[-empyre-] Digital Delirium revisited

[Renate Terese Ferro]

The essence of Edward Snowden's revelations within the political fabric of the states is a fascinating one.  Snowden's activities were initially painted by the US Government and most of the conservative media machinery as criminal even terroristic.  As time has past the possibility of Snowden's heroism has slowly invaded alternative and other communication streams.  Just a few days ago Tim and I received a piece of junk mail that was soliciting money for some political cause and inside the request was a letter "signed" by Edward Snowden.  I am not sure that folks here in the US think that the effects of Snowden's leakage is no big deal. Edward Snowden's escapades could not have happened without the help of the network generalization and speed, viral media, our 24 hour news coverage and the effusion that Geert feels is at the crux of understanding media theory today.

Media theory appears to evolve, to be IN FLUX according to who is writing it, where, and when.  But what Excommunication posits us to do is to imagine the future:
 Alex wrote:
"...This book is not about the world "for us," and not the world "in itself," but what Eugene calls "the world without us."

 At this rather late hour of the evening I am inspired to reach for the 1997 publication edited by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker,  Digital Delirium.  In the contents I find Geert's interview with Zizek, Alex's writing on fonts and slogans and at the very end of the collection an article by Critical Art Ensemble, "The Technology of Uselessness" the last paragraph reads as such:

    "All things must be subordinated to neutrality-to uselessness.  One major difference between the age of the virtual and the more primitive times is that the contemporary idols have no metaphysical referent. The ones that have been constructed are not the mediating points between person and spirit, or life and afterlife; rather, they are end-points, empty signs...As this mythic narrative continues to play itself out, the suggestions of Authur and Marylouise Kroker begins to make more and more sense.  We are not witnessing the decline of late capital, but instead, its recline into its own delirious death trance. "

Good Night.  Renate
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