Free Cooperation
Free Cooperation in New Media Art Education
* Introduction:
Traditionally, political concepts and goals of emancipation were based either on objectivism or formalism, or, most often, a mixture of both. In the first case, there is supposedly an objective insight into truth, history, society, and human nature. Everything that is wrong is deducted. In the latter case, supposedly formal societal structures (or smaller cooperations) determine an outcome that can be labeled as freedom, equality, or control etc. Of course, objectivism is a highly problematic concept itself today, rightly under attack from postmodern critics. Political formalism mostly ignores that relationships of power that are in fact what determines the outcome. This is not an academic question; a lot of >emancipatory< politics turned out to be part of the problem rather than the solution.
The concept of >free cooperation< is an attempt to base emancipation, political theory and left politics once more on free negotiations and equal negotiating power. It can be applied to any kind of cooperation, from society at large to educational projects, from new media art to economy- it is an utopian guideline for progressive transformation.
* About Christoph Spehr:
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Christoph Spehr is a German political and cultural theorist, author and video-maker. In 2001 he got the Rosa-Luxemburg-prize for his essay on Free Cooperation; an English translation will be available in 2005. Since 2000 he is the organizer of the conference series Out of this world which focuses on the relationships between popular culture, exp. Science-Fiction, utopian concepts and political emancipation. He works as an editor for the magazine Alaska and takes part in the Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism project. His video On Rules and Monsters was screened at the Networks, Art & Collaboration Conference, SUNY at Buffalo, 2004.
as part of
newmediaeducation.org
# 01.19 Christoph Spehr
# 01.26 Elizabeth Goodman
# 02.02 Megan Boler
# 02.09 Ricardo Miranda Zuniga
# 02.16 Patrick Lichty
# 02.23 John Hopkins
# 03.02 Axel Bruns
# 03.09 Lily Diaz
# 03.16 Eduardo Navas, Randall Packer
# 03.23 Joline Blais, Jon Ippolito
# 03.30 Wolfgang Münch
# 04.06 Lisa Gye
# 04.13 Ned Rossiter, Adriene Jenik/
William Grishold
# 04.20 Warren Sack
# 04.27 Anna Munster, Molly Krause
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