<nettime> FW: NOISE NEWS:PERFORATIONS 21

[John Armitage <john.armitage@unn.ac.uk>]

Cyber Society - http://www.unn.ac.uk/cybersociety

Date:  Aug 26 1999 03:41:22 EDT  
From:  John Armitage <john.armitage@unn.ac.uk>  
Subject:  FW: NOISE news :: perforations 21  

-----Original Message-----
From: robert cheatham [mailto:zeug@noel.pd.org] 
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 12:12 AM
To: noise@noel.pd.org
Subject: NOISE news :: perforations 21 


                 @@@@ @@@  @@@@@@@@  @@@  @@@@@@@   @@@@@@@@
                 @@!@!@@@  @@!  @@@  @@!  !@@       @@!
                 !@!!@!@!  !@!  @!@  !@!  !@!       !@!
                 @!@ !!@!  @!@  !@!  !!@  !!@@!!    @!!!:!
                 !@!  !!!  !@!  !!!  !!!   !!@!!!   !!!!!:
                 !!:  !!!  !!:  !!!  !!:       !:!  !!:
                 :!:  !:!  :!:  !:!  :!:      !:!   :!:
                  ::   ::  ::::: ::   ::  :::: ::    :: ::::
                  ::    :    : :  :   :    :: : :    : :: ::

             "The bit of noise, the small random element, transforms
                  one system or one order into another."
                                       M. Serres
             "Between the rationality for which the analysis speaks and
                   the law that history repeats there remains a gap,
                            infinitesimal to be sure,
                                 but fundamental"
                                       M. De Certeau

             ----------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to NOISE NEWS, a notification publication of PERFORATIONS
and Public Domain, Inc. a non-profit organization devoted to examinations
of the crossing points of art, theory, technology and community. (see
http://www.pd.org)
                        ***       ***     ***

The inital public offering of Perforations 20, LAST STORIES, is now
available: http://http://www.pd.org/perforations/perf-topics.html
Material by Thomas Mical, Ginger Dendy, Joseph Nechvetal, Robert M. Smith, 
Amerigo Marras, and Robert Cheatham.

                        ***       ***     *** 
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: PERFORATIONS 21

                   EUROCENTRISM AND THE DILEMMA OF DEEP TIME

              contact:    John Chenault / g.chenault@att.net
                          Robert Cheatham / zeug@pd.org

All types of media will be considered, but especially approaches which
explore new relations between content and form. Each issue of PERFORATIONS
(we now call them 'nodes' since each thematic is an ongoing site of
investigation/creativity) includes straighforward articles as well as
artistic web projects.  Deadlines are fluid. Contact above editors for
more information. 


If we begin with the notion that all history is European we are led to
conclude that the colonialization of the Past provides the essential
mechanisms, methods, and madness to conquer, subjugate, and dominate the
Future. Artificial as the paradox of Time may be (within the context of
the dreamtime/dreamstate), it is still quite operable in the so-called
realm of reality/materiality. Consequently, the giant European Ego
Project, which is a culturally-based immortality project (as opposed to
our own individual egoist self-preservation impulses and ambitions), is
driven by its inherent (dna/rna/genetic/behavioral/biologic/psychologic) 
need to appropriate Other, redefine Other, or eliminate Other in order to
avoid confrontation with Other which could ultimately lead to its
(Europe's) devaluation, deflation, demise, destruction, deconstruction,
decease. Therefore, cultural hegemony and world mastery via a New World
Order (which is merely the Judeo-Christian settler-colonialist
monotheistic complex modified by a pseudo free market ideology glossed
over with techo-geek run-amok capitalism in millennial drag)  are the
Darwinian imperatives of European survival. In this case "fittest"  or
"fitness" is not the issue. Fitness doesn't matter anymore. Since Europe
has successfully cannibalized the rest of human cultural and technology in
order to manage and sustain its "great leap forward" the Darwinian rules
no longer apply.

The new paradigm is INNOVATION. Innovation has replaced Evolution. Perhaps
this shift occurred with the INVENTION of the silicon chip. I don't know.
All I know is that yesterday I heard on the news that scientists are
growing "stem cells" in the lab, and that these cells are the basic
building blocks of organs, building blocks normally created during the
embryonic stage of development, building blocks that ultimately would
replace the need for organ transplants, building blocks of immortality? 
Check out the word INN Ovation. In Ova. In the egg. In the egg of time, in
the egg of humanity, in the egg. It is in the egg where mutation takes
place. Mutation is the driving force of evolution as those little
accidents(?) of replication occur in amino acid sequences which result in
genetic and phenotypic changes. As innOVAtion replaces evolution Deep Time
ceases to pose a problem for the European immortality project. We can
anticipate a complete break with the Past, a complete disavowal that it
ever existed. The past and history will cease to exist, as Fukayama and
Hegel would have it, but not because of imperialism aloneQimperialism
combined with alchemy. What used to be the province of the seer, the
master magician, skills that took determined individuals a lifetime of
devotion, sacrifice, and selfless commitment to achieve, now reside within
the hands of ruthless institutions. Yet beneath all this Brave New World
optimism still lies the possiblity inherent in the myth of Pandora. When
you open the box (crack the genetic code) you release upon the world
demons, ogres, and monstersQthe gatekeepers of paradise, the mad dogs of
heaven, killer angels who take no prisoners.


Requested: Origins, true and false; temporal strategies; escape routes and
           hidey holes; compensations; maps and ontological GPS locators;
           identity papers and pins;  anachronisms; proleptic  
           prognostications; pyramid texts from the future; 
           silicon prophesies from the past; Deep Blue Sciences and
           pink scientificities.
                       We need'm, we want'm, we'll have'm. 



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