nettime: Hypernation/Matt Smith'scomments

[abroeck@v2.nl (Andreas Broeckmann)]

I'm not sure whether Matt was planning this, but for me (*1964) his message
was almost shocking - though in no way offensive -, and it definitely
revealed another deep rift in the imaginary 'unified net community', ie
age:

>all this discussion about "how the world is changing" is not relevant for
>most people from my generation - i was born 1974 - and the next
>generations, as many of us grew up with computers and cable-tv, and we
>are all living these changes. we dont need to reflect on how the PC
>changed the world, for the people 3 years younger than me, the PC is as
>common as the compact-disc. i never owned a record-player, when i started
>to buy music, i bought CDs. i cant divide without a calculator, and i
>cant imagine anybody seriously writing a text of this length without
>typewriter.
>
>so, maybe we can move on to more important things than
>nations&sculptures on the net, and do something approriate;)
>
>no offense intended
>matt smith

makes me feel old -
Plus the fact that I'm not sure whether the problem of nations is as
obsolete as Matt suggests; at least, I guess that's what those two
Vietnamese men thought when they were taken off the train (Warsaw-Berlin)
in Frankfurt/Oder yesterday, crossing the border from Poland into Germany.
On my way home from the station on the underground I overheard
conversations in Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croat, German and Turkish - gives
you an idea of how international Berlin is getting (whether they like it or
not). I feel there is a strong need to address the problem of identity and
nationhood from the perspective of real-life experiences (rather than only
in terms of virtual mobility on the Net) - who would have thought that in
order to work in EU-Holland as a German I need a work permit and residency
permit which takes ages to process, just like any other 'alien'. I'm happy
when people articulate the tension between real and virtual movements like,
for instance, in the Siberian Deal project by Kathy Huffman and Eva
Wohlgemuth, rather than those projects which pretend that borders and
passports for bodies didn't exist any more.
Greetings from an old world,
Andreas


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V2_Organisatie * Andreas Broeckmann * abroeck@v2.nl
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URL: http://www.v2.nl; Next 5 Minutes conference: http://www.dds.nl/n5m

online in Berlin from February - April 1996.
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