February 13, 2006
Felix Stalder
The Stuff of Culture
As culture is infusing more and more aspects of contemporary life, and the range of producers is widening but the special status of the artist and the social capital attached to this position, is being eroded. Artists are becoming, again, artisans, not fundamentally different from others creative producers. The controversy between the object-oriented and the exchange-oriented visions of culture is currently being fought on all levels, legal (expanding versus narrowing copyrights and patents), technical (digital rights management versus distribution and access technologies), and economic (exchange of commodities versus provision of services). Crucially, however, it is also fought in the field of culture itself, in ongoing experimentations on how we can produce, reproduce, and interpret new forms of meaning. This is the native environment of artists and other creative producers, whose everyday practice puts them at the heart of this epic struggle. Read The Stuff of Culture by Felix Stalder, NOEMA.
Posted by jo at February 13, 2006 07:01 AM
