tamas banovich

digital art

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“Digital Art” is commonly associated with multimedia work made and viewed on computer, but it is just another specific/nonspecific term to confuse. It is like the term “artist,” dependent on context. There is digitalized anything, there is digitalized anything manipulated digitally, there is digitally-generated anything looking like anything made by traditional means. The thing I imagined to be digital art—before I had any idea what was being done in terms of “cyberculturespace”—considered all available features: sound, text, image, and animation. Work treating the computer and the screen as a medium, with all its implications. Computers are present everywhere, in all possible and impossible social and private situations. Multi-site specific?

The thing that made me think about it was a . . .no, the moment when I first realized the obvious, was one of those long, out-of-focus stares into the monitor, trying to write a proper English sentence (you won’t find many here). The page on the screen invariably turned into a screensaver and there it was: a nonlinear, animated, sometimes noisy thing. Relentless, hypnotic. The first question was, where to find digital work. The echo said~~~web~~~,~~~internet~~~. The answer was overwhelming: everywhere, everybody is doing it.

Lev Manovich
READING MEDIA ART
Review of NEWFOUNDLAND II exhibition, Multimediale 4,
Karlsruhe, Germany, May 1995
published (in German) in MEDIAGRAMM (ZKM, Summer 1995)
Consider the dichotomy: an art object in a gallery
setting versus a software program in a computer. On
entering an exhibition of media art we encounter signs
that tell us we are in the realm of Art: the
overall exhibition space is dark, each installation is
positioned in a separate, carefully lit space, each
accompanied by a label with an artist's name. We know
well what to do in this situation: we are supposed to
perceive, contemplate, and reflect. Yet these initial
signs are misleading. An exhibition of media art points
us to very different cultural settings such as a computer-
games hall or an entertainment park (in each of these, one
often has to wait in line before getting a chance to
"try" a particular exhibit) and also to a different type
of cultural object (and, correspondingly, a different set

approaching a media artwork, we typically discover some
elements of standard human-computer interface (a computer
monitor, a mouse; arrows, buttons and so on); we have to
read instructions that tell us how to use it; we then
have to go through the process of learning its unique
navigational metaphors. All in all, the behaviors that
are required of us are intellectual problem-solving,
systematic experimentation, and the quick learning of new
tasks. Is it possible to combine these with
contemplation, perceptual enjoyment and emotional
response? In other words, is it possible to experience
the work aesthetically while simultaneously learning how
to "use" it?
The works in the “NEWFOUNDLAND II” exhibition
provided a variety of solutions to this basic problematic of media art. One solution is avoid an interactive interface altogether, as in Tamas Waliczky's installation “THE WAY.” The installation shows the third part of his stunning 3-D computer animation trilogy (the first two parts are “THE GARDEN” and “THE FOREST”), which narrates Waliczky's journey from the East to the West using specially constructed perspectival systems. “THE WAY”
presents a rather grim view of the West: the typical
sterility of 3-D computer animation turns out to be a
perfect metaphor for the sterility and regularity of
Western society; the inverted (as opposed to the central,
as it is usually interpreted) perspective epitomizes the
Western subject's self-sufficiency and isolation from his
environment. A different solution is exemplified by Toshio Iwai's
“PIANO AS AN IMAGE MEDIA.” A viewer of his installation
does not have to struggle with a new interface because
Iwai uses an interface already familiar to everybody:
a piano. The installation can be seen as a
playful response to the whole modern tradition of image-
sound synthesis and also as a commentary on various
relationships between the physical and the virtual that
characterize the end of the 20th century. Iwai sets
up a whole network of these relationships: the physical
affects the virtual (pressing the trackball creates
computer-generated images of sounds), which in turn
affects the physical (as the images of sounds "hit" the
piano keys they actually become depressed as though being
played by an invisible hand), which in turn affects the
virtual (piano keys generate another set of computer-
generated images).
Another challenge faced by media art is how to
integrate various media. By reducing everything to the
same binary code, digital computer, at least in theory,
gives the same importance to text, still images, video,
and sounds. In reality, existing computer programs
emphasize one type of media over others: DIRECTOR adopts
the metaphor of a slide show, PREMIERE forces on its user
the conventions of video editing, while World Wide Web
documents are text-based. We are still waiting for a true
digital Gesamtkunstwerk that will take full advantage of
the ability to interweave the distinct languages of
different media. Among “ARTINACT” works, Luc Courchesne's
PORTRAIT ONE and Jean-Louis Boissier's FLORA

