Item 113 02-NOV-92 12:00 Joe Matuzak
Cultures in CyberspaceHello all!
As Anna mentioned previously, Arts Wire is one of five systems
participating in the Cultures in Cyberspace virtual panel, which
begins today! This discussion will be fed to other systems, and
their discussions here, so I hope everyone will see this as a way
of making new connections, opening new avenues for discussion,
and getting a feel for just how this technology can be used.
I thought a good start might be to post a bit of the press release
which went out describing what the panel's about, which we can use
as a starting point for discussion (or not). Pick one of the issues
raised here, or begin your own.
This IS a panel which lasts only for a little while, so please
jump right in, and let's get a buzz going!
------------------------------------------------
You are invited to participate in...
Cultures in Cyberspace, a virtual panel on the development and
impact of artistic and cultural activity on computer networks.
Cultures in Cyberspace is organized on the occasion of Third
International Symposium on Electronic Art (TISEA), held in
Sydney, Australia, Nov 9-13, 1992.
Cultures in Cyberspace proposes to discuss and address:
* creative expression and cultural identity online
* access to cyberspace for artists and the public
* the impact of cyberspace on distinct cultural groups,
and vice versa.
You are encouraged to add to this list!
Cultures in Cyberspace is an open participation panel
taking place in and among 5 online communities:
American Indian Telecommunication/Dakota BBS (USA)
ArtsNet (Pegasus, Australia)
Arts Wire (The Meta Net, USA)
USENET (International)
The WELL (USA)
Your responses to this discussion will be distributed via USENET
to all other sites. By participating in this panel, you hereby
grant permission for your words to be electronically redistributed
to other panel sites.
Cultures in Cyberspace is organized by Anna Couey in collaboration
with George Baldwin, Phillip Bannigan, Anne Fallis, Sue Harris,
Judy Malloy, Joe Matuzak, John S. Quarterman, Randy Ross, and
Eric S. Theise.
------------------------------------------------
Background
Computer networks provide access to an internationally linked
electronic communications territory -- cyberspace. In cyberspace,
communities form out of interest and choice, more than geography.
As with multi-national corporations, computer networks are
drawing new lines of social organization.
In contrast to the telephone or television, computer networks
are a many-to-many communications medium -- the virtual communities
that inhabit them exist through active participation amongst
their members. This technology would seem to incur a new social
order -- one based on reciprocity and interaction, rather than
imperialist domination.
The catch is that computer networks are not accessible to
everyone. Cyberspace is being colonized primarily by countries
with access to a high level of technology; and within those
countries, largely by the current power elite. At the same time,
historically and now there is significant and effective
international grassroots computer networking constituency, as well
as public and local access BBS', at least in the U.S.
What is culture in cyberspace? In Australia, Canada, the U.S., and
parts of Europe, some artists have gained access to computer networks
and are using them to make and distribute art. Those working in a
Euro-American artistic
distinct cultures, and provide another source of income for tribal
communities. In many 3rd world countries where poverty is high, and
computers and phone lines are rare, networking projects are generally
operated by non-governmental organizations or educational
institutions, and tend to focus on economic or social development,
not cultural preservation or participation.
How will cybercultures evolve? Is it important for cultural
participation in cyberspace? And if so, how can and is equitable
access made available to all cultural groups? What will happen to
cultural groups that remain offline? Will cultural groups that do
access cyberspace lose their distinct identities through a process
of interaction? And, if so, is such an occurrence cultural evolution
or homogenization?31 Discussion responses
113:1) Anne Focke 05-NOV-92 20:33
Hey Joe. It's great to have this information. I'll follow the action
closely and will participate whenever I can.
Is it just me, or is there a gap in your text in the next to the last
paragraph? The sentence now reads: Those working in a Euro-American
artistic
distinct cultures, and .....
- - - - -
113:2) Sarah Lutman 07-NOV-92 20:12
I can't find any discussion items on this topic on Artswire. Are we
silent, am I looking at the wrong place, OR hasn't it started yet? Does
anybody know?
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113:3) Eric S. Theise 08-NOV-92 0:21
Looks like we're silent so far. I'm running the topic on The WELL
along with Judy Malloy, and there's been a reasonable amount of
activity there. I was planning to stay in the background here.
There were a few glitches in the planning stages of this virtual
panel. Most notably, the USENET group alt.isea, which was going
to be the main trunk line over which the various discussions
were to be cross-posted, was not created by the Australians
according to specs, so uunet doesn't want to carry the group. An
alternative mailing list structure has been put into place, but
no one has sent anything over it yet. Yikes! When I leave here,
I'm going to post a few things on The WELL and then fire off
the first few days postings. Hopefully we'll see those here in
a day or two.
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113:4) Sarah Lutman 08-NOV-92 9:20
THanks Eric! I've been meaning to sign up for the Well so maybe now's my
golden opportunity.
