LINUX LAND / NOKIA COUNTRY
October 24-30
Mapping Technology politics in Finland
Coordination: Toni Alatalo <toni@an.org>, Sam Inkinen <sam@uwasa.fi>

These days, the Golden Age of Finland has become almost synonomous with Nokia. Handymania is dominating the public and privates spaces, and lives. What is the technology politics behind this overwhelming development? What is the economic agenda of this new ruling class? How deep is it intertwingled with state affairs, and Sonera? Other topics: Linux and open source: code for all, profit for some? How could a political economy of the new media look like? Which critical tools and criteria should be developed to get a better understanding of e-commerce and e-business? Who is owning the backbones and standards of the future? And was is the role of the independant new media culture in all this? A wild investigation + attempt to visualize the hottest data of Casino Capitalism, riding the next crashes of the global markets.

Finland is routinely dubbed as the leading country in ultramodern information and communication technologies (ICTs). Recently, the Silicon Valleyan new-age tech bible Wired has covered Finland from two related but diverse standpoints: the birthplace of Linux - the Open Source Operating System - and now in September 1999 full fifteen pages of Nokia Hype in Wired Magazine. Not to mention the constant coverage on handymania in the Finnish press.

Linux and Nokia are obviously related as a part of the same infotech movement but perhaps suprisingly on the opposite sides. Although Nokia is not the Microsoft - and they are perhaps not even friends with each other - as megacorporations (http://an.org/megacorpse/ ;) they (have to) have a lot in common: growth is based on buying resources and innovation when taking over small companies, or strategically joining with other biggies when sharing the markets. Emplyoees are recruiten in masses, as the saying goes: "Nokia - Collecting People". All this financed cleverly by using IPOs and who knows what.

Linux, on the other hand, has it's roots in the left progressive, alternatieve GNU project lead by the (in)famous Richard Stallman, the Saint of Emacs of the Free Software Foundation. Linus Torvalds himself and large parts of the whole Linux movement have never identified with those early politics but even the most commercial and business-looking Linux distributions have to include the Gnu Public Licence (GPL) in their packages - with the ideological manifesto written there, for the businessman to figure.

Microsoft is a well-known as the enemy for the various free software / Linux / Open Source movements demonstrated by e.g. the Halloween Documents that Eric Reymond controversially brought to public. Is Nokia, with its tendencies to dominate all aspects of Finnish economic and cultural life, simply because of its cheeer size, becoming an 'enemy' too? Will everyone be happy with the possible future of Nokia TV, Linux mobile phones, or the Sonera evening news? Has anyone ever considered this? And what does it matter anyway? After all, Nokia "just produces what the customers demand".

The practical research during Linux Land/Nokia Country will focus on three aspects: an attempt of map the economic relationships of the key players in the Finnish IT sector; a linux day which will analyze and discuss the economic, political and cultural aspects of Linux and free software in general, and a technology part which deals with synergy between different industries, the question of standards and ownership.

The closing debate on saturday, October 30, will be a critical, discussion-oriented summary of the week's central topics, results and investigations. Concepts such as "information society,'' "network society,'' and "media society'' have become dominant to describe the contemporary society. Recent technological and social developments seem to be characterized by a fast transformation that shakes the old traditions and steady structures of our communities. Our thinking, our daily activities, and the very survival of homo sapiens are heavily interlinked with technological innovations and media cultural systems.

The basic problem concerning communication and information technology continues, however, to be the lack of research carried out from the perspective of the humanities and social sciences. Accounts based on technical and techno-economic premises - as well as various strategies by governments and central administrative agencies - can be easily found. Qualitative and critical research focusing on such issues as values, morals and social implications of technology is rare, certainly in Finland.This despite the fact that the role of information technology can be considered so central as to justify W. C. Zimmerli's view of it as the "cultural technology'' (Kulturtechnik) of our time.

http://www.an.org/tmp

Additional event:

Night of the Critic
Organized by Mikael Böök, book@kaapeli.fi
October 29

Theme: The New Republic of Letters

Do e-mail and the World Wide Web belong to literature?
Who can deny that the internet is part of the republic of letters?

One answer is, perhaps: the literary critic. Maybe the time
has come for the critique of the critic. This is the moment of the
critical critic, who wants to know:

- Which is the contribution of the literary critics to the evolving new
net-literature?

- Has the critic been clever enough to exploit the critical potential of
the net?

- What *is* the critical potential of the net?

The last of the three questions above is not intended as speculation. In
fact, much has been done (during a decade, or so) to develop the
communicative, artistic, intellectual and critical aspects of the
internet. Now is the time for a critical assessment of the existing
'letters' on-line: the electrical verse, the classics as etexts, the
experimental hypertexts, the databases of essays and articles , the
critical discussion forums, and more.

The theme of the new republic of letters (a theme inspired by Nouvelles de
la république des lettres, the critical review founded by Pierre Bayle in
1684) will be discussed in a special web-forum, soon to be opened in
conjunction with sanoma-open, a literary website and discussion list,
which has functioned since January 1999, see
http://www.kaapeli.fi/sanoma-open/

The discussion will be documented in print as well as on the web.

The discussion will, hopefully, culminate in "The Night of the
Critic", an open workshop of the critics, which is to take place
at Kiasma (next to Helsingin Sanomat) on Friday night 29 October 1999.