Author Profile

  • Daniel de Zeeuw
  • Url: http://varvaras.net
  • Posts: 7
  • About the user: In 2011 I graduated from the Rietveld Academy, direction "Interaction Design and Unstable Media." I also did a BA in Philosophy. For the last couple of years, my research has focussed on the phenomenon of conspiracy theories on the Net, the way stories spread, communities form, and how come the Internet seems to be such a 'fertile nexus' for their explication and circulation. Conspiracy theories represent both the continuation of the radical ideal of the Internet as a forum for public discussion and democratic participation, as well as the inherent mythical and ideological character of this ideal, its 'dark side'. It takes conspiracy theories as an example for possible artistic and activist strategies on the Net. My thesis can be freely downloaded: Something is Out there! Networked encounters of the nth kind, or: the art of conspiracy

Author Archive

Lessons in anti-security: tactical media and viral art

Daniel de Zeeuw | 19 February 2012, 10:15 pm | tags: , , , , , ,

The following report is the outcome of two three hour sessions held in the context of the New Media course “Critical Media Art”, exploring the ideas and practices of ‘tactical media‘, in particular the use of viral tactics by artists, programmers, activists, and their collaborations. In the first session, media theorist Erik Kluitenberg gave a lecture…

The Cyber Cafe Is Dead. Long Live The Cyber Cafe!

Daniel de Zeeuw | 31 October 2011, 12:32 am Comments Off | tags: , , , , ,

In the Western world, cyber cafes are nearing the point of total extinction, but less protected as say, pandas. However, many seem to find a new lease on life in the various developing – soon to take over Total World Domination – countries, where they provide the poor with a marvelous opportunity to surf the infinite waves of the Free…

App Review: Stiktu (Beta)

Daniel de Zeeuw | 08 October 2011, 10:39 pm | tags: , , , , ,

…is a new (not yet released) augmented reality app for Android and iPhone by the makers of Layar. It enables users to attach (’stick’) texts and images to ‘real-life’ objects, whether it is a book, a pack of cigarettes, or a thing specific to a certain location, like the national monument on the Dam in…

Representing complexity: data visualization & Fredric Jameson’s notion of cognitive mapping

Daniel de Zeeuw | 06 October 2011, 7:00 pm | tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“There is nothing the beautiful world finds as intolerable as explanations. I, too, find it terrible when somebody begins to explain, for when worst comes to worst I understand everything myself.” (Hegel, 1808)

In this post I want to try and point towards a possible alternative to the research methods of ‘data visualization,’ increasingly conceived as being the…

Thank You, Louis!

Daniel de Zeeuw | 30 September 2011, 2:49 pm | 2 comments | tags: , , , , ,

Instead of writing about my Wikipedia entry, which was quickly accepted, as it was about such a marginal and unimportant topic that it could not be ‘biased,’ i.e. nobody cared, I would rather ventilate my frustrations caused by a lecture I witnessed today at the conference “Media Squares” in de Balie by Nadia Plesner about…

BOOK REVIEW The Murmuring of the Artistic Multitude: Global Art, Memory and Post-Fordism

Daniel de Zeeuw | 18 September 2011, 4:08 pm | tags: , , , , , , , ,
BOOK REVIEW
Title: The Murmuring of the Artistic Multitude: Global Art, Memory and Post-Fordism
Author: Pascal Gielen
Year: 2009
Publisher: Valiz

In The Murmuring of the Artistic multitude, art-sociologist Pascal Gielen reflects on the increasing co-incidence of, and structural similarities between, the mode of production and work ethos essential…

Not About Media!

Daniel de Zeeuw | 11 September 2011, 12:49 pm | tags: , , , , , ,

The Impossibility of Media Theory

Where previous generations of Serious Men saw in the concept of Medium but marginal or esoteric wordplay, we in our times seem to attribute to it almost magical qualities, such as the 19th century use of the concept ‘aether,’ which was discovered by Einstein to be an unnecessary postulate. Will we ultimately also…