Geert Lovink is the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, whose goals are to explore, document and feed the potential for socio-economical change of the new media field through events, publications and open dialogue. As theorist, activist and net critic, Lovink has made an effort in helping to shape the development of the web. Since 2004 Lovink is a researcher at the Faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industries at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam where he heads the Institute of Network Cultures. From 2007 till 2017 he was a Professor of Media Theory at the European Graduate School where he supervised five PhD students. From 2004-2013 he was an Associate Professor of New Media at the University of Amsterdam. Lovink earned his master's degree in political science at the University of Amsterdam, holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne and has been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Queensland.
Activities
Since the early eighties, Lovink has been involved in a range of different projects and initiatives in the field of new media.
1983 Member of Adilkno
1989–94 Editor for the media art magazine Mediamatic
1993 Co-founder of the support campaign for independent media in South-East Europe Press Now
1994 Co-founder of the Amsterdam-based free community network Digital City
1996–99 Public researcher at the Society for Old and New Media, De Waag
1996 Coordinating projects and teaching once a year at the IMI mediaschool in Osaka/Japan
2000 organizer of the Tulipomania Dotcom conference
2000–08 Consultant/editor to the exchange program of Waag Society and Sarai New Media Centre
2001 Co-founder of FibreCulture, a forum for Australian Internet research and culture
2002 Co-organizer of Dark Markets, on new media and democracy in times of crisis in Vienna
2003 Co-organizer of Uncertain States of Reportage in Delhi
2004 Co-organizer of the conference on the art of collaboration Free Cooperation at SUNY Buffalo
On 31 May 2010 Geert Lovink took part in Quit Facebook Day and deleted his Facebook account. In 2020 two text archives of Geert Lovink were preserved and transferred to the INC website: The Adilkno/Bilwet archive, once hosted by : https://networkcultures.org/bilwet-archive/ and he text archive of : https://networkcultures.org/geertlovink-archive/.
Theories
Geert Lovink was one of the key theorists behind the concept of tactical media – the use of media technologies as a tool for critical theory to become artistic practice. As an Internet activist, he describes tactical media as a "deliberately slippery term, a tool for creating 'temporary consensus zones' based on unexpected alliances. A temporary alliance of hackers, artists, critics, journalists and activists." In essence, he believes that these new resources of which audiences could become participants in actions against higher powers became an area in which many different types of people could unite. Lovink also was a founder of the early web mailing list "nettime", as well as a number of other projects.
Projects
These are some of the projects Lovink's Institute of Network Cultures is or has been involved with:
MoneyLab
Unlike Us, Understanding Social Media Monopolies and their Alternatives
Critical Point of View : Wikipedia Research Initiative
