Re: [-empyre-] RE: Mobile Media debate

[Brian Holmes <brian.holmes@wanadoo.fr>]

Marina Vishmidt wrote (about "Songdo City"):

> The horizon of social change as a different form of
> organisation of social and productive relations is out of the picture 
> completely - or, it is understood as a byproduct of our 'tools'.  So the 
> power of technologies to mould the social landscape is one of the main 
> stories told by capitalism to itself to help it sleep at night - why are 
> we repeating it instead of exacerbating the crisis that is plainly in 
> evidence?

This whole post by Marina is so lucid that it seems 
hallucinatory.

My own belief is that most people in cultural circles - and 
expecially those connected to the net therefore more aware 
of actuality - are literally scared out of their minds, and 
retreating into the fantasy that it's all gonna be OK.

Well, any English or American citizen who thinks it's all 
gonna be OK is a fool or a cynic, that's for sure. Felix 
Stalder posted on netime today a preview of what the 
Anglo-American war is producing, under the heading "Feral 
Cities":

http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2003/Autumn/art6-a03.htm

Of course, in the meantime one can speculate as to the forms 
that the minor narcissistic alienation of the middle classes 
will take, and one can even make so-called art of those 
forms, but I gotta say I'm not very impressed....

best, BH