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Memesis statement
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To: memesis@AEC.at
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Subject: Memesis statement
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From: stahl <stahl@khm.de>
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Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 18:49:54 +0200
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Sender: owner-memesis
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· · · · · · A E C F O R U M - "M E M E S I S" · · · · ·
· · · · · · · (http://www.aec.at/meme/symp/) · · · · · ·
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#Fleshing the meme#
towards the freak_mutante
by Stahl Stenslie
- the Cyberbody ... a set of poetic constructions...
At present, cyberbodies are temporary constructions of greater or lesser
interest within the context of the narrow bandwidth of Net worlds. Their
effect on the real person --as a sort of Lacanian mirrors--is
psychologically interesting, but remains within the limits of similar,
mimetic "Barbie and Ken" play situations. In todays´ prosthetic
cyberculture, there is great disparity between the amount of "memetic"-
obscuring presumptions about toy bodies and actual, sensually physical
in _cyberbody_experience. Bridging the gap between the real and the
digital seems to be of interest to the councils of the electronic art
community, *but why not extend this concept* and give the memetically
infected cyberbody a connection to the real world and fundamentally
distort, mutate and dissolve reality outside of traditional, digital
realms?
The Net body is both virtual identity and digital double, it is an impotent
icon of imaginary construction. The only membranes to carnal reality are
the pixels dancing off cathode ray tubes, and the only sense of RL are
ASCII signs. But beware. The body of the future will merge with the
flesh, giving its descendant cyberbody constructions access to deadly
reality
Through sensoric interfaces connecting thought with experience, the body of
the net promises to become a sensing creature, enabled to link digital and
corporal reality. It will be freak_mutant, bio-cybernetic constructions
outside of absolute control. This will be no prosthetic cyborg device
serving pleasure principles, but rather a craving creature, living as
--and between--the real and cybernetic body. An art-ificial life construct
enabled to sense and feel.
The body can already be wired
<href=http://www.khm.de/~mem_brane/Stahl/wirbody.html>,
now it is time to skin the Code, memetically infect it, and mate it with
the gene of the human.
And? Just a dream of the artificially intelligent human? Or, of the human
living artificially? All-Things-Coded are artificial constructs, and
likewise, their
intelligence. Coded life, artificial identity and personality: a matter
of construction? What are they except references to references?
- Art-ificial life ... or, mating with humans to change the species.
Under the presence of code, memes will fornicate under human skin, and the
species will adapt through assimilation, re-creating itself by mutating
into a trans-species as freak_mutante. And what is there to be afraid of?
Because the nature of the beast is bizarre and monstrous, alien and
terrifying?
The body of the future: a body without limits? An angelic plaything
enabled and distributed by a global cyberorganism, by the omnipotent code
that incorporates disparate, multiple personalities? Is the cyberbody a
switchboard of souls? Or, a body without reference, without identity,
haunted by parasitic cyber-spirits trekking the non-located junctions of
the Net?
The cyberbody--the personification and carrier of identity in
cyberspace--has a factual status as a subordinate and fictional construct
to real life, the corporeal I.D.. Although these fictional body extensions
can designate feelings of identity for a certain period of time, there is
no such thing as a digital surrogate for real-life, for real-in-body
experiences. And why should there be? And then again, why not?
At present, digital art and electronic communities surf between poles of
shiny, hippie ideals, cool technology, green values and politically correct
attitudes. They are too busy surfing digital reality to reconnect to the
substance of life: the body. The Web is full of intentions, but where
can one feel the essential, hard core experience? Why shouldn't the memes
and digital metaphors boot up the body in ecstasy? Would they if they
could?
- Being as a phenomenon of corporeal reality - a highly sense-URL presence
Being in a reality composed of communicated hallucinations and schizoid
constructions is dirty and difficult. Escapism comes in the disguise of
perfected avatars and imaginary net-constructs that--behind their make-up
of poetic ASCII and static, pre-defined imagery--only scratch the surface
of sens-URL desire. Disguised in delicatly coded flesh, delighting in the
difficult, complex, dark challenge of charged hominid emotions should be a
matter of course. To experience the primal scream of digispace. Only a
few interface products give bodies in cyberspace the technical ability to
feel. And, without a complex sensory and effectuator (stimulative)
technology wiring the body to the global sensing organs of the
New-Dimension, the Net will face a future as a relic, the biggest
Hard-Disk_Telephone System ever built.
At present, the cyberbody's existential quality can be viewed only as the
users uploaded and controlled projection of identity and qualities. The
body of the future, the freak_mutante, will add a subtle yet radical
dimension to the symbiosis of human/cyberbody/artificial intelligence.
Through interface technologies now appearing, will the freak_mutante soon
use the
human component as its sensory organs?
The human will lend the cyberorganism its eyes, ears, brains and fingers.
The body of the future: a re-combinant of consensual hallucinations,
memetic engineering, networked flesh and shared dispositions. A corpus of
factual liquid personalities and the cause of alternate (schizoid)
perceptions . It will be an up, and downloadable, distributable, editable,
mutatable multiple manifestation of the self, working in full duplex
sensory mode. Implicitly, through its autonomy, it will also soon exceed
personal control. Not that mankind was ever in control of itself: too
many hormones, too much heritage, too extreme environment, too often
mudding.
Face it, the body now hosts digital parasites. And, prolonged by the
wire, the human has entered the domain of interference. Distortions have
become part of reality, but with the net as source and the body as compiled
code the interface between the artificial and the real world will be
activated. Say "good-bye human" in the digital age: the freak_mutant will
transcend the tool-using ape through unification with the executing code.
What was human, anyway? Have mortal beings already existed too long under
cyborgian conditions to really know?
________________________________________________________
Stahl Stenslie
Tel/Fax: Germany +49 221 52 93 39 *NEW!*
Norway: +47 905 62 963 (27.05 - 23th of June 96)
e-mail: stahl@khm.de
mem_brane: http://www.khm.de/~mem_brane
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