[-empyre-] Try again

["Sally Jane Norman" <S.J.Norman@newcastle.ac.uk>]

Hard to keep up.  I'll try to tune in to the subject this time - at
least as far as I can discern its contours - and forget my
disappointment that the long history of instrumentalisation/
prosthetisation of perception does not seem to resonate in reflection
limited to strictly recent technological development. I guess that's
addressing another subject and/ or "cluster" of people.  

So more specifically regarding transgression, nice to hear the mention
of urban explorers, Marc. The issue they raise of creative
re-interpratation/ re-appropriation of shared urban space might
interestingly relate to the question put by Ryan some time ago regarding
"the way the "public resource" of the internet is being shaped,
especially with notions of the "commons" and other historic spatial
metaphors being used as arguments." I guess I'm interested in the
go-betweens and slippage between these different kinds of spaces, and
the appropriateness/ robustness of their respective metaphors as they
move from one to the other. Could we get a reading on matrixial urban
space, as opposed to the city built for canon widths (Hausmann for the
imminent Paris Commune massacre), or as a radial construction to seat
political power (Pierre L'Enfant in Washington)?  Where are the agoras
and where are the networks and mazes and how do they inter-relate? 

Also reassured to read Eduardo's nuanced take on hacker motivations. And
find it difficult to imagine how the described diversity might form a
coherent social group with shared goals. This nuancing again seems to
echo earlier reflection about our readings of technology - the need to
uphold complexity and avoid too systematic a "diabolisation" - sorry
can't find the English word - to better grasp our extremely different
uses/ developments/ underlying drives in our relations to technology.
In short, am appreciating some chinks of subtlety coming through. 

best

Sjn

ps - as a ps to my last post, I've never got over Liberation's headlines
on that cold winter day in 94...