nettime: Welcome

[hypernation@artopro.mlnet.com (HYPERNATION)]

Welcome to HYPERNATION.

You are invited to address the question: 
What is a nation in cyberspace?

This is a free idea zone. Dreams, riddles, jokes, and imaginary 
maps are welcome. These may take the form of text, image, sound 
or video files. All languages spoken. Contributions from this 
discussion will eventually be edited and posted to a Web site.
Live teleperformance events will take place in April and May.

A collective text, the HYPERNATION project will last 
approximately three months. It is commissioned by Galerie Oboro
in Montreal and conceived by Hank Bull in Vancouver.  

Avant Propos

The nation state, as defined by borders, passports, central 
governments and economic policies, is chronically dysfunctional, 
destabilized by trans-national capitalism on one hand, and by the 
aspirations of so-called "ethnic minorities" everywhere. In fact, 
indigenous peoples, and communities defined over the centuries by 
language, religion, and art, are not only not minorities but together 
make up the entire human population of the planet. Nation is 
henceforth defined by culture. What nation are you? Maybe you are 
several nations.

To open the discussion, I offer the following proposition. The 
principle of Aboriginal Title offers a way out of the current 
impasse. It resists the definition of physical territory, passports,
or ownership of the land. It allows several nations to live together 
on the same territory. It recognizes the nation in motion, nomadic, 
traversing the land. 

Ownership is no longer nine tenths of the law. The law is defunct. 
We need to find a new rule of law, or remember the most ancient.

I'll be posting my ideas here regularly. Please, yours.
Hank Bull

[Update April 12:]
A history of this discussion can be found at the the Western Front,
http://vanbc.wimsey.com/~front

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HYPERNATION
Zone autonome de recherche, de creation et d'echange.
What is a nation in cyberspace?
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