deciding last night not to tell the students when to arrive for morning start-up for the workshop, so they are up until 0300 or so, keeping me in uneasy slumber, Marcus as well, who ended up staying over in the dorms too. so they are nowhere in sight in the morning. after a hearty oatmeal breakfast which Marcus says is the highLight of his impromptu visit to Beroun so far, we wander out into the landscape to shoot some. ending up on a intrusive gabbro sill, standing high above the railroad station. later, all but two of the students leave for Prague, and later in the afternoon, Milos comes back from Prague, mostly for a meeting with students of the Technical University who are working on some media projects. it is disappointing that this workshop imploded. but I think it is due to the extreme fragmentation and lack of focused attention in the first two days.

later in the afternoon Dr. Cílek, the Director of the Academy of Sciences Institute of Geology pays us a visit and delivers a fascinating talk that wove the human historical, mystical, and mythological elements of the Bohemian Karst region around Beroun with the underlying geology and speleology. we were supposed to go on a day-trip with him tomorrow, but Milos had to cancel it because of a lack of interest of the students. a real shame. it was a stretching excitement to meet someone from a geological pursuit who also shared a profound interest in phenomenal life and be-ing with a clear trans-disciplinary role to re-form traditional thinking models. I would hope for another opportunity to make a tour with him. googling Silurian Devonian Beroun karst trilobite tells much about the potentials! especially the French-Czech paleontologist Joachim Barrande who generated a yet-unparalleled series of comparative studies under the title “The Silurian System of the Center of Bohemia.”

All told, the complete “Systême silurien du centre de la Bohême,” published between the years 1852-1911, consists of eight volumes in 29 tomes in quarto, 8224 pages of text and 1606 lithographic plates. It contains descriptions and figures of 4565 species, with a few exceptions all coming from the Lower Paleozoic marine beds of Bohemia.

dinner later with Milos, Boyana, and Victor at the pizzeria, after visiting a photo exhibition installed in the Lower (Prague) Gate tower of the Beroun city fortifications. a view over what once was a drawbridge. it is too damn cold for walking around.

advice from Frieder:

Students often ask:
What should I consider when doing research?

Here are four important advices.

Give a very precise formulation of the problem. Improve it over and over again.
Know how others have treated the same problem.
When you encounter difficulties, find out where they come from.
Make explicit what your contribution to science progress will be.
– Frieder Nake

traveling Lighter than usual. Eagle Creek suitcase: 2x jeans (blue & tan), 7x socks, 7x underwear, swimsuit, swim goggles, knit hat, 4 teeshirts, 3 dress shirts, 3 pullover shirts, scarf, leather gloves, heavy wool gloves, biking half-gloves, umbrella, Birkenstocks, cables (firewire-dv, rca, 2 rca-to-minijack adapters, s-video, composite video, ethernet), three miniDV cam batteries and power adapter, usb mouse, digital cam battery charger & usb adapter, 160 gig ext hard drive, power adapter, cd/dvd case w/ OSX disks and 8 blank dvds, spare 250 mb zip disk, shaving cream, razor, 3x blades, tiger balm, skin cream, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, electric toothbrush and charger, toothpaste, dental floss, brush, hair ties, 4x earplugs, extra glasses frame, 3 cans of almonds, bag of almonds, bag of pistachios, bag of walnuts, bag of cashews, 4 Luna bars, uh, what else? oh, an incredibly compact self-inflating sleeping pad — normally my camping pad, but with my back problems, it is a good solution to soften some beds enough to ensure a decent night’s sleep.

daypack: digital still cam, iPod, adapter, 2x earphones, miniDV cam, boom mike, remote control, spare DV tape, PowerBook & case, power adapter, dv-to-vga adapter, passport, ticket printout, several select rail schedule printouts, 2x Science magazines, Finnish bank deposit forms, glasses prescription, Visa card, Visa Gold card, SIM art union card, Icelandic residency card, bound notebook, eyeshades, 1-liter water bottle, toothbrush, ear-plugs, toothpicks, fine ball-point, cd marker, Euros, Dollars, some GB pounds and Danish Kroner…

wearing: bikers jacket, black boots, black jeans, red pullover, fleece pullover, heavy socks, tee-shirt, money belt, leather cap, earplugs, sunglasses, ear-plugs in pocket, but otherwise nothing else that will set off the metal detectors…

what to be said. reading Science (main publication from the AAAS), and The Lucifer Principle, by Howard Bloom. thinking, but not writing.

