<nettime> Re: The Internet Empire Strikes Back

["nettime's_digestive_system" <nettime@Desk.nl>]

From: Newmedia@aol.com
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 17:16:02 EST
Subject: Re: <.nettime> The Internet Empire Strikes Back

Folks:

I've just heard from two friends who were watching the same local news station
coverage of Clinton's speech last night here in New York.  They both saw the
same thing.  The satellite video feed was left on (audio off).  But, Clinton
thought the transmission was finished.

He had just ended by saying, "And, to do this is our moral obligation."

Then, he bugged out his eyes, twisted his face, threw down the script and
yelled "Christ" or "Shit" or . . .

There is no U.S.A.  There is no President.  There is only WORLD GOVERNMENT.

But, wait . . . there is hope.

Russia throws out the IMF (after taking the next loans).  China and Russia
form a massive economic development block (trading technology for
manufacturing capacity).  The Silk Road becomes the corridor for the world's
largest transportation infrastructure buildout (Central Asia booms).  The
Communists re-take control in Russia and the market-roaders flee or are
jailed.  WORLD GOVERNMENT has a problem.

As Napoleon and Hitler knew (just to speak of some recent Euro-Imperial
leaders), they had to look East.  

Towards the rising sun,

Mark Stahlman

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Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 20:17:55 -0800 (PST)
From: human being <schizo@sirius.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> The Internet Empire Strikes Back


>Welcome to WORLD GOVERNMENT.

 I've always thought that the critical error is in the
 non-representative governance in the United Nations;
 that is, instead of the public electing officials to
 serve as representative for their (nation-)state,
 the U.N. is instead occupied by government-appointed
 Ambassadors making it an oligarchy, or...

 Empire of World Government Bureaucrats (?)

 [been trying to get through to the NATO website but
 cannot get into the site yet: http://www.nato.int/ ]

 i have an architectural thesis in my brain entitled:
 the Architecture of the United Nations. it is an
 aesthetic evaluation of material culture - of those
 things, modern, which find their way into a culture
 who belongs to the U.N., that is, after "development"
 or during. my argument, based on Le Corbusier's use
 of "the Engineer's Aesthetic" to talk about the new
 architecture, is actually an analysis of "infra-
 structures" which represent the United Nations in
 built form. that is, looking at an artifact, and
 seeing in it the economic, social, and political
 dimensions of the (new) world order. that is, in
 general and specific infrastructures, most obvious
 is 'the Internet', but even earlier forms, such as
 'shipping containers', paved roads, street lights,
 gas stations, pipelines, oil wells, ships, airplanes,
 trains, .. in the categories of 'communications,
 energy and transportation'-- structures beneath
 the mundane everyday that reveal an internationalism,
 a structural connection in the material objects and
 assemblages in every (developed) nation (and beyond).
 a icon for this infrastructure may best be seen in
 the International Space Station. a crowning achieve-
 ment of these infrastructures coming together [along
 with the network of space-satellites ala McLuhan's
 view of the new order]..

 some jewerly proposals based on this idea are at:

 http://www.sirius.com/~schizo/proposals/aun/jewelry/jewelry_m.htm

 as well as some early ideas for clothing are at:

 http://www.sirius.com/~schizo/proposals/aun/clothes/clothes_m.htm


 what these attempt to tap is an international system of
 signs/signification of 'structures-beneath', or infra-
 structures which all countries have in common, such as
 utility workers, electrical grid, and on, and on.

 these ideas were taken from an origin in an idea of
 creating a non-profit 'internet/multimedia cafe' based
 upon these ideas about an international aesthetic, or
 architecture of the United Nations.

 the idea was this:

 artists/architects/poets would start up a collective cafe
 to be networked to other like-minded cafes. old technologies
 or donated technologies, or loaned equipment would be used in
 the early stages until the cafe breaks even and can pay for
 itself by giving classes. selling internet time.

 people would go to the cafe to use video-teleconferencing, to
 type papers, to browse online, to work on multimedia, to
 telecommute to work. the aesthetic would be one of re-use.
 artists would contribute to the cafe by making artwork for
 sale, such as cups, plaques, shirts, which promoted the
 international aesthetic (with an ideal for represenation
 of the public in a new international organization).

 all sales of this artwork would go back into the non-profit
 cafe.. some items may/would be manufactured and sold in order
 to pay employees a living wage and to pay for internet access
 and (hopefully software would be donated)..

 these cafes, when selling artists work, would then help to employ
 artists/architects/digital-craftspeople and a "pod" would be born
 and networked with all other pods via the network, electronic
 and otherwise.

 one of the advantages is to create a (non-profit based) artist,
 community center where skills can be shared and swapped, and
 minds can meet and meld in real-space, microspace, with micro-
 energies turning macroscopic, when, say, a local astrophysicist
 decides to give a 1 hour lecture on the nature of the universe,
 and highschool and elderly go to the cafe to hear the lecture.
 likewise, an elder might tell of how the world has changed, and
 a lecture/project might be started across age/interest boundaries,
 where artists/architects are working with the public, in intense
 collaboration [like the Third Wave past Future Shock] like a
 nuclear reaction, bringing maximum local power in the global world.

 it could function as a democratic institution, moreso than current
 government in that it is non-profit to start..

bc

 ________________________________________________
 a r c h i t e x t u r e z : an online community
 for hacking and cracking the architectural code
 www.sirius.com/~schizo/architexturez/main.htm
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