Platforms, Networks and the Networked Psyche State of the Art of Critical Internet Culture in Covid Times

In this age of disaster capitalism, faced with a ‘stack of crises’, internet use is only further on the increase. More zoom meetings, more emails, even more messages. In this lecture I will attempt to map where internet-related controversies and tensions in society stand in this dark period. In 2019 I presented my Sad by Design book and music-theory performance. Depression, ‘electronic solitude’, exhaustion and ‘organized distraction’ have not subdued. We’re stuck on the platform and feel unable to leave. Why is it next to impossible to imagine European alternatives to the dominant platforms? Why can’t we escape the ‘free’ logic of data extraction? In this 2021 update on the state of the arts I will further look into the platform condition as the dominant mode of communication and trade and ask if a return to decentralized networks is at all possible.