just as I had observed and inferred from bits of data that I have seen over the past few years. that the US is in serious crisis regarding the precipitous drop in the numbers of creative talent entering the country. graduate students are not turning up in droves as they used to, populating all the hard-core science, business, and technology programs at the best US universities. they are staying home or going to European, Asian, and other societies which are not so repressive and paranoid as the neoconservative fascists in power now in the US. so, reading the article “America’s Looming Creativity Crisis,” in the Harvard Business Review that enumerates the extremity of the situation only confirms my observations. empire continues its decline with the deluded self-knowledge of ascending to the millennial realms of power and righteous glory. ideological and religious dogmas constricting scientific research along with repressive and exclusionary visa and immigration practices lead the way to a rapid decline in creative capital that was once a primary mechanism in US global hegemony. in the metric introduced in the article, the Global Creative Class Index, the US already ranks behind 11 other countries, including Iceland — a statistic that somehow hasn’t reached Icelandic eyes yet, for it is sure to make front-page headlines “Icelanders More Creative Than Americans” when it does.

since the workshop unraveled in this strange dynamic at the Academy, I spent the whole afternoon with Professor Jaccheri — one of the two workshop participants — from the IT department of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. trading ideas about university existence and the facilitation trans-disciplinary art:science studies. late in the evening, the walk home over the — bridge, and to the north, faintly, the Aurora Borealis shimmers.

a field trip starting early, meeting Jonas with a crew of 25 11-year-olds from a workshop at the science museum. we meet on the frosty lawn of the main administration building for NTNU, and after a short exercise to sit for two minutes and list all the sounds they could hear, we proceed to break into small groups and visit the anechoic and echo chambers in the Department for Electronics and Telecommunications. nothing like kids in an echo chamber testing the loudness of their screaming with a Db-meter!

a trip to Hafnarfjördur to the city exhibition space yesterday, Hafnarborg to see the show that Valgerdur organized and put up with a couple of print maker colleagues. the Italian artist, Paolo Ciampini’s work shows much skill in a variety of mark-making techniques, but with a few exceptions, the subject seems banal, with the work in the larger gallery upstairs far out-stripping the rest in the lower gallery. of Valgerdur’s installation: the visceral quality of the hanging substrate suggests the various accretions of time on skin, while the sonic background sustains the viewer’s motion in relation to the object fields. the slabs of black basalt ground the embodied self as it moves through the Cartesian space while the etched basalt pebbles exert a field of visual gravity — enabling a kind of orbiting passage through the psychic space — good feng shui! Deborah Cornell’s work complements the overall show, although there is an overtly cerebral — with definitive Amurikan elements — where art is posed in opposition to competing (academic) “fields of inquiry” — in this case, big, bad science.

today is of travel and movement, starting late in the day and ending up much later, in the early morning. but arriving in Trondheim with only minor inconveniences.

Dad passes this evening. after this long struggle, and a long life. code blue, Janet calls, racing into the hospital. Nancy and Mom there, holding his hands. his heart couldn’t bear more time here. I am just home from school, exhausted. stop what I am doing, and concentrate on a slender thread of consciousness. Light some incense. crumble some sage harvested for just this purpose from the depths of Sand Canyon off the Yampa, press it deep into the palms, smelling the released sweetness. burn some, the smoke mixing with the incense. an intuitive impulse says “write the time now.” on a 3×5 card, I write the time, 6:52. a call comes ten minutes later, he has passed. as birth is the surfacing, death is the submerging of soul back into its own, its transitory place. time shivers, small waves move outward, and the bardo of passing opens. unmeasured intuition and connection. still small voices, suspension of the material presence.
(more …)

reading IEEE Spectrum, NSPE, Science, and all that stuff. The old Encyclopedia Britannica, playing chess with Loki using the old Japanese ivory chess set. Finally he beats me. twice. I made him work for it, but he came through with not too much complaining. and ends up beating me all the time thereafter. monsoon season maybe did start up today. actually got wet, but it evaporated within an hour. the respite from sun was welcome, clouds are okay, too, nights warmer for the insulating effect, but highs are lowering. mountain biking today, and swimming, that’s good. necessary. gotta do a longer ride tomorrow.

the “P” on the side of the mountain south of town has been changed from all white(wash) to stripes of red, white, and blue. this area of Arizona has many veterans who started migrating to the area following World War 1, seeking a dry climate for health reasons. the Veterans Administration established a hospital in Prescott on the site of Fort Whipple, an early outpost for US military control of the native American ‘situation’ in the region. the Yavapai Indian Reservation abuts the Fort, and extends in a rhombohedral shape that sticks into the middle of the east side of town. between that and the “World’s Oldest Rodeo,” it’s cowboys and indians here.

