for the record, as the university (of Colorado) no longer publishes nor maintains the archive of this magazine, this is the text of an article done by a CU J-School graduate student, Nicole Gordon.

Visiting artist John Hopkins explores relationship between art and technology

After twelve years of living and lecturing in Europe, digital artist John Hopkins is back in the United States. He’s no stranger to the University of Colorado at Boulder; in fact, he earned his master of fine arts degree from CU-Boulder in 1989. These days, however, Hopkins has returned to campus as a visiting artist rather than a student.

“I’ve always had a deep connection to the physical landscape of the West, and intellectually I find Europe stimulating,” Hopkins said. “I’ve attempted to have both, though in the end, physical location is not always important. What is of primary importance is surrounding oneself with humane and positive people — then anything is possible.”

Hopkins’ interest lies at the intersection of art and technology. He describes his work as “art that is not artifact-oriented, but delves into the unique communicative aspects of global networks.”

“John Hopkins has a long-standing commitment to the art network,” said Jim Johnson, interim chair of the Fine Arts Department. “He brings to the department a dedication to art as an ephemeral human process and his work in the digital community has been a natural outgrowth of that dedication. He has inspired numerous art students to pursue art in the real context of one-to-one communication as opposed to the conventional and isolated production of precious objects.”

Hopkins has been a professional artist since 1985. His career has taken him to Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, and Austria as a visiting artist or guest lecturer. His art has been recognized at the prestigious Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria and he has works in numerous private and public collections, including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art Library in New York City.

At CU-Boulder, Hopkins is teaching introductory and advanced digital art classes, as well as working on individual projects with students and doing international performances.

One of his most recent projects at CU-Boulder, in collaboration with students, is a live, online open-platform happening for creative expression and action called di>fusion. The project, which can be experienced at http://neoscenes.net/projects/difusion1/, simultaneously occupies global network spaces and local physical space with collaborative performance, sonic, music, disc- and video-jockeys, text, poetry-slam, and video events.

“I have done similar projects with students across Europe,” Hopkins said. “And indeed, projects like di>fusion are only partially geographically grounded. Much of the project happens in the space of networks, so there are participants and audiences in many locations.”

Hopkins studied geophysical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines as an undergraduate and worked as a geophysicist before pursuing his art career. He says that art and science aren’t so far apart.

“I worked with electromagnetic fields in geophysics, and I’m basically doing the same in art,” he said.

After receiving his art degree, Hopkins found that the European cultural scene suited his ambitions.

“During the decade of the 90s, while the United States was heavily involved in the dot.com bubble inflation and bursting, there were others in other locations who were looking more critically at technological innovation and the rise of global networks,” he said. “These critical views were often coming out of creative cultural research in Europe.”

Hopkins also noted that funding for arts and culture in Europe is much greater than in the United States.

“There have been many opportunities to get funding for creative projects that could never be realized in the U.S.,” he said. “Scandinavia is generally more advanced than the U.S. in terms of technological implementations society-wide, so naturally there were many interesting things happening on the cultural side related to technology.”

An experienced teacher, Hopkins says that he is committed to the dynamics of the learning environment as a critical and important facet of his work.

“I seek to create vital learning spaces — conceptual and physical zones where the exercise of free expression and spontaneous dialogue take place,” he said.

Examples of Hopkins’ work and more information about him can be accessed on his personal Web site at http://neoscenes.net.

my primary work when one calls it that, is the work in fundamental critique of the (meta)structure(s) that we are embedded in, in this sensual reality. it is not about the exigencies of work. It is mounted not in opposition, but in simple meeting-along-the-road. confronting that which manifests in the daily movement of life in life.

and I am astonished to discover that some of my students can’t read basic texts without simply quitting and saying “that was a terrible paper, I couldn’t understand it.”