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113:5) Eric S. Theise 08-NOV-92 21:36
Sarah, don't spread yourself too thin around Cyberspace ...
you may end up being online more than off! I'm hoping the
discussion around here will pick up next week. I did post
The WELL discussion to the nets last night, so maybe we'll
see it here soon. I'm looking forward to the American Indian
Telecom stuff, myself ...
- - - - -
113:6) Sarah Lutman 08-NOV-92 23:11
Eric -- I am worried about spreading myself too thin, but thin, I DON'T
WANT TO MISS IT EITHER. Friends on the Well have told me there's quite a
bit there --I'll try to be patient!
- - - - -
113:7) Joe Matuzak 09-NOV-92 14:08
It will be interesting to me to see just how a discussion
develops here, since we've not really directly grappled much with
these issues, although they've been in the background of a lot of
the theory while Arts Wire was being formulated.
Lisa Cooley and I, for example, have been hemming and hawing
about just how an online poetry slam could be set up and
organized. One of the attractive things about live slams is the
spontaneous and arbitrary nature of them, as well as the
performance aspect. I can easily see how Cyberspace can deal
with the spontaneousness of reactions, though it would be spaced
over a longer period of time, but the performance aspect would be
lost. On the other hand, a text-based medium *does* present
other options which are unique. When I was running a bbs several
years ago, the system I used had very interesting screen
manipulation commands, so that a user could upload a message
which caused a reader's screen to display moving text, changes in
color, pauses, screen blanking, cursor manipulation to move to
various parts of the screen and display text, and so on. People
would use this to tell stories, activate poems, etc. (It was
also used just to generally annoy the heck out of people, which
is another issue entirely.) Has anyone seen an online poetry slam
anywhere, or can they offer possibilities or suggestions?
.
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113:8) jan zita grover 09-NOV-92 21:38
The history of most modern technologies begins with their
being harnessed and used by people with political/economic
power. What those technologies' uses can be when they
become affordable to huge bases of people is often undreamed
of when they're first developed--witness photography, which
was originally used to emulate European landscape painting
and formal portraiture and ended up chronicling the tiniest
scraps and bits of everyday experience as well as the
nightmare tableaux of Nazi concentration camps, the Vietnam
War, Saravejo, Somalia . . . Right now the technical knowledge
and equipment required to run a Bts BBS and other online
forms that are primarily concerned with contents
unpreoccupied with the technological medium that carries
them. The medium has to become relatively transparent
before people can *choose* whether or not to reflect on it,
respond to it, manipulate it.
Of course, even when that happens for *some* of us, it won't
happen for all of us: again, analogies to other media may be
useful here (I'm trying to avoid falling into the chasm of
arguing *wholly* by analogy: too neat and too false)--video
had to reach a certain stage before the choice of high-
tech/low-tech could become an aesthetic choice, a political
choice; before the Diana camera (plastic lens, low resolution)
and the Hasselblad became meaningful choices. When modular
software/firmware/hardware for telecom becomes really
cheap, when net interfaces become relatively seamless, only
then will we find out what kind(s) of culture can thrive in
cyhe ether, to be returned
hours later by Maxwell's daemon. . . I can almost hear myself
20 years hence, bewailing that time, now gilded by memory,
when tiny private systems, morticed together, constituted
the Net. That time will seem retrospectively to have been the
height of both individual and collectivist practice in
cyberspace, superceded over the past 20 years by the steady
consolidation of one micronet after another under the aegis
of, e.g., AT&T, the USPO, the German post office, Merrill
Lynch, Nippon Kogaku . . .
- - - - -
113:9) jan zita grover 09-NOV-92 21:40
Aaauuugh! This reads like the ravings of a madwoman, but I guarantee it
sounded lucid when I composed it offline: something got lost in the
(straight text) transmission. Back to the drawing board. Please pardon me
if it shows up another time, but I'd rather be hung for a (lucid) sheep
than a (raving) goat . . .
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113:10) jan zita grover 09-NOV-92 21:51
The history of most modern technologies begins with their being
harnessed and used by people with political/economic power. What
those technologies' uses can be when they become affordable to
huge bases of people is often undreamed of when they're first
developed--witness photography, which was originally used to
emulate European landscape painting and formal portraiture and
ended up chronicling the tiniest scraps and bits of everyday
experience as well as the nightmare tableaux of Nazi
concentration camps, the Vietnam War, Saravejo, Somalia . . .
