Monday Night 04.25.05 — Richard Barbrook — Discussion
Comments Off on Monday Night 04.25.05 — Richard Barbrook — DiscussionMonday Night 04.25.05 — Richard Barbrook — Discussion
1. About this Monday night
2. About ‘Imaginary Futures’
3. About Richard Barbrook
4. Link to more Barbrook writings +
5. A Note re: yesterday
(Friday Night 04.22.05 — five-minutes-and-under video night)
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1. About this Monday night
What: Discussion – Open Platform
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor (directions below)
When: Monday Night 04.25.05 @ 7:30 Pm
Who: Open To All
This monday Richard will explain his three concepts for ‘Imaginary Futures’, (see below)
a discussion to follow … prepare you questions!
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2. About ‘Imaginary Futures’
In the modern world, our understanding of the present is often shaped by
sci-fi fantasies about what is to come.
Ironically, the most influential of these visions of the future are already
decades old. We are already living in the times when they were supposed to
have come true. In his presentations, Richard Barbrook will analyze the
origins and evolution of three imaginary futures: artificial intelligence;
the information society; and the gift culture. By showing that the future is
what it used to be, he will argue that it is time for us to invent new
futures…
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3. About Richard Barbrook
Dr. Richard Barbrook was educated at Cambridge, Essex and Kent universities.
During the early-1980s, he was involved in pirate and community radio
broadcasting. He helped to set up Spectrum Radio, a multi-lingual station
operating in London, and published extensively on radio issues. In the
late-1980s and early-1990s, Richard worked for a research institute at the
University of Westminster on media regulation within the EU. Some of this
research was later published in ‘Media Freedom: the contradictions of
communications in the age of modernity’ (Pluto Press, London 1995).
Since the mid-1990s, Richard has been coordinator of the Hypermedia Research
Centre at the University of Westminster and is course leader of its MA in
Hypermedia Studies. In collaboration with Andy Cameron, he wrote ‘The
Californian Ideology’ which was a pioneering critique of the neo-liberal
politics of ‘Wired’magazine. In the last few years, Richard has written a
series of articles exploring the impact of the sharing of information over
the Net, including ‘The Hi-Tech Gift Economy’ and ‘Cyber-communism’. He is
presently working on a book – ‘Imaginary Futures’ – which is about how
ideas
from the 1960s and 1970s shape our contemporary conception of the
information society. A selection of Richard’s writings are available on the
Hypermedia Research Centre’s website.
He is also coordinator of the Hypermedia Research Institute /
University of Westminster and currently researcher-in-residence at the
Institute for Distributed Creativity (http://distributedcreativity.org).
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4. Link to more Barbrook writings
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/theory-author.html
and
a short video in which Richard explains his 3 key concepts
http://blog.distributedcreativity.org
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5. A Note re: yesterday
(Friday Night 04.22.05 — five-minutes-and-under video night)
the idea came up yesterday to have all the Titles and so forth of the videos that were shown, since many of us are interested / want to see more…
if you also think it’s a good idea
please email to
everytime@16beavergroup.org
title, year, length and some short info about the video you showed.
we will add it to the website for reference.
http://www.16beavergroup.org/monday/archives/001485.php#more