I was WAY TOO EASY on the students I had this term. just not wanting to push them too hard. and that seems a big mistake. that they do not positively thrive on taking reign of their own progress, education, and enLightenment. not near rigorous enough. no toughness. but do they really need it? is this a condition? is it related to the social structure in which they are immersed? one where many of the human relations are mapped into incredibly convoluted and warped pathways. being graded. a scientific method, and a supreme lack of genuine dialogues. balanced flows. but is it worth it to try to change those flows? there are the hints of value. bright value, value that will float above knowledge, be a Lightness in life, perhaps. but the risk and inertia to overcome seems irresistible.

I mean, who IS the prophet in this time? Lennon has passed, Coltrane, Davis, Marley, and a hundred others, from all places and ways. but all on the same pathway. is it inside of time or outside? if not inside, then it is everywhere perhaps, or concentrated in one place. concentrations raw enough for the human to sense. and delve into. that we are not able to see the scale of all.

make assignments — for example, journal entries, no less than 40 entries with no spelling errors during the semester. ouch. but they need the discipline side. in Master Printing, I had the manifest tools, process available. with the computer, and the network, more difficult to pinpoint the tool and the process. but the practice, the living praxis, is the core/key.

for example — present the Apple iTunes screen “visual” algorithm. what is the politic of that? who made it? is that person an artist? basic questions to get things started. but on to harder ones. yeah, like pick an inspiring web space and describe why, in 500 words, it moves you. as a journal entry. with no spelling errors.

aside from the Flatirons encroaching across Baseline in Chautauqua Park. the events around teaching are less determined than ever. shifting back into the US system seems hopeless. I steel for the return to Europe. to survive professionally. maybe even to thrive. I see that life is slipping in this lack of praxis. clearly the axis of language and action, one that I have been oscillating along has brought me nowhere. and the suspicion about that abyss between language and action is only a scar tissue embedded in brain left from anomalous childhood. there are people who do as they say. whose truth is their word. what a surprise.

disengaged. and. lacking the words to put a reasoned spin, retching. grinding. poking at coals. filtering. charging, toasting, flaming, playing, reloading, installing, listening, not looking, answering, washing, riding, shifting, coasting, swimming, breathing, biting, chewing. nothing else. calling, sending, calling, sending, receiving, tired.

and now I decide to finish this travelog once again (hogwash). here at the end of the 6th year of entries. in just a couple weeks. because there is so little to be said. formations of letters. pulled from the fingertips. no sweat, the weather is too chill. merde! quit. ’cause it’s not going anywhere. anymore. the nomad doesn’t see the stars. doesn’t scrape hand across the sharpness of the macro-granular sandstone, cheek to ground. life going on.

a precious human life

everyday, think as you wake up,
today i am fortunate to have woken up
i am alive, i have a precious human life
i am not going to waste it
i am going to use all of my energies to develop myself
to expand my heart out to others,
to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
i am going to have kind thoughts towards others
i am not going to get angry or think badly about others.
i am going to benefit others as much as i can.
–XIV Dalai Lama

here now, gone tomorrow. the conference over, people drifting away to their home locations. I think that my ad lib review of the workshop at the closing plenary turned out very well. for once I felt concise, directed, and clear in the process of communicating the background of my concepts and basis of artistic practice in less than 15 minutes. and this with a cross-disciplinary, sophisticated, and eclectic audience. and indeed, the energy available in those concluding remarks was rooted in the process of the three sessions, each of which involved a different group of people from the conference.

the severity of conformation that the grid of streets in this town applies to life reaches deep. the trees are beautiful. in their military ranks. this area of Finland was on the front line of the Winter War. it has affected people.

an informal survey shows that in cars with both male and female occupants, only one out of 40 are driven by the woman. there is a stylistic difference in gender relations. uniformity. in the course I taught in the spring, every student had a partner. diversity. eNwhYCee. thinking of that other place is a tremendous cultural leap.

and feeling under the constant socialization-forcing gun of language. used without contextualized knowledge, having to explain nuance.

some kind of practice must evolve from. no, creative results arrive from a deep practice. but the depth of practice must be no greater than is sustainable with authentic living.