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.

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.

the Colorado is sluggish, cloudy, and low. beside the road it passes through many lands that will burn, have already burned, or are burning right now. so it goes.

Glenwood Springs, head for the busy Hot Springs Spa for a few hours. never been in all these years of hot-water soaking elsewhere: it’s expensive, and the water is too hot for a regular workout. but it is extremely clear, salty, and relaxing. the scene is utterly American. chaotic, summertime noisy, full of seemingly satisfied people. I film the scene. there are foreigners there, getting a better deal than only two months ago with the slide of the dollar against the Yen and Euro. I have made 20% on the money that I left in my Merita bank account in Finland. too bad there is only USD 500 in it, had to shift the rest here months ago when the Euro was at its lowest point against the dollar. banks always win, so it goes.

stop at a rest area in Glenwood Canyon, don’t read the instructional signs about the spectacular construction of the interstate in the canyon — well, yeah, I do, and it is all bragging like the eighth wonder of the world — but do appreciate the solar (active/passive) designed toilet complex. shit warmed by the sun. tromb walls, solar water heaters, solar panels for the ventilation fans, banked northern exposure (banked and buried roof), Arcosanti with composting toilets — titillating the tourists from Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Iowa. too bad hardly anybody else builds things like that here in the solar West. form trumps function, so it goes.

and in perused memory, halfway through Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner. it’s a detailed and well-researched treatise on water and the West. historical abominations that continue in this day. dams, irrigation projects, the madness of re-directing the flow of energies. of this stupendous place. overheard the phrase “when will the other boot drop?” humankind is wracking up a massive debt of energy that it has re-directed from its necessary flow, like a temper-tantrum with little kids, when they are too much controlled or ignored. they explode with pent-up energies. the world is waiting for this. anybody clever enough to understand that in the present is seen the kernel of the future, look around, and see the word apokalypse printed on each compiled imbalance. the transformative crises (plural!) will grow in cataclysmic intensity. somebody made an artificial polio virus this week, where will that bring us? they ponder if it is alive. it paralyzes mice and kills them. dead. science of science-sake, so it goes.

dam it. so it goes. but we can’t have that! re-route, congregate, compile, merge, co-mingle, and tap off the chaotic flows of the cosmos.

partial solar eclipse near sunset. under the trees at maximum, the ground is scattered with crescent suns. recalling the family history of eclipses. used to note on my resume — that I have experienced 12 minutes of totality during the first 25 years of my life. that’s 12 minutes of time, accumulated during 5 total solar eclipses where the sun is completely covered by the moon. in order to experience this, one must be in a location that happens to be on the center line of the eclipse path. this is a swath of land about 40 miles wide and several thousand miles long along which the deepest shadow of the moon is cast during the eclipse. the shadow traverses this path at very high speed, so that any one point on the line receives a maximum of four to five minutes of total shadow. totality is a natural phenomena not to be missed, if one has the opportunity to travel to a point on the center line. my father happened to be an amateur astronomy buff who took me to 5 eclipses. his interest seemed to be mostly technical, it was driven by the desire to construct equipment to record the event in a variety of formal ways, followed by a focus on the actual recording of the event, and lastly by the intensity of the natural phenomena. the eclipses I experienced were in the company of groups of other amateur astronomers for whom the event was again, primarily a scientific phenomena. there was little if any discussion as to other aspects. although, it is very true that during the time immediately preceding second contact — when the moon’s leading umbral (shadow) edge actually overtakes ones position — and third contact, when the trailing umbral edge passes by, there is a palpable sense of hysteria in the air. darkness at mid-day, a black flaming hole in the middle of the sky, dogs howl, birds stop singing, and people are afraid. reductive science eases the throat-hold of rationality on the situation. leaving the throat to growl, howl, and squeal in guttural reaction to an event that presents the world as it should not be: paranormal.

dinner with Nick, Deb, Kieran, and Dave last night. later in the week, Dave sends a page of quotations related to the book he is writing and the topics of which we dove into energetically over dinner. cool!

