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RE: INFOWAR: information is shit
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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 98
INFOWAR. information.macht.krieg
Linz, Austria, september 07 - 12
http://www.aec.at/infowar
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Hi Shafer, you wrote:
>Because something is of no use to the observer it is useless. The
>observer calls it pollution, excess, shit and wishes it was gone. But
>if it were removed and suddenly the observer needed or wanted that
>information what was once useless becomes useful and waste becomes gold.
While I would agree with you that my argument is problematic in that I am
clearly making some broad generalizations about what is shit and what is
not, I would have to say that this doesn't necessarily imply that I wish
all the shit to disappear; a world without shit is an impossible world.
Indeed, making the shit useful in some way would probably be the POINT of
recognizing that it IS shit, and that is of course the strategy of many
counter-cultural media artists, both contemporary and past, and of certain
sectors of industry. I must say, however, that your example of gasoline as
waste turned into gold is particularly problematic, considering the waste
products of gasoline-run engines, the air pollution and the damage to the
ozone layer. really, doesn't this only serve to demonstrate my point more
clearly? Simply, that waste will always be produced; almost as if there is
a WILL-TO-WASTE that functions over and above and in spite of any will to
produce or use.
Similarly, while it is always easy to counter a statement of opinion like
mine with relativism (i.e., one person's shit is another's gold), I tend to
feel that a critical attitude towards the widespread metanarratives of
informational proliferation and progress, and the speed with which this is
effected, is ultimately more useful than waiting for shit to turn into
gold. Yeh?
cheers,
Grayson
Grayson Cooke
gcooke@alcor.concordia.ca
(514) 937-5101
Humanities Doctoral Programme
Concordia University
Montreal
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