Proud to be Flesh: A Mute Magazine Anthology of Cultural Politics After the Net

In 1994, while many of us were grappling with our first Eudora accounts, Mute magazine (www.metamute.org) announced its timely arrival. Dedicated to an analysis of culture and politics after the net, Mute has consistently challenged the grandiose claims of the communications revolution, debunking it [...]
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In 1994, while many of us were grappling with our first Eudora accounts, Mute magazine (www.metamute.org) announced its timely arrival. Dedicated to an analysis of culture and politics after the net, Mute has consistently challenged the grandiose claims of the communications revolution, debunking its utopian rhetoric and offering more critical perspectives. Proud to be Flesh selects representative articles from the magazine's hugely diverse content to reprise some of its recurring themes. This expansive collection of texts charts the perilous journey from Web 1.0 to 2.0, contesting the democratisation this transition implied and laying bare our incorporeal expectations; it exposes the ways in which the logic of technology intersects with that of art and music and, in turn and inevitably, with the logics of business; it heralds the rise of neoliberalism and condems the human cost; it amplifies the murmurs of dissent and revels in the first sign of collapse. The result is an impressive overview of contemporary culture in its broadest sense. In the midst of a global crisis, Proud to be Flesh is an invaluable sourcebook for anyone wondering how we found ourselves here.Chapters include: Direct Democracy and its Demons; Net Art to Conceptual Art and Back; I,Cyborg - Reinventing the Human; of Commoners and Criminals; Organising Horizontally; Art and/against Business; Under the Net - City and Camp; Class and Immaterial Labour; The Open Work.