<theres no gift economy here\
[and] if there ever was one\
thats not what we re now in need of>

<instead\
in this relentless passage to schizophrenic point-and-click\
link-and-post-cut-and-paste urbano-egomania\
networks simply change the definition of power into one centred on access relations\
accumulating physical things is passe as its no longer that much fun being propertied\
what people now value is 27-7 customised entertainment and instant access on and to desire\
seems johan huizinga was right\
or was it walt disney\
hail us impatient hedonists\
press button # for culture with a price-tag\
press button & for highly original commodified shared lived experiences\
damn you tbl for giving me the power\
damn you jeremy rifkin for saying what is now so blatantly obvious\
yes now more than ever its true\
ignorance is a bliss\
and the activity of absence is unbearable>

<in this s(t)imulated world of interfaces\
windows and screens\
portals and hubs\
where the real has been displaced by the hyperreal\
as jean baudrillard would say\
people believe real is only what the telly - an antiquated tech that reached prominence sometime in the 21st century - says its real\
if the individual jacks-out of the matrix\
that is to try to evade the consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators and consumers\
then the new world of abundant opporunities\
through its gatekeepers\
whether they are profit-driven technomanagers\
techno-imperial priesthoods\
or just hyperspace illuminati\
threatens to close the door\
forever and ever\
shutting you off>

<as a result the individual can only seek refuge in synthetic environments\
struggling to balance its act between that of a power-junkie automaton\
a singularity-inspired pseudo-cybermonk\
a frustrated character-less trigger-happy avatar awaiting human redemption\
a control-freak technocrat on the verge of terminal craziness\
all else are eligible for the title of the disefranchised\
what we called the third world is no longer [only] defined by geography\
the spatial dimensions of (dis)connection define the new losers\
there is no life supply for the disconnected\
jack-in now if you seek salvation and riches\
its the only way>

<do electric sheep dream\
nobody cares its true\
and if echelon is watching\
nobody could care less>

<there - in the trenches of cyberspace\
we meet the agony\
we hear the despair\
we see the urge to jack-in\
we taste the withdrawal symptoms of the teknolust\
we can smell the illness coming\
yes the one that knows no human cure\
for its not organic but synthetic too\
and we re afraid\
but we arent alone\
and we keep dancing to the whims of bill junior gates\
while effortlessly and as if by magic reproducing closed gates\
struggling to redefine ourselves and our media prosthetics\
extending our dreams into the arms of morpheus\
extending our arms into the dreams of god>

<for what is god\
if not wifi and google combined\
as thomas friedman once said\
but if god is nothing but wifi and google\
then what could one say of uploading minds\
for what is politics\
if not widening civic engagement in new ways\
though some reckon a [we]blog does just that\
for what is science\
if not our desire to overcome life and nature imposed limitations\
having become the new religion of the digerati\
for what is culture\
if not an artificial fix aimed at destabiling social currents\
as matthew arnold clearly grasped\
where is culture\
easy to tell - enclosed in the marketplace\
think disney\
think pleasantville
or even worse think disneyville\
where is mickey\
easy to tell-behind bars\
in a world where institutions of knowledge and culture have decided its no good studying walter benjamin and theodor adorno\
mcluhan must be laughing his ass off\
for what is law\
if not regulation of behaviour through code architecture\
as lawrence lessig first exclaimed\
for what is code\
if not law\
for what is globalisation\
if not barcode inflicted parasites manifested in regulable behaviours\
franchizing our minds and colonising our souls\
with no troops other than narrow dreams\
for what is society\
if not a system of control\
or a controlled system\
for what is i\
if not an outdated program routine run amok\
a script too reluctant to work\
some nature-readable code that is far too slow\
dressed with human-readable code that refuses to compile\
linguistic supposedly organic form that fails to comply\
yet a paleolithic kernel that wants desperately to be patched\
unaware of the real costs of evolution>

<what has remained of culture and politics in a corporate-fed media-saturated time-bomb governed by linear logic\
a space of flows negotiated among machines\
a marketplace ruled by chaos\
amidst a burning chrome of\
lethargy and apathy\
what a wonderful new ethos dont you think\
frustration and desire\
beavis and butthead never got laid despite all they talked about was sex- full of televised images as they were they lost the motivation to do-it-themselves\
innocense and guilt\
guilty are the parents and innocent are the machines>

<but if we look hard enough\
and read between the lines\
we may catch a glimpse of\
some fragments of political ingenuity left unchained\
scents of autonomy\
hordes of broken cultural chains\
creativity-infected mindscapes and badly-programmed behaviours\
surrounded by ruins and remnants left behind by a destructive organo-industrial civilisation>

<so met napster\
and instantly fell in love\
with his friends\
wish it grew\
from tech to polis to bios\
as michel bauwens inspires us to envision\
but napster got nailed\
and many more will follow suit i can tell\
forced by shallow agendas and shady prophets\
yet despite all that hope remains\
in the attics of bioproduction\
where culture means production\
and politics mean culture\
and code is law>

<even before that i danced with rave\
and was instantly electrified and disturbed\
coz she was not one but many\
and she liked doing-it-herself\
and the technician didnt matter back then\
all that mattered was something else\
something strong\
something hard to describe with words\
only images of freeraves in old england could do that now\
coz she was forced to undero some facial treatment administered by commercial butchers\
the treatment is called commodification\
and she turned back altered\
pale mean and ugly\
and i could no longer recognise her face\
nor her friends\
whose fluorescent apolloadidas makeup made them look shiny\
but sad deep down inside\
coz their ecstasy does not stem from acid love and radical sharing\
but dissolves in a teenage version of prozac\
100% commercial pure shite\
yet despite all that hope remains\
freeravers still squat spaces with their passion\
people still make their music\
and though they may have forgotten who rave was\
they still want to feel her like she was back then>

<they paint their imaginary walls with copyright spray\
they play monopoly on our backs\
yet the play they despise the most is life\
they think abortion is safe and ok\
but they think sex and love is not>

<they claim the end is near\
but it is not our end they see\
its theirs\
cultural impotence can be burned on the fly\
but cds dont last forever\
and they should have known better\
for case was a junkie\
but fell in love with molly\
and so we addicts of deception\
will revolt in bloodless battlefields\
led by no one and us all\
like other children of doom\
will realise our power to destroy\
creatively\
collectively\
and\
ethically>

<they say mutilate and castrate\
we d rather embrace and extend\
copy and reuse\
replicate and contaminate\
mould and shape\
out of concrete dreams and fantasies\
unaware of what comes next\
yet excited by what lies ahead>

<create var:hyperdromes form:selfreplicatingvirus idea:infectasmanyhostsaspossible>
<function:reappropriate>
<function:destroy>
<function:imagine>
<function:invent>
<function:sustain>
<function:loop>
<command accepted>
<run program>
<code invalid>
<system override>
<culture>
<politics>
<fromthetrenchesofcyberspace>
<andbeyond>

<george.n.dafermos\
tue 27:03:04\
eye of the cyclone\
islandofcretelandofminoas\
greecenexusofearth\
oldeuropeprosingularity\
synthesisingonafetish(0)vestigeoftheoldworldknownbythenameofafruit>

Hyper(+)drome.Manifest(0)ation by George N. Dafermos
Journal of Hyper(+)drome.Manifestation, Issue 1 - September 2004 Collaborative Filtering
URI: http://journal.hyperdrome.net/issues/issue1/dafermos.html

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