<nettime> potentia ist scientia - state of the art is art of the state

[b g <brucegottlieb@hotmail.com>]

State of the Art is Art of the State

We are indeed living in a privately funded renaissance of the arts, our
powerful Northern nations have afforded us with their strong policies of
techno-military control. We Rule! And we like it!

Looking through the DARPA site I am impressed with the ambitious and
innovative projects it has envisaged in its IAO mission and vision
statements. We can see here that the next generation cellphones and pdas
and new unimaginably more virally popular techno-life/cultural
enhancements are born under just these (albeit slightly sinister)
auspices.

It has become clearer than ever before that the military fosters the most
creative and innovative dynamism in the information age.  They take a
'brute force' creative approach to every point on their agendas as they
seek out and exploit the most virulent technologies for domination and
control, opening up and abandoning vast new realms to be plumbed by
commercial (and 'anti'-commercial) hackers in the private sector.  
Inevitably, these technologies become the state of the art in music, film
and tv media industries.

GWB's unprecedented five-year $2.3trillion military budget will make
possible incredible advances in communications technology, especially in
hardware and infrastructure from which we all 'benefit'.  The same thing
is happening in biotech aswell.

Communication artists and academics like to feel we are on the cutting
edge and we are we are on the cutting edge of articulating this grand new
social resource our powerful military regimes have opened up for us.  Our
militaries have made us so rich that they can afford us our little
idealistic democracy.

Singapore's 'elder-statesman' Lee Kuan Yew advocates a two-system approach
to national government. 'democracy' for the educated in the cities,
autocracy for everyone else.  On the global scale, we see that this system
has been transposed: 'democracy' for us, "whatever will get the job done
(to keep 'em producing for us)" for them.

Celebrate it or denigrate it we legitimate our hegemony and why the hell
not? Its up to the developing countries of the world to band together and
develop credible militaries which would aggressively stake a claim for
their people's cultural flourishing. Its time to acknowledge the intimate
relationship between the military and the arts... distant wars (and random
terrorist massacres at home) may be the unhappy sacrifice we have to
endure to create at the height of our powers in our studios, labs and
where we gather.

We are all players in the war game.  Hail to the chief!

baruch gottlieb
http://www.vociferous.org


DARPA/IAO:
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/
On Lee Kuan Yew:
he backs GWB on indonesian anti-terrorist crackdown
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw02/020226at.htm
articulates limits of democracy
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/lee_kuan_yew.htm
current Singaporean PRIME MINISTER GOH CHOK TONG, outlining the ideals of a 
thriving one country/two systems state:
http://www.gov.sg/singov/announce/180802pm.htm






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