<eyebeam><blast> bioelectric user/machine interface/time/Foucault

[Athena Tacha <rspear@ufl.edu>]

I find these mentions of interaction between one's brain (qi - whatever
you want to call it) and computer equipment fascinating -- and thank
you, Will, for all the references.  I am not surprised at all, since our
brain emits electric waves and we are made of  (mostly water) atoms
whose nuclei respond to magnetic pulses, as any brain scientist knows
(proof Magnetic Resonance Imaging -- MRI -- and lots of other
contemporary computer imaging techniques).

I hope this is not confused with computers having human qualities, such
as consciousness, etc.  They are simply made of the same matter/energy
that we are made of.  All kinds of "extra-sensory" phenomena can be
explained in the same way, as Judith Thorn points out.  (I have
experienced a comparable interaction with trees!)

Anybody has read "The Conscious Universe" by Menas Kafatos and Robert
Nadeau (a historian of science and an astrophysicist), 1990?  I
recommend
it.

----------------------

Re: Time! 

The agony of time is the nemesis of the net!
I took some time, just the same, to look at your bodiesinc website
(impressive -- I could not get the sound, though).

I can't see personally that you can expect conceptual or net.art to be
marketable (it sounds like a contradiction in terms).

As for feudalism:
I was quoting M. Goldhaber's introductory statement to his website
http://www.well.com/user/mgoldh/.  He is versed in economics, so he'd be
better qualified to clarify his point of view.  As I understand it (and
this may be only one reading), he believes that the present (capitalist)
economic system (I assume multinational corporations and such) cannot
dominate the future of cyberculture -- a world of free information --
because it is not transferable to a new context, just as the past model
of feudalist Europe was obsolete for the industrially-based economy of
the new world (and doomed to fail). I found this point of view
refreshing (since we all live in the fear or corporate domination).

-------------------------

Re: Foucault/ consciousness /memory

Since most everybody on this forum seems to be a Faucault fan, I might
add my own naive bit:
If he was simply a "historian" (and historians do not think so), he
would not have been dominating our discourse to such an extent.  I
personally admire his thinking (almost unconditionally), but I admire
even more his passion, and the beauty of his language:  exceedingly
rhythmic and exceptionally visual, even in translation.  He is really a
poet, as much as a socio/cultural philosopher.

However, much as I enjoy everybody's interpretations of Foucault, I
would like to see some new subjects introduced.  I personally would like
to hear more opinions about consciousness (even if Foucault did not
believe in it!).  Individual, universal, computer, whatever.  Also about
memory - a subject that preoccupies me a lot in the last years, both on
a personal and artistic level.

Any reading references to either?

Athena Tacha
http://www.oberlin.edu/~art/athena/tacha.html
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