People treat modern communication media as if they were human, so established principles of interpersonal communication also predict human responses to computers and television. The media equation (media = real life) is an unconscious, automatic response that occurs because our slow-to-evolve brains don’t distinguish between mediated and real life experience. — E. M. Griffin

Hitler’s worldview included copious referencing of Nordic creation mythologies (thus his love of Wagner!), and as a consequence of this there developed strong pro-Nazi movements leading up to, through, and most disturbingly, after WWII in all the Nordic/Scandic countries (Scandinavian countries as a group are all the Nordic countries, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, plus Finland). Iceland was no exception to these Nazi sympathies — documented by black-and-white images of uniformed goose-stepping rubes on parade in downtown Reykjavík before the 1940 British occupation, and the refusal of Icelandic authorities to allow African-American soldiers into the country during the later US occupation. These warped sympathies have persisted right up to the present time: a fact that was brought to my attention by a sequence of articles published in Iceland’s main national newspaper, Morgunbladið, back in the early 1990′s when I had recently immigrated to Reykjavík to take up residence with my future ex-wife, an Icelandic psychologist who I had met in Germany a few years previous. The current events in Norway bring all this back to mind, again… (more …)

a long conversation with Anthony this evening. always stimulating coverage of the non-typical meta-structures of social and individual existence.

the thought comes up, in teaching — most recently the “Multi-platform Story-telling” course that I was involved with this past semester at La Trobe — how seldom the holistic social meta-structure of the grouping of students (and teachers!) is considered in the facilitation of a learning trajectory. this includes the cumulative totality of all relations (power and otherwise!) that occur within the grouping. I call this space the continuum-of-relation and define it as the total accumulated network of relations, expressed as activated exchanges of energy, as Dialogues, that have occurred, are occurring, and will occur between members of the species. Based on the assumption that we are in a holistic and continuous universe, it is possible to extend the definition to include the set of energy relations that humans have with the detailed and greater cosmos around them, and indeed, this is an important aspect to consider, but it is easier to limit the scope to a specific subset comprising relations between all humans. There are infinite sub-sets of relation that may be delineated, one set being those which arise in the process of learning facilitation. much attention is paid to syllabi, curricula, classroom technologies, and wide-scaled social ‘relevance’ of education systems while very little is paid to the immediate and long-term embodied needs for a recognition of presence of all the humans involved in the actual learning process. and especially the needs for deep human encounter and connection. is it such that this university, as with most others, is merely reflecting a wider scale of civil social decay when those crucial relations and their attendant qualities are simply ignored in the stead of assessment protocols, schedules, cash-for-services, and the general corporatization of education. (more …)

it’s not really clear what’s going on with this project. but… basetrack

It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale. The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment. Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society. — (Ellul, 1967)

What would poor Jacques think about the ubiquitous constancy of FaceBook and Google and mobile telephony and locative media and RFID chips and biometrics?

over to Serial Space to meet Ian and see a screening of early works of his — tape-to-tape media collage works which work remarkably well, especially given their age. very interesting conversation ensues afterward with folks. a good sign of pro-vocative work.

If film can do this:

Film serves to train human beings in the practice of those apperceptions and reactions required by the frequentation of an apparatus whose role in their daily life ever increases. To make this whole enormous technological apparatus of our time into the object of human interiorization and appropriation [innervation] — that is the historic task in whose service film has its true meaning. — Walter Benjamin

Then is there any reason to doubt a connection between the declining power and influence of the (technocratic mediocracy of the) United States and the implementation of the Internet as-it-is today? Is there any connection between the tendencies of its population to spend their (limited) life-time in tele-communication (and tele-consumption!) and the demise of civil society? People seemingly now avoid confronting the (unknown) Other and rather cluster as mirrored-Selves, with a cumulative effect of breakdown of a (diverse) cultural fabric into a checker-board of self-interest groupings which spend time defending the borders of their squares from the surrounding Evil unknown.

this conclusion proposed in the sense that if film can have that profundity of affectation on human nervous systems (the primary interface with the world-as-mediated-by-body; or the primary EM antenna-structures), then what of all the wide press of technological development seeping into all parts and orifices of perception and reaction?

Responding to Michael Connor on the [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] list:

In the gallery it presents a kind of ontological mirror reflecting back and stabilizing our own sense of self in its apparent stability and autonomy… By contrast time-based art, interactive art, and all art involving some form of interaction over time tend to do the opposite. Perhaps this may be a partial explanation of the continued resistance to such work in mainstream institutions.

sotto voce:

head down to Denver to meet Jim and Dona for a trip to DAM. I also called Dave to come by as he’s a former employee of the museum where he worked as an installation manager. the art forms a backdrop for stories, reflections, and dialogue. after lunch we head over to the MCA for a walk-thru. I’d never been there and it turns out to be quite a nice space — the rooftop bar and garden has a nice vibe to it. then back to the house to check out some of Jim’s recent Director-based media installation projects. and more…

Trade ye no mere moneyed art — James Johnson

then on to an IMax theater to meet Sally and Montse for the new Star Trek movie which was not very good. ‘nuf said. busy day. sonic documentation to come some future day as with many more past days. never the time to do the processing of files. accumulating faster than processing, a common problem for an archivist. what about being more exclusive? to choke the acquisitions process down to a manageable level. or more aggressively carving out processing time each day? that would come at the expense of sleep, methinks.

