<eyebeam><blast> Only Questions.4

[Eve Andree Laramee <wander@earthlink.net>]

ONLY QUESTIONS
February 14, 1998 to March 1, 1998
194 new questions asked
394 total questions asked in 28 days of the forum


201. But who is setting the agenda?
202. How does one address one's work to a wide audience on the net
without getting caught up in the maelstrom of reorganizing protocols,
procedures, and versions?
203. Can I be expected to produce art that supports every browser?
204. If I do, will I have time to read this listserv?
205. The dictatorship of the proletariat, you remember?
206. So how do you collate this sort of reality with your analysis?
207. I don't know about posthuman. Maybe?
208. Does post happen to us or may we participate?
209. Are we still in the coming-about of the new syncretism, yes, the
creolizing into afrojewgreek?
210. (how many tribes or clans was it?)
211. effect?
212. NOW, extrapolation?
213. (how many nationalities is it?)
214. What practice could craft this attention to guide such an
experience of postself?
215. PREHUMAN?
216. But what kind of chaos would it spread?
217. Could there be a meme for intersubjective exchange?
218. For intelligent politics?
219. Not sheer diversity for diversity's sake, but a higher level of
evolution that preserves and re-articulates the best of human memory?
220. Would that kind of meme qualify as art somewhere?
221. How can I address the localized privledges in my life?
222. Given that computers can house "recombinant" digital elements of
image, sound, and text, how can the artist become an "author" of
responsive, self regulating systems that enable "intelligent" emergent
poetic responses to user interactivity via the encoding, mapping and
modelling of operative poetic elements?
223. How can such an environment enhance or trigger particular "states"
of consciousness in the user?
224. To what extent can we "re-frame" aspects of the consciousness of
the artist, via specific modes of "translation" of operative poetic
processes and poetic elements of image, sound, and text, within
functional computer-mediated networks?
225. Is it possible to have an electronic disturbance that will
significantly alter the Internet, even retrospectively, the way "Les
Demoiselles" altered visual representation and would that be a good
thing to happen?
226. Was the recent alteration of the Mexican Government Web Site by the
Zapatistas an effective intervention or like a Greenpeace publicity
stunt (effective but not the main event)?
227. My question then concerns how a contestatory network practice would
locate itself, without falling into a 'romance of resistance.'(?)
228. What it is about the MAI treaty that provokes such a reaction from
people in France?
229. Does this protest against the MAI treaty have anything to do with
net.culture?
230. Hasn't the rhetoric of the internet always been about breaking down
spatial and temporal barriers, unifying the globe?
231. Why should the freedom of the internet user be affected by the
labor conditions of Indonesian workers or the kinds of movies shown in
Parisian cinemas or on Portuguese TV?
232. Does the research carried out by people like Saskia Sassen on the
hierarchical concentration of power in the networked systems suggest
anything to the rugged individualism of the electronic surfer?
233. The same question, minus the irony: Can those of us with the
knowledge and privilege to use this medium turn some effort to the
creation of culturally based forms of political resistance, on an
international scale?
234. Speaking of which, what do you think about the current
interpretation of SMDM as a masterpiece of critical subterfuge, and the
emerging role of Steve Austin as a cult icon among cultural studies
graduate students?
235.Weird, huh?
236. But beyond control, could a certain kind of sensitivity to the
complex eddies and flows of intersubjective exchange allow one to help
precipitate the unknown?
237. Could one, say, recognize pattern formation and intervene where a
new pattern could possibly come into formation?
238. Or in another direction: could an aesthetics of patterned
consciousness reveal the social nature of human autonomy?
239. Could one learn to accept one's own interventions as precipitating
a shared unknown?
240. Could this become a more powerful and pleasing game than
proprietary accumulation?
241. Can we really be sure that this will not alter the Net in a radical
fashion?
242. Are "net practices" enough to counteract the fact that more and
more software design for the Net is aimed at firewalling and at making
electronic commerce viable. (?)
243. But again, could it be that practices can resist/counteract  the
effect of software design?
244. The further question is, do those of us with the knowledge and
privilege to use this medium understand the politics this medium
involves us in?
245. Every time I help a friend get online or, more generally, use their
computer, I wonder whether I am really helping them (especially those
who look forward to working at home, invading all their private spaces
with the productivity demands of their workplace)?
246. What changes does  email, the Web and its underlying technologies
bring?
247. Embedded in the technologies that create cyberspace are many
peoples' creations and  work, done in their particular way for their own
reasons; what politics  results from all these creations?
248. What about the rest of the world?
249. Or is this medium too "western" in nature?
250. Can we use the Net to create culturally based forms of political
resistance?
251. A crucial question is in how far people who use the Net as artists,
activists, or whatever, are able to understand, if not master the
technology that they are using, and understand what this technological
frame does to their work. (?)
252. Howzat?
253. Continuing, is it just because we lack "language for  describing
social and aesthetical specificities of networked  environments in
appropriate ways" that we resort to discourses on art,  life and death ?
