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Thread: [Documentary] "Das Netz" [The Net] by Lutz Dammbeck, 2003 (German with English subtitles)

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    Default [Documentary] "Das Netz" [The Net] by Lutz Dammbeck, 2003 (German with English subtitles)

    My mouse was poised to write a review of this extraordinarily fascinating journey into the mind of Ted Kaczynski more infamously known as the "Unabomber" (University and airlines-bomber). Fortunately for all of us Molly Hankwitz has already written a review and here it is copied below.

    It is indeed an enthralling two hour journey into the man's psychology, and his personal crusade against the Macy Conferences' vision of a future technological "utopia". The correspondences between the filmmaker and TK are also most revealing.

    There is much food for thought here.

    Highly recommended and thought provoking.

    Do enjoy

    --------------------------------------------------------------

    Review of "Das Netz" [The Net] by Molly Hankwitz, Oct. 20, 2005 appearing in "Otherzine"

    "Lutz Dammbeck’s Das Netz is a highly commendable and intriguing work of research, drawing from Internet, archival and interview sources, in which we are taken on a journey to examine early Internet history and its less savory or more hedonistic, cultish and covert government protected aspects. Themes generally underexplored in the Net’s military, artistic and industry lineage are brought to life in Das Netz.

    It is a deeply thought-provoking documentary deftly weaving an abundance of esoteric information into numerous pernicious subplots for a moving picture of the most innovative largely American, if not Californian and 'white privileged male' communications tool to date. 'What is it that hippies, LSD, and computers have in common?' queries Dammbeck at the start.
    In later probes he takes up alliances between European postwar intellectuals from Norbert Wiener to Heinz von Foerster and their anti-fascist beliefs; delving momentarily into a document published by the Frankfurt School on the 'totalitarian personality' and its curious influences on a secret history of research known as the Macy Conferences.

    Designed to study the workings of the human mind and its authoritarian social psychology, these Conferences invited Margaret Mead, Norbert Wiener and psychologist Kurt Lewin, among others and later, avant-garde artists such as John Brockmann, Stuart Brand, John Cage, and Buckminster Fuller to exchange views on hippy generation concepts such as 'mind expansion', open systems and human consciousness.

    These Macy undertakings wound up influencing a period of psyop testings most notably performed by Dr. Henry A. Murray at Harvard University on Ted Kaczynski – elsewise known as 'the Unabomber' – as well as the CIA’s MK Ultra project.

    At the cross roads of Dammbeck’s journey is a continuous theme – one of the counter culture’s technology v. anti-technology sentiments – most directly expressed in footage of the Whole Earth Catalog’s pages shot to show the hawking of the alternative lifestyle of the 'the sixties' – everything from pamphlets on how to farm your own goat’s milk to how to build a log cabin in the wilderness; to ads for the personal computer.

    This romantic and utopian counter culture of 'back to nature' and escape from civilization is poignantly addressed by Dammbeck’s lengthy foray into Ted Kaczynski’s criminal activities and involvement in Murray’s psyops testing while a promising Harvard math student.

    In conclusion, Das Netz seeks to explore the varied social philosophies contributing to the parallel development of the Internet. With the filmmaker’s extensive research, this work opens up dialogue around the Net’s arrival as a broadly conceived and arguably, 'experimental' tool.

    The film, however, omits naming any fundamental and vital connection between countercultural consciousness and the pursuit of a techno-utopia; the era of Howard Rheingold’s Virtual Community, notions of the digital commons and 'information wants to be free' – or even to elaborate on the extraordinary meaning of 'the Well' (Whole Earth eLectronic Link) – a conceptual groundwork essential to the Internet culture wars and cybercultures as they stand today.

    Few films take up the subject of the Net in any seriousness. With the exception of Revolution OS a lengthy essay on the open source movement focusing on Richard Stallmann, Linus Torvald, Steve Wozniak, and numerous others, all interviewed, there are really none of much merit.

    In this context, it is the brilliant collection of interviews conducted by Dammbeck himself for Das Netz – where we get John Brockmann, Stewart Brand, Bob Taylor, Heinz von Foerster, and David Gelerntner which contribute to an outstanding cinematic cyberhistory and which draw connections rarely made between the worlds of cybernetics and ARPANet; Unabomber victims and their achievements; social theory and 'the California effect'.

    The film’s appeal is as this original and relevant untold story – referencing many, many artists and thinkers, Das Netz is a must see for creative network enthusiasts and those interested in cyber theory, post cold war history or similar subject matter."

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------



    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Other interesting related material can also be found through here:
    https://www.tubedial.com/videos/ted-...rview-c0b.html
    Last edited by Tintin; 11th July 2019 at 14:44.
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: [Documentary] "Das Netz" [The Net] by Lutz Dammbeck, 2003 (German with English subtitles)

    Also posted here a few days ago by me in Frankstein’s documentaries thread: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1299726 - must be in the ether!

    It is a VERY interesting and intelligently done documentary and draws some subtle inferences. I have watched it three times now, this last time with split screen so I could look up all the names, places, etc. mentioned.
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: [Documentary] "Das Netz" [The Net] by Lutz Dammbeck, 2003 (German with English subtitles)


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    Default Re: [Documentary] "Das Netz" [The Net] by Lutz Dammbeck, 2003 (German with English subtitles)

    Quote Posted by Searcher (here)
    Also posted here a few days ago by me in Frankstein’s documentaries thread: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1299726 - must be in the ether!

