[-empyre-] China Tracy/SL/public space/game space..the whole damn lot

[melinda R]

wow.. there is still optimism on the planet!
its long time since ive thought that "public" space exists any were any more..

every space i encounter is privately controlled.. i step outside my
appartment ( owned by an 85 year old polish dentist who still likes to
be called "Dr" ), onto the concrete regulated by the body corporate,
onto the street regulated by the council, walk the river bank
controlle dby the water authority, across the park  where i cant walk
my dog unless it is restrained and i pick up its shit in a black
plastic bag, ( i dont have a dog but thsi is a story) into in the city
centre to the mall and - gee no freedom of expression or ownership
there either.. ..i steal some orange roses from the park on the way
home..i know its low level property crime and they probably wont
bother to fine me.

cctv folows me, google satellite photographs me, my mobile triangulates me..
there is very very little space between us.. .we live in the ultimate
system of control whether ist urban or remote.. there is not place on
the planet were we arent penetrated by data.
which is actually sorta exciting
. i am never alone, no matter where i am - i am never un watched /i am
never untouched
( knew i could wedge french feminism in there as well!)

surface to me is another one of those myths of modernity..
like the paintings in museums we can no longer decode cause our
culture has lost that knowledge for the most part -we see them a
pretty pictures , but they  are in reality portals into texts and
tales, sagas of good and evil, cultural cornucopias.
the same with pologinal (??) surface  - you have to be sensitised or
your glance slides off it.

funnily enough game space is so attractive because it is actually the
least regulated public space we ever get to be in.. within the
parameters of software and hardware  - you can do bad messy things and
no one cares..
.
and SL is pretty low low level private ownership//
wait 5 years to find out what really controlled game space is --as
adam nash so gleefully predicts.:>

dear old china
i trudged through the mud at Venice Biennle to see china traceys white
puffy plastic sl dome..
but it had deflated.. it was covered in mud and was collecting big
pools of water where it had fallen down.. the electrics had been
ripped out ,
no one had bothered to re-erect it, to even try to maintain a facade
of functioning.. a little like an C20 web site with broken java script
and dhtml -
 gorgeous degradation,
poetic predictions,
broken dreams..
melindaxxx