[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...

[Dan Sheetz <dan@goodfoodpro.com>]

The comparison between digital networks and the toilet networks seems quite
apt (some people refer to broadband connectivity as "big pipes").  Some
claim that the greatest invention in the history of humankind is the
organized sewage system.  Think of how badly Europe must have smelled in the
middle ages.  People just opened the window and dumped their chamber pots
out the window.  The horror!  If you've ever been in New York City on
garbage day, you know how stinky it can be with all the garbage piled up on
the curbs.  Imagine this as human waste.  Ouch.  I think it's safe to say
that modern urban life could not exist without flushable toilets.

The global network that we've built in the past 20 years or so may have an
equally profound effect on what it's like to be a human on Earth.  100 years
down the road, people with money may say "can you imagine... no network.
They just put stuff in boxes and sent it around the world!  The horror!".
Then again, people in "developing" nations might still be saying "finally, a
flushable toilet!".

Here's hoping that the future we are forging now will spread more evenly
than Gibson's.  Our ability to foster an equitable distribution of resources
is about 5 centuries behind our digital technology.  So much so, in fact,
that people are learning to look at the structure of network technology,
with it's packets and nodes and redundancy schemes, as a model for new
economic structures.  What phase of development are we in where the only
thing that shows us the way to justice is the shape of our own artifice?

Anyways, toilets were a big deal.  The digital network is a big deal.  The
toilet taught us nothing about sharing.  Hopefully the network will.

Dan Sheetz


> From: tripDixon && <trw34x@hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: tripDixon && <trw34x@hotmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:20:24 -0500
> To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
> Subject: Re: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...
> 
> pDmakadjstsk:
> 
> nice one. I think the toilet network is actually an appropriate metaphor for
> a discussion between comprension of network systems, especially analogue
> versus digital::: most of us seem to just piss ideas out into the internet
> network in a method of textual and image-based expulsion::: ((even if there
> are others who constantly hold on to the idea of pre-conceived
> expression))::
> 
> in the use of the word compact, i was actually reading it as a form of
> simplifcation and reduction, and not only as miniaturisation. i see your
> point here::  the functionality of bigass analogue beauties (such as old
> skool telephones) has completely been superseded by tiny tech (like asian
> developed credit card sized cel phones that can control the appliances in
> your apartment). nations like malaysia have probably saved billions in
> restructuring costs (including nature) so that they get to skip a bit of
> heartache in tech-development and jump into the middle of
> tech-world-for-everyone. I'd like to know how this effects regional
> cultures.  whew.
> 
> I was in Laos last year, staying in a villiage that had been "fortunate"
> enough to have had electricity installed 3 years previous.  florescent
> lights for most shops and restaurants, and of course an internet cafe....
> forget radio and TV: these people just jumped a few decades into a western
> present. again:: Gibson's "unevenly distributed future..."
> 
> another consideration for you:: if punk music is still considered to be the
> place where analogue music could end and become as raw is it can get:: does
> the digital end rest in the fingertips of an "unlearned" kid scribbling with
> a mouse to skool john cage and merzbow at the same time? discard the
> physicality of pianos, guitars and vinyal and we might realise that the
> history of music really has been miniaturised to a pocket watch that
> composes newavantegardepostpop music....
> 
> and thanx for the soundtoys.net: but i'm already in there...
> 
> 
> ------<[[[o}))}]]++-- - --- <<-((o)|||----------
> 
> tripDixon
> 
> 
> &&&&+++++ http://www.mp3.com/tripdixon <<<<<<ooooooo
> 
> 
> 
>> From: "Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@earthlink.net>
>> To: "tripDixon &&" <trw34x@hotmail.com>, "nettime-l@bbs.thing.net"
>> <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
>> Subject: Re: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...
>> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 00:28:33 -0500
>> 
>> Hey "Trip" - okay. I'll respond to your two observations separately:
> 
> #  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> #  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> #  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
> 

_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold