[-empyre-] Digital Delirium revisited

[Soraya Murray]

I am intrigued by this discussion, and would like to acknowledge the posts by Alex Galloway, Geert Lovink and Renate Ferro. Greetings to all of you. 

I keep circling back to the notion of strategic withdrawal, alluded to several times in the last few posts, as well as somewhat enigmatically toward the end of Alex's recent lecture here at UC Santa Cruz. For example, from his post: 

"This book is not about the world “for us,” and not the world “in itself,” but what Eugene calls “the world without us.”"

This, in relation to Geert's recent essay in e-Flux ("Hermes on the Hudson"): 
""This leaves us with the question of the mandate and scope of today’s media theory—if there is anything left. Are you ready to hand over the “new media” remains to the sociologists, museum curators, art historians, and other humanities officials? Can we perhaps stage a more imaginative “act of disappearance”? Are we ready to disguise ourselves amidst the new normality?"

...and which seemed to betray a similar anxiety around obsolescence of theory -- or a strategy of withdrawal? With respect, is this to be seen as an act of battening down the hatches? Is this disappearance/disguise a radical strategy to shift perspective as a means to generate new possibility? Something conceded, or something new gained?


-Soraya

..........................................................................
Soraya Murray, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Film and Digital Media Department
1156 High Street
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064

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