Right now the technical knowledge and equipment required to run
a BBS are comparable, e.g., to what it took to build and use a
crystal set in 1916 or a camera in 1880. It won't be until the
software, the PC/workstation, the net interfaces and
telecommunications are at levels comparable to, say, photography
and radio in the late 1920s that we'll begin to get grassroots
BBS and other online forms that are primarily concerned with
contents unpreoccupied with the technological medium that
carries them. The medium has to become relatively transparent
before people can *choose* whether or not to reflect on it,
respond to it, manipulate it.
an aesthetic choice, a political choice;
before the Diana camera (plastic lens, low resolution) and the
Hasselblad could become meaningful choices. When modular
software/firmware/hardware for telecom become really cheap vis a
vis other communications media, when net interfaces become
relatively seamless, only then will we find out what kind(s) of
culture can thrive in cyberspace.
OTOH, there will be those who mourn those good old frontier days
when the values and practices of cyberspace were largely
unwritten, enforced mostly by peer pressure; when no two systems
dovetailed; when mail went sliding off into the ether, to be
returned hours later by Maxwell's daemon. . . I can almost hear
myself 20 years hence, bewailing that time, now gilded by
memory, when tiny private systems, morticed together,
constituted the Net. That time will seem retrospectively to have
been the height of both individual and collectivist practice in
cyberspace, superceded over the past 20 years by the steady
consolidation of one micronet after another under the aegis of,
e.g., AT&T, the USPO, the German post office, Merrill Lynch,
Nippon Kogaku. . . As Raymond Williams wisely noted, "The golden
age of the organic community is always already gone."
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113:11) Eric S. Theise 09-NOV-92 21:58
Put that woman in the poetry slam!
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113:12) Eric S. Theise 09-NOV-92 22:09
Joe, I must confess that I've never been to a poetry slam even
though I grew up in Chicago where the genre apparently started.
(Sunday afternoons at the Green Mill!) There is a service on
the Internet called Internet Relay Chat. Basically, anyone
with Internet access can telnet to a particular site where they
will find 'channels' devoted to various topics. In this way
it's like a conferencing system. But all the chatting is done
in real time, and none of it is kept or stored anywhere. There
can be many participants, each chatting (or spewing) one line
at a time.
These systems have a reputation for being pretty rambunctuous;
either you love them or you hate them. I haven't used one
myself (don't want to spread yourself too thin, etc.), but
we're installing the client software where I teach and I'll
let you know how that goes. Some people find them so
addicting that there's a USENET newsgroup called alt.irc.recovery
in addition to the regular alt.irc group.
IRC might be a good place for a haiku slam because it's one
line at a time. Pretty hard to do real-time cursor and color
manipulation.
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113:13) Sarah Lutman 09-NOV-92 22:38
I'll read this off-line and be back. Good to see something here -- by the
way, what does a poetry slam look like?
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113:14) Joe Matuzak 10-NOV-92 9:17
Sarah --
There are different versions of it, but essentially what you
have is a competition, where poets get up and read/perform work in
quick succession, and are rated by a group of judges. Those scoring
highest continue on to the second round, and so on, until a winner
is decided, who usually receives some intentionally token prize.
Sort of a poetry "gong show", I know a fair number of poets who are
offended by the whole thing, others who would do nothing else, and
an split among audience members as well, although most enjoy the
theater of the slam. Obviously, this format tends to reward
raucous, interactive, highly performed work more than your basic
introspective musings. Part of its attraction is its very
spectacle, part of it the way judged are shamelessly influenced by
audience reaction (and/or bribes), part of it the particular type
of poet/poetry who tends to enjoy a slam. It's usually not
immortal, timeless, etc., but it's definitely hyperactive and live.
Eric & Jan, thanks for the contributions -- I'll read them a bit
closer and respond a little later.
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113:15) Cee Brown 10-NOV-92 11:29
Y'all are too much. Can't wait to slam off line!
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113:16) Curt Huddleston 10-NOV-92 14:38
Jan`s discussion raises some interesting questions for me, pertaining to
the kinds of culture which have emerged on a text-based conferencing
system. As an extension to your observations, I wonder what effect the
visual dimension will have on `virtual communities`, as increased
bandwidth, and more sophisticated technologies bring video conferencing in
ubiquitous use.
Will we see a video-based alternative develop, alongside the text-based
systems? I donUt think that text based systems will disappear. (Much as
television has not replaced radio)
Much ado (necessary) is made of the need to practice nettiquette because of
the absence of visual nuances which usually place our verbal communications
in context. I find a welcome rigor in participating in text-based
conferencing.
Strange to me, as a visual artist that I embrace a non-visual communication
format, yet in this observation I recognize in text-based communication, an
inherent possibility absent in visually augmented communications.
I hope this isn`t too tangential to the discussion.
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113:17) Randy Ross 10-NOV-92 15:41
Great discussion! As a base-line, I recommend reading "In the Absence of
the Sacred: The failure of technology in Indian country" by Jerry Mander,
Sierra Publishing. He also authored "Four Arguments for the Elimination of
TV". Dr. George Baldwin and members of American Indian Telecommunications
are busy searching for models of communication that