the use of moderation and "collaborative filtering" on mailing lists and weblogs. He also confronts the practical and theoretical problems that appear as artists join the growing number of new-media education programmes. Delving into the unexplored gold mines of list archives and weblogs, Lovink reveals a world that is largely unknown to both the general public and the Internet visionaries.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Currents in Critical Internet Culture
• Post-speculative Internet Theory, Three Positions: Dreyfus, Castells,Lessig
• Anatomy of Dotcommania, Overview of Recent Literature
• Deep Europe and the Kosovo Conflict, a History of the V2_East/Syndicate Network
• Principles of Streaming Sovereignty, a History of the Xchange Network
• Oekonux and the Free Software Model, From Linux to the GPL-Society
• The Battle over New Media Art Education, Models and Experiences
• Defining Open Publishing, Of Lists and Weblogs
• Conclusion: Boundaries and Sustainable Models

Geert Lovink is a Australian-based Dutch media theorist and Internet critic, a co-founder of numerous online projects such as Nettime and Fibreculture, and the author of Dark Fiber and Uncanny Networks.

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Availability
Available in North, South and Central America through D.A.P./DistributedArt Publishers Inc, 155 Sixth Avenue 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013-1507, Tel:212-627-1999, Fax: 212-627-9484.

Available in the United Kingdom and Ireland through Art Data, 12 BellIndustrial Estate, 50 Cunnington Street, London W4 5HB, Tel: 208-7471061,Fax: 208-7422319.

Available in Australia and New Zealand through Modern Journal, RobynRalton, P.O. Box 1082 Collingwood 3066 Australia, Tel/Fax: 0061-3-9481-2877, Email: modernjournal@netspace.net.au

ISBN: 90-5662-353-2