Re: <nettime> From Tactical Media to Digital Multitudes

[Are Flagan <areflagan@artpanorama.com>]

To have multitudes, then, we need a gathering idea for them, which quickly
brings us back to the proverbial Catch 22. The first symptom of this
stalemate conundrum is arguably how it is theorized here. Operatives like
left and right, mass and mob, network and empire are passive placeholders
for multitudes that are conveniently pushed around into pigeonholes carved
by persuasive rhetoric, as if they were not already deeply conflicted
"multitudes" themselves. This is of course how one traditionally arrives at
a general idea about the specific, tellingly called theory from its Greek
root. The first step toward the stated aims must surely be to cease this
nonsense and interject on less grandiose terms. As one of the heralded beats
remarked on leave from the asylum: "A star is as far as the eye can see and
as close as my eye is to me."

-af

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