Postmodernity of Network Culture, Essay Example

Introduction

The events and issues that plagued the 1950’s are long gone and the 21^st century has introduced a new crop of issues that many activists are fighting for. The sociocultural period in which socially conscious individuals were dealing with in changes in culture, ideology, subjectivity, and the aesthetics that depicted the network culture. Network culture is an intensification of conditions that are shrouded in postmodernity and modernity. The transition to network culture isn’t a new societal condition however through the cultural shift from the postmodern society it has followed the trends that have turned towards a more digital age dependent on mobile global technology and communication. Culture presently has surpassed merely being a technological innovation but as a dominate system that has encompassed the radical change in industrialization that has compartmentalized the modern and postmodern society. Culture has not only connect a community of social and radical thinkers influencing the era of Situationists that spurn the revolutionary movement of influential leaders in art, literature, intellects, and politics to change the everyday of life, thinking, culture, and politics. The theory of network culture not only revolutionized the era in which it was coined but also played a largely hidden role well into the 21^st century focusing on the shift in the economy, cultural shift, media, and politics.

The Architect of Networks

In defining network culture, one must first be aware of what networks are. Networks are not restricted to just the internet, but instead a myriad of channels that include, television, telephone, home, local, banks, digital, cable, computers, and much more ranging from different types, modes, and scales. Started from the development of the ARAPNET in 1969 by the Department of Defense, it has exponentially grown into global environment linked into the interwebs of space. Mark Wigley detailed the architecture being that the technological evolution is mirrored to the human body evolution. The network of communications much like the body are an extension, where new part are constituent of a new organism with a new spatial and architecture system. (Wigley 5) The government hired architects in order to design the infrastructure as well as to describe the links running within the system. Like the human body the nervous system serves as the central station where links running throughout the body. The computer was described in the same manner, as networks were coined in the 70s to describe this phenomenon. Kazys Varnelis author of The Meaning of Network Culture: A History of The Contemporary defined network culture, “Network culture is a broad sociocultural shift much like postmodernity, not limited to technological developments or to “new media.” (Varnelis) More intuitively it is due to the emergences of technology and networking in a constant partnership within a contemporary sociocultural era where the aspects of postmodernity are far behind. Network culture became a byproduct of postmodernity as it tried to leave behind modernism of cultural shifts in globalization, migration into urban cities, and changing economy.

Network Culture in Modern Era

Cities have developed and transformed from poverty ridden projects in modern structures of time and cultural change in technology, politics, and demographics. As significant events in time during the mid-60s illustrate, large populations drove into cities, one of the last major cultural shifts happen. All around the world large exodus from the rural cities into more modernized cities changed neighborhoods, cities, and the economy. Well throughout the 60s into the 80s the world was faced with growing costs of globalization, economic, political, and social problems where citizens became dependent on a culture of emerging technology. During this time cities where architecture was transition into the processing of building structures into housing large capacities, giving middle income individuals a modern update, and building to accommodate the growing threats from around the world from securing bus terminals, to airports and in between. As the architect methods were changing the world was coming to a more modern society where technology was central to the safety of citizens. “In this new perspective devoid of horizon, the city was entered not through a gate nor through an arc de triomphe, but rather through an electronic audience system.” (Virilio 11)

The network culture emerged in all facets of livelihood from commerce to transportation and communications. The notion of the city from a modern standpoint was that people were initially resisting the change from the era of before. Technology was the way of life of individuals. No longer could they freely utilize the platforms of transportation, they were now privy to architectural structures that were considered electronic gateways. According to Simmel, “The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.” (Simmel 409) Within the modern era, the cultural atmosphere was heightened by the methods that world leaders, state legislators, and city officials contributed to the issues that led to the building of the Berlin Wall, the terrorist attacks on airplanes, the mishandling of the populations that migrated to the metropolises and larger cities. What the modern era did yield is improvements in architectural design. Materials used were upgraded as steel frames were now used frequently in building new apartments and buildings. Plastics and glass replaced stone and cement that were used in creating facades and boundaries. The materials used in developing computers, televisions, and other technologies that emerged created a special distance, “…a depth of field of a new kind of representation, a visibility without any face-to-face encounter in which the vis-à-vis of the ancient streets disappears and is erased.” (Virilio 13) The boundaries of architecture were borderless as they drifted within the void of spatial temporal distances. The new modern city had gave way to the new doorway of borderless dimensions in which architects must operate within a technical culture that is progressing towards a series of networks and parts that work in the central of data from centers, terminals, banks, and other technologies. As the time passed telecommunications continued to revolutionize as it marked new methods in communication that was strategic in calming down political and social unrest. Soon the 70s was given way to a postmodern society.