It is a pardonable weakness in science to believe that its ideas are concerned with reality itself. . . . But the concepts, the ideas, which encompass and embrace reality are of a fictional nature, the additions of man, forming merely the frame in which man encloses the reality in order that he may thus manipulate it better. — Hans Vaihinger

how science frames it’s subject of inquiry, and subsequently presents that narrative to the public.

moving along. with a short stop/lunch with folks at the Computer Science / Media Department of the University of Lübeck who will be involved in the establishment of the International School of New Media that Hubertus has been working on in the last couple years. they will move into a nice new location, the Media Docks, immediately adjacent from the old town. more of the old Hanseatic traditions. so it goes.

heading for Copenhagen via the boat at Puttgarten.

there is no voice that can speak life. but to get into a dance with the Void. I have not changed. at all. no evolution, no learning. only going. parsing input data, but it is routed to the same boxes. as ever. no cross-over networks, re-routed neurons. learning systems. knee-jerking. hard-wired. why no escape?

smoke rising from farm fires in the Danish countryside. and in my gaze there is a reach into the terrain’s history. looking for mounds, barrows, and the “holm gards”: reading the “Heimskringla” epic of the Age of Vikings on my PalmPilot. simulation.

have to write to Marcel to see if he remembers what I said about networks in Zurich — at some point I made a short statement, and in the moment, thought it was very apropos, especially when I observed that everyone in the entire room paused to write it down. but I have since forgotten what it was! “a network is…” or “a network isn’t…” gees.

The 11-ton Large Hot Pipe Organ redefines industrial music with a blast of flaming propane gas. A house-sized assemblage of 20 steel pipes ranging in height from 11 to 33 feet, the instrument is played via two PowerBooks and a MIDI keyboard and drumpads. The computers generate the background rhythm, while the MIDI signals control the gas valves and igniters (each hour-long performance burns about 800 pounds of fuel).

An upgrade of 19th-century flame organs, this percussive beast was built by fire artist Bastiaan Maris and MIT computer science grad student Geo Homsy in 1993. With a half-dozen European shows under their belts, the two are talking with Burning Man 2001 organizers about a US debut.

“It’s not just sound,” says Homsy. “It’s light. It’s heat. It’s smell. It’s steam coming off the pipes. It’s people screaming with excitement.” — Wired

Sanna comes by the performance which is in the vacant lot behind Kiasma, and in the cold, decides to come to Linnunlaulu for hot toddy and other memorable warmth.

formative mastications. proconsul. spoken as wished (though all was unformed in the throat and it was visceral elements that allowed words to form). fricative and colloquial. nothing else mattered. except the grumbling conscience. better to effin’ blow it away in shades of patriotic vengeance. am not what is what cracked up ta be? emptying heads. and leaving nothing in the stead.

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.

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 …

it is clear that many people live in a world of mechanical or Newtonian causality, that there has been little popular progress beyond that model of thinking about the world. material substances are just that, objects rule.

These considerations force upon us the impression that the law of causality as a principle of natural science is one incapable of formulation in a few words, and is not a self-contained exact law. Its content can in fact only be made clear in connection with a complete phenomenological description of how reality constitutes itself from the immediate data of consciousness. — Hermann Weyl

