Thanks for an interesting article,
Ramona, and thanks also for the link to the
CTheory website which was full of interesting reading. Highly recommended
. Another great site that I have found recently is
Kuro5hin (thanks to
Malk-a-Mite for pointing it out).
As for the article itself, I found it both spirited and interesting but also somewhat obscure. Not knowing the writer and his background at all, some of his terminology was hard to relate to. The key term
post-media itself sounds weird to me as I don't see any signs of media - not in its multinational corporate forms nor in its private grassroots forms - withering away. Rather on the contrary. Especially the recent era of electronic communication has been characterized by a constant unfolding of new communication technologies with related new medias and new forms of communication. Internet, the latest layer on the cake, has in a couple of decades managed to give birth to a rich spectrum of communication tools and virtual meeting environments for private, communal and corporate use. Where there is communication there is always a media or medium to it, more or less transparent, more or less immediate, more or less public. Post-media would imply
non-media but instead of non-media I see us heading towards richening
multimedia in the formal sense - that is: in sensory forms - and towards
richer social interconnectivity in topological and functional terms.
Watching the unfolding of information technology and its social effects through the framework of nonlinear thermodynamics and chaos theory is fertile and I often like to apply similar ideas on what I see happening around me. Within the general idea of macroscopic structural changes being initiated or introduced by microlevel structural instabilities the writer seems to identify strongly on the side of the microscopic fluctuations, wanting to make sure that they - with some help from cutting edge technologies - continue to make cracks to the all-invading power structures of the vested multinational corporate and military interests. To me there is something suspicious in his rather militant attitude and eagerness to
fight the future. That presumably means fighting a corporate future but by doing so one keeps energizing and re-acknowledging - effectively perpetuating - the oppressive corporate reality. This logical consequence also shows in the gloomy outlook that the writer has for the future, reminding me of the eternally desperate world of X-Files dominated by a conspiracy of white middle-aged Anglo-Saxon male humanity haters who always have the latest gadgets of mass destruction in their hands.
I believe more in love and anarchy than in hate and anarchy. Rather than
fighting a supposedly gloomy future and thereby socially
amplifying the idea of it better
tune up to a more desirable future and thereby allow
good vibrations from the microlevel to get amplified and contribute not only to structural changes but also to entirely
new phenomena on the macrolevel. Various
'post-media pockets' can naturally choose to live in a world of endless confrontation against the
'Universal State of the Hybrid' surrounding them but that is such a desperately narrow bunker view into the reality that is far more multidimensional and multifaceted - if you only dare to step out of the bunker.
To illustrate the idea with an example close to us, let us apply it to the p2p revolution. Shawn Fanning initiated a highly successful microlevel fluctuation - call it structural instability if you wish - that managed to change the established macroscopic communication patterns of the Internet. The idea of Napster and the software crystallization of it started to resonate with increasing energy and social scope until such established macrostructures as the entertainment industry started to feel the vibe of it. The energy input that kept feeding the growth of Napster was not generated by pockets of
resistance against the established powers of communication but rather by universally spread and enthusiastic - dare we say thrilled -
acceptance of a new idea and a new media of communication. Rather than intentionally opposing or cracking an existing macrostructure people simply started to feed energy to an alternative idea and model of global communication. The negative confrontations started to take place only later on when the entertainment industry realized that the new macroscopic order that was quickly establishing itself around the globe did not actually have a place nor a need for it. It was good vibrations that made Napster big, and the same good vibrations continue to reverberate and resonate through other programs and networks even if the corporate body of Napster Inc. will soon drop down dead.
- tg