attend a screening last night of Randy Olson’s Flock of Dodos at the RagTag Cinema in Columbia. he was in attendance. and again this morning, he gave a presentation for science academics at the university as a part of their Darwin Days (where the Chair of the Life Sciences Department pointed out they were not allowed to say “celebration” but rather “commemoration”). the film’s premise was to map out the way both sides of the evolution/creationist divide are communicating and presenting their POV to the public. scientists are shown to be poor communicators, creationists shown to be poor communicators except for some who know the value of style and appearance (the Discovery Institute being the chief antagonists posing as a non-partisan think-tank). they are the ones leading the issues. in the same way Republicans have been successful in constructing the narratives guiding the story-following population to the conservative Nirvana. Olson, a former Harvard PhD biologist transitioned to Hollywood via a degree at USC’s film school. he now tells stories that bridge the divide between science and the general public. but the leap from stories to action — stories that form a context for action — well, there is generally a passivity that is a condition of listening/watching a story recitation. listening to stories has to stop at some point. so, the story has to have a transitional mechanism leading to action. how does that work? telling a story and have action arise out of the exchange of energies. the attentive focus of absorbing a story transforming into world-changing action. in the evening Nick and I catch the screening of Sizzle also by Olson. overheard today:

mass media is directed at the pelvic floor but what about having Kegels for Consciousness…

a repaired drum appears, as does a Tibetan singing bowl, and a basket full of instruments. resonant sound-making ensues.

the festival ends with a long eye-vibrating day — War Against the Weak, Crude, and Burma VJ. I babysit the kids (and watch Lord of the Rings with them way too late for a school night, but don’t tell anyone!) while Nick and Deb go out to the closing party. documentary film is a bit foreign to my mind, after years of work in non-narrative experimental moving images. intriguing to be presented with stories, those basic forms of human communication versus the chaotic release of non-linear stimulation. perhaps there is a dialectic in this — juxtaposing a need to have (socially) structured and chronological sensory input versus flows that are not really predictable (though safe in the sense that they are only optical/aural inputs and not full sensory inputs). different people have different capacities for absorbing change and facing the unknown. is it merely that we have been conditioned as media consumers to the form of the filmic story? or is there some core stimulus that compels us to remain attached to the trajectory traced by the story-teller?

Sarah invites me to go to a morning pre-screening in the Atlas Center of the movie Speaking in Code along with David and some of the other principles from the Boulder Media Festival. they are considering the flick for screening at the next festival. it’s … okay … funny how historical the scene got so quickly. ancient times, techno seems.

right after lunch, I meet Holly at the UMC and we take a wander around campus talking about her options upon graduation from high school this spring. we make a visit to David’s office to talk about the TAM program, etc. it’s cold out. and the art department is now a construction site. I decide to cycle downtown to meet Sarah and Kate later at the Laughing Goat. then still later, we wander back up to campus to catch negativland who Jane brought to CU for a couple (free!) shows featuring their concentrated and comprehensive performance on the mediated social system of religion in It’s All In Your Head FM.

We believe that the healthy evolution of art and creativity has more value than simply counting how much money is lost or made. Art, science and technology have evolved because of how we all build upon the ideas and works of those who came before us. Copyright was always intended as a balancing act between giving ownership to creators so as to provide incentive to create new works, and allowing works to lapse into the public domain so that new ideas could develop. But our founding fathers could never have imagined the kind of world we live in today and the amazing new technologies that we are surrounded with – technologies that encourage and inspire us to interact with the world and create in unprecedented new ways. Protecting the author of a creative work is a good thing, but the benefits of copyright have been thrown off balance by the disproportionate influence of those with the most money. In fact, the more recent expansions of our nations copyright laws represents a break from our nations past and from the intentions of our own Constitution. — Mark Hosler

long day, many ideas are danced around. it’s good to see former students so active with things, thoughts, and spirits.

month(s) end(s), hot Berlin. pushing 90F/33C. summer is here.

Annie points out that the incident team deploys monochrome, a project featuring a wide variety of electronic/network-based projects.

and then there is the blog/audio file from the RCA in London, a talk/discussion on Brazilian Medialogies – Systems of Learning with Carlos Villela, Felipe Fonseca, and Ricardo Ruiz.

fortune cookie:

All the passions make us commit faults — love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones. Lucky Numbers: 4, 6, 15, 19, 22, 46.

and on to meet Udo and head to a couple openings along with another session of dkfrf again to hear Ben, Michael and other’s perform. beforehand, on the way down, a slow cruise through Görlitzer Park, summer expression! afterward, sitting outside at a cafe talking until very late.

former student Sarah lets me reprint this article she wrote recently about her creative practice:

Sarah H. Chung :: http://www.myspace.com/sarahhdot

I am an experimental multimedia artist, a student, and a teacher based in Denver, Colorado, USA. My latest artistic pursuits are a combination of various mediums including still image, video, sound, sculpture, light, and performance. Most recently I have been collaborating with another female artist, Heidi Higginbottom, to choreograph audio/visual performances using found objects, homemade instruments, contact microphones, and film loops. We make homemade contact microphones out of easily attainable and affordable materials and use them to amplify the sound of the movement of objects. We have used objects ranging from dishware, tile, typewriters, music boxes, sewing machines, thumb pianos, toys, water, or any curious object we can get our hands on. Our intentions are not to make melodic pieces of “music,” but to isolate and arrange pure commonplace sounds that would normally be easily lost in the proceedings of everyday life. While these objects may be ordinary, they refer to a vast web of associations and marked memories. By arranging them, we create a new resonance in the relationships the objects and symbols have with one another. These relationships are meant to be memory cues that can be triggered by sensory experience. We are in the process of experimenting with different technologies and digital software to incorporating projections, audio delay, editing and looping.

As a studio art major I was largely focused on traditional forms of art such as painting, drawing, and photography. It was about six years ago that I began to pay more attention to the intricate and beguiling aspects of the digital art culture. I was introduced to it from digital art courses being taught by visiting professor, John Hopkins, who is a working artist and has taught and traveled internationally. Projects included collecting and arranging self-generated media and media filtered from outside sources. These included field recordings, videos, still images, and lines of text. I had not dealt with this kind of medium prior to this, so I approached it the same as I would painting and 35mm photography. While the navigation of new software in a limited time span was challenging, the results of the projects left me very intrigued and curious about digital culture. I believe that the success of these projects were due to the non-linear process of collecting media without a finished product as motivation. Filtering media (books, internet, video, music, sound clips, etc.) provides an intuitive process for choosing content. It becomes a dialogue that interacts with an individuals sensibilities and social views. Whether I am drawn to content or pure aesthetic, some aspect of the media strikes me, and I collect it.

With human interaction, technology can be used as a tool to express emotion and the individualized perspectives of human experience. Technology brings with it an efficiency that adds new time-lines within our culture. Ubiquitous media screens flash loaded images and sounds that are intended to influence feelings and opinions about products, services, and perspectives in government. These messages compete with each other and have conditioned us to receive information at an exponentially increasing rate. In a society saturated with advertising, I feel a responsibility to express and tap into more emotive, internalized feelings and memories, and to offer a situation for slowing down. This desire is what caused me to seek out the tools and skills that could connect me with the vast and accessible network I was experiencing.

I believe it is of utmost importance for individuals to be informed about technologies so that they may exercise basic democratic principles. I had been intimidated by technology before, but I felt that placing myself outside of the existence of it is like surrendering my own rights. Technology is propelled by human curiosity, but is often used as a system of control. History is constantly redefined based on documentation. Dominant historical theories are based on those with the power to document and expose others to their material. It is crucial to actively participate in the documentation process of our own history in process.

Links: (check them out!!)
http://www.neoscenes.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~erinys/contactmic.html
http://www.pierrebastien.com/
http://members.chello.nl/j.seegers1/
http://www.mutek.org/
http://www.haamu.com/launau
http://www.colleenplays.org/
http://www.skoltzkolgen.com/

Workshop continues at a rare intensity. Only a good scene. Fine mix of intellects and spirits. Something good will come from this. While the situation in Sydney apparently continues to unfold, but with what characteristics and forms and potentials I do not know. There is a degree of stress heading to the unknown place.

Two participants, coming respectively from Melbourne and Southern California, used couch surfing sites for housing — I may need to make that scene in Oz if housing alternatives run out.

But the number of sand I know, and the measure of drops in the ocean;
The dumb man I understand, and I hear the speech of the speechless:
And there hath come to my soul the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise
Boiling in caldron of bronze, and the flesh of a lamb mingled with it;
Under it bronze is laid, it hath bronze as a clothing upon it. — Pythian
prophetess

No doubt a pithy oracle. Herodotus quotes. From the histories. Run across that after skyping with Loki around the histories of the Greco-Persian Wars — he saw the movie 300. Is there a difference between understanding history derived from Herodotus in translation and Hollywood scripting? Are the histories essentially the same in that they are subjective accounts of an individual as translated through a series of other individuals? As Herodotus is the primary source for any information regarding the wars, Hollywood has some relation to this, but what is the texture of relation? And the idea of telling the relation visually (and sonically) and in two hours. Complete. No answer. Though reviews point to the obvious glorification of the defeat of the Persian by the infidel hyper-militaristic Americo-Spartans.

this from a simple yet moving essay by designer Milton Glaser

If you turn on your TV set and look away at the nearby wall you will discover that the reflections produced by the light from the TV set constantly vary dramatically in contrast and intensity. These contrasts are paralleled by the sounds emitting from the same source. It occurred to me that abrupt changes in the intensity of light, were indications of danger that our neurological system has evolved to respond to. What effects can a lifetime of exposure to this assault produce? After all, our children are subjected to it within months of being born. When a shadow passes over a field mouse, it becomes alert to danger. Every cell of our body has been programmed to respond to light. It’s obvious that the intensity of visual and audio contrast has increased though the years. I assume that our brains’ response to this continuing onslaught is a protective deadening to our neural receptors. I am convinced that the passivity and indifference of the American public to their own lives and interests, is some how related to this phenomena. — Milton Glaser

back up a familiar wash in the Marble Mountains, close to another Wilderness-designated area. arriving at dusk after an intermittent drive across the Sonoran desert from Prescott. conversations range over media, culture, education, social systems, software, teaching, art, and, uh, what else? weather, geology.

full-moon hiking up the wash into a zone of chaotic conglomerates, alluvium, diorites, granites, limestones.

it’s been ages since I’ve spent time checking out gridcosm — a SiTO project initiated by net amigos Ed Stasny and Jon Van Oast pushing a decade ago already. it’s getting very active again, as a new generation of SiTO artists have at it. I’m quite sure it’s the oldest and longest-running collaborative visual network project around. a singularly deep (literally!) visual essay on the past decade of network pop-being. or so. explore it! Jon and Ed are brilliant networkers and an inspiration to me over the years with their easy-going attitudes and intuitive insights into distributed creativity. last time I saw those guys in meat-space was in Montreal at the 1996 ISEA. Keep up the great work!

then, watching Slacker on DVD by Richard Linklater, appreciate the smoothness of film-making and a fluid and spontaneous anti-narrative:

… When young we mourn for one woman … as we grow old, for women in general. The tragedy of life is that man is never free yet strives for what can never be. The thing most feared in secret always happens. My life, my loves, what are they now? But the more the pain grows, the more this instinct for life somehow asserts itself. The necessary beauty in life is in giving yourself to it completely. — Joseph Jones, Slacker actor

another streaming radio festival — epsilonia — looks pretty interesting…

Nuit blanche au poste, l’oreille collée au transistor ou connectée au streaming web. Epsilonia, la vaillante émission de Radio Libertaire, fête ses 20 ans et propose un festival radiophonique marathon tous les jeudis de mai, de 22 heures à pas d’heure. Fondée en 1986 par Jacques Perdereau, disparu prématurément, Epsilonia explore toutes les déviances des territoires pop : musiques industrielles, électro-acoustiques, bruitistes, improvisées, free-jazz, poésie sonore…

Le festival est éclectique et exigeant, avec des diffusions de raretés et d’oeuvres créées pour l’occasion, et des concerts en direct de la radio. «Comme on est les derniers sur la grille, on est libres de faire durer tant qu’on veut», s’amuse Nicolas, un des dix activistes aux manettes de l’émission. Ce soir, l’agitateur bruitiste Evil Moisture, le platiniste erikM, l’ambient core de Pigot, un live de Jérôme Noetinger, patron du label Metamkine, avec Fabrice Eglin, ou encore un relais musical exécuté par sept musiciens (Boghossian, Saladdin, Rivière, Madiot, Black Sifichi, Igor & Grischka).

Grâce au web, la radio parisienne émet jusqu’à Limoges, Bilbao, Tallin et Séoul, où des lieux alternatifs diffusent les sessions du festival, relayées par des radios hertziennes et des webradios. L’occasion de convertir de nouvelles oreilles à ces fourmillantes musiques de traverse. — LIBERATION

The documentary Fire and Ice about the Finnish-Russian Winter War reminds and reminds of an essence underlying Finland like the Pre-Cambrian grano-diorite shield it sits upon. I often ran across the echoes of this particular event in strange ways. In the oldest generation in Finland, as in much of Europe, is the haunted look, more pronounced though carefully hidden, from eyes that have seen war. The movie was recently filmed in Finland and contains scenes of both Russian and Finnish re-enactors, along with interviews from veterans and citizens who experienced the incredible and atrocious conditions. The winter of 1939 was the second coldest since 1828. Soldiers hit in the heart, with cut circulation, immediately froze in the contortions of death. Finnish machine gunners went insane after killing thousands of Russians, waves storming across open fields in the initial weeks of the war. And so it goes. *Sisu — Finnish for guts and valor.

see Come and See by Elem Klimov — a movie that pressed certain icons into my awareness a year or so after it was released (1985), at the International Film Series at CU-Boulder. I think I went with Chris to that screening, almost 20 years ago. but the imagery of the film remained present and powerful. the machine of war. long single takes and shots always seduce my eye. like the opening shot in Schindler’s List — impossibly long and powerful. Klimov ends Come and See with an incredible steady-cam movement through a dense forest, following the marching partisans. films should leave images in the psyche. that’s what mediation does, finds a means to impress the eye, and so the soul. guard this with care.

dinner with Joanna, Jo, and Pete. Joanna makes/brings a sumptuous dessert of fresh fruit, ice cream, raspberry sauce, and meringue dollops for six-to-twelve that the four of us finish off.

daylong conversations range from Northern Soul to Arts Council politics to management theory to Chelsea’s UEFA cup aspirations to cooking dahl and curried eggs to locative media and media art.

en route. sitting on the floor. Phoenix SkyHarbor Airport gets poor marks on available mains plugs. very few, and so far, I found only one close enough to a seat that I could sit and work. and that chair was too far away from the gate for me to monitor what was going on, so, now perched o the floor leaning on one of the large concrete columns that support the jet-way. as usual mixed feelings in the heart on departure into the unknown. never made a direct flight to Europe from Phoenix (in memory), so this is a new protocol. security seems marginal. have to change planes and terminals in Heathrow, not really looking forward to that as it will be in the middle of my night. tried to go to bed a bit earlier last night, and set the alarm for 0500, but with the stars still shining in the window and the house cool, no way to get out of bed before 0700 when the sun starts Lighting the eastern horizon. in the shuttle down from Prescott, a young guy sitting in front of me has the word “ambiguous” embroidered on the back of his baseball cap in Techno font face. red on gray. he gets the attention of the two young girls in front of him by asking their opinion on the diamond engagement ring procured from his pocket — he decided this morning to buy it for his girlfriend who lives in Kansas City. he is on his way to the bus station in Phoenix. no baggage. he plans to propose in the Kansas City bus station. what a life. no baggage. can’t begin to penetrate the reality of that kind of life. as equally perplexing as the couple profiled in USA Today with a detailed recounting of their financial status with pension, 401k, and other investments. USD 200,000 saved at 30 years old. the plan includes paying for their grand children’s college. is this sacrifice or incredibly cynical control of life. nothing is made clear by media.

landscapes: social, cultural milieu shift in range of eye and ear. Amurika, what it is, what it should be, what it imagines of itself, how it synthesizes its face, how it acts, how it predicts, within the full depth of its deepening un-sustainability. to surface through the fragile impossibility of material wealth. it’s confusing. no critique, rational or irrational, will have any effect. teevee shows of crying parents and wives, reading last letters of soldiers gone in Iraq. what is this for? why this mediation of grief. what is this? presenting the lined faces, the tears, the quavering voices, and the simple expressions of life now gone, erased through some destined fate, whatever that is. sustainability is erased in the same way the youth is erased from the soldier’s face.