Network Culture in a Postmodern Society

A postmodern society was earmarked with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union in 1989, and the protracted downturn in the economy with the integration of China into the world market. The new order of globalization helped bring a new world order and cultural shift into a postmodern society which continued with the commercialism of the internet and the creation of new technologies that went through radical shifts including the introduction and the conclusion of the dot.com boom. Not only did the culture, economy, and technology change but the change from a modern into a postmodernity society brought in fresh architectural designs that had to replace the hundreds of structures left in destitute from the economic downtown. The end of the modern era brought an end to the architectural projects in creating apartment buildings that were considers “agents of social change.” Trying move into an eclectic style it adopted in the 80s the end of the era was signaled by the beginning of the 90s and the style was changing. According to Varnelis, “The temporal compression caused by globalization and networking technologies, together with an accelerating capitalism, has intensified the ahistorical qualities of modernism and postmodernism, producing the a temporality of network culture.” (Varnelis)

The notion of the city within the postmodern city is still wrought with economic, social, political, and cultural issues. The urban city in which is populated with mass transits from rural populations had encountered the bureaucratic society that continuously ignores the plight of the destitute in exchange for major corporations fueling their motions and their pockets. This was the problems that plagued the era in which the Situationists were created. As The Most Radical Gestureimplements,

“The ethos of need, labour, and sacrifice is unnecessarily perpetuated, serving only to maintain the capitalist system; the idea that we must continue to struggle to survive hinders human development and precludes the possibility of a life of playful opportunity in which the satisfaction of desires, the realisation of pleasures, and the creation of chosen situations would be the principal activities.” (Plant 2)

Changes within the society has left the network culture with too many “gateways” as Virilio points out that the city is overpopulated with too many vehicles polluting the city. Postmodern architects can no longer build the great monuments in which help to implement historical or memorial events. Now instead of having downtown looking at edifices and monuments people are stuck looking at their technological devices. The network culture is overrun with technology apparatuses and traffic that is plaguing the city and contributing to the pockets of capitalists. Virilio points out that the distractions create, “less a space than a countdown, in which work occupies the center of time while uncontrolled time of vacations and unemployment form a penphery, the suburbs of time, a clearing away of activities in which each person is exiled to a life of privacy and deprivation.” (Virilio 15) The network culture although muddled due to the acceptance of the postmodern society was present but really appeared within the last decades.

The ideals of Situationists of the modern times has carried over into the postmodern and present society as the citizens continue to remix the ideals of social activist and create a more open society with open technology that is available globally. Network culture is still changing as technologies change. Varnelis quotes that, “Technology is a social product, constituted by-and constituting-society: the acceptance and use of a given tool is dependent on a social milieu and in turn technological tools are necessary to produce society.” (Varnelis) The network culture that encompasses the modern, postmodern, and present society is latent in the view that the city is emerging from the issues that plagued it with the last cultural shift in population, technology, and architectural change. The network culture continued to be transformed throughout the privatization and deregulation of major corporations, the socio-political changes that impacted the world, and the emergence of a new world order that help to develop a new network culture that is continuing to develop with new shifts in society and architecture. As the technology and politics create a cultural shift so will transformation of a new network culture.

Works Cited

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Varnelis, Kazys. “The Meaning of Network Culture” in Varnelis, ed. Networked Publics. MIT Press. Cambridge, MA. 2008. Book.

Varnelis, Kazys. “The meaning of network culture.” EuroZone. 11 February 2010. Web. 01 Aug, 2013. http://www.opendemocracy.net/kazys-varnelis/meaning-of-network-culture-1

Virlio, Paul. The Lost Dimension. Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents. 1991. Book.

Wrigley, Mark. “Network Fever”. MIT Press. 01 Feb, 2000. Web. 01 Aug, 2013