okay, already the system is declining. complete chaos in Hamburg. the Regional Express that Christian takes me down to in Kiel is delayed, stopping in Hamburg-Altona, so I have to race to the S-bahn to take that to the Hauptbahnhof. at first I choose the what I think is the wrong line, with several extra stops, but the most direct line is apparently completely shut down. make it to the station, racing to make the ICE to Berlin, only to find that it, too, is delayed by about 40 minutes. call Mark at the hotel, then race to another track which they announce with three minutes notice. on board the ICE, first class, full of German business types, swirling around and in between. I take an unreserved seat that has a power plug, much to the dismay of some others. settle in for the ride.

so much comes, so much goes. stories to be carried, some just to be remembered, settled in mind, adsorbed. and body energy diffused outward. the consciousness of energy intake is largely overcome by the present reception of the swirls of external (to the body interface) vibrations. I often make a disclaimer to students that I am not working in a groove of “new age” after a particularly powerful performative lecture about the structures of energy and chi and quantum and so on. it all sounds so implausible. but in the end it is clear that the model, though quite simplistic, points the way to a form of being and praxis that IS empowering.

the former East still carries a different weight of presence, as a result of the historical flows. and, words stand as an impossible burden of fluff to deter the movement of energy. I don’t understand the relationship between words and actions very clearly. language as that silver wire of socialization connecting metaphorically but not actually, and at the same time accentuating the separation.

lunch with Mark in Potsdammer Platz. meeting under the Sony umbrella. one degree of separation. face-to-face. the realities of everything are juxtaposed with this and that. the Berlin Film Festival is gearing up to splash into the Platz there. film crews, and those wishing to be seen and to see those who have been seen by millions of others. to be seen again. until all sight of them is gone. and forgotten, or just mediated to death.

strange to see Mark there, in the middle of Berlin. he’s there for the Transmediale which I avoided this week.

a passel of nice emails come back around the two workshops that are now done. Kiel, Berlin. I would seek to have this encoding process of. no, well, the process of these workshops is in some ways remaining totally static, and in others, jolting ahead. only secret is in the engagement praxis. product to process to praxis.

später — later. it IS a principle that is resting below the surface, the concept of entropy, the greater the level of organization of a structure, the greater the amount of energy input required to maintain it. can these energy-sucking societies of the developed world actually increase their consumption? can the rest of the world increase its consumption to the point that their societies are similarly structured? hard to imagine.

just reflecting all the way, from here to there to here. the last leg to Zurich underway now, only 20 minutes late at this point. the rails are in much worse shape here around Karlsruhe, Mannheim, than in the north. post-industrial, I guess.

back to Kiel via Hamburg, on the train once again. having also once again not done much there at all except meet intensively with a small group of other humans and speaking, exchanging energies with them. ideas like forms of deep-praxis, life-changing practices, and ways of communicating my ideas in more visceral ways come up. and logistics, and that flow, analog and continuous, of life, forward, and the sensual information that feeds into that.

the music that I encoded at Wolfgang’s is quite electric/eclectic. like listening to KCRW radio. in Santa Monica. where eyes opened to other forms of thinking and being. about as experimental as you can get.

like having the students choose an energy source, and give weekly reports on it to the others. or, as arose in Kiel as well, that image of the two cans with a string between them. communications-at-a-distance.

hearing last night the depth of living under the weight of manifest fears in Bogota. how that goes deeply into re-arranging the body’s energy state. we may stand, consciously apart from the body, but eventually it comes back to connect with that removed consciousness. with a vengeance if it has been ignored too long. saying, DOn’t IGNORE THE LIMITATIONS OF SENSUAL PRESENCE, yep.

passing a massive antenna installation a bit the the north of the rail line. military, and probably extreme long wavelength array for submarine or global communications. a relic of the past? like the landstrasse lined with the Linden trees. and the fallow, wild fields. a higher level of wildness and disorder. than in the former West, still. nice.