PETRINSULARIS represent particularly successful solutions
to this challenge. In Boissier's piece, we are presented
with a white page, containing a list. A table of contents
for a book? A list of chapters? Clicking on each item
leads us to a pair of video loops, moving off-phase like
waves; clicking on one of these takes us to yet another
loop: a rhythmically vibrating water surface. The form of
a loop that structures the work on a number of levels
becomes a metaphor for human desire that can never
achieve resolution. A loop, which gave birth to modern
cinema (all pre-cinematic apparatuses were based on short

of behaviors)—a software program in a computer. In
loops consisting of a few images) and which was then
banished to the low-art realm of cartoons, is resurrected
by Boissier to become a fundamental element of a new
multimedia langauge, an element capable of carrying rich
and poetic meanings. Courchesne's work elegantly combines the strengths
of two visual traditions: modern graphic design and
cinematic spectatorship. When a computer is waiting for
our action, the black empty space between a silhouetted
face of the character and sparsely positioned sentences
becomes an active energy field—a negative space in the
best tradition of modern design of still images. But as
soon as a character begins to speak, we experience an
intense cinematic identification that makes us mentally
block the rest of the computer screen and even the rest
of the room in which the computer is situated.
Another dichotomy that a number of works in
NEWFOUNDLAND II begin to dissolve is between the
traditions of collective and individualized viewing in
screen-based arts. The first tradition spans from magic
lantern shows to 20th-century cinema. The second
passes from the camera obscura, stereoscope and
kinetoscope to head-mounted displays of VR. Both have
their dangers. In the first tradition, individuals’
subjectivity can be dissolved in a mass-induced response.
In the second, subjectivity is being defined through the
interaction of isolated subject with an object at the
expense of intersubjective dialogue. In the case of
viewers' interactions with ARTINTACT CD-ROMs, EVE, and
many of the installations in the show, something quite new
began to emerge: a combination of individualized and
collective spectatorship. The interaction of one viewer
with the work (via a joystick, a mouse, or a head-mounted
sensor) became in itself a new text for other viewers,
situated within the work's arena, so to speak. This
affects the behavior of this viewer who acts as a
representative for the desires of others, and who is now
oriented both to them and to the work.
EVE explores this situation most self-consciously.
Its enclosed round shapes refers us back to the
fundamental modern desire to construct a perfect self-
sufficient utopia, whether visual (the 19th-century
panorama) or social (after the 1917 Russian Revolution G.I.
Gidoni designed a monument to the Revolution in the form
of a semi-transparent globe that could hold several
thousand spectators). Yet, rather than being presented
with a simulated world that has nothing to do with the
real space of the viewer (as in typical VR), the visitors
who enter EVE's enclosed space discover that EVE's
apparatus shows the outside reality they just left.
Moreover, instead of being fused in a single collective
vision (Gesamtkunstwerk, cinema, mass society) the
visitors are confronted with a subjective and partial
view. The visitors only see what one person wearing a
head-mounted sensor chooses to show them, i.e., they are
literally limited by this person's point of view. In
addition, instead of a 360-degree view they see a small
rectangular image—a mere sample of the world outside.
This visitor wearing a sensor, and thus literally acting as an eye for the rest of the audience,
occupies many positions at once—a master subject, a
visionary who shows the audience what is worth seeing and
at the same time just an object, an interface between
them and outside reality, i.e., a tool for others; a
projector, a light, and a reflector all at once.
Similarly, EVE summarizes the whole Western
history of simulation, functioning as a kind of Plato's
cave in reverse: visitors progress from the real world
inside the space of simulation where instead of mereshadows they are presented with a technologically
enhanced (via stereo) image, which looks more real than
successfully meditating between what was previously
thought of as distinct and unrelated a media artist can
also discover new aesthetic possibilities. NEWFUNDLAND II
exhibition has given us many such discoveries.