en route already again, away from this land, moving ahead with relative purpose, dancing. gray day, low clouds, rain on the inward-slanting airport lounge windows, Scottish accents drift in tour’s end quiet across the coffee shop / boarding hall. got here too early as well, but as the moving inertia took over from that of comfortable stasis in a certain place, rang up the taxi place. as usual, for the pre-boarding chill-out time. a pick-up truck drives the landing strip. English Football, the Euro corollary of the American League, entertains with silent subtitles.

it arises in thought that the outcome of human connection has/is an embedded dialectic — either the possibility of open, transformative outcomes, or, the possibility of stylized, socially-defined relation. of course, the actual is always a dynamic mix, but the tendency to go one direction or another on this continuum is largely defined by the social matrix that the encounter is embedded within.

while on Icelandic National teevee, Greenlandic Lutherans sit in quaint chapels and worship the God of the Danes. women in traditional dress and men in pure white tunics sing in the choir. the native woman priest speaking Inuit with a Danish accent, christening a number of babies. where is the spirit in this spectacle?

smartmoblogsociallocativefictiongpsteredmedia creatures feeding one on the other, in a frenzy of “what’s next that’s cool” and built for speed. (which ultimately will move ‘it’ on to the next “Next Big Thing.”) seems like another wave of meme-hype reverberating around the extraordinarily limited space of global telecom networks (in collaboration with military satellites). is the price to be paid so removed and hard to comprehend? seems so. I have run across exactly zero critical words about this phenom. instead a flood of vacuous phrases and spin terms that are kept afloat in a social sea by the flatulent buoyancy of affluence, global capital, and ex-military industry. STILL. “radical decentralization” for autonomous consumption of text, image, audio and video — the re-presented and ultimately consumable world. autonomy for re-presentation and re-production of reality — one that fills the belly with gas and the head with language peddled by those same tired techno-utopian spin-doctors. technology always looks its ubiquitous best in the eyes of the über-class. as I click through the verbiage at locative.net (no longer extant) it feels like RedHerring from 1999 or so — so much interlocking terminology leading in a head-rich circle of hype-logic. headmap drops phrases like “everything in the world, animate and inanimate, abstract and concrete, has thoughts attached,” “every place has emotional attachments you can open and save,” and “life flows into inanimate objects.” and behind these words (more and more of them) there is no awareness of or anticipation that there was/is an essence that is a substrate for knowledge and abstracted/systematized human apprehension. that something comes before knowing. and the vitality-draining construction of a Babylonish Tower is an ongoing exercise that society never quite purged from its mind. the path that re-creation bumbles along is not the same one as creation. not even in the same forest.

When people consider the dangers of the chaos of a free intensely networked spatially augmented augmented world, they should also consider that like all technological advances it offers tools to both sides of any argument. ‘ends appropriate means’ may seem ominous but the ends can just as well be social advancement. Even in a critical situation, disaster response and recovery in a world of spontaneous peer to peer mesh networks, running evolved social software, seems like a sane option for coordination of local efforts to recover and help from outside. The homeland security initiative raised the point that a citizen owned spatially aware communications network could be invaluable in a crisis. — headmap.org ideolog

what kind of crisis? when shopping is compromised? what can be meant by the terms ‘crisis’ and ‘homeland security’ being used in the same context? and, invaluable to whom? a threat to the status quo? or is there a radical suggestion that the masters tools be used to displace the master? funny, though, the effect of wielding a tool is perhaps the same, regardless of the wielder. that is, on the wielder, not on the hapless victim!

and what if, just what if these technological deployments are subsequently used for command-and-control, will everyone be surprised and taken aback? gee, we never imagined…

and the other core issue — whether you believe that all things are connected by a relatively un-knowable (or un-circumscribable) substratum or whether you consider that phenomenal existence is populated by discrete and completely independent objects, actions, and beings. that driving an SUV in Chicago rush hour has absolutely no connection to the presence of an M1 Abrams tank parked on a bridge outside of Falluja. that typing these words on this keyboard into this device has no connection with degradation of ground water in the Kwale region of Kenya from titanium mining.

pixelache finally finishes up with Tuomas’ and Mukul’s analog vs digital dual in the Kiasma Theater. enjoying a quiet morning without a particular agenda except for catching up with communications, especially answering Frieder’s pro-vocative recent email that is inspiring me to think and write toward my doctoral studies. heavy work, but ultimately feeling quite good to commit to paper (well, hard-drive) a concise framework for the explorations that may ultimately become the thesis. even if not, the exercise is extremely valuable.

ambienttv also performed their work TRiPTyCHoN, a complicated work-in-progress that is rooted in mapping human experience across a physical space. in this case, messages sent in from participants who were invited to make a walk between the Parliament steps and the steps of the cathedral, about a kilometer. along the walk, using a gps unit connected to a gprs-enabled palm with a custom interface, they were to write text messages. these messages were then sent to a server which recorded the location and the text into a database. I did a walk on Friday afternoon, slowly making my way, avoiding satellite shadows, and drifting through a space of emotional history. spontaneity was somewhat inhibited by the Lightweight but cumbersome physical interface. cold fingers. despite, I ended up drifting through parts of the history that was mapped across this very neighborhood through relationship. cafes, clubs, theaters, bars, corners, bus-stops, trams, shops all had a tangible memory overlay. poignant, as memory can often be about what has been lost. direct, as the triggers of place are very much real. silent, internal. Mukul called me after I had returned the device to Antony in the Kiasma Cafe, saying that it was a nice performance, the best one they got. He and David were on the island, actually neighbors in one of the nifca residency flats, they were monitoring reception of the ‘wander’ in real-time.

interesting experience. it was a measure of my ability to push through a technological interface, enabling some kind of flow-through. drawing focus, projecting energy, emotive force.