254. In light of the above, might this not, yet again,  simply result
from our desire to communicate the communicable to a wide  audience?
255. - life and death being ultimately meaningful for all of us? (I
think)
256. can we think of networking proxemics  along these lines, whilst
remaining sufficiently close to the  (back-)bone of strategy and
practice?
257. Why ?
258. Are you suggesting that any interactive work that is emotive is
controlling in a negative way?
259. "Do you  think 'tropical parrot' is right for you, dear?" said
vitruvius. 260. Outside of this territory, which is human rather than
strictly geopolitical, to think of any presences on the internet as
"Others" is to invite questions over who on the net  indeed has the
right to selfhood and apart from whom anyone else--everyone else--must
be consigned to "Otherness"; who has the right  to confer this
centrality and preeminence?
261. What possibly could be described as a Mexican style, for instance,
or a  Chinese style, or a South East Asian style, or an American style,
or a Western style, without making the implausible mistake of grand
monolithism?
262. What, stylistically, could possibly bind Jacob Lawrence and Jeff
Koons under the girdle of a national style; or indeed Kara Walker and
Lyle Ashton Harris. Or Ana Mendieta and Alexis Leyva?
263.  What might we possibly claim for Carey May Weems that we may not
also find in  Christian Botanski?
264.  How will people become emotionally invested in the new space?
265. "So why isn't vitruvius a household name?", the sceptics ask.
266. Installations, ant colonies, internets....how does order develop
inseemingly spontaneous ways in complex systems?
267. How and why does self-organization work?
268. Is it all one big accident?
269. Or do parallel accidents converge in a braided stream of
"consciousness"?
270.  "What were the essential components that would be needed to create
an intelligent entity and how should those components be put together?"
271. (sound familiar?)
272. How Other are you if you have to express yourself in someone's
else's language?
273. And, following Fanon, therefore in someone else's culture and their
civilisation?
274. Too western?
275. Is not the medium defined by its users?
276. Are we not individuals before we are political beings?
277. Is not the sanctity of our individuality the very foundation of
what is best of our "western" way of life?
278. Shall we shape the new medium by committee vote?
279. "De-westernize" the medium  by injecting "otherness"?
280.  But shall we spend our time west-bashing, or propagate what is
best of the west in terms of democratic and moral excellence?
281. But why stop here?
282. so what are we going to create now, a new "utopia"....based on
computers?
283. Where did you study your arts Olu?
284. Do you think for a moment that a Chicano working out of Los Angeles
comes up with the same art that a Mexican artist in Mexico City?
285. How about a Jewish and a Palestinian artist , do you think that
they are producing the same sort of imagery?
286. I ask, andwhat does "thematic concerns" come from?
287. thin air?
288. A Mexican Style? you ask....
289. American style?
290. why do you think Hollywood films are made in Hollywood and not in
Zacatecas?
291. Chinese Style?
292. who is this "other" if not the person who is not me?
293. Is the difference between the national and intranational others not
a social construction of the West? 294. Do these others see themselves
as self  identified "other"s?
295. do they watch and say: Oh here comes another subaltern?
296. Are we interested in hearing what the putitive other has to say?
297. What are we willing to displace within our selves to hear?
298. What is the function of the specular, here?
299. what is the access to the mechanical/technical means of
transmission?
300. Would some of you be kind enough to share the address of your
favorite web piece?
301.  "What Do Cyborgs Eat?"
302. (may never?)
303. żis there a difference in the way people from different places use
the Net to create?
304. żOr are the characteristics of the medium too "western"
(linear-nonlinear, logocentric, etc.) for people from cultures that are
used to telling in different ways?
305. remember the slogan "Think Globally, Act Locally"?
306. Remember Three Mile Island?
307.  "Titanic" is a huge box office hit -apparently 25% of US teenage
girls have seen it SEVEN times - does this make it a good film?
308. Consciousness as the "end" product of a series of networked values?
309. Does this seem to be a "stream of consciousness" narrative?
 310. If (x) then (?)
311. (the reproduction scam?)
312. And what about Andreas Broeckmann's call for responses from Africa,
Anatarctica etc?
313. Who is this authentic other which you are searchingfor , out there?
314. An unconscious search perhaps for the authentic, primitive other?
315.  Has anyone got something worth saying?
316. Is anyone actually listening?
317. How is the commercial density of the street enacted on the Net. (?)
318. Is hyperclicking your way from one site to another the lineal
equivalent?
319. How does the code through whcih economic power is made legible on
the street reconfigured on the Net. (?)
320. Is economic power legible on the Net the way it is inother material
environments?
321. Does the growing digitization of economic activities (finance, for
ex.) transform the legibility of economic power?
322. Ever noticed how the media process loses everything but the climax
or high points?
323. But denying that this happens and is produced every day in many
ways, is not an option either?
324. But there is also a specificity to digital space; this specificity
is not a given--except in some basic technical sense, but even here we
could wire the systems with a different politics?
325. Soft and Aware (what do we know about malandros?)
326. Other Others: what the hacker is that?
327. Does this mean relocating your political consciousness?
328. You don't think that the spread of firewalled corporate sites on
the Web and the more recent surge in software for so-called virtual
business networks -- via "tunnelling" or encryption -- matters?
329. What do you think about the growing privatisation of the
infrastructure?
330. Does it possibly signal a time when the price-setting for access
will be affected?
331. The question formed in my mind, why do we like to lose control?
332. Furthermore, what is this losing control?
333. an oceanic feeling of fusion with others with all its delicious and
dangerous implications?
334. if there is a death drive involved in the temporary loss of ego
boundaries,is there also a drive toward creating greater and greater
unities or life?
335. Are they so easy to separate?
336. [Western art? Latino art? Eskimo art? Chinese art?]
337. Do you believe that the "net" has its own ["western"] structure
which limits how one ["others"?] can make use of it?
338. Do you agree?
339. Who's in charge of this thing, anyway?
340. Do we have a moderator?
341. Have I missed some crucial preliminary agenda?
342. If it's about art, have we agreed on a definition, or are we going
to talk in ever widening circles of p.c. jargon until we're all bored
and go out for some fresh air?
343. I wonder, does he think I have suggested otherwise?
344. Has he an alternative?
345. I would rephrase the questions you ask slightly: 1. What forms of
speaking are appropriate to new media forms (not just theNet) for saying
things that are important (individually and collectively)? 2. If anyone
is listening, then how do they listen to these particular forms? 3.
Flowing from (2), how do we get people to listen?
346. Is Keith a minority?
347. Isn't this the content of Keith's work?
348. Does anybody knows where it is?
349. I ask myself, what future has a language, only two million people
on the Earth understand, in the "global village". (?)
350. Why to embrace what I am not opened for?
351. And why invest in  rejecting it?
352. what is happening (not just here)?
353. English, is that my language?
354.  "how did you become fluent in so many languages?" I asked
355. Didn't any of your relatives speak any other languages around you
when you were growing up?"
356. Is there no way to embed html in these postings?
357. Can we free the impulse - free indirect discourse - the lived
situation. (?)
358.  What procedure of identification arises to take its place or
augment it?
359. ....Would that kind of meme qualify as art somewhere?"
360. I would like to ask you "why?"
361. What about firewalls and encrypted traffic causes you concern?
362. Do you think these artifacts are representative of certain
processes on the 'Net' that are counter to what you call 'net
practices'?
363. Could you tell us what you think that role would be?
364. What kind of ideas do you have about private space online?
365. What do you think helps it, or hinders it?
366. How would you relate public and private space to one another?
367. Summary: How to order this catalogue?
368. "Dancing?" the people say. "Whatever do you mean?
369. Someone once protested, saying "Come vitruvius, surely you do your
best work when you're in love?"
370. They are thus in-relation- to the nexus of the self, its
dialectical or interpenetrating defining which inverts upon an ego,
speaking in which language? --
371. When I say hello to you, my next-door neighbor, is there not a
transmission of an absolute foreignness; when I speak to my own family,
is there not this gap of misrecognition, faltering under the guise of
universal enlightenment?
372. Perhaps it's just plain old passion that will fuel the forest fire?
373. Or is the discussion hear mainly about this "z" world we have
troubleplotting on our grid?
374. USA? WHERE IS IT?
375. Why do I write this story for you all netpeople?
376. Has anyone there seen it?
377. processes...'net practices'?
378. - _contours_ of language or a deconstruction?
379. *  "privileged" - Why do So Many Believe having "access"*  to the
net is a form of DePrivation?
380. Maybe Millions-Billions of People Could Not care less; perhaps they
fear the impingment of Yet another addiction Machine Into theIR Psychic
machinery; Why assume the 'majority' whatever that is, even want to
spend their 'time' such as it is, 'on' the net?
381. Who runs the Reality Machine????
382. ScarcitY????
383. even for those who could afford the very cheap rates --still out of
the reach of 2 billion poor// Again the Old Assumption that the Poor
Want the same thing??
384. Why, the captain said is this being put forward?
385. Are we not already poor enough?
386. WHose Principles?
387. Why do "they need to know?"
388. Why would the P0oor want to get on Line when they Can't Eat??
389. But I ask along with William Reich and with Deleuze and Guattari:
Why Did the Masses Support Fascism?
390. Why do the Masses always Lie down and Take the Shit which is Meted
out to them?
391. How Can I be useful to others. (?)
392. WHat strange animals lurked inside the danger dynamic of the beast?
393. Why is it that it seems so difficult for you--at least in the
context of what you've written--to think of Brazil in relation to any
other country/culture that is not the US?
394. why is it that the open process of non-identification that you call
cannibalism, tropicalism, etc is reinscribed--in both your
discourses--as a national(istic) trend?




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