It takes a while to set yourself up to get on and able to see what is on the Web. Once there, the long downloads put you into the staring mood, your eyes/brain get adjusted: you see another medium, the Web Page. First comes the frame with the header. It sets you up, a title, sometimes a fancy, dancing typesetting, the background color or pattern, lately sometimes with strobe-dance. Then, after a while comes the rest: images, text. The technology is obviously present but the range of possibilities are huge—in the hands of an artist of this medium. Soon, if you look for art, you realize that there is hardly any to find. You see a lot of wrestling with the technology. . .actually most work ignores the medium altogether. Let’s just put art there so everybody can see it. Images too small or too detailed to see, bad text, lots of personal stuff—like daytime TV. Those who recognize the uniqueness of the medium are usually absorbed by one aspect or effect. It is frustrating to see the lost opportunities, you sort of root for the guy to come up with something, then the download is over and it is not there. But when you find/stumble on something good it is fascinating. Images reveal hidden content, layers unfold or peel away, limitations turn into simplicity, manipulation into meaning, download into timing, rhythm.

This page either looks right or it doesn't, depending on your
browser. If you are using Netscape, and your fonts aren't too
big, this page looks as I intended.
—David Seigel, Severe Tire Damage on the Information
Superhighway: An Open Letter to Netscape Communications and
the WWW community

You have to be there. When you ask the question: what is inherently digital, it pares down to branching (the ability to open up, branch out to another area of text, image, animation, sound at any point by activating an area of an image by clicking on it). The concept of ÒhypertextÓ makes possible a nonlinear structure. The idea is not new but before the idea of computers, it was impossible to conceive of a working system. Every other aspect of multimedia can be achieved by other means, some better than others. (The computer is best at manipulation of elements, alteration, transformation, layering.) The (relative) ease with which one can create complex multimedia work opened up the field for individual artists. To a certain point. I add to this definition the intent to locate a multimedia work in the computer. The interaction with a computer is a unique personal experience. There is a difference between private interaction with a computer and the public projection of the same or public projection of a piece. Some people ignore this. You have to be there.

When you ask the question: what is inherently digital, it pares down to branching (the ability to open up, branch out to another area of text, image, animation, sound at any point by activating an area of an image by clicking on it). The concept of “hypertext” makes possible a nonlinear structure. The idea is not new but before the idea of computers, it was impossible to conceive of a working system. Every other aspect of multimedia can be achieved by other means, some better than others. (The computer is best at manipulation of elements, alteration, transformation, layering.) The (relative) ease with which one can create complex multimedia work opened up the field for individual artists. To a certain point. I add to this definition the intent to locate a multimedia work in the computer. The interaction with a computer is a unique personal experience. There is a difference between private interaction with a computer and the public projection of the same or public projection of a piece. Some people ignore this.

n-D Cyberspace
By Ric Curnow
Try to visualize the whole
World Wide Web at once. The
first image that comes to
mind is a globe covered with
dots and lines.
But, of course, cyberspace
doesn't work like that - physi
cal location is irrelevant.
Why not construct a spatial
image of websites that are
relative to the number of

times the hyperlinks between
sites are used? In this way,
"clusters" of sites would
develop around topics of
interest to users of the Web.
But this shouldn't occur in
a 3-D space. Instead, it will
be a multidimensional space,
using the statistical technique
of multidimensional analysis
for its construction.
It would be Gibson's cyber
space done right.
—Ric Curnow is a freelance journalist
based in the Antipodes.

W A R N I N G
The *Lower* LPGPM has not been
run and may require adjustment of line
plot and adjectives or the order or
number of adjectives.
Also it may be wholly correct.
LRH
THE LOWERLPGPM LP of 8 items
_____ _____ Pictures
20 Adjectives
Plotted Upwards
#1 is Earliest
19. Informative
18. Frightening

17. Heartening
16. Unpleasant
15. Pleasant
14. Disagreeable
13. Agreeable
12. Valueless
11. Valuable
10. Ruinous
9. Productive
8. Destructive Of
7. Creative
6. Evil
5. Holy
4. Bad
3. Good
2. Naughty
1. Nice

Platen Commands [each goes over a platen hole in this order]18. Those who desire to create
17. Desires to destroy
16. To create
15. Never create
14. Too much creating
13. Hoping to never create
12. Criticisms of creating
11. Hating to create
10. Compulsions to create
9. Having to create
8. Obsession with creating
7. Automatic creators of
6. Failures to create
5. Constantly creating
4. Difficulties with other creators
3. Differently creating
2. No more desires to create
1. To create[For example, the first command would be: "To create nice pictures."
The last would be "Those who desire to create mystifying pictures."]Class 12
Auditors
OT 6 course
OT 6 auditors
Review C/S
Confidential
HCOB 16 June, 1969

It seems the only people who have fun, fate, excitement these days are the ones involved in cyberculture. I am a borderline case, still suspicious. I fail to see unique content, content at all, most of the time. On the other hand the enthusiasm and the feeling/illusion of being a part of something new is contagious. Many issues have gotten a new life: intellectual ownership, collective authorship, censorship, sociopolitical order (???), art?........... . .