    It is a VERY interesting and intelligently done documentary and draws some subtle inferences. I have watched it three times now, this last time with split screen so I could look up all the names, places, etc. mentioned.
    Yes, it is, and I may well find myself doing the same as well. It's perfectly paced with a suitably mellifluous German narration, and is a piece of art in itself Compare the care and attention and storytelling here with the largely disappointing Third Eye Spies released earlier this year. That production was all over the shop.

    Molly's review is really helpful as well in capturing the names.

    Other helpful resources might include these:
    “Mirror Worlds” - David Gelernter: [pdf] http://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attach...pdf?1537516745
    “Cybernetics” THE MACY CONFERENCES 1946-1953. THE COMPLETE TRANSACTIONS - edited by Claus Pias (linked in OP): https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/b...o23348570.html

    Although Ted's methodology isn't one I'd recommend ( ) I find myself able to agree with much of what he does attest to; there is inherent danger in this technological advancement, on so many levels, that a reset to a more 'natural' way of being becomes ever more important.

    I'm unsure at the time of typing whether the revised and authentic "Manifesto" is available, but, I'll endeavour to have a look around for it.
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: [Documentary] "Das Netz" [The Net] by Lutz Dammbeck, 2003 (German with English subtitles)

    Quote Posted by Tintin (here)
    My mouse was poised to write a review of this extraordinarily fascinating journey into the mind of Ted Kaczynski more infamously known as the "Unabomber" (University and airlines-bomber). Fortunately for all of us Molly Hankwitz has already written a review and here it is copied below.

    It is indeed an enthralling three hour journey into the man's psychology, and his personal crusade against the Macy Conferences' vision of a future technological "utopia". The correspondences between the filmmaker and TK are also most revealing.

    There is much food for thought here.

    Highly recommended and thought provoking.

    Do enjoy

    --------------------------------------------------------------

    Review of "Das Netz" [The Net] by Molly Hankwitz, Oct. 20, 2005 appearing in "Otherzine"

    "Lutz Dammbeck’s Das Netz is a highly commendable and intriguing work of research, drawing from Internet, archival and interview sources, in which we are taken on a journey to examine early Internet history and its less savory or more hedonistic, cultish and covert government protected aspects. Themes generally underexplored in the Net’s military, artistic and industry lineage are brought to life in Das Netz.

    It is a deeply thought-provoking documentary deftly weaving an abundance of esoteric information into numerous pernicious subplots for a moving picture of the most innovative largely American, if not Californian and 'white privileged male' communications tool to date. 'What is it that hippies, LSD, and computers have in common?' queries Dammbeck at the start.
    In later probes he takes up alliances between European postwar intellectuals from Norbert Wiener to Heinz von Foerster and their anti-fascist beliefs; delving momentarily into a document published by the Frankfurt School on the 'totalitarian personality' and its curious influences on a secret history of research known as the Macy Conferences.

    Designed to study the workings of the human mind and its authoritarian social psychology, these Conferences invited Margaret Mead, Norbert Wiener and psychologist Kurt Lewin, among others and later, avant-garde artists such as John Brockmann, Stuart Brand, John Cage, and Buckminster Fuller to exchange views on hippy generation concepts such as 'mind expansion', open systems and human consciousness.

    These Macy undertakings wound up influencing a period of psyop testings most notably performed by Dr. Henry A. Murray at Harvard University on Ted Kaczynski – elsewise known as 'the Unabomber' – as well as the CIA’s MK Ultra project.

    At the cross roads of Dammbeck’s journey is a continuous theme – one of the counter culture’s technology v. anti-technology sentiments – most directly expressed in footage of the Whole Earth Catalog’s pages shot to show the hawking of the alternative lifestyle of the 'the sixties' – everything from pamphlets on how to farm your own goat’s milk to how to build a log cabin in the wilderness; to ads for the personal computer.

    This romantic and utopian counter culture of 'back to nature' and escape from civilization is poignantly addressed by Dammbeck’s lengthy foray into Ted Kaczynski’s criminal activities and involvement in Murray’s psyops testing while a promising Harvard math student.

    In conclusion, Das Netz seeks to explore the varied social philosophies contributing to the parallel development of the Internet. With the filmmaker’s extensive research, this work opens up dialogue around the Net’s arrival as a broadly conceived and arguably, 'experimental' tool.

    The film, however, omits naming any fundamental and vital connection between countercultural consciousness and the pursuit of a techno-utopia; the era of Howard Rheingold’s Virtual Community, notions of the digital commons and 'information wants to be free' – or even to elaborate on the extraordinary meaning of 'the Well' (Whole Earth eLectronic Link) – a conceptual groundwork essential to the Internet culture wars and cybercultures as they stand today.

    Few films take up the subject of the Net in any seriousness. With the exception of Revolution OS a lengthy essay on the open source movement focusing on Richard Stallmann, Linus Torvald, Steve Wozniak, and numerous others, all interviewed, there are really none of much merit.

    In this context, it is the brilliant collection of interviews conducted by Dammbeck himself for Das Netz – where we get John Brockmann, Stewart Brand, Bob Taylor, Heinz von Foerster, and David Gelerntner which contribute to an outstanding cinematic cyberhistory and which draw connections rarely made between the worlds of cybernetics and ARPANet; Unabomber victims and their achievements; social theory and 'the California effect'.

    The film’s appeal is as this original and relevant untold story – referencing many, many artists and thinkers, Das Netz is a must see for creative network enthusiasts and those interested in cyber theory, post cold war history or similar subject matter."

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------



    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Other interesting related material can also be found through here:
    https://www.tubedial.com/videos/ted-...rview-c0b.html
    I'm really looking forward to watching this now TinTin. Thank you so much for sharing

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