Hello, Lots of discussion on Netbehaviour, time to say hi. It looks like DIWO at the Dark Mountain has definitely managed to bring people together to collaborate. There are a few things of the discussion that I'd like to comment on.
ABOUT UTOPIA Simon Biggs: "I'd rather live in a fucked up world that in somebody else's utopia. What often fucks us up is other people's solutions." Instead of dismissing the utopian impulse altogether I still find more interesting the idea of utopia as a driving force, as the possibility of imagining the alternative, and as a pre-requisite of bringing it into being. But Utopia should not anymore be considered as a master plan or totalising idea, but rather as the possibility of multiple Others to what we have now, that can be inspiring for our lives today. Many authors have written of the colonisation of the future by capital. Frederic Jameson talks about the discourse of progress as "an attempt to colonize the future, to draw the unforeseeable back into tangible realities in which one can invest..." Then discussing Tafuri and Cacciari (Frankfurt School) Jameson goes on to say: "It is thus not merely to deprive the future of its explosiveness that is wanted, but also to annex the future as a new area for investment and for colonisation by capitalism". Our role as participants in this world is to regain the power of future as disruption. Now, I completely agree with Edward Picot in that "Principles are one thing, but implementation is another." So a great deal of modesty is important to balance the words above and that's why I tend to define my work as mini-interventions, mini-troops... ABOUT BEING CIVILISED I would not entirely agree with Michael on 'I don't accept that one should moderate one's opinions'. Definitely this is not about censuring each other but it is about collaboration, and in as much as the main goal is to establish creative links among us I think we need to deal with each other with great respect. Of course criticism is important, and it's been proved these days that the most critical voices have sparked discussion. I think, however, that if we get to the point that each of the words is scrutinised to such an extent, one - at least I do - starts feeling like she needs to be extremely careful. I don't find that particularly helpful when it comes to creativity. AN IDEA... I thought I might be able to bring here some of my personal explorations of the potential of fiction to intervene reality. I would like to build this fictional world, parallel universe, (im)possible future of a solar powered (un)civilisation. Like others on this list, I also feel uncomfortable with the word uncivilisation. My plan is to focus on the leaks of that fictional world to see how they might affect our reality. I wanted to start by deploying a small troop of solar bugs... they are small and highly contagious. Perhaps even capable of effecting a genetic mutation in humans that will allow us to extract energy from the sun... -- Olga P Massanet -------------------------- www.ungravitational.net virtualfirefly.wordpress.com www.vimeo.com/ungravitational _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
