Felix Petrescu
Netlabels – The digital utopia of the '90s and its cultural legacy
— Presentation with sound examples and historical detours
Friday, 25 Sept. 16:00 / MX
Netlabels emerged in the 1990s, at a moment of technological transition and digital utopianism, when the Internet was still imagined as a space for freedom, community and experimentation. They became independent structures for distributing music outside the industry, relying on free licences and a symbolic economy built on trust, passion and reciprocity.
The presentation looks at the netlabel phenomenon through the lens of cultural anarchy and digital socialism — forms of collective organisation that challenged the logic of ownership and redefined ideas of authorship, audience and the circulation of art. In an ecosystem already becoming saturated with content, these networks spontaneously developed their own forms of filtering, curation and meaning, providing an alternative infrastructure for creativity within an informational capitalism that was beginning to become all-encompassing. Today, as the Internet has largely been colonised by platforms and algorithms, netlabels remain a living trace of a period when sharing could be a form of resistance, and free music meant more than a downloadable file — it represented a cultural position.
Felix Petrescu is a sound artist and electronic music producer based in Timișoara, and one half of Makunouchi Bento. His practice is rooted in electronic sound environments and a longstanding engagement with experimental music, its histories and its avant-garde movements.