Re: <nettime> Institute of Network Cultures 2.0 - update on changes

[Jacqueline Rowley via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Reading this through in a careful way, but wanted to say immediately that I
would love to be a part of things beyond the paid membership. Excited to
join whatever emerges.


On Fri, Nov 13, 2026 at 12:00 PM Geert Lovink via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

> Dear nettimers,
>
> it’s early in the process but we would like to update you about the recent
> changes at our Institute of Network Cultures.  As you may know: due to
> Geert's mandatory retirement at 67, the INC (founded in 2004) left the
> HvA/polytechnic over the summer and became an independent (legal)
> entity/NGO. There is now a board of the society (vereniging), a bank
> account and a collective. We will soon make next steps, hopefully together
> with new partners and authors, creating a larger support group for those
> not based in Amsterdam or the Netherlands. If you are interested in
> joining, please let us know.
>
> In the meanwhile, the website continues and is actually doing very well (
> https://www.networkcultures.org).
> However, many readers will not realize that INC has dropped down to zero
> staff, zero Euros and no office. For instance, we will no longer send out
> paper publications. In this situation we are particularly interested to get
> support from all of you. Think of us please. We are very keen to, for
> instance, join consortia in EU applications and other forms of
> collaboration. Should INC become a think tank, merge with others in order
> to get larger grants? How do you think in what direction independent
> research, theory and criticism, made in Euroipe, should go?
>
> There is an internal working document from summer 2026 (see below) that
> gives a detailed overview of the thematic directions of our current work
> (apart from working on the website).
>
> One of the first things that will happen is the launch of the Girl Theory
> Reader, published by Set Margins’ and edited by Mela Miekus and Mita Medri,
> on December 10. Then there is partication of INC members in the
> Transmediale project called Solidarity Economies Lab (live late January, in
> Berlin), there are the ongoing digital publishing expertiments (with a
> focus on Etherport). And, last but not least, the live stream art events of
> VOID, coordinated by Tommaso, Jordi and Giulia, will also continue.
>
> Some of the publishing will continue, like the Theory on Demand series and
> the INC Longforms. We might line up with publishers for paper publications
> in the near future.
>
> There is a core group, in Amsterdam, a collective of around seven members
> that is running the INC. As said, soon we will provide a bigger group for
> others, outside of Amsterdam and NL. We will have tools and possibilities
> how to join INC in the wider context and support it. For now, the most
> basic costs are covered but we urgently need our own meeting/work space and
> coordination person who do stuff, at least one day a week.
>
> There was an assembly during the successful INC Exit Fest late June and we
> are implementing the suggestions made there. What’s to be done? You can
> find the program and background here:
> https://etherport.org/publications/inc/Exit_Fest/chapters/program.html.
>
> Please contact us at info@networkcultures.org.
>
> Everyone can become a member of the INC society. The contribution is (at
> least) 12 euro every three months or 48 euro a year. If you live in an IBAN
> country you can sign up here:
>
> https://app.clubcollect.com/signup/978e9974-7b06-4260-9d90-f204cf0b4000
>
> If you are based in a non-IBAN country, please sign up here:
>
> https://app.clubcollect.com/signup/d1208433-0598-4bd4-ab64-5cf4d317e92d
>
> Yours, the INC Collective
>
> —
>
> Here are some of the topics we will work on:
>
> 1. Expanded publishing and the further development of Etherport
>
> Digital publishing has always been a core activity of INC. In recent years
> we’ve focusing on the research part and applied the
> hybrid-urgent-multimedia insights in a ever growing variety of series and
> combination of media and technologies. At the moment, full video
> integration is a hot item. This is done through/with our video collective
> VOID. Another emphasis is on the further development of the Etherport
> software (together with Gijs de Heij) that finally makes it possible to do
> book design without Adobe/InDesign . The Tactical Media reader is INC
> Etherport #4. We discuss if we this series continues or whether a new, even
> more simplified Etherport series will be developed. At the same time the
> Theory on Demand series is continued: much to our own surprise #62 is in
> production.
>
> Print on demand is here to stay. At the same time we will look for more
> collaborations with Set Margins’ (even though this already exists with the
> books of Silvio, Morgane and Maisa). Continuation of the website and
> perhaps start of a new website Is it good idea to continue the existing
> Tuxic hosted WordPress structure or do we want something else on the long
> run? Wordpress got recently hacked (and so did INC, but who didn’t?). There
> is something to be said to close and conserve the current WP site start
> from scratch – but we won’t do that (yet). That’s going to be hard
> considering we have find an office, funding etc. Over the past 6-10 months
> we have been working intensely to clean up the existing site and it is now
> stable. We are moving our videos from Vimeo to Internet Archive. All photos
> will be removed from Flickr. What else? How about the podcasts? The
> WordPress site will remain agile, around 50 GB, primarily blog postings,
> longforms and pdfs. The website runs well and attracts lots of visitors.
> Many reader may not even notice the transition into NGO status that is
> about to happen.
>
> 2. The future of streaming, the VOID and podcasting
>
> Renting an indy space in 2025 at Surinameplein in Amsterdam was a strong
> and inspiring ‘spin-off’ gesture of the VOID collective to take the INC
> transition into their own hand. The VOID is important for the continuity of
> INC. At the same time, it is also a possibility to take this activity in
