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<p class=MsoNormal>Hello all, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As Flusser severely challenged my formal style of writing a
few years ago, I’ll likely be speaking in a lively or anecdotal/episodic
voice this time around.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Capital/Labor/Net 2.0: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This has been a huge problem for me. Either I hae
missed this conversation, but I have always felt that Web 2.0 has been about
the most brilliant shell game of all. Getting the proletariat to pay the
provider to work for them. The capitalist builds the scaffold for the
users, like so many polyps to build their content-reef-attention ecology, from
which the capitalist reaps benefits and then (as in the case of Facebook)
double reaps by selling cute pets to fight with, gifts, etc. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This conceit fo empowerment as expropriation is especially
true in Second Life, ( I apologize, but it has been my primary locus of
research these past 3 years). “It’s your world” they say,
while only hinting at the fact that to build that world that they then charge
from, one has to pay to have land-space, and then if someone is talented, they
only then to not have to pay for the house that they paid for, etc etc
etc. Of course, the value is the extancy of community, that has also
bought the Ponzi scheme; not only of SL, but of the larger framework of Web
2.0.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Of course, one can cite the building of worlds, communities
as the affirmative version of Wark’s 3<sup>rd</sup> Nature of the Hacker
shooting forth from the vector of the industrialist, but without getting into the
other discussion on the TAZ, I would like to wonder about the subversive aspect
of the 3<sup>rd</sup> order ob abstraction. For example, Virtual worlds
tend towards the hunky, sexy avatars, and the gleaming cyberbungalow, but I
love a group called the Hobos. These are virtual worlders that exercise considerable
craft to create a parallel “free” FLOSS economy, and to exert high
craftsmanship to create favelas and shantytowns that cause their neighbors to
put up huge murals of meadows. This, to me, is the dialectical fruit of
human vs. technocratic utopia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>ATTENTION/LABOR/MULTITASK: <br>
I love this idea of monolithic frontal attention, because It has ceased to
exist in my classroom. It’s that I think that unless we act as
strict parents, the ontology of US students, especially in media arts, is so
multithreaded/multimodal that one has to at least acknowledge it, if not
directly address it. This is where I was going in my 98 essay “Speaking
the Multimedia Culture”, but this would eb much more thoroughly “multi”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This also reminds me of some of Trebor’s comments on
Constant Partial Attention Deficit. Perhaps this is not as much CPAD as a
necessary modality to the time (i.e. a rhizomatic discursive structure that
conflicts against the hegemonic monoattentional model). As I think about
D&G’s rhizomatic structure as template for resistance, I find that my
young have wholeheartedly accepted it, but simultaneously accept the oversight
of the corporation-provider while questioning the “expert” in terms
of that they think they should have, which then comes from the same rhizomatic
media structure they espouse. Perhaps that’s a bit circular, and I
may be drifting from preparing to go to the Arctic.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>WORK/ENTERTAINMENT<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>One thing I loathe is the axiom “at least you love
what you do”. This is the dream, isn’t it? That we can
deliriously work 24/7 with nary a care. And, in the aforementioned
models, we do it and pay the entrepreneur for doing it for them just for the
privilege of inclusion, or for novelty (my thought on MTurk), or even for the
illusion/hope of profit. The last is the “perpetual spec”
model where the practitioner is strung along in hopes of a future payoff.
Again, this is evident in SL, where people are told that if they spend the
money, put up the store, etc. whey will real great benefits, while doing
something they love. Taylorist entertainment seems to be the axiom of the
day, cloaked in the rhetoric of empowerment and inclusion. I do it; I
think it’s revolting, but I do it nonetheless.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What a great discussion. I apologize for being shorter
than usual; time for bed, and I just finished a piece for Version as well.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Patrick
Lichty</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>-
Interactive Arts & Media<br>
Columbia College, Chicago<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>-
Editor-In-Chief<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>
Intelligent Agent Magazine<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>http://www.intelligentagent.com<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'>225 288 5813<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'>FAX </span><span style='font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";
color:black'>312 344-8021</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'><a href="mailto:voyd@voyd.com"><span style='color:blue'>voyd@voyd.com</span></a></span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>"It
is better to die on your feet <br>
than to live on your knees." </span></b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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