Re: [-empyre-] race net art bots

["tobias c. van Veen" <tobias@rhizome.org>]

--Thank you for taking the time to elaborate on the idea. I like the bot
idea, the borg idea, the cyborg, the sci-fi angle, and I was curious as to
whether it followed in anyway a critical schema (it did end up being what I
was thinking when I mentioned the "machine," as Deleuze and Guattari's
collective assemblages, and thus the machine, enunciation and so forth) or
whether you were initiating a poetic and insightful yet possibly vengeful
discourse. So thanks for that. Perhaps turning your internet stalker (which
is a very scary thing indeed...) into an IT by realising "its" collective
position--the way the overall society-machine has given rise to the point
where a human would become this monster, basically--is an affirmative way of
deferring "its" "humanity" until the society-machine itself can be changed,
to qualitatively changed the stalker-position. Which would also be to
recognise the "inhumanity" inherent to all "humanity." The bot-potential of
all of us.

Which might be a potential tangent to the question I was thinking earlier:
alternative modes to sarcasm (or what can be perceived as such) in race net
art. Well, it's perhaps a sci-fi angle. And which makes a lot of sense given
the potential of Afro-Futurism. (And by Afro-Futurism I mean everything from
musician and mythologist Sun Ra to Detroit techno, writer Kodwo Eshun, DJ
Spooky, and Samuel R. Delaney .. there are more .. ). What I like about
Afro-Futurism, especially its Detroit techno variant, is that it is beyond
international and even transnational--it is universal, as in the universe:
interstellar. It also speaks through tones and rhythm, across skin colours
and races. It blows up something of identity via an alien or mutant
mythology. It embraces technology yet it embraces the body. It is nothing of
Euro-Futurism and its call for violence and war--it is the affirmation of
alien life, & thus all life. It's a dream, or dreamtime. Those Aztec
pyramids are not only of a great and wonderful past epoch, but they are also
beyond my or anyone else's possession: beyond property itself, as they are
vast interstellar constructions. Beyond judgment, beyond good and evil: our
time now is no better or worse than the past... because, as Sun Ra,
demonstrated, there are sonic time machines. Thus a way of freeing thought
and production from property and possession--we are all immigrants... which
rings well with: no one is illegal. All of which does not efface the reality
of oppression, racism, and conquest and colonial history, as well as
environmental destruction, and the genealogies of power and of history
itself, but yet offers a cyborg spin on things that can produce a movement
which, in its desperation, can hopefully manage to maintain a shell of
identity while thinking what might irrupt the bot-attachment to territory.


Anyways, thank you.
I've spoken enough recently..
(eek.. must return to actual work).

best, tobias

> On 24/7/03 10:59 AM, "tobias c. van Veen" <tobias@rhizome.org> wrote:
> 
>> I think as soon as we reduce other humans to "bots," no matter how evil they
>> are... we become no better than they.
>> 
> 
> well it is said only half seriously, in a sci-fi kind of way, however when
> you've been stalked relentlessly on every communication channel you've got
> (and has every friend who has every supported you in this issue) for over
> five years, you tend to become a little jaded about it I guess.
> 
> of course however the stalker and damali's respondent are human!!! all too
> human!!!  I also didn't want to give a gender to the stalker or a name as in
> a way I am protecting 'it' from itself. I just wish they would move on. but
> lets not talk too much more about the stalker as it may get wind of the
> discussion here and come out seeking vengeance. it is like that. however the
> point remains about the power of email abuse, via the screen to one's
> person, it isn't nothing, it is something.
> 
> damali says she rejoices everytime she gets a response, as it is a sign of
> life out there that her work has triggered into action, into 'speaking
> itself' or an aspect of itself into life
> 
> the machine/bot idea is said in a deleuzian/guattarian sense of 'how the
> machine becomes apparent', in this case being able to see the machine speak
> itself through a complex 'assemblage of enunciation', where words are 'order
> words' and direct discourse (or what is said) springs out of language or
> 'free indirect discourse'.  as in:
> 
> "direct discourse is a detached fragment of a mass and is born of the
> dismemberment of the collective assemblage; but the collective assemblage is
> always like the murmur from which I take my proper name, the constellation
> of forces, concordant or not, from which I draw my voice....my direct
> discourse is still the free indirect discourse running through me, coming
> from  other world or planets. That is why so many artists and writers have
> been tempted by the séance table"
> 
> 
> when damali refereed to the incident is australia which happened when a
> liberal (australia's republicans) party media advisor referred to the one
> labour voter in a liberal electorate as the 'nigger in the woodpile' he was
> revealling the collective assemblage of enunciation that he was part of.
> interestingly, this phrase was said by another australian, the head of bmw
> or some big car company, he is the ceo of the entire international company
> and said this phrase at a press breakfast in germany, to general uproar.
> later they sent press releases to everyone there saying that this was a
> phrase said a lot in australia. but to be honest, I had never heard it. so
> it is said a lot by members of a particular collective assemblage of
> enunciation, ie the power elite in this country and reveals much about the
> way they think. their language (and consequent actions speak) through them
> and in this abstract way turns them into 'bots'.
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> tV
>> 
>> ps. I like the bot idea, the end paragraph especially... but I just can't
>> agree. The machines yes ... the machines of hate ... but there are always
>> humans as cogs ... humans that love as well as hate. The audio-artist Terre
>> Thaemlitz has a great essay in his album _Lovebomb_ that traces the
>> love/hate binary. For all love, there is love of something, and thus, hatred
>> of another. 
>> 
>>> thanks mendi for posting those links, the exhibition program for the race in
>>> digital cultures conference looks amazing -- what an incredible screening
>>> program
>>> http://cms.mit.edu/race/about.html
>>> --------
>>> 
>>> as to the response damali posted here from the rent a negro site, that guy -
>>> what a jerk. 
>>> 
>>> I have had an internet stalker for over five years now, who continually
>>> since 1998 has sent the most deranged and ugly mails to me. It also got on
>>> the telephone endlessly and repeatedly -- significant as it was calling
>>> australia from hungary, so we had to change all the telephone numbers. it is
>>> a historic legacy, a legacy system, someone else's baggage etc that I
>>> inherited (like a lot of other things in this world) but nonetheless...
>>> 
>>> I call it an "IT' as it as a communication entity, some kind of bot
>>> 
>>> that is how I read that response, as if it was from an automated hate
>>> machine
>>> 
>>> emails such as the 'response' damali got are meant to do just that, attack
>>> you, be a blast through the screen with hate and vitriol. they radiate. they
>>> have a form of power that I don't think we have articulated very well yet,
>>> in internet theory/discussions, as it is difficult to articulate, but I
>>> think they work at the level of the body. they go straight to your heart,
>>> little poison arrows.
>>> 
>>> if you let them of course. but you have to work out a way to defend yourself
>>> against them and that is why they are so powerful initially. one can't say
>>> that they don't come as a shock at first. then you kind of see them as
>>> symptoms of something else.
>>> 
>>> I think that is one of the things that is so interesting about the site rent
>>> a negro -- it is triggering bots all over the place, it seems, which allow
>>> the machine of hate, confusion and contradiction to become more transparent,
>>> to be able to be seen in motion, wheels turning, engines roaring, emails
>>> flying
>>> 
>>> linda
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
> 
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tobias c. van Veen -----------
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http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
------------- tobias@rhizome.org
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