Mark Stahlman (via RadioMail) on Tue, 20 May 1997 17:07:34 +0200 (MET DST) |
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Re: <nettime> THE DIGITAL ARTISANS MANIFESTO |
Mr. Anonymous (aka nobody): Just a few questions . . . 1) This is a joke, right? I've been following your postings for years (anonymous is your real name, correct?) and you always seem to be posting elaborate jokes. EDAN is an Englishman's pun on EDEN, right? This is another Joni Mitchell riff about getting back in the garden, non? 2) As soon as someone starts to produce some real value (let alone some real beauty) in "hypermedia", then you might have a point or two about artisanship. However, that doesn't seem likely too happen any time soon. WIRED loses money faster than they win awards or attract gadflys. You might want to check out the economics of computing before you go off and launch a theoretical journal on the topic. It's mostly about displacing people with machines, increasing the "velocity" of money in derivatives markets and extending the reach of "electronic narcotics." You have been reading the thread on net.art, haven't you? 3) The most important people in the Information (Propaganda) Age have already been defined and the literature on this new class formation is voluminous -- and guess what, it ain't you, it's the utopian/technocrats. H.G. Wells called them the "New Samurai" and the "Open Conspiracy", Vlahos calls them the "Brain Lords" but you can say "virtual class", if you insist, although it loses much of its spiciness in that formulation. In any event, it's not the slaves at the keyboards. That's why they're called slaves at the keyboards, BTW. 4) At least Marx seemed to have some idea what he was up against when he wrote his manifesto. Since this is all a joke (including my reply), there is no reason why historical accuracy or comprehension of power and politics is needed. But, do you have any idea what/who you are up against? Oh yeah, that's the joke, I forgot. Meanwhile, sign me up. My membership check is in the mail -- the email, of course. Sounds like you have a winning idea here. Smashing. Mark Stahlman New Media Associates New York City newmedia@mcimail.com --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de