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little red book   02.09.2005, 2:41 PM

posted by ben vershbow

Very interesting review of McKenzie Wark's A Hacker Manifesto, recently published by Harvard University Press. In the manifesto (shorter version), Wark outlines a class struggle over "vectors" - the information channels of a society. In his words:

"With the commodification of information comes its vectoralisation. Extracting a surplus from information requires technologies capable of transporting information through space, but also through time. The archive is a vector through time just as communication is a vector that crosses space. The vectoral class comes into its own once it is in possession of powerful technologies for vectoralising information.--The vectoral class may commodify information stocks, flows, or vectors themselves. A stock of information is an archive, a body of information maintained through time that has enduring value. A flow of information is the capacity to extract information of temporary value out of events and to distribute it widely and quickly. A vector is the means of achieving either the temporal distribution of a stock, or the spatial distribution of a flow of information. Vectoral power is generally sought through the ownership of all three aspects."

Posted by ben vershbow on February 9, 2005 02:41 PM
tags: Copyright and Copyleft

comments (1):

mckenzie wark on March 23, 2005 03:21 AM:

... ironic that it's in book form, then...

k

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