Over a decade on, Lutz Dammbeck's documentary DAS NETZ (2003) still stands as a unique inquiry into the conflicting agendas that characterised the early development of the internet.
Part-travelogue, part-conspiracy thriller, the film reveals a prismatic tale that explores the core anxieties of the post-war information society, weaving together Cold War-era CIA psycho-warfare experiments, cybernetics, tech-utopianism, the 1960s counterculture and the unabomber.
The screening will be followed by an open discussion about radical perspectives on anti-technology, the internet, and the control society.
With thanks to Lutz Dammbeck, Goethe Institut Glasgow, and New Media Scotland.
ABOUT LUTZ DAMMBECK
Born in 1948, Lutz Dammbeck was first a student at the College for Graphic Design and Typography in Leipzig before turning his attention to the realization of experimental films in the mid-1970s. However, his films ultimately violated the canon of socialist cultural bureaucracy to such an extent that he left the GDR in 1986. He is now professor of new media in Dresden and also works in Hamburg.