>Fellow Internet users,
>
>Efforts currently underway in Congress to pass legislation which would
>regulate the content of the Internet, including measures which are a clear
>violation of our right to free speech, threaten the freedom and security
>of every user of the Internet. At the request of Voters
>Telecommunications Watch, we are distributing the following call to action
>to all members of the MindVox community. We strongly urge all of you to
>participate in the Internet Protest Day next week.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Bruce Fancher
>
> - - - - - - - - -
>
>========================================================================
> CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE NET CENSORSHIP LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS
>
> On Tuesday December 12, 1995, Join With Hundreds of Thousands
> Of Your Fellow Internet Users In
>

> A NATIONAL INTERNET DAY OF PROTEST

> PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
> REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL December 20, 1995
>________________________________________________________________________
>CONTENTS
> Internet Day of Protest: Tuesday December 12, 1995
> What You Can Do Now
> List of Participating Organizations
>________________________________________________________________________
>INTERNET DAY OF PROTEST: TUESDAY DECEMBER 12, 1995
>
>Outrageous proposals to censor the Internet demand that the Internet
>Community take swift and immediate action. We must stand up and let
>Congress know that we will not tolerate their attempts to destroy this
>medium! Please join hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens in a
>national day of protest on Tuesday December 12, 1995.
>
>As you know, on Wednesday December 6, 1995, the House Conference
>Committee on Telecommunications Reform voted to impose far reaching and
>unconstitutional "indecency" restrictions on the Internet and other
>interactive media, including large commercial online services (such as
>America Online, Compuserve, and Prodigy) and smaller Internet Service
>Providers such as Panix, the Well, Echo, and MindVox.
>
>These restrictions threaten the very existence of the Internet and

>

>2. Urge each Member of Congress to "stop the madness.” Tell them that
> they are about to pass legislation that will destroy the Internet as
> an educational and commercial medium. If you are at a loss for
> words, try the following sample communique:
>
> Sample phone call:
>
> Both the House and Senate bills designed to protect children
> from objectionable material on the Internet will actually
> destroy the Internet as an medium for education, commerce, and
> political discourse. There are other, less restrictive ways to
> address this issue.
>
> I urge you to oppose both measures being proposed in the
> conference committee. This is an important election issue to
> me.
>
> Sample letter (fax or email):
>
> The Senate conferees are considering ways to protect children
> from inappropriate material on the Internet. A vote for either
> the House or Senate proposals will result in the destruction of
> the Internet as a viable medium for free expression, education,

> commerce. Libraries will not be able to put their entire book
> collections online. Everyday people like me will risk massive
> fines and prison sentences for public discussions someone s
> somewhere might consider "indecent".
>
> There are other, less restrictive ways to protect children from
> objectionable material online. This is an important election issue to me.

>3. If you're in San Francisco, or near enough to get there, go to
> the Rally Against Censorship from Ground Zero of the Digital Revolution:
>
> WHEN: Monday, December 11, 1995 12:00 - 1:00 PM
> WHERE: South Park (between 2nd and 3rd, Bryant and Brannon) San Francisco.
> SPEAKERS: To be announced
> BRING: Attention-grabbing posters, signs, and banners that demonstrate
> your committment to free speech and expression, and your feelings
> about Congress.
> FOR UPDATED INFORMATION (including rain info):
> http://www.hotwired.com/staff/digaman/

>4. Mail a note to protest@vtw.org to let us know you did your part.

> Although you will not receive a reply due to the number of
> anticipated responses, we'll be counting up the number of people that
> participated in the day of protest.

> P ST Name and Address Phone Fax
> = == ======================== ============== ==============
> R AK Stevens, Ted 1-202-224-3004 1-202-224-1044
> R AZ McCain, John 1-202-224-2235 1-602-952-8702
> senator_mccain@mccain.senate.gov
> D HI Inouye, Daniel K. 1-202-224-3934 1-202-224-6747
> R KS Dole, Robert 1-202-224-6521 1-202-228-1245
> D KY Ford, Wendell H. 1-202-224-4343 1-202-224-0046
> wendell_ford@ford.senate.gov
> R MS Lott, Trent 1-202-224-6253 1-202-224-2262
> R MT Burns, Conrad R. 1-202-224-2644 1-202-224-8594
> conrad_burns@burns.senate.gov

> D NE Exon, J. J. 1-202-224-4224 1-202-224-5213
> D SC Hollings, Ernest F. 1-202-224-6121 1-202-224-4293
> senator@hollings.senate.gov
> R SD Pressler, Larry 1-202-224-5842 1-202-224-1259
> larry_pressler@pressler.senate.gov
> R WA Gorton, Slade 1-202-224-3441 1-202-224-9393
> senator_gorton@gorton.senate.gov
> D WV Rockefeller, John D. 1-202-224-6472 n.a.
> senator@rockefeller.senate.gov

> Dist ST Name, Address, and Party Phone Fax
> ==== == ======================== ============== ==============
> 6 GA Gingrich, Newt (R) 1-202-225-4501 1-202-225-4656
> 2428 RHOB georgia6@hr.house.gov
> 14 MI Conyers Jr., John (D) 1-202-225-5126 1-202-225-0072
> 2426 RHOB jconyers@hr.house.gov
> 1 CO Schroeder, Patricia (D) 1-202-225-4431 1-202-225-5842
> 2307 RHOB

>4. Forward this alert to all of your wired friends.
>

>
>________________________________________________________________________
>LIST OF PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS
>
>In order to use the net more effectively, several organizations have
>joined forces on a single Congressional net campaign to stop the
>Communications Decency Act.

>American Civil Liberties Union * American Communication Association *
>American Council for the Arts * Arts & Technology Society * Association
>of Alternative Newsweeklies * biancaTroll productions * Boston
>Coalition for Freedom of Expression * Californians Against Censorship
>Together * Center For Democracy And Technology * Centre for Democratic
>Communications * Center for Public Representation * Citizen's Voice -
>New Zealand * Cloud 9 Internet *Computer Communicators Association *
>Computel Network Services * Computer Professionals for Social
>Responsibility * Cross Connection * Cyber-Rights Campaign * CyberQueer
>Lounge * Dorsai Embassy * Dutch Digital Citizens' Movement * ECHO
>Communications Group, Inc. * Electronic Frontier Canada * Electronic
>Frontier Foundation * Electronic Frontier Foundation - Austin *
>Electronic Frontiers Australia * Electronic Frontiers Houston *
>Electronic Frontiers New Hampshire * Electronic Privacy Information
>Center * Feminists For Free Expression * First Amendment Teach-In *
>Florida Coalition Against Censorship * FranceCom, Inc. Web Advertising
>Services * Friendly Anti-Censorship Taskforce for Students * Hands
>Off! The Net * Inland Book Company * Inner Circle Technologies, Inc. *
>Inst. for Global Communications * Internet On-Ramp, Inc. * Internet
>Users Consortium * Joint Artists' and Music Promotions Political Action
>Committee * The Libertarian Party * Marijuana Policy Project *
>Metropolitan Data Networks Ltd. * MindVox * MN Grassroots Party *
>National Bicycle Greenway * National Campaign for Freedom of Expression
>* National Coalition Against Censorship * National Gay and Lesbian Task
>Force * National Public Telecomputing Network * National Writers Union
>* Oregon Coast RISC * Panix Public Access Internet * People for the
>American Way * Republican Liberty Caucus * Rock Out Censorship *
>Society for Electronic Access * The Thing International BBS Network *
>The WELL * Voters Telecommunications Watch

> End Alert
>======================================================

The Internet is incredibly charged ideologically. It promotes egalitarianism. It is the antonym of hierarchy of any kind (communism reincarnated?). Arguably there is a sociopolitical superstructure in the making, superimposed on the existing national/political order. Extremism abounds. There is an intense fight for its independence (or control?). But soon you will have to dig deep to sense this; it is being buried alive under commercial gluey, gooey goo. As it is only the sum of its parts, no head, it is slowly morphing from a college campus into a giant shopping mall with guards checking your ID at the entrance.

