[-empyre-] Strawberry Fields Forever?

["Lachlan Brown" <lachlan@london.com>]

>Yes! ...and so 3D texts in the z-space - 3D visualisation communications
>discourse..?
>we are what we think, write, visualise, communicate - whatever medium, with
>whatever tools
>CON-TEXT-UAL.
>...in the beginning was the word and the word was 'hey that apple looks
>yummy!'
>humour  discourse, lighten up you lot.


clare o


Yes, Clare O (? - right, as if) mentions MediaMOO. It is a good model for the way
'virtual spaces' may be considered as texts and the way this textuality always
invokes its contexts. MediaMOO began as a copy of the institutional space it 
occupied. MIT's Media Lab. The ideology of MediaMOO - 'radical consent' (if you don't 
like what we do here there's always another piece of 'virtuality' [ie IT and Comp Sci 
research] not yet colonised so why don't you go there?) appeared to work among people who 
were involved in professional research and development in the IT educational and industrial 
fields in the early 90s, but hasn't since then worked for governance of the mass demographics 
of all ages and many cultures presently involved.

But isn't MediaMOO caught as it is in a timeless moment circa 1992-4 a bit played out 
now? It is some 8 years since 'MUDs grow up' suggested that distributed computing might 
have social, aesthetic and educational uses and 7 since Bruckman and Resnick suggested 
that the 'playfully serious' approaches in developing computer mediated education for 
children be 'taken more seriously' in broader educational research contexts, and even 
longer since Curtis called for 'social scientists' to help (not hinder) develop an 
understanding of what people actually do online.
 
I am continually surprised that these quite sensible calls made early on were refused. 
I am barely surprised by the 'infantilism'and the regressions from responsibility of 
people, but what I am surprised about is that these people seem to think that there is 
something necessarily progressive and enlightening in the process.

Innocence and its tropes was always invoked to avoid responsibility for mass crime. The 
Ydessa Handeles Gallery in Toronto will be running for every Saturday for two years an 
exhibition that considers the place of the teddy bear and the regress to 'innocence' in 
Nazi ideology. This seems a prescient and timely exhibition.

And yes, for the sake of children lets 'lighten up', lets cast some light
upon serious abuses in internet scholarship and in the industry.

Lets do that.

Oh, in an earlier post someone claimed I made no distinction between
'cyberculture' and culture writ large.

No, I make a considered distinction between the two. 'Cyberculture' is
a sub set of the cultural. It resides in - not apart from - the everyday 
ideas, policies and legalities through which we make our world. 

Light enough?


Lachlan




                                       

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