[iDC] interesting article on new media scene in LA

[Murphy]

A few thoughts on being mean to SoCal:

I always thought Barbrook's "California ideology" was unfair to 
California (and the US in general) but that it was accurate for Wired 
magazine and those who wrote for it. My response was  "chill, dude" 
because Americans don't take mass publications as seriously as European 
Marxists. Having worked in magazine publishing and production I saw 
Wired as an incredibly produced promotional book that was great fun to 
look at and attempt to read but wasn't very influential because 
Americans don't read anymore. If they do they're not getting their 
information from Wired. Now it's owned by Conde Nast because it was 
always a Conde Nast sort of publication. It was the nerd Vogue. Great 
layout and occasionally great writing because text is cheaper than 
image in a magazine.

The University of California system is a marvel of American education 
that all of us should be proud of. Instead, Reagan tried to destroy it 
when he was gov. while waving the flag. That's schizophrenic America in 
a nutshell.

There really is no other place in the US where so many industries 
interested in new media converge (and throw in agribusiness while we're 
at it). I don't think of them as evil per se. There is a sort of 
fascist element to it, though with a Disney facade.

I was joking when I called the New Yorkers who went to SoCal to teach 
as "riff-raff" because I'm friends with some of them. OTOH, I've 
decided Lev Manovich just may be the devil. He is the primary proponent 
of the non art historical view of new media and I can't excuse him for 
that.

The Thing has operatives at UCSD so we're just as much to blame for 
what's happening there as anybody else.

{smiley face}


Robbin Murphy
The Thing, Inc.
c/o Death Star
New York, NY
murphy at thing.net
http://post.thing.net