the week flew by, two nights in Oslo, stayed at Hilde’s place, and so many things happened in that short time, thoughts can barely touch on half of them. a good, sincere seminar at the Academy of Fine Arts, with Kenneth, and hours spent talking with him. saw Janine (along with her daughter Anna) for the first time in 11 years. she had a couple works in the Fall Exhibition, so we met there for lunch before I tried one last attempt at shopping for something for Sanna met with the kunst.no (kunstnett) people, Erik, who Atle introduced me to, and Jøran, the Director. when first meeting Hilde — after the two delayed flights and the train in from the airport — I also met Cecelia, the Director of the Granum Kunstskøle where Hilde works. we were talking, she was in a hurry to get somewhere, and the conversation went on for some time about bi-cultural living, she having been raised partly in the US. finally she had to leave, and rushed out the door. a few moments later, the door buzzer rang, Hilde answered it and said ‘there’s been an accident.” so I followed her downstairs, and there was Cecelia lying on the sidewalk having seriously injured her ankle. there were a few people milling around, unable to act, it seemed, I knelt behind her to hold her up, she was in shock already, and in a lot of pain. it turned out to be multiple fractures and probably ligament damage, unfortunately. I got a bit angry with the people standing around. the fellows from the music store on the ground floor were just standing there, I yelled at them to call an ambulance, but they just stood there. another chap, just off the street, was trying to help, but it ended that Hilde had to go upstairs to call an ambulance. I didn’t have my mobile with me or I would have. the shock energy was too much for people, I guess. true, the ankle looked terrible, and I got a bit queasy when the paramedics arrives and started checking it out, but I didn’t understand why people were so helpless. shock is a weird thing, though. she was shaking, and trying to assemble things in her mind, and panicky. weird energy flow, to be sure. Hilde and I were both a little shocked by this intersection of energies.

workshop at the FORUM space with a group of folks including students from MHK, former students, Frieder and Susi from Uni-Bremen Computer Science, and Hubertus. working title Äesthetic der digitalen Medien — Abbild der Realität, Welt der Metaphern, Realitätserweiterung. reception at the FORUM space later this evening. and this entry brings to an unceremonious close the third year of this travelog. tomorrow begins the fourth year. if I force myself to imagine that there is some use in it all. an imagination that has so far eluded my mental perambulations.

Sunday. St. Olavs cathedral is over there. as I look out the sixth-floor windows of the Academy office. sunLight coming over the hills to the south illuminates the row of buildings along the fjord. the far side of the fjord is bright, too. mind is flat. with all the activities that churn and churn the mind. silence is broken by whining hard drives and other high-frequency beings. outside is behind glass.

AAAS (the American Association for the Advancement of Science) is undertaking its last meeting of the 20th Century. I recall going to one of those meetings in Boston when I was just 14, accompanying my father. photographing the Vice-President, Rockefeller, giving the opening keynote speech. later going to see Arthur Fiedler perform with the Boston Pops (he was sick, so had a replacement, could it have been Seiji Ozawa?). we ended up sitting next to Dr. Harold Edgerton, the famous physicist from MIT who developed the electronic stroboscope for making ultra-high-speed photographs. my father knew Edgerton tangentially from when he was working at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT. Harold gave me a signed copy of a postcard reproduction of the famous image of the milk drop frozen like a royal crown. Edgerton was one of the founders of EG&G, a major military-industrial corporation.

lethargic and slow snow falls, something like I imagine the fallout from a nuclear winter, ashes, ashes, we all fall down …

Manus manum lavat. (One hand washes the other)

Thom quotes that to me, and it brings back the memory of high school with Mr. Crawford, the Latin teacher. who used to entertain us by tuning a little am radio to the same frequency as his heart pacemaker and his whole ancient body would start jiggling. this was 20 years before Stelarc ever considered the body-as-machine-the-machine-as-body. Mr. C. is dead, surely, now, his body gone. later that day, lazing around, writing correspondance et al. Christa is playing the piano in the living room. Thom and I end up deciding that I should visit his class tomorrow in the Institute of Computer Sciences at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz.

a long bike ride with Bill today, I am pretty beat, but it felt good. out of shape. body wishes it hadn’t been abused. and tomorrow the weather turns BAD, at least that is what threatens, the clouds spoke so today during the ride. it was warm, but the clouds said SNOW! all positions are necessary — if only as place-holders for multiplicity/plurality. ALL positions are necessary. the exhaustion of no meat in the belly raising the exhaustion of raising a text to some reasonable being. as here in the restless night. pen-point scraping with an astonishing speed. driven mind-to-hand. and the frustration of un-pointed being. unfocused being. keeps me from seeing. and the restless night continues. I tell Linda that people should begin to LOOK at the world that is moving by, and really look at it with a quiet mind and then form their own opinions about how it is, rather than having the media — a cesspool of secondary opinions and observations — drive what they believe they are seeing.

my mother responds with this text:

Yes, I remember that day too. I was there and in charge of these thirteen sixth graders from the rural elementary school. I had to be sure they each got a hot dog to eat and a ride on the Ferris Wheel. The biggest job was to get them all back on the right school bus. Those good old days!!!! I still hear from Officer Gililand who was my boss from the police department. I also remember that year at Science Camp when I was to pretend that I didn’t know you. So that you could feel the freedom to be yourself and I could be free to be myself. I always had a great time after all the sixth graders went to bed. We used to leave the camp and go in town and get a real dinner and sometimes go to a movie. We would square dance until it was almost time for you kids to get up. Hey, boy I always had a GOOD time!!! This is the side of your Mother that you did not know about.