> another direction, entirely separate from INC 2.0 itself. This can also be
> said of the publishing house and the research institute itself (as a
> separate think tank). Live streaming and doing hands-on applied video
> research is an integral part of the INC legacy, going back to Geert’s early
> 1990s Mediamatic Years (hopefully out soon as a collection), the Next Five
> Minutes tactical television saga up to the VideoVortex network (the longest
> active INC network, since 2006), leading up to the Stream Art Network that
> hopefully will grow in the coming period. More members, streaming theory
> and software are a priority here.
>
> 3. The discussion on art and precarity
>
> This has always remained a core mission of INC 1.0, also for INC 2.0. A
> strategic ‘bridge’ moment was the launch of Sepp Eckenhaussen’s book
> Goodbye Poverty Jetset (https://humdrumpress.com/goodbye-poverty-jetset).
> With the slow but devastating dismantling of the arts and cultural
> institutions plus education, on top of rising costs and budget cuts, this
> topic will only get more urgent. See also the upcoming Solidarity Economies
> Lab at Transmediale.
>
> 4. Focus on girl theory
>
> Slowly INC has been building up a strong publishing practice around ‘girl
> theory’. This is culminating late 2026 in the publishing with Set Margins’
> of the Girl Theory Reader, edited by Mela Miekus and Mita Medri. We did not
> have girl theory as a separate theme during Exit Fest on the topic itself
> as we’ve covered it already in 2025 during one of the VOID nights at OT301.
> However, it is also a section in the INC Reader #18, This Can’t be the
> Place:
> https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/this-cant-be-the-place-alternative-theories-of-the-internet/.
>
>
> 5. Beyond ethics and the refusal gesture: alternatives to the AI logic
>
> Due to high demand it is inevitable that we continue and expand the work
> of Jordi Viader, Eke Reebergen and others around the ‘critique and refusal
> of AI’ topic. The pressure on INC to do ‘something’ with AI from outside
> should not be underestimated. However, a closer look at the website learns
> that quite a high percentage of the postings deal directly with AI-related
> topics. However, most associate INC with ‘the internet’ as a topic of the
> past. There is a popular belief amongst officials that people no longer use
> platforms, they work with AI.  Authorities have tried to convince INC to
> stop working on social media. This may be an understandable sentiment: in
> the fashion logic things come and go (and return as vintage tech). Platform
> will go out of fashion, as networks and new media once did (but is this in
> fact wishful thinking?). This still presumes a hypergrowth pre-2016
> dynamics that does not take recession, stagnation and the rise of
> reactionary Big Tech aka techno-fascism into account. Beyond the burst of
> the AI financial bubble, automation of mediocre jobs is going to stay with
> us. For INC, this is a tricky subject to include: people love talking about
> ‘AI’ and soon there will be no other topic to talk about (incl. funding).
> Still, what’s to be done if one looks down on the poverty of vectorial
> capitalism?
>
> 6. From mapping social media blues to alternatives
>
> The turning point here is 2016. Until then, INC focused on expansion of
> the internet and the critique of applications such as online video,
> Wikipedia, crypto, social networking, search engines etc. For a decade the
> focus has shifted to the mental turn, when user culture itself became the
> object of extractivist business and surveillance. In line with changing
> funding structures and the political climate, INC started to look inwards
> and map the disturbing mental landscape inside the abyss, resulting into
> the INC Reader #18, This Can’t Be the Place. and the reader Fragments of
> Tactical Media. We will continue with this track; the issues are simply too
> huge, and the real existing depression invite lots of interesting artists
> and writers to send us material. However, we need to get more visibly
> involved in the promotion of alternatives. To break the silence over the
> monopoly of Instagram in the art world could be one. We got Etherport but
> what else could be a unique INC contribution in this field? How to
> create/join coalitions that promote the long-awaited exodus?
>
> 7. The Spanish-language section Internet Core (written by Diana Millán)
>
> In 2025, INC opened a space for decentralized internet art in Spanish
> called Internet Core (https://networkcultures.org/internetcore/). This
> dedicated website caters to digital native practices with -core from the
> dark forest to the clearnet and the digital exodus to new federated social
> media platforms since 2020-now. In this period, IC is a political and
> collective tool that, from commercial networks and online subcultures,
> seeks to return to the critical core of the network through creation,
> reflection, and hybrid spaces of encounter (academic, artistic, and
> community-based) that escape the programmatic isolation of Big-Tech.
>
> In one year the project posted a dozen essays from artists and colectives
> and did 4 events in different important venues like Hangar, Santa Mònica
> (Barcelona), Medialab Matadero (Madrid) and Medialab (Mexico City). After
> the first meeting arranged by Diana Millán, Geert Lovink and Ezequiel
> Soriano in Barcelona, the institute has received stays from two predoctoral
> researchers: Raquel Luaces and Laura Subirats. It is a powerful node for
> continuing to materialize meeting spaces that encourage reflection on
> current i-Gen issues. During Diana Millán's PhD thesis process, it could be
> materialized as a book and we are working now on zines and a alternative
> website. Actualy, we are going to present Doreen A. Ríos and Valentina
> Tanni books in Spain and we applied to some open calls for founding. Some
> institutions like Medialab Madrid are open to host INC/IC. The IC members
> has been shaped through encounters and evolves according to the actions it
> undertakes.
>
> --
> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
>
-- 
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org