<nettime> AFTER THE I-BOMB*

[Tom Sherman <twsherma@mailbox.syr.edu>]

AFTER THE I-BOMB*

There is a lot of anxiety about information overload, corporate control of
the news and the suffocating glut of commercial propaganda flooding the
expanding global technological infrastructure.  People seem to feel they
are coping for the time being, but fear they will be overwhelmed in the
near future, as networks increase the saturation of mediated images,
sounds, stories--the plethora of calculated manipulations.

The I-Bomb exploded sometime in the early 1990's, when computer networks
attained a certain critical speed and scale, flipping the gates wide open
to unleash a torrent of blinding, deafening electric code--a white-hot,
thunderous explosion of advertising, entertainment, voice and data.  We
must now negotiate a solid state of continuous, relentless input.  We are
the organic components of an integrated global data and information
system.

This media pressure now keeps us afloat, even as it blows right through us
at the speed of light.  Our existence, who we think we are and how other
people see us, is defined by the kind of shadow we cast.  We are exposed
by the increasingly violent light of the I-Bomb.  Like the moth and the
flame, we can't resist this light.  This fatal attraction to media keeps
us coming back for more.  We are gluttons for massive doses of symbolic
code.  When we close our eyes or turn off our info-appliances, we still
must mull over the afterimages, the disembodied voices, the imprinted
sonic rhythms.  We are eternally plugged in.  Our equilibrium is skewed,
buffeted by the force of the message storm.

While it is probably wise to wear welding goggles and earplugs in the face
of this assault, on the contrary huge numbers of individuals are wiring
their homes with high speed network connections, buying
industrial-strength information processors, setting up home theaters with
high definition screens and surround sound, pointing satellite dishes
towards the heavens, taking cell phones to bed with them at night.  The
symptoms of information addiction are not very subtle.

Most believe that survival depends on a managed exposure to information
overload.  If one survives an exposure to excessive levels of media
information, one develops a strong sense of media literacy.  This is bit
like developing a tolerance to an influenza virus by first falling ill,
then recovering.  By developing an immunity the hard way...

Interactivity is fundamental to becoming media literate, and is highly
recommended for counteracting the numbing effects of the I-Bomb.  
Literacy is not just the ability to sort out and digest media information,
it is also learning how and when to author messages, so one can spew one's
own messages back into the face of the torrent, and actually alter the
nature of the immediate media environment.  The danger with interactivity
is that such individual message sources are often targeted for response by
highly focused, industrial-strength, corporate media campaigns.  Filters
and shields are absolutely necessary, especially for those choosing to
refine their media literacy rapidly through interactivity.


Tom Sherman

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Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 11:50:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Sherman <twsherma@mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: <nettime> AFTERMATH
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net

AFTERMATH

The big rage these days is incoherence.  Or maybe it is better described
as a communications breakdown based on the huge gap between public and
private channels?  I am not talking about public and private sectors in
socio-economic terms.  I am referring to public and private communication
spheres in terms of relative exposure--the distribution of messages (one
to many, one to one, many to many, many to one).  There is a huge gap
between public and private spheres and this gap is causing an implosion of
coherence and comprehension.  *I have this feeling that the information
bomb we are all worried about has already been dropped, in the early
1990's, and that we are witnessing the aftermath.

People are alienated from the mainstream, finding they are not represented
by the proliferation of industrial television, radio and print media,
while they are simultaneously given license to expand the territory of
their private lives through wireless telephony, desktop publishing, home
video, digital multimedia and internet and web-based telecommunications.  
Having spread themselves far too thin in these personal communications
media--having revealed way too much private information for their own
good--people realize they are overexposed, exhausted, out of material and
facing the abyss between private and public media spheres.  Finding their
personal information reserves on empty, yet realizing they are still
largely unrecognized or undervalued by others, the only clear way to
bridge the gap is through acts of violence, figurative or concrete.  
Symbolic or physical destructive action cuts to the bone in a stifling,
discontinuous, inanely superficial universe of symbols, signals and noise.

There is such confusion at the microphone, keyboard or in front of the
camera.  Opportunities for meaningful public communication are squandered
by people talking endlessly about themselves.  Private communication,
paradox that it has always been, is now used as a soap box for amateur
politicians--or just as commonly for the diatribe--the spew of personal
venom:  look and listen to me, my tongue distributes acidic barbs...no
person, no thing can deny that I exist, especially if I aggravate, offend
or hurt them.  After multiple transmissions of poison, the diatribist is
eventually buried by noise or moderated or shut off by a gatekeeper or a
switching mechanism.

But ah, there are the positive gestures.  There are many promoting beauty
and intelligence in the void.  The wild flowers of the telematic weedbed
exist to spread elegance and generousity and love.  They act out their
instinct to decorate the barren fiber optic tunnels with bright colours
and blinking signs and otherwise dazzling design innovations and to
provide and manipulate content worthy of experience.  Already there are
lists of classic network artworks.  Most realize the futility of trying to
produce evergreen information in a junk culture, and thus the popularity
of tweaking (appropriating) or filtering.  They transform or filter the
economy of abundance (the crap) and provide moments of clarity and order.  
And they too are billed for their time on-line, just like everybody else,
for the privilege of inhabiting an artificial, inhospitable telematic
space on a planet running out of clean air, water, biodiversity, food,
silence, civility...  The information bomb was dropped in the early
1990's.  It created the space and time we needed to develop our profound
incoherence.  Just as deregulation has facilitated reformed monopolies, we
now have a comprehensive incoherence in the name of cultural diversity.


Tom Sherman

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Nerve Theory   http://www.allquiet.org/

-----

Syracuse University
Department of Art Media Studies
102 Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse, New York 13244-1210
USA

tel) 315-443-1033
fax) 315-443-1303


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