teaching with technology conference. concepts swimming at the popular surface of the sea. little diving to the basal bentholithic ground. why the ascendancy of the text? (and David Abram’s critique of written language as the initial wedge driven between lived/immersive experience in the sensual world and the new rational sentient be-ing.) hearing things from the keynote speaker, intelligent, that I have dealt with and modeled in my teaching already. hmmmm. stating the obvious. and keeping to the center. not comatose.

deep in production states, the initial 2-hour DVD burned for the installation coming up in a couple weeks. first time in artifact production for public show since the installation at Deiglan in Akureyri in 2000. tested the plasma screen today, some sizing glitches, but otherwise, it seems to look/sound good. second iteration will happen this week, perhaps a third after that.

so little writing done here, reflections seem to be submerged by influx, hinted knowings (tongue on 9-volt battery, citrus), secretions of saliva. pressure of hearing, adsorbing.

open source, middleware, centralization, privacy, (the idea of standards, or the principle behind, actually directly decreases possibilities of innovation!) so, when standards come from open source communities of use, vs a central corporate monolith, you get different results. mandated innovation … hah.

technology, arts, media. ‘talk the talk,’ but where’s ‘walk the walk.’ the focus on a particular level of technology to implement in a teaching situation. there is no correlation between deployment of technology and the quality of the learning experience (period).

paragraphs. delineating breaks of time. illustrating the discontinuous nature of re-creating, re-production.

lost the life of language, the usage that does not spark, no internal voice. where the internal voice spends breathless hours; questions itself.

back in town, just. a week that saw a movie modeled on a amusement park ride (with the same depth of plot), and a movie about a computer game (with about the same degree of meaningfulness).

and marketing is ALL. content seems to be only a minor detail in the fight to be SEEN, to be HEARD, by a mass. the economy of attention.

one last retreat to the highlands with Chris, Scharmin and the kids. getting high in the Rockies. while it is getting more and more crowded in the Front Range area, massively more than in 1976, it is still a phenomena, the full experience of getting above 10000 feet, the air, the Light, the sky, everything.

cable teevee. hotel living. the Manhattan Project. massive draw-down of resources and energies to compress into the small object to kill thousands — the largest engineering infrastructure in the history of the world to that time. called a modern marvel by the propaganda machine, sucking into the mind with interest — interest in what? in the hunt, moving prey, what? mediation?

the end of this year approaches. I jot down some definitions for class:

keeping to several centers, not comatose in any of their distributed flows. understand that now the up-springing source for the publicly “creative” work is something of a distortion created in the fabric of childhood (listen good parents) — that reverberates in the fractured pattern of shot-gun-fire in a rock canyon, each present de-formation of being expressed across the local social matrix is a hard surface that often will reflect and repel energy of any kind. the curling whine of ricochet as peeled-sheath bullet changes trajectory and spins to a sonic resonance within ear.

almost a month later. in the middle of a conference. mapping transitions. academic discourse. so. stream notes. what do pictues want? god is an artist. reductions (models, models, models, built on each other, intertwined. biocybernetics. science/technology making bio-sciences possible. cloning and computers. extended sense. political economy that runs the world. world of computer station, tangled wires. cybernetics: the steersman. kybernaut. writing as control system. not law, but the actual technologic/semiotic (phonetic) tools. (code writers). conflict of visual orgy and at the time of triumph of the digital (logos). analogical arguments. (dominant). terminator of liquid metal. ultimate simulator. academicians desperately searching for a label. an interpretive system to decode what the hell is going on. building a new model with old embedded pieces which have no inherent difference in structural predicate. sa-mo, sa-mo. formative paradigms are old. 1) copy original 2) artist and work (subject:object) 3) temporality (remember Virilio, huh?) 4) time of gain. uniqueness. copy has more aura than original.

enhancements of amplification (reproduction): are they qualitative improvements? reproductive cloning — an improvement?

actual and mediated. (electronic media is given a certain status of unprecedented power.) “new media.” participates in “massaged” production. mechanistic view. the aesthetics of digital media? (what about defining what the hell “digital media” is? (instead of defining it’s “fit” into the hegemonic/dominant worldview). hybrid aesthetics? why not just toss it out…? simulation. materialistic presence. current, seeking closure in the circuit. remix, unlocking input and output authenticity. (digital images and digital culture and rituals of new media). new vs traditional: imitations. virtuality. ontological status. proper character. procedural, conceptual (don’t fit…). anti-materialist. (medium is not the point). thesis-antithesis. we’re not allowed to make progress? hierarchies of form. perfection of expression. useful ways to talk about objects. (and subject experience). taste. rational cultivation. descriptive systems assume static forms of … aesthetics of change. mechanistic production. potential literature. procedural methods. with certain sensibilities. floods of wards. static bodies in space. reading texts. monolithic and reified forms of presentation. (any tweaking of of meta shakes the whole tree, gimme a chain saw). key forms of reference — generative: Pannini, Turing, Babbage, procedural, Stockhausen, and so on. iterative. new objects. rethink premises of knowledge production. aesthetics is about awareness. (iterative), step beyond — in flux. two feet in the mechanistic…

swarming

taking quantum to its conclusion — points to a movement from product to process to practice — (Saskia Sassen — the “meaning” of the activities in the digital sphere is the total accumulation of all practices that take place in that space … MAKE THE LEAP…

anthropological centrism. mapping transitions. (remembering the new world order is a limited access, top of a hierarchical high). indigenous technology. Inuit Broadcast Corporation. media-maintenance. next5minutes comes up, tactical media. good topic.

reproduction (gathering and redistribution of original energized event creates a pseudo-powerful illusion, but this is purely illusion based on the hegemonic (and static) position of the “reproducer” within an implied “global” order … the photograph in the world order (re-radiated Light from the self.) … some forms of hypertext with image are nice, but. just ’cause it’s horizontal?

Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. — Plato’s Cave

caves, CAVES, and caves. technocracy. aristocracy of technology. networks of expensive, institution-oriented situations, (isolated from the Light, Light re-amplified, reflected, refracted, energized). “gotta have content.” flippant sycophant, mouthpiece of the complex. access. high-end polarity. slick-packaged technological. famous last words. manipulation and collaborative interaction. glib passing over any moral embeddedness of the power structure. fair use. attitudes of use.

surveying cable media. Nixon, Clinton, news anchors, auto wrecks, fires, and shopping, media about media, that self-reflexive idolatry seems to be a fave. gripping mellerdrammer, my father used to say. as he would pause for a minute in the room where the teevee was located, some of the family potatoed out long before consumers were tubers. jeep adventures, rally sport. things that SUV’s will never do in suburbia. mediation. cut, cut, cut. ad. cut. dumb-ass stuff, without a doubt. no use even watching with volume on, or eyes open.

networking for survival. looking to rise to the surface. but when it is the Word that still is the over-arching superstructure of the matrix, and it is that very word that is anathema. antithesis. how can it come to be. axe-wielder. Snorri struck down at the thermal pool, from behind, a swift stroke leaving him bleeding into the warm waters, flushing life-water into earth water, mixing Odin’s tears with the sharp stinging excreta of the forge that made Thor’s hammer. all the words on paper did not predict this moment.

the vitality of the country is not linked to the government at all. those who govern do so only of themselves and for other vain matters. the people come and go their ways, and from random collision comes many things. is it different than Europe? there is one mistake that Amurikans make: assuming some kind of homogeneity rules the rest of the world. as there is the media feed. Europe is 350 million anglo white people. bad approximation. it’s slipping by. going it’s own way. as the rest of the world. goes, in circles, in spirals, in the ether between the stars. it’s still there.

but the measure of flows that move us through our be-ing here now cannot be made. if we try to document, we are lost from the moment, not reflecting the brilliance of that revealing of presence in the present.

but is all of this talk, this writing here, these lectures, these speakings, of no value. what-so-ever. oh gee. what then? and anyway, here I cannot write anymore as a travelog. because my motion is only between close-spaced points, and I move by the strength of my own body most of the time. maybe once a week in a car, but otherwise, on a bike. microscopic travels, or maybe mediated travels. there has been a massive increase in email volume. but dislocation has ceased for the time.

twists and turns. waking before the early dawn to see the cloudless sky painted in many colors. silence broken by the furnace, and the cat who, once she realizes anybody is awake, begins to yowl for food until she is fed. Sage, on the other hand, waits patiently in her kennel until liberated for a morning potty. go potty, Sage! and she races out into the back yard, bounding over the catclaw and prickly pear to find that right spot in the morning chill. dawn. getting up before dawn is special. it’s easier when dawn is at 1100, but here in the south lands, it means getting up at 0630. in the quiet.

chapter has changed. this text probably has to end in the form of a travelog. as I will not be traveling much in the next months. 12 years of European holiday behind me. now back to the reality of life in Amurika as I have often quipped. the media portrayals in Europe of the US situation are extreme and narrow. just like the views of the rest of the world here. the only difference is that re-presentative imaginations dominate people’s lives far more here — giving a distinctly shifted absence to every thing and every event. and every facing of the Other.

shopping defines much of being. I shop, therefore I am. walking by the bell ringing Salvation Army guy. I am already digging into my pocket before I get near. 27 cents. I catch his eye, smile, and as I turn away, he says, bless you. I go shopping. I missed yet another chance. the substitution of money for less mediated (and less socially structured) exchange is a loss.

Kari Kanto, Vesa Puhakka, Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski, Markus Norrena, Teemu Kivikangas

loop loop loop. the eye is taken in, the eye is taken in. the mind is numbed, the mind is numbed. replay.

I end up using the phrase “ancestral home” though I have little connection to such a reality. heading to Scotland for the first time ever. where on the Isle of Skye that generations of clan MacKenzie lived and died. I know next to nothing about them, except for the geographic proximity. and the name. and a few clouded memories of those old ones that I met as a child, ones who still could speak Gaelic, and who had been born in that land, only to come to the West of the Atlantic when life got too hard in the East. sailing west, south and west to find a new place to be. immigrants. like everybody, as though the change from immigrant to native would erase all. land without pasts.

and, now the travel has a new, sharper, edge. after TWA 800, and now with the World Trade center in smoldering ruin. reviewing some videotape from when Loki and I made a visit there earlier this year. the elevator ride, buying an expensive ice cream and seeing the free cheesy film promoting New York City. and seeing the diorama of the City from Wall Street to Mid-Town, with the north end of the island relegated to two dimensions of tempera on the wall. that diorama, a voodoo city, perished last week. what next?

all the while through the media rain, the trees outside change color. the birch lining some of the grid streets change with clusters of leaves going bright yellow, embedded in a matrix of green, and at the end of a week, the matrix is yellow, turning brown, with a scattering of green. often consider that I should document it, but beyond picking up one yellow and one green leaf a week ago, I have done nothing. video does not adequately record. so, I just look as I walk from point to point in the town. watching the change, understanding that as with the change since last week, that life is constantly in change. time slipping quicker. somehow I have come to something fundamentally different in my process, my awareness. that will affect both internal and external … blah blah blah. so on .

