The Internet Does Not Exist

by Julieta Aranda (Editor), Brian Kuan Wood (Editor), Anton Vidokle (Editor)

The internet does not exist. Maybe it did exist only a short time ago, but now it only remains as a blur, a cloud, a friend, a deadline, a redirect, or a 404. If it ever existed, we couldn’t see it. Because it has no shape. It has no face, just this name that describes everything and nothing at the same time. Yet we are still trying to climb onboard, to get inside, to be part of the network, to get in on the language game, to show up on searches, to appear to exist. But we will never get inside of something that isn’t there. All this time we’ve been bemoaning the death of any critical outside position, we should have taken a good look at information networks. Just try to get in. You can’t. Networks are all edges, as Bruno Latour points out. We thought there were windows but actually it’s made of mirrors. And in the meantime we are being faced with more and more—not just information, but the world itself. And a very particular world that has already become part of our consciousness. And it wants something. It doesn’t only want to harvest our eyeballs, our attention, our responses, and our feelings. It also wants to condition our minds and bodies to absorb all the richness of the planet’s knowledge.

—Edited by Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle

With texts by Hito Steyerl, Keller Easterling, Bruno Latour, Ursula K. Heise, Gean Moreno, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Diedrich Diederichsen, Rasmus Fleischer, Jon Rich, Geert Lovink, Brian Kuan Wood and Joana Hadjithomas / Khalil Joreige, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julian Assange, Metahaven, Benjamin Bratton, and Patricia MacCormack

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Theory, Technology, Computers, Academia

219 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 17, 2015

About the author

Julieta Aranda is a conceptual artist that lives and works in Berlin and New York City.[1] She received a BFA in filmmaking from the School of Visual Arts (2001) and an MFA from Columbia University (2006), both in New York. Her explorations span installation, video, and print media, with a special interest in the creation and manipulation of artistic exchange and the subversion of traditional notions of commerce through art making

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of essays is stunning in its range. It is the best explanation I've come across yet of the internet age. Its perspective is the intersection of art, technology and politics. In the past an individual's grip on the world was self and society, soul and God; now we perceive things strictly through networks. If you have something to say about self, society, soul or God you will find your niche; more than likely, the global network will have its say more than you or your niche will. Do you have art or criticism or politics you would like to share with the world? Fight the power first!

Collectively speaking, the tone of the essays is theoretical-polemical, and the center of its gravity, which for me is one of the book's greatest features for not being Anglophilia, is probably Germany, central and northern Europe. The writers are active in their fields of visual arts, filmmaking, museum curating, design. They are all way beyond the question of whether the internet is good or bad for you. The same goes for Marxism, media studies, science, postmodernism, globalism, liberal cosmopolitanism. It seems, for the most part, leftist in origin, but there is a real debate going on here about whether such off-shore tactics as encryption are truly democratic (a la Sanders v. Clinton). What you won't get is ways to look after the poor and oppressed, how governments ought to monitor and provide real-life, tangible services. Networks could just be an illusion of community but then again the same has been said for literature ever since it was aware it had a name and a purpose. Networks are in the street. We feel it walking through architecture. It is what is causing us to feel distracted and distressed when reading novels that miss the point. Want to know what that's about? Answers are provided.

The excerpt on the back cover that sold it for me at the tables of MIT Press in Cambridge:
"The internet does not exist. Maybe it did exist only a short time ago, but now it only remains as a blur, a cloud, a friend, a deadline, a redirect, or a 404. If it ever existed, we couldn't see it. Because it has no shape. It has no face, just this name that describes everything and nothing at the same time. Yet we are still trying to climb onboard, to get inside, to be part of the network, to get in on the language game, to show up on searches, to appear to exist. But we will never get inside of something that isn't there. All this time we've been bemoaning the death of any critical outside position, we should have taken a good look at information networks. Just try to get in. You can't. Networks are all edges, as Bruno Latour points out. We thought there were windows but actually they're mirrors. And in the meantime we are being faced with more and more - not just information, but the world itself."

[Dosia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oof. My reception of the articles from this collection ranged from [nodding along] to "i know some of these words". I enjoyed the breadth of topics and contexts. It kept me interested.

