nettime: whishful thinking

[Pit Schultz <pit@contrib.de>]

Dear Nettimers, 

time to say something. 
first, sorry for all the inconveniences and boredom, sorry also
for not having changed the situation when it became 'unfocused'.
appologizes for the hyper-national mail bombs, i think it was all 
worth of it. in parts a meaningful accident, in other parts product
of a crisis in the electronic wish economy, and well, the list is 
*open* now, ready for your thoughtful contributions, and also for
all kinds of notes from a material world.
please do not forget that nettime is not a service, it is not a
text tv, it is no boat, ad i am not it's director. instead you 
define what it is. it's nothing but the sum of our trials.

mapping the shift
what has happened? a turnover, a transformation, the escape from
virtuality, the web as a bad love affair, new networks of distrust,
net art as feudalistic rescue zone, the massified boredom of techno-lust,
the breakdown of electronic imagination, net critique
as the official version, the disability of virtual capitalism
to reach the zero-degree of superconductive desire and the absolute
speed of light age, all kinds of spies vs spies, false priests, 
dying travelling salemen, the sellout of potlatsch, a ghost city after
digital gold rush?
but it's one thing to make lists of keywords, another to find
a subjective voice again, which maps the shift from different 
perspectives. that's what i hope we can do on nettime for the 
next weeks.  

* 
let's take a look into the current prawda of the net. did you recognize
something? web-whipeout, dissing the beehive thinkers, netizen against
republicains info-economy, sucksters on usesless webcults, a new 
lo-tech mailinglist. there never occured such an obvious transformation in
the central organ of net discourse. so does net critique won and 
becomes the official version of networked truth now?

**
somehow 'in bytecity we solve our problems in our own way'. A killer-meme
including the ever possible seed for 'cyberfascism' was detected by several
ideological alarm systems anywhere in the world wide west. It was a
very calm shift, a subterrenean battle, down in the bunkers of the
info-elite one dicided to do some sacrifices. the digital revolution eats
its children. In many talks i had it became clear, that it's no time
to unify but to report from the borders of the net and be aware of the
different modes of virtual violence to become human again.

***
an extremely subjective answer:
from the virtual position of an archaic net god, from the snowy
heights of the old world, cyberzarathustra spoke to us, already on the other 
side, he appeared as an all-american avatar and one could do a breath-taking 
morph through the multiple mythical subjectivations of the poet, pioneer, 
priest, cowboy, indian, general, president, hippy, father, son, 
entrepreneur, prophet, pilgrim, angel, alien, to learn a simple lecture of 
initiation: the new world is splitted in two halves again, were the 'new' 
one declares itself independent from the 'old' one we have to leave. our half,
the virtual, the new, the rich, the highly technified, the bodyhatred and 
dematerialized, the one with the new marketplaces, and secret knowledge, 
immune against earthy powers, a civilisation of split mind, in the name of 
nature and everything which is bigger than real, this 'better part' is ours 
now, bound to the idea of a virtual america. And you say you didn't believe
in it? Any of these concepts cuts a black whole in the wish economy of
cyberspace, if we connect them together to a new mind territory, we get
something completly monstrous. 

****
terms to forget:
the net is not the territory and other truthful lies, "the net" as 
metaphysical entity which constitutes real power, a number of metaphor 
mismatch errors net=life=nature=global_brain=weltgeist=mythical_power, 
computer science as esotheric secret knowledge, the wholy pathos and 
grandiosity of 'the net' (as ersatz-religion), the wishful thinking of an 
economic explosion (golden future), the will to push the repeat history 
button (golden past), the taboo of a disfunctional and unhealthy internet, 
the obsession to walk in the footsteps of the founder fathers, the obsession 
to find the eternal woodstock which is hiding in internet+unix (born in 
1969), taking the newest Cyberacid driving along the road to nihil, the 
expectation of new and improved humankind through harder selection, the 
unavoidable apocalyptic turnover, the clean aesthetics of cyberwar, the 
doom-day of the net, the male obsession with artifical life, the digital 
void of the american soul, the wholy mission of bringing virtual freedom to 
the manking, the obsession with 'innocence' and it's abuse, disgusting 
flesh, the hate of the own body, mortality, body-fluids, splitted wired 
desire and it's way to a useful 'mythical external force', 
information=money, privatisation and cyber-slavery, corporate meta-nations.. 
an incomplete list of a collective thinking which is hopefully part of the 
past.

*****
what do you want to do today?
-opening up new genres, adding some examples, practising with little text forms
-implicit net critique, reports from the borders of the net, 2-culture-dialogue
-the technological subconsciousness, compile, compress, decode, decipher
-the end of the future hype, unlikely futures, imaginary websites, good ideas
-the etext gathering is still open for Madrid 5cyberconf ZKP2 200p. until May 15



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