Texts.

A selection of my texts, made available here for anyone to download.

For more recent material regarding media, economy, politics, and society – see my blog project,
The Liquidculture Notebook.

 Politics, media, society and culture

The dedicated p2p hubs such as The Pirate Bay and its associated, more peripheral sites (see below for a detailed list) can be said to adopt a publicly visible stance, supportive of unrestricted file-sharing. Moreover, they become actualized, spatially configured sites from which one can conduct actual file-sharing operations. It is in their interest to remain operational and to cater for a wide user base, not least since some of them carry adverts and have significant running costs. Thus, it makes sense to see these establishments as not only relying on activist, countercultural modes of agency for their making and upkeep, but as also decidedly strategic endeavours, with a ‘mainstream’ aim in terms of genres and availability, combined with an aim for permanence in their infrastructure.

For the Good of the Net: The Pirate Bay as a Strategic Sovereign
In this essay I argue that as peer-to-peer (p2p)-based file-sharing increasingly becomes the norm for media acquisition among the general Internet public, entities such as The Pirate Bay and associated quasi-institutional entities such as Piratbyrån, Zeropaid, TorrentFreak, etc. have begun to appear less as a reactive force (i.e. ‘breaking the rules’) and more as a proactive one (‘setting the rules’). In providing platforms for sharing and for voicing dissent towards the established entertainment industry, the increasing autonomy gained by these piratical actors becomes more akin to the concept of ‘positive liberty’ than to a purely ‘negative,’ reactive one.

January 2009

» Culture Machine (peer-reviewed online journal)

As with [Walter] Benjamin’s pioneering understanding of film in the 1930s, the present era of digitization constitutes a conundrum of a radical, potentially disruptive technology exacerbating some interesting changes and discontinuities in our relations to media materiality, content and carrier.

The metamorphosis of music-listening and the (alleged) obliteration of the aura
Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s cultural analysis of the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, I am here sketching on some possibilities offered by the current, globally distributed process of digitization of media content. Some pertinent themes are the question of digital content as artefact or flow; the question of meaning, activity and passivity; and ultimately, I am here arguing, the question of digitization constituting a radical fragmentation of value.
This academic paper was originally presented at Sounds of the Overground, a postgraduate colloquium on ubiquitous music and music in everyday life, held at University of Liverpool 17/5 2006. I want to credit Rasmus Fleischer, Dan Hill and Andrea Rota for inspiration, quotes and food for thought.

To be published in a joint publication following the Sounds of the Overground colloquium.

» local copy (pdf)

The harsh legal stronghold besieging our digital commons, that leading European politicians are currently arguing for, is not only putting the personal integrity of citizens at risk — it is also symptomatic for how allegedly democratic measures can in effect be jeopardizing democracy. What is worse, it is a strategy which cannot keep what it promises, thus amounting to hypocrisy.

Technocultural analysis: Authorities monitoring citizens
Supervision without the promised security
A critique of how Swedish politicians have proposed extending state and police monitoring, in the name of combatting terrorism and serious crime. Originally published 8/2 2006 in Swedish specialist newspaper Ny Teknik. Also published in the English collaborative inter-disciplinary web-mag Somewhere Else.

January 2006

» liquid culture blog post
» Somewhere Else

The new video iPod is not only a lauded status symbol, but also the ultimate symbol for how there in recent years has been a reformation in the multinational media conglomerations’ strategy for getting consumers to exclusively download conventional content. With the new iPod, hardware controls the selection of media content in subtle ways.

Technocultural analysis: The video iPod — Apple restrains the consumer choice of content
A critical look at how Apple’s video iPod can be seen as a strategic move in further controlling user behaviour. Originally published 5/11 2005 in Swedish specialist newspaper Ny Teknik.

November 2005

» html document

 Music, popular culture, art and design

jazz can never be taken out of account, and furthermore, can't be imitated or faked. either you've got it or you don't. and, moreover, this includes knowing how to keep it sparse as well as when to burn on full flame. full stop.

absorb picks: defining moments for british electronic music
An ambitious 10-entry list for legendary web-zine absorb.org (which folded in 2004), and, I guess, a kind of statement of the kind of British electronic music I respect and like.

May 2004

» html document

Note that all texts are © J Andersson and that any alterations of them without my knowledge are violations of my authorship to them.