Lachlan Brown on Sun, 30 Dec 2001 21:28:01 +0100 (CET) |
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[Nettime-bold] Happy New Year, Noughties v.3.0 |
May we all have an interesting new year to paraphrase the ancient Chinese curse. The Noughties got off to a poor start last year with the 'Wow Factor' and Millennium Festivities, and this year felt a lot more like the 'fifties than seemed necessary or desireable, with more informers per capita than a sitting of the Senate House Committee on Un-American activities - and I am only talking about Torontonians (more about this later...) Things picked up this year with mass pre-occupation (silence is complicity) on the part of the international intellectual community in the face of the step by step introduction of remarkable abuses to rights and freedoms, and then there was the sack and rape of New York City to mark the end of the American century and American hegemony. History, made a spectacular return, or rather histories in contest, in unexpected confluences, refluxes, in ineluctable patterns and in a way whose contingecy appeared to be designed to challenge even Naomi Kleins ability to frame them 'walk through the cracks' or do not step on the cracks? Swerve or sinkorswim? 'As if' or 'what if?' And none of us has an adequate theoretical model, nor competent aesthetic articulation to meet the times, events, or the demands of the culture at Large. That is, none of us has the faintest idea what's going to happen next, except that it is going to Happen, Exciting isn't it? A new years gift to online activists free faxing from email and web browser via http://www.tpc.int (.int) Remember, seriously playful, people. Aesthetics and ethics have decisive impact and are a lot smarter than anything in the arsenals of Islamic Fundamenatlist footware or flybywire drones of the USA. And, please, a bit more guts and a little less displacement and cowardice from our cultural theorists... If they shoot you for cogent cultural criticism, well, what a review. Lachlan Brown Toronto or Shirksburg USA http://...---... C.(416) 826 6739 -- _______________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup 1 cent a minute calls anywhere in the U.S.! http://www.getpennytalk.com/cgi-bin/adforward.cgi?p_key=RG9853KJ&url=http://www.getpennytalk.com _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold