FW: [-empyre-] this is not a spectator event ::



Responding to Christina/Melinda/Michael's post--I haven't posted a great deal to the soft
skinned space but I have read the posts. And with interest. I thought the posts about the
relations between technology and power were excellent, well-considered responses to the
relevance and possibilities--and problems with the percepticons of 'globalized' remote sensing,
for instance. Getting at the 'predispositions' of media and technology v.v language and power,
image and understanding, sound and sensorium helps us see something of the challenge, as in guns
are usually to kill people, but satellites record according to the will behind the eye of the
operators, whether of murderous intent or otherwise.

I saw Martin Scorsese on TV tonight. He said, of a character in one of his movies, that despite
him being such a violent, ruthless character, we sympathize, to some extent, with him. But the
interesting part was when Scorsese asked "What does this make us?" I think that some work that
examines technological extensions of us, as in GIS, often prompts such a question, only not
necessarily on as personal a level as the one Scorsese was addressing but, instead, questions
arise about what these extensions make us concerning the larger social body. Though too often it
turns out not so much to be the world that is served but the ones who own the satellite and the
ones who can pay them and the military is generally first in line or made the damn thing for
their own intelligence 'needs' and throw bones regularly. Like we share something of the X Ray
Zoom-In Stratospheric Global vision but its really Superman's. Or was that Lex Luthor? Well,
it's not so simple, the USA military is not particularly like either but operates collectively.
In Canada, 'military intelligence' is the paradigmatic exemplar in the language of an oxymoron.
Ask a Canadian what an oxymoron is and they are likely to say 'military intelligence, right?'
Interestingly enough, this doesn't seem to be the case in the USA. Yeah, well look at that GIS
intelligence. Even the bombs are 'smart'. Sure they are. They don't hit civilians they're so
smart. Or only a few thousand, like in 9/11. 23 countries since 1945. O, ok, they're smart
because they get lots of practice.

I posted a question: how can software art deconstruct war machines. I think that a poetentially
significant role can be achieved in approaching programming as having relevant arts associated
with it. How does this deconstruct war machines? Software art makes war machines a special topic
of study, for one thing, but in a different way than study of the supporting software, for
instance. It brings ethical considerations into the activity of programming. It situates
programming in a global audience with not only survival needs, but information needs, and
sometimes more personal needs. Software art should aspire to present visions of the needs of
people and the types of software that address those needs with consequence, so that when people
program they program with the culture of digital art in their concerns. What does this make us?

One of those needs is to understand and appreciate the issues in technology like GIS and other
remote sensing. The GIS work introduced ideas and changed minds with its explorations of
representation. Thanks to Brett and the others.

Posts to the soft skinned space are usually thoughtful. That makes the list readable in ways
that some aren't. So then the edge is between lack of posts and quality of information, between
the energy of the list and the quality of the forum and publication. I wrote this before a
couple of posts came in mentioning the quality of the "signal to noise ratio."  This is a list
experiment with publication of text 'positions' and discussion of the positions and the issues
raised from perspectives informed by the position and adjoining spaces in the soft skinned
space.

I like that there are 'opening statements' by the invited artists. These have been pretty juicy,
for the most part. It seems to challenge the artists in a way that chit chat doesn't and, in
turn, this challenges the rest of the list to write mindfully. Lists are notorious as places for
those who like to shoot off their mouths but don't back up the talk. The contrast is refreshing.

The discussion could be more numerous, its true, but the idea of the list and the protocol seems
to have been to cultivate considered response to well-considered writing. One could do much
worse than this. I also like the range of digital artists you invite to present and participate.
The list is beyond fixation on a single art.

Concerning lists and the communities they form, they do contrast, don't they, with the
readership of a magazine, say, which is more anonymous but bodied in the vision of the magazine,
the types of writing/art they present and the art itself. And contrast this with the community
of a list of artists and critics devoted wholeheartedly to prominent on-list promotion and
publication of their own work, damn the torpedos where torrents of email appear and as quickly
disappear. It is writing as disposable information situated in an economy of pennies of
attention among the memes. Be strong and wrong for long enough and maybe, like Scorsese's
character, you might get some respect. Yet, even still, each list has many stories which,
strangely, often are not told. The way to write about a list would be via hypertext so that you
could point and wouldn't have to quote at length (though would quote often) and could explore
hypermediated writing about lists rather than the way a book would generally handle it: without
the link being present. Think of the stories that could be (un)woven about 'real life'
characters and the tale of net.art. And perhaps the larger contexts in which the writing
occurred. A fictional cross section through the lives between the threads. Like Mann's Faust
only virtual and numerous, or like the story of a salon or a motion in art.

But this would be an example of something that I would not write though might enjoy thinking
about the form and the possibilities. Using that sort of resource in a work of art could be
interesting if it could reveal other than the accidental and random, and create something that
somehow realized the deeper aspirations that had been present in the group in the first place
and that formed, however tenuously, the associative focus. As well as revealing the problems
that eventually ended or attentuated the main stories.

It feels like empyre is far from attenuated or over, to me. I've enjoyed the posts and look
forward to reading and participating for some time to come. And, again, thanks to Brett and the
others.

ja







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