Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net - CULTURE AND POLITICS AFTER THE NET

The Battle of all Mothers (or: No Unauthorised Reproduction)

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:57:08 +0000

ByMadame Tlank

The UK’s health and social services have become tools of surveillance and control, with working class women the most vulnerable to state intervention. Madame Tlank reviews the State’s policies, targets and pilot-projects and uncovers the warped logic and fragmentary effects of marketised welfare

Metamute upgrade Drupal 4.6 to 4.7

Wed, 14 May 2008 18:54:11 +0000

ByThe publishers

Hi Metamute readers,

The Metamute.org web site will be read only from Wednesday 14th of May until sometime Thursday 15th May while we upgrade the site.

Enjoy reading ;-)

Staabucks Fukkee is Your Enemy

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:33:56 +0000

ByDavid Burrows and Simon Sullivan/Plastique Fantastique

This comic 'Staabucks Fukkee is Your Enemy' ran between articles by John Cunningham and Stewart Martin in the print edition of Mute Vol 2 #8

The Immaterial Aristocracy of the Internet

Tue, 06 May 2008 11:55:19 +0000

ByHarry Halpin

Taking issue with the argument that, after decentralisation, control is embodied within the protocols of networks, Harry Halpin gives a historical account of the all-too-human actors vying for power over the net. Not technical standards but immaterial aristocrats rule cyberspace and their seats of power are vulnerable to revolutionary attack

Crisis in the Visual System

Tue, 06 May 2008 13:10:55 +0000

ByPaul Helliwell

To celebrate Mayday and in anticipation of the leftist ‘danse macabre’ which the anniversary of May ’68 once again promises to be, Mute offers a skeleton for the soixante-huitard feast: Here, Paul Helliwell exhumes the Althusserian preconditions of Jacques Ranciere’s insistently superficial aesthetic politics, and questions whether a notion of the hidden might not still have something decisive to show us

‘There is no science… but of the hidden’ – a phrase by Bachelard taken up by the Althusserians.
– Jacques Rancière from ‘The Janus-Face of Politicised Art’[1]

Citizens Banned?

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:07:04 +0000

ByAnthony Iles and Josephine Berry Slater

Is a rabble run media becoming a possibility? And are artists in the vanguard or blocking the way? The AV media arts festival in the North-East of England last month suggested the ambivalence of artistic interventions into state and corporate broadcasting. Report by Anthony Iles and Josephine Berry Slater

Men in Denim

Sat, 03 May 2008 12:44:55 +0000

ByIain A. Boal

The computer, it has been argued, inspired a wave of post-war 'imaginary futures', from ecstatic fantasies of time and space travel to fears of mankind's extinction. Yet, prior technological developments were similarly animated by fantasies and anxieties about the transformation of human capacities. Here Iain Boal brings three critical histories of modernity's futuramas firmly back down to earth

Blurred Boundaries: Sport, Art and Activity

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:41:23 +0000

ByBenedict Seymour

Is the convergence of art and sport under the pressure of pseudo-participatory spectacle undermining the utopian potential of both? Benedict Seymour goes back to the future to recover the new kind of activity which, in different ways, informs them still

Manufactured Scarcity - The Profits of Deindustrialisation

Tue, 06 May 2008 13:13:15 +0000

ByJames Heartfield

'Green capitalism': a new paradigm of sustainable production or a license to shut down plants and print money? James Heartfield looks at the case of influential pioneer in increasing profits by cutting output, Enron

Fear of Fear Itself

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:12:04 +0000

ByMarina Vishmidt

This year’s Transmediale festival in Berlin was themed around the conceptual term ‘Conspire’. Here, Marina Vishmidt reviews its multiple presentations of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ collaborative truth production, and queries some suspicious absences

Report from Chengdu

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:38:24 +0000

ByHari Kunzru

Back in Beijing, after a tense couple of days in Chengdu. The city is the Eastern gateway to Tibet, located at the foot of the mountains. It has a huge PLA base, and was the jumping off point for the troops which are now saturating Tibet. The serious action is now apparently in the villages. There are reports of serious clashes in several rural districts, though Lhasa is now locked down. Police have been killed, and in the Aba area, the ratio of Tibetans to army is now 1:1 according to someone I talked to. I met a couple of journos who'd tried to get into Tibet hiding under blankets in a car. They'd been picked up - everyone seems to have failed to get into the areas of Tibet and Sichuan where the ongoing violence is concentrated.

We Are Bad

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:28:36 +0000

ByWe Are Bad

We Are Bad's invectives against sport as class-cleansing and social engineering have been appearing on and around the fence of the London Olympic site over the past couple of months. Mute presents the first in a series of specially commissioned posters, made available here in hi-res for home printing

Getting Closer to Bigger Screens

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:31:09 +0000

ByRichard Wright

The BBC's Live Sites 2012 program is set to roll out 60 big screens in urban centres around the UK by 2012. Considering the vague agenda currently guiding their use, Richard Wright asks whether these big screens will ever open themselves to creative use or simply remain giant TVs controlled by giants

When Travesty Becomes Form

Fri, 09 May 2008 17:10:09 +0000

ByAlberto Duman

The problem with critiques of curatorship is that they usually end up reinforcing the central importance of the curator. Alberto Duman contemplates a recent addition to the field and suggests ways to break the cycle of self-affirmation

Plague Politics

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:48:45 +0000

ByC. L-Stavrides

While bird flu panic made a return to the UK mainland last autumn, the promised pandemic failed to materialise. What does continue to evolve, however, are repressive forms of population management sustained by hypothetical threats of megadeath – writes C. L-Stavrides