After 9 years of non-stop activity, Rekombinant takes a breath. Having extinguished its original mission, the mailing list is suspended. The first message was delivered on the 22nd of July 2000, the last one on the 11th of July 2009. A special thanks to all the people that have materially supported and hosted the project along all these years. And thanks to the thousands of list members, comrades and friends. Time for new adventures for all of us, see you offline!
Matteo Pasquinelli & Franco Berardi
July 2009
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Some facts about RK
Rekombinant was a network environment launched by Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi and Matteo Pasquinelli on the 22nd of July 2000. Rekombinant was conceived as a listblog: a minimal blog running as a web interface of a collective mailing list. Everyday around 1800 subscribers were used to debate and post articles, new projects and announcements. Most of them were and are still based in Italy, around 40% were coming from Europe and the rest of the world.
Rekombinant was born precisely out of the intersection of radical philosophy, digital culture and post-Seattle global movements focusing also on art avant-gardes and university activism. Its initial concept was about the “dissolution of the political forms of modernity and the rise of the networks of cognitive labour”. Eventually it emerged as a crucial gateway between South and North-European cultural scenes, similarly to other mailing lists such as, for instance, Nettime and Multitudes.