Organized
Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour,
New Institutions
by Ned Rossiter
NAi, Rotterdam, 2006
In association with the Institute of Network
Cultures, Hogeschool van Amsterdam
250 pp., illus. 2x b/w. paper, £23.50
ISBN: 90-5662-526-8.
Reviewed by Geoff Cox
University of Plymouth
gcox@plymouth.ac.uk
Organized Networks asserts there
is urgent need for new institutional forms
that reflect 'relational' processes to
challenge existing systems of governance
and outmoded representational structures.
Emergent forms are radically dissimilar
to the ways in which social relations
are organized under the "moribund
technics" of modern institutions
(such as the university or the state).
These older forms, referred to as "networked
organizations", are hierarchical
and centralized despite their pretensions
towards fair representation. In contrast,
emergent "organized networks"
are horizontal, collaborative and distributed
in character offering a distinct social
dynamic and transformational potential.
The key difference is how institutions
have responded to developments in networked
communications technology and the issue
of intellectual property rights: on the
one hand, networked organizations using
this as a regulatory mechanism to enforce
or extend existing power structures, and
on the other, organized networks advocating
open source culture. If all this sounds
rather too straightforward, Rossiter elaborates
on the complexities, uncertainties, and
contradictions associated with sociality,
labour, and life in general.
The book is split into three main sections,
each with two chapters: the first, addressing
the limits of democracy and organized
networks; the second, tackling the creative
industries, precarious labour and intellectual
property; and the third, the virtuosity
of general intellect and "processual
democracy". Previous versions of
many of the chapters have been already
published, but together they make a powerful
interlacing argument for network criticism
demonstrating a depth of research to highlight
the key issues for political intervention
(a companion volume might be Tiziana Terranovas
Network Culture, Pluto 2004). Acknowledging
the peer intellectual support of the Nettime
and Fiberculture mailing lists,
it is perhaps not surprising that Rossiter
demonstrates an impressive but familiar
range of sources to subscribers (including
immanent critique and negative dialectics
of the Frankfurt School, the concepts
of general intellect and immaterial labour
in Autonomous Marxism, and the constitutive
role of the outside and immanence in Deleuzes
philosophy, amongst others); taking a
transdisciplinary approach that he likens
to the collective ethos and protocols
of the network itself.
A sense of project is clear, passionate
and full of hope: "It is about conditions
of possibility, the immanent relation
between theory and practice... and a resolute
belief... in the concrete potential of
transdisciplinary institutional forms
that enlist the absolute force of labour
and life" (p.17).
The potential to transform social relations
is somewhat demonstrated in the socio-technical
dynamics of mailing lists, blogs, wikis,
content management systems, and so on.
But it is the institutional nature of
this, as a description of the organization
of social relations, that makes it thoroughly
political. An example is the section on
the creative industries where the instrumental
ways in which creativity has been exploited
in the realm of policy are mapped against
"a concept of communications media
that acknowledges the constitutive role
of the outside" (p.103). For the
argument of the book, the creative industries
indicate two aspects: antagonism in the
form of the exploitation of creative labour
power underpinned by the increasing regulation
of intellectual property as a consequence
of the drive to commodify collective and
communicative knowledge (the appropriation
of general intellect, in other words);
and also, the affirmation of creative
labour that holds potential for self-organisation
through its networked capacity (where
organized networks emerge). By focussing
on the exploitation of immaterial labour-power,
or what Rossiter refers to as "disorganised
labour-power", the underlying conditions
are exposed but so too are new forms of
agency. Organized networks represent relative
institutional autonomy but do so not in
isolation; they are also required to operate
tactically, engaging horizontal and vertical
modes of interaction: "The tendency
to describe networks in terms of horizontality
results in the occlusion of the 'political',
which consists of antagonisms that underpin
sociality. It is technically and socially
incorrect to assume that hierarchical
and centralizing architectures and practices
are absent from network cultures"
(p.36).
Networks are clearly not limitless or
without borders, but are far more complex,
for "while networks in many ways
are regulated indirectly by the sovereign
interests of the state, they are also
not reducible to institutional apparatuses
of the state. And this is what makes possible
the creation of new institutional forms
as expressions of non-representational
democracy" (p.39).
This is one of the interventions of the
book: Far from arguing against institutions,
the limits of democracy and the discourse
of neo-liberalism in general is taken
as the available means to rethink politics
within network cultures - and this is
what is referred to as "non-representational
democracy" to describe democracy
decoupled from sovereign power (citing
Virnos The Grammar of the Multitude,
New York: Semiotext(e) 2004). For Rossiter,
organized networks offer such an opportunity
to develop strategies and techniques of
better organization. Indeed, "transformation
is conditioned by a capacity to become
organized" (p.215).