Promotional Information

Lovink is our major thinker about the intersections of tactical media, net criticism, and the social design of technology. Dark Fiber is a sterling work of radical pragmitism, the essays within pointing to a better and yes, possible, future for netowork societies. -- Peter Lunenfeld, Media Design Program, Art Center College of Design, Author of Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media and Cultures For over a decade now, Lovink has been one of the most prominent figures in cyberculture and new media worldwide. A new-media theorist, an Internet critic, an activist, an inventor of new innovative forms of net-based discourse, an organizer of ground-breaking events -- remarkably, he excels at all these different roles. I think of Lovink as a network of distributed sensors: everywhere at once, he is always the first to notice new changing directions of net culture, the first to name them, and the first to offer sober and illuminating analysis. Now we are fortunate to have his brilliant dispatches from the net front collected in one book. This is a new kind of book from a new type of public intellectual. Think of it as theory on-the-go -- or as a set of help files to keep handy as you navigate the present, on- and off-line. -- Lev Manovich, Department of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego, author of The Language of New Media Remember the future? Geert Lovink comes not to praise, but to bury, the 'techno mysticism and digital Darwinism' that fogged our vision in the 1990s. The preeminent practitioner of Net criticism (a discourse he co-founded), Lovink combines a no-bullshit street wisdom acquired in his days as a squatter with a bear-trap intellect honed on postmodern theory and endless late-night debates. Geert Lovink is the Linus Torvald of open-source theory -- a free-agent thinker cracking the cultural code that cages our minds. Where he leads, I follow. -- Mark Dery, author of The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink A brilliant archeology of the world of new media by one of its longtime activists and theorists. Lovink's knowledge of technology, extensive participation in multiple grassroots initiatives, and critical politics give him a perspective on the subject that is unlike that of any other author I know. -- Saskia Sassen, University of Chicago, author of Globalization and Its Discontents

About the Author

Geert Lovink is an independent media theorist and net critic. He is the founder of nettime mailing lists, a member of Adilkno, and a cofounder of the online community server Digital City.

Reviews

... a truly brilliant book by a truly brilliant guy.
*Frontwheeldrive*

[L]ovink offers a technologically savvy, theoretically tight, and—perhaps surprisingly—easily readable collection of 'net criticism.'
*Capital Magazine*

Lovink unravels the euphoric claims for broadband and P2P as capably as he skewered push technology five years ago.
*Wired*

... A unique contribution to the field...not to be missed.
*Journal of Communication*

... Geert Lovink warns that government and corporations are shutting down the culture of dissent that is the Net's true value.
*Wired*