landed at Heathrow, flying over the English countryside. not since 1996 have I been here, or has it been more recent. no, 1996. in the opening salvos of this travelog. five-and-a-half years ago. already. this time only as a transfer passenger. transforming passenger, transformed passenger. passively carried for a fee. on the way to. and a workshop tomorrow and the next three days. each morning. another one of these confluences of humans. serendipity, surrender. being the passive activist. interfering. with certain systems (that I should better leave to their own progression and devolution. I can only be who I am. I like this fatalistic bent.

it has begun. working after school. 1700 or so. Sanna sends me an SMS if you are not watching teevee, you should be. a bit strange message. I surf to BBC, but can’t raise the site. keep working and a bit later try CNN, can’t raise that one either. hmmmmm. odd. I leisurely pack up and make the 15 minute walk home and flip on BBC cable when I get to the flat. the rush of images, a bit incomprehensible at first, completely incomprehensible, mediated. half a world away. a place where I just was a few short weeks before. impossibly brilliantly horrible act.

Tarja Kaskela, Isaac Tuffour, Mari Keski-Korsu, Mika Meskanen, Koray Tahiroglu, Aleksi Nuuja, Riikka Puustinen, Katriina Lahtinen, Kiia Kallio, Juhani Räisinen

Johanna Domke, Andreas Pagel, Britta Madeline Woitschig, Kerstin Junge, et al

Tarja Kaskela, Johanna Höysniemi, Anna Maria Joakimsdottir, Isaac Tuffour, Mari Keski-Korsu, Marcel Kuster, Tiina Kristoffersson, Teriina Lindblom, Merja Nieminen, Jenni Alasuutari, Taina Myöhänen, Katri Palomäki, Hanna Harris, Egon Randlepp, Sami Haikonen, Tatu Harviainen, Simona Schimanovich, Mika Meskanen, Koray Tahiroglu, Aleksi Nuuja, Riikka Puustinen, Kristiina Nevakivi, Sari Sippola, Jukka Kaartinen, Katriina Lahtinen, Kiia Kallio, Tiina Knuutila, Hanne Kiiveri

snowing after dinner with Kari. talking about the problems of New Media education in Finland. seems every media school faces similar challenges and systemic defects.

so it goes. solutions will be in the order of transformations rather than reforms. and those will probably not proceed very quickly, if at all, judging on the resistance to change that is deep here.

on the second floor landing there is sprayed silver graffiti: “you are everything to me.” a backless school chair on the first floor landing, and two boot-holes kicked into the hallway door on the fifth. moving around the town, slightly here. CNN on the box. piped-in dis-reality.

back to the idea of the Edifice of LifeStyle. from an essay very much under construction.

another lecture finished, everybody returned from last night. pleasant energies. so it goes. the night cools down. Russian teevee channels play bad Amurikan teevee with overdubs that only just barely are louder than the original soundtrack. and sometimes do not even have the right gender speaker. surprising there is so much Amurikan content. and so on.

(a group portrait of the cafe9.net crew in Brussels with a lousy digital camera)

Maison du Dragon. across the street, the Erotic Discount center, “Simply the BEST” and the Gascogne next door with “Non-Stop Table Dancers” and next to that, “Show Center California.” a central location. wink wink nudge nudge, know what I mean, know what I mean? anno 1873. while on the box plays a documentary on musicians from Burkina Faso.

here staying at Frieder’s flat in the center of Bremen. hectic pace scanning different activities around the University where he is Professor in the Department of Informatiks (as Computer Science is termed in German). long intense day of speaking with many people. they are in the process of building up a Digital Media program that will be a trans-disciplinary Master’s program incorporating Media Studies, Design, Art, and Computer Sciences.

It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling, and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. The conditions for your existence are almost as old as the rocks. For thousands of years men have striven and suffered and begotten, and women have brought forth in pain. A hundred years ago, perhaps, another man sat on this spot; like you he gazed with awe and yearning in his heart at the lying light on the glaciers. Like you he was begotten of man and born of woman. He felt pain and brief joy as you do. Was he someone else? Was it not you yourself? — Erwin Schroedinger

got an email from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. at least interest to have an interview with me at some point in the future. the prospect of actually getting a position in Colorado brings up all kinds of scenarios in my head. Boris Müller, a graduating student from the Art Academy of Bremen meets me and takes me to the Academy for the afternoon to see some of his work and the COINN facility. it is raining hard for much of the afternoon. the sea is near. I can feel it.

Mika Raita, Sini Jurvelin, Harri Jarkkala, Svetlana Mezentseva, Jukka Reponen, Tanja Taskinen, Jarmo Siirila, Anne Makivuoti, Mikko Ronka, Mari Keski-Korsu, Hanna Tuominen, Jenni Rantamartti, Sami Airaksinen, Jani Kaarlela, Eija Keranen

Sunday night, weekend spent. Friday, a quick trip to Rovaniemi to do a seminar in their Media Department. had never been there before, so it was good to see the facility, and finally see where Jeff has been teaching for the last three years. my seminar was a bit un-focused, like much of my activity these days, energies dispersed in too many directions, all of which are not productive or positive. I was nervous about the drive from Tornio, but the weather was okay, and I consistently underestimate my skills. if only appraisals would be more consistent along with actions and behavior! otherwise, I grumble along with this site/text. understanding that it needs to be jacked up some how. the best prospect would be to transfer the entire site to one server. Stefan registered the neoscenes.net name with Internic last month, but the next step would be to assign the domain to a server, and go from there. the question is, how to find a server? I would rather have one free, as some have pretty high monthly fees, especially for the storage space I would need — around 100 megs. trying to get into what is going on. preaching but not doing. Buddha looks over my shoulder and shakes his head. misalignment.