day-long meeting at gurusoft.com in Otaneimi. brilliant group of people assembled. to make the world a better place. altruistic life-raft in shark-filled waters. but clearly praxis is where it is at. if there are only words — words that fill the mouth with distaste, then what is left? praxis, practice, within a never-ending process seems to be a way to go. realizing that others have the possibility of actualization through other means. and understanding that I am in a slight position of opposition to the dominant flows. hmmmmm…

on board the MS Gabriella, just left Stockholm, imagining that there will be an open window of time while en route. plane flight from Iceland, the usual 0415 wake-up to catch the 0730 flight, east to Europe. waking and sleeping are the same state. car, bus, plane, bus, bus, boat, taxi. will be the cumulative way. and little thought. except for the cycling of separation from Loki. my boy. we decided at bed time last night that I should wake him for a hug and kiss before I went out the door this morning. after exactly three months together all the time, traveling so many kilometers, now yet again, leaving. no less easy than five years ago when I did it the first time.

wandering around. Stockholm, the airport, the bus terminal, the ship, here, there.

using the model of energy — life energies, quantum energy fields, chi — life looks different, but still the gap of praxis is massive. like there is a chance there, a minuscule crack in a plate-metal covering. for the Lightness to slip through. for meaning to replace the vacuum of materiality. (how can this be? that I conclude material presence is a vacuum? presence is an absence? what is absence? maybe impression, the leftovers of presence are the traces of the energy that has been transmitted to the surroundings (to the Other) in the time of presence. take care of the conditions of presence, or else absence can be devastating. we all spend all life in both conditions simultaneously. (boat listing rhythmically, we are in the open Baltic, though it is only as deep maybe as the ship is long. a sea, no ocean. it would be different sailing over the Marianas Trench, it would feel different. like on my second visit to Iceland. Stefan’s family has a summerhouse in one of the most revered national locations in all Iceland, Thingvellir. it is the location of the original outdoor parliament site, literally astride the mid-Atlantic Ridge in an area that technically is a classic spreading center — a fault-graben structure characterized by long north-by-northeast-south-by-southwest trending faults, frequent seismic and volcanic activity, and constant subsidence. we go out there on a short weekend trip in late summer. there is a rowboat that we take out on the enormous spring-fed lake. for the only time I ever go fresh-water fishing in Iceland, the first cast and there is an enormous hit on the line, and I bring in a very large lake trout. a farmer on the shore is watching us suspiciously. the slow sun-going makes the lake pass through millions of form and color permutations. we drift. Stef then says he has to show me something and begins rowing north along the coast past the summer house. there are some small linear islands a meter or two across and maybe 20 long. he rows between two of them. there is the sensation not of sinking, but of being drawn downward, body amorphous, without a center of gravity. the water which is absolutely clear, even with the bottom 10 meters down, turns black, there is no bottom.

so Mom calls with the news that Janet is in the hospital. since Monday. remoteness increases when the vulnerability of life is revealed through small events. FINALLY getting around to exploring the TAZ (Tactical Autonomous Zone) of Hakim Bey. and I am astonished to find it a textual mapping of many of my natural procedures, tactics, and ways of going. somehow I am stung by the fact the textual encoding of such ways is held to such a higher degree of regard than the praxis itself — this is some characteristic of the hierarchy of language and the priesthood. (why REAL music is inevitably dangerous to READERS). should I be stung? nah, don’t give a … fine that he is able to poeticize about life that way, taking energy from that way of living and inject into language, that is a special talent. but his concept of psychic nomadism outlines a path that is more than familiar.

Vital in shaping TAZ reality is the concept of psychic nomadism (or as we jokingly call it, “rootless cosmopolitanism”). Aspects of this phenomenon have been discussed by Deleuze and Guattari in Nomadology and the War Machine, by Lyotard in Driftworks and by various authors in the “Oasis” issue of Semiotext(e). We use the term “psychic nomadism” here rather than “urban nomadism,” “nomadology,” “driftwork,” etc., simply in order to garner all these concepts into a single loose complex, to be studied in light of the coming-into-being of the TAZ. “The death of God,” in some ways a de-centering of the entire “European” project, opened a multi-perspectived post-ideological worldview able to move “rootlessly” from philosophy to tribal myth, from natural science to Taoism– able to see for the first time through eyes like some golden insect’s, each facet giving a view of an entirely other world.

