<nettime> the audience machine

[nativebuddha <nativebuddha@gmail.com>]

Certain considerations of ?notable disjunctures? (Kluitenberg) in the
public occupations globally:

Following some of Raunig?s thoughts on Delueze & Guattari?s thoughts on
machines?noting that the audience is the machine.

Can we have an Arab spring without an audience? Can we have an Occupy
movement without an audience?

In a world driven by spectacle (under the guise of the political
mystification labeled democracy),

In a world where human relations are based on the dynamics of capital (this
is nothing new, I know, but we all have to chatter a bit before we can
chat),

Based on the dynamics of capital, meaning that all relations must flow
through a capital object in order to be a relationship?a world in which
there is no relation between two (or more) people without a capital object
materializing between bodies (note that this is part of what Kluitenberg is
getting at and why he turns toward Hybrid spaces), capital objects mediate.

But  where do these objects come from? Microsoft? Verizon? GoDaddy?

No. Too simple.

Mediating objects come from the audience. The audience is the machine that
produces our capital objects and that make it possible for us  to have
relationships (Jodi Dean is worth a read here.)

Somehow we have been lured into the notion that we need, can?t live
without, an audience, can?t have democracy without an audience.  Democracy
has relinquished plurality and instead grabbed on to mediating capital
objects, such as ?the vote?. The vote now sits between you and me. And
maybe even in Occupy?s GA?s, where it?s called consensus.)
The audience machine?how does it make you you?  And how do we dissolve it?

-nb


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