[Quinlan]

maybe i will pick it up again one day but alas now is not that day

[Lee]

i dont know how many years it took me to finish this book

[Tobias Cobbaert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Veel thought provoking stuff maar mocht soms een béétje moeite doen om zichzelf begrijpelijk te maken in plaats van te goochelen met complexe termen en concepten zonder die te duiden

[Henry Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

certainly interesting, but you must pay close attention. contributors generally choose avant-garde language and over-the-top vocab/run on sentences. writing styles make it hard to follow at points.

chapters disconnected from each other - either a good thing or bad thing, depending on reader.

gets wheels turning in the brain about fundamentals of human connection and how community is created.

not an easy read imo.

one of the last straws that helped drop my daily screen time from 3 hours to 1 (one). the other one was industrial society and its future. imagine that.

[Armoire · Rating 4 out of 5]

sad and depressing to read this 8 years later

[melancholinary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The internet does not exist, so do networks.

This took me time to get through—almost a year and half, and now I regret it not finishing it last year. Reading the first two essays last year and finally finished the rest in two days. One of my activities that I enjoy daily is reading e-flux. The post-digital post-internet art discourse and the 21st century philosophy and political theory that are quite often published in e-flux is an exercise to understand and see the world today. With its title ‘The Internet Does Not Exist,” I know what I am expecting: an interesting take on internet in a bundle of essays by interesting and challenging writers—that also filmmaker, architect, curators, artists, design studio, etc.

This is a great read. Although not all essays are splendidly written, some essay is really thought-provoking. Beside Hito Steyerl piece in which I always adore, Ursula K. Heiss’ essay on bioregional, Gean Moreno questions on grey goo theory and capitalism, Geert Lovink writing on social media and of course Bruno Latour are amongst the best essays in this e-flux journal collection.

What people don’t talk about when they talk about internet and network—a reductive explanation of this book greatness. This collection of essays did make me consider my perspective on networks: as it points out in the introduction, that networks produces their own particular form of control and governance. Geert Lovink in his essay explains our connection with network: that social manifests itself as network—the network is the actual shape of social.

[Avşar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book itself might be non-fiction but its subject matter is the greatest fiction we have ever encountered after mythology. Franco Berardi, Bifo's 'Malinche and the End of the World', Geert Lovink's 'What is Social in Social Media?' and Metahaven's 'Captives of the Cloud, Part III: All Tomorrow's Clouds' with Hans Ulrich Obrist's interview with Julian Assange are very insightful in their examining and enquiring character. One nice thing about this book is that it is not a manifestation on the non-existence of the internet, as it claims in its title, but an attempt of for an understanding of this one of the most abstract concepts in the world.

[Aisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm going to be completely honest. This book has been the hardest book I've read. This is mainly because the topics in the book are not things I'm particularly familiar with or ever been exposed to.

Despite that, I read this because I want to be exposed to new ideas, new ways of thinking, etc. While some articles in the book I managed to understand, some were completely out of my scope of understanding (especially the last piece HUH).

Due to this, I'm definitely studying the book even after reading it because I'd like to gain some understanding on the articles that completely lost me. Even though it took me forever to finish and I can't say I enjoyed it, I still would read this because of the fact that I have never been exposed to these ideas, discussions, or arguments.

I started a journal to write down questions regarding each piece in the book. Can't say I'll understand it fully after studying it more but hey, glad to be exposed to new ideas.

[Rubí · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this. Need to go back and bookmark my fav essays but more often than not they were hits for me. Broad range of topics and intelligibility lol. Picked it up bc it has essays by Berardi and Easterling, who i came in as a fan of already.

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag of essays. Some were great, some were dull or reductive.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

cute

[Danae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy alto el nivel. Los mejores textos son los de Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (inteligentísimo), Hito Steyerl, Benjamin Bratton y Diedrich Diedrichsen.
Ser estudioso se nota tanto sobre todo en el mundo de la tecnología que está lleno de gente que vende humo.

[Connor Stockton · Rating 4 out of 5]

its pretty sick -does a really good job of not being JUST about art

[Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting enough. The scope is wide-ranging and there a lot of perspectives here.