But this vision was attained at the expense of inhabiting an epoch where speed and “commodity fetishism” have created a tyrannical false unity which tends to blur all cultural diversity and individuality, so that “one place is as good as another.” This paradox creates “gypsies,” psychic travellers driven by desire or curiosity, wanderers with shallow loyalties (in fact disloyal to the “European Project” which has lost all its charm and vitality), not tied down to any particular time and place, in search of diversity and adventure… This description covers not only the X-class artists and intellectuals but also migrant laborers, refugees, the “homeless,” tourists, the RV and mobile-home culture — also people who “travel” via the Net, but may never leave their own rooms (or those like Thoreau who “have traveled much — in Concord”); and finally it includes “everybody,” all of us, living through our automobiles, our vacations, our TVs, books, movies, telephones, changing jobs, changing “lifestyles,” religions, diets, etc., etc.

Psychic nomadism as a tactic, what Deleuze & Guattari metaphorically call “the war machine,” shifts the paradox from a passive to an active and perhaps even “violent” mode. “God”‘s last throes and deathbed rattles have been going on for such a long time–in the form of Capitalism, Fascism, and Communism, for example–that there’s still a lot of “creative destruction” to be carried out by post-Bakuninist post-Nietzschean commandos or apaches (literally “enemies”) of the old Consensus. These nomads practice the razzia, they are corsairs, they are viruses; they have both need and desire for TAZs, camps of black tents under the desert stars, interzones, hidden fortified oases along secret caravan routes, “liberated” bits of jungle and bad-land, no-go areas, black markets, and underground bazaars.

These nomads chart their courses by strange stars, which might be luminous clusters of data in cyberspace, or perhaps hallucinations. Lay down a map of the land; over that, set a map of political change; over that, a map of the Net, especially the counter-Net with its emphasis on clandestine information-flow and logistics–and finally, over all, the 1:1 map of the creative imagination, aesthetics, values. The resultant grid comes to life, animated by unexpected eddies and surges of energy, coagulations of light, secret tunnels, surprises. — Hakim Bey

it IS my praxis. maybe I have missed the expressive techniques of radicalization, but the other side says that radicalization is not needed when the act is revolutionary. the weight of dialogue tips any scale set to compare the volumetric ratio of act to act. what can you compare it to anyway? murder, mayhem, rape, pillage, what violent act of person against human or human-made agent of the oppressive state compares in psychic strength to the dialogue. wars end this way, wars begin this way. Bey misses this somehow, despite his penetrating search of self and brain-stem reflexes. his categories of interaction miss the personal and direct — almost always he is caught up with the imaginary collective both as the object of critique and the object of ultimate continuous transformation. the self and the Other is a conglomerate, a mass, a class of things. hmmmm. finish up with the Doctoral application to Media Lab. Timo comes by last night to the office to look over the application and research proposal with me, and seems to be pleased with it. crossing paths with perceived strong intellect, I at once have a small defensiveness rise in gut, but realize this is worth nothing, and open-ness is worth everything, disperse this and return to living and see that there are significant parallel pathways of thinking. the Dhao speaks loud. straw dogs run away. and, as Anthony said once, it ain’t the Dhao Jones Industrial we are talking about …

A borderline migraine; a long walk up to the microwave tower/restaurant. wandering up hill. and musing on the nature of far-seeing. if matter in the world is related to our perceptions/observations of it, what is the change of conditions that appears around us? progress. (mere imaginings?) illusions. illusory seductions?

And the appearance of Others! Perturbations in the local energy field. The Other is in the image of god. God is Presence. I only wish I could write about this (or do something about this). It seems so unclear. and. uncertain. along with the vicissitudes of living that over/under-lie the teaching.

A heavier and more consequent praxis would raise my profile. And particular anti-social meanings. leave not so much in their wake. Sitting here in the Bakeri/Café in Møllenburg. Mill Rock (where grain was prepared. on the Thresh-Kjeld. And so that goes. hoping that caffeine will drive a migraine away. and hoping that I can find some answers by wandering. but I don’t think that it will be so. slacking won’t keep mind on a force-full track.