The true value of a network is less about information and more about
community.
- Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital, Alfred A. Knopf, 1995 If you understand something in only one way, then you do not really
understand it at all. This is because if something goes wrong you get
stuck with a thought that just sits in your mind with nowhere to go.
The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we have
connected it to all the other things we know. This is why, when
someone learns "by rote," we say that they do not really understand.
However, if you have several different representations, when one
approach fails you can try another. Of course, making too many
indiscriminate connections will turn a mind to mush. But
well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your
mind, to envision things from many perspectives, until you find one
that works for you. And that is what we mean by thinking!
—Marvin Minsky quoting from his book, The Society of Mind, in "Will Robots Inherit
the Earth?," an article he wrote for Scientific American, Life in the Universe, Special
Issue, October 1994 Cyberspace involves a reversal of the current mode of interaction with
computerized information. At present, such information is external to
us. The idea of cyberspace subverts that relation; we are now within
information. In order to do so we ourselves must be reduced to bits,
represented in the system, and in the process become information
anew.
...To repeat: cyberspace is architecture; cyberspace has an
architecture; and cyberspace contains architecture.
—Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace, Marcos Novak, Cyberspace: First Steps,
edited by Michael Benedikt,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991

A virtual world can be informative, useful, and fun; it can also be
boring and uncomfortable. The difference is in the design.
—Virtual Worlds: No Interface to Design, Meredith Bricken, Cyberspace: First Steps,
edited by Michael Benedikt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991 In recent years, there has emerged a new form of electronic space
that holds revolutionary promise as the fin de siecle metasocial
postindustrial workspace. Variously described as a "space that wasn't
space," a "nonplace," and a space in which "there are no shadows.”
(Gibson, Count Zero: 38, 166; Gibson Mona Lisa Overdrive: 219)
—David Tomas, Old Rituals for New Space: Rites de Passage and William Gibson's
Cultural Model of Cyberspace, in Cyberspace: First Steps, edited by Michael
Benedikt, 1994

The bit/pixel mindset brought a revolution in design. Tinkering with the basic elements of the computer there is a new generation of designer/artist/hackers developing a new language in type, typography and graphic design. In the last 10 years there has been a major transformation in these fields. The p.c. and an explosion of increasingly sophisticated graphic programs democratized access to high-quality design tools.

There is a peculiar intertwining of underground music and design. Actually I think this phenomenon is a potential source for the emergence of digital art (I mean, fine art —sound conservative?). It is hard for me to formulate this because there is a convergence of several unqualified elements. 1, what I mean by digital art, 2, musical/ mathematical minds are usually not very visual; they operate within pure abstraction, 3, it comes from a subculture indifferent to fine art, 4, there is a close interaction between people of different interests (disciplines) almost entirely missing in the mainstream culture, 5, it has a genuine social root/base, 6, there is finally a generation moving freely back and forth and without hang-ups between art and design,
7, I leave it to you to play it out.

Summary
The on-line copyright problem may be resolvable by a simple, sweeping permission
method. This proposed system, which anyone may use, allows broad re-use of
materials in exchange for automatic tracking of ownership. Payment goes to the
original publisher and credit to the original author. Nothing is misquoted, nothing is out
of context (since the original context is immediately available), and users are not
spied upon.
transcopyright: pre-permission for virtual republishing
Theodor Holm Nelson
Founder of Interactive Media
Founder of Network Publishing Project Xanadu(R)

"At first we described the purpose of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to be, simply, the "civilization of Cyberspace." Now, after almost two years of operation, we also think of ourselves assisting in some Great Work, creating what may be nothing less than the united Mind of Humanity, hard-wiring the collective organism of human consciousness."
—John Perry Barlow

We're creating what Teilhard de Chardin called the "noosphere"—a mind world that's
totally our own product. And yet the mind world does change the material world, because
every time a part of the mind world is sufficiently accurate, it can be duplicated in the
material world, and we've got a new tool, a machine, a new technology that will do things
we couldn't do before.
—Closing remark by Robert Anton Wilson, in an interview with Magical Blend,
issue #48, September 1995.

“You don’t like those
ideas? I got others.”
—Marshall McLuchan

THE END

from the web gallery of TOSHIO SAEKI

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