The past few days have been spent around Köln and in Rösrath with Volker, an old friend from Avantière days in Aachen in 1990. I had just made a rather long entry here, but inadvertently erased it. Hmmm. Talking about the fragments of dreams, and the paradox of travel. I shall try to reconstruct it for the moment… Chris sent email from Colorado, following his return from a mountaineering trip in the Alps. He suggested that travel is a catharsis.

Yes, so it goes. I spend today and most of yesterday dealing with correspondance — email, snail-mail and so on. I got a package of post forwarded to Volker’s NetArt box here by my sister, Janet, who checks my post box in Prescott, Arizona. Good to see things like job application rejects and the like, eh? And my bank statement which reads a shrinking balance each month … Being on the road like this keeps me on edge for better or worse.

They shall not tame him. — The Lion of Flanders, Hendrick Conscience

The dream of building a house in Crestone, Colorado is no closer to reality than last year, although I do collect fragments of ideas and things to think about in the design. Of course, one of the primary things is simply to have a place with enough rooms that it will comfortably house a good number of folks who will surely visit me there in that beautiful place. Any suggestions?

Here we go. And so on. In the west of London, not far from Shepherds Bush and Ravenscourt Park on the District Line Tube. Hanging out with Joanna Buick, a friend from ISEA94 days — we met at the Symposium in Helsinki. She’s presently a tutor at the Slade School of Fine Art which is part of the University College of London as well as a tutor-counselor at the Open University, the largest open learning institution in the UK. She is running a class called “Living with Technology” which encompasses an innovative scheme to familiarize students with the impact of technology on daily life. The class is run using the internet, audio and video tapes and hard copy materials, as well as occasional tutorial sessions for students who live in the area. The Open University has tens of thousands of students studying around the world. Pursuing her own work, Joanna been doing developmental work on Virtual Reality systems.

I did get by The Photographers Gallery yesterday after lunch with Katrine and Juan, but was not impressed by the work of German photographer, Michael Schmidt. Not that there was anything wrong with the work, on the contrary, I personally find it difficult to engage with dead objects and words these days. Recently I have been going through a kind of opening awareness about my own work, that this travel ritual and emphasis on the action of Dialogue is becoming core to my thinking. It has always been important — the sustaining of focused Dialogue with both new and old friends — but I never considered it either a product of working, a goal to work towards, or a means/medium of work. It just was. As I was describing to Juan and Katrine in the noisy Chinese restaurant Wong Ki just off Shaftsbury Avenue, I am realizing it IS a means and a highly effective unmediated means at that. I am rather tired of objectified mediation and thrive on the most unmediated contact with others that seems to occur while engaged in attentive and genuine Dialogue. Gallery and Museum exhibitions — while, to be sure, they do occasionally contain inspiring (inspired?) objects and such — seem to be locked in a struggle with entangled and intertwined corpses from which they are unable to escape. The public discussion here in the UK these days centers on the calamity visited upon the Beef Industry for better or for worse. Not to delve into it deeply, I would only make the observation that it seems it might be a foreshadowing of more global crises in the coming years as we approach the millennium and the further crowding of the planet. I am reminded of the British science-fiction writer John Brunner’s book “Stand of Zanzibar”, which portrays the microscopic turmoil of a world culture gone mad through the pressures of the Global Market and overcrowding.

There’s a belief still current among British school children that you could stand the entire human race on the 147-square-mile Isle of Wight, elbow to elbow and face to face.

Well, that may have been true around the time of World War I although nobody was keeping records accurate enough for us to be certain. However, right now in the 1960′s you’d have a tough job packing us on the 221-square-mile Isle of Man.

And by 2010 — the time this book takes place, you’d need an altogether larger island — something like the 640-square-mile surface of Zanzibar! — John Brunner

back to Mad Cows — it is hard not to be pessimistic when cows are being forced to become cannibal/carnivores because of the greed of humans. No wonder the disaster.