A State of the Platform Address by Geert Lovink

What does it mean that the internet has become infrastructure, penetrating society, from taxis to hotels to agriculture and healthcare, going well beyond the media and communication realm? What do we mean when we talk about ‘platform capitalism’? What is aggregation and does it play out in different contexts? We all know how social media operate in daily life, but what’s the next step, and how can the art world start to play a role in these massive changes in society?  

Geert Lovink is a media theorist, internet critic and author of Uncanny Networks (2002), Dark Fiber (2002), My First Recession (2003), Zero Comments (2007), Networks Without a Cause (2012) and Social Media Abyss (2016). Since 2004 he is researcher in the Faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industries at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA) where he is the founder of the Institute of Network Cultures.

His centre recently organized conferences, publications and research networks such as Video Vortex (the politics and aesthetics of online video), Unlike Us (alternatives in social media), Critical Point of View (Wikipedia), Society of the Query (the culture of search), MoneyLab (internet-based revenue models in the arts) and a project on the future of art criticism.