(I distract myself with news. (radio-freak, I have called myself).)

Audio is disturbances in the local flux of energies. dynamic. movement. fluxus.

And the I Ching. Book of Changes.

What am I doing that will change? Building up a certain Karma. and then it will fall away to the opposite? or can I dynamically balance things. Thinking now so much of the future. And how it might come down. To another way of going. and being. Knowing that Sanna is much more that just a shelter in a storm. And seeing this one-or-other way coming. Losing/giving up on her to regain Loki. (neither will do). because I won’t be there for either. and then what?

trying to re-establish a line of energy for the workshop. distractions and loss of concentration. focus, focus, focus. the lack of personal praxis is getting critical.

filing into certain spaces. understanding, when shared, is a vindication of being.

into the NextFiveMinutes conference. I have been burned out for much of the time for some reason, almost catching a cold yesterday evening, then this morning, spraining my back with the most minimal movement zipping up my suitcase, I wasn’t even bending over. scared the shit outta me. my panel presence (Tactical Education/Media Competence) was shortly after, and that went quite well, but by mid-afternoon I hobble back the the hotel, barely able to walk because of the sciatic pain. missed an appointment with Nan which I was quite looking forward to, not to mention several dialogues with new contacts. really don’t believe it, that I have done something serious. been stretching all afternoon and evening between bouts resting in bed. nothing else to do! Faugh! miss a dinner with an interesting artist. following are notes for the Tactical Education presentation (on the neoscenes occupation project):

long day, a short stop at NIFCA to check on a few things, then on to Media Lab to have lunch with Samu. bloody cold in the wind. walking to the ferry, I have to fumble with my hood for all of 20 seconds, and my fingers are burning cold by the time I get my gloves back on and into my coat pockets. two pairs of long underwear keep my legs from freezing. over lunch Samu and I speak on the contingencies of the body and measures of corporeal and intellectual linkage and disconnection. after lunch, things progress into mappings of cognitive energy-transmission, and measuring a stance on oppositional politics — against the apparent hegemony of pan-global capitalism. I propose that resistance — a direct oppositional energy is counter-productive — that the best resistance is to either create a new way of going at the personal level, or at least effect a passive side-stepping to allow the energy of the beast itself to roll, to orbit the self, imparting its energy of angular momentum to the centered chi of self. and rather, as a strategy, to deal humanely with the absolute least common denominator of the beast — individual humans. discussion of the characteristics and strategies of resistance and opposition need not occupy the same scale that the term pan-global capitalism implies. keeping the discussion at the level of formalized discourse reinforces a key aspect of the system — that part of it rooted in institutionalized relationships between people as controlled by the inherent hierarchy of linguistic operation. another positive strategy is the conscious praxis of maintaining a human scale on the resistance — this alone has a radical effect on the entity resisted! at the core of my belief is the essential nature of human-to-human interactions, and the absolute risk one takes when one leaves that sphere of action in the stead of language/cultural-based interventions.

the ankle only causes me problems when I try to torque it with any power in the same direction that it was sprained. Loki and I make a 40 minute hike up the hill and around back down yesterday and this tires it out. wavering thoughts on the suitability of the schedule I have coming up and how to deal with this. but plane tix are plane tix and they are not changeable at this point. Loki has to get home, I have to get to work. nothing else will do. the way events are linked in living. and accidents, and chance meetings that lead to dancing for hours and hours which leads to talking and walking and trying to keep each other warm which leads to ? I am here, I am not here. my body tells me I am here, I try to connect with the sun, the clouds (absorbing Light from voluptuous cumulus masses soft-filtered through sheets of gray-falling precipitation)

He who binds to himself a Joy, Does the winged life destroy He who kisses the Joy as it flies, Lives in Eternity’s sunrise. — William Blake

I have made a net, now what do I do with this admirable set of humans? is there anything at all theoretical to be done? or can it only be a praxis that ends in the grave? this thought crosses my mind. comparing the forms of existence of those around me.

From Jordan on nettime: Maybe we need to EXTEND the market as a network, rather than resist it, developing ways of speaking through it.

Ted wonders what it would be like to assume that the intellectual vanguard “is in fact a reactionary force trying to protect its political patrimony by imposing traditional interpretations and ideals.” We have to be brave enough to realize to what extent this may be the case.

sotto voce: The vanguard is (should be!) that which is not engaged in criticism alone. The vanguard alights where action and word intersect. I was thinking that one measure of the efficacy of a critical point of view would be to see if that point of view could be translated into a way of living to be taught to a child! As an educator, I am seeing the glaring gap between the academic mind-set and the reality outside that students have to deal with and indeed is their milieu. I am not surprised when the answer to the question “what did you learn in the last 12 years of education that you use in your life?” is an uncomfortable silence from a roomful of young adults. They KNOW what they need, in many instances, the skills for humane survival, but they also need something to live for. They don’t get it through the system that built criticism.

Jordan’s observations about the futility and hubris in the thought of re-constructing a new way from parts of the old are quite accurate. That argument seems to be a repeat of those which vainly (in retrospect) dealt with deconstructing the Master’s House with the Master’s Tools. Naming and confronting the enemy simply strengthens it (whatever it is). Best to turn and walk away on a new path.

I hope the critics live for more than the sound of their own and others’ words in their ears and eyes. The network is alive. The vanguard needs to walk the walk at the same time as talking the talk: the walk and the talk must fly in synchronous orbit around a life that is engaged with those around it both in cyber extension and in physical extension. There are people doing this, and have been doing this (quietly) for years as Brad rightly points out.

To quote Saarinen and Taylor (from imagologies: media philosophy):

1. in the praxis-dominated world of ultra-tech, the politics of critique must take a new form.

2. the strength of theory is relative to strategies for action. action must lead, theory must follow. in opposition to mainstream modern western philosophy, thoeretical and conceptual reason must serve only an instrumental role and thus give up its previously unchallenged position of supreme value in itself.

3. critique that is restricted to the realm of the literate and remains a literary project is no longer feasible as an effective strategy for action. Argument and objective analysis, pure content, abstract thinking, logic, and evidence, these forces of the word-centered world have lost their creative potential. Literate reason and the literary critic have become relics of the past.

When can we shake this reliance on the weakness of abstract reason and instead forge interactions of dynamic presence and being?

Monday morning. means nothing to me except for the beginning of a quick and long week of dinners, lunches, and other friendly convocations. lunch with Sari. Loki is still sleeping in bed after a late evening with Holly, Natalie, Rick, and Sally. he goes to bed very unhappy, and I am not sure whether this is a factor of fatigue, accumulated lack of attention, or what. MB sends me a sad email saying that Alda of Hrísey has died. Going to the island will not be the same. I recall meeting her for the first time when I was visiting Jón and Helga at their summerhouse on the island situated in the mouth of Eyjafjördur with Stefan back in August 1989. Actually Hrísey is called the Pearl of Eyjafjördur by its situation in the fjord. Alda was into her 80′s although no one that I talked to knew her age exactly. she lived alone in a modest-sized home at the far east end of the village of around three hundred that sits at the southern, sheltered end of the island. likewise, on the south side of her house, there was a small greenhouse and a very tortured fir tree. during the summer months, in that little greenhouse she tended the most fabulous roses that I have ever seen. one summer MB and I stayed in the downstairs corner room in her house, and all through the bright night a thrush sang at least 15,000 of its 30,000-small repertoire of riffs. LOUD. sitting either on top of the greenhouse, or right below the window on that fir tree. the tortuous pangs of beauty.

What our age needs is communicative intellect. For intellect to be communicative, it must be active, practical, engaged. In a culture of the simulacrum, the site of communicative engagement is electronic media. In the mediatrix, praxis precedes theory, which always arrives too late. The communicative intellect forgets the theory of communicative praxis in order to create a practice of communication. … If your goal is to communicate, you must use whatever means you have at your disposal in a given situation. Communicative praxis must always be radically contextualized. … — Taylor and Saarinen, from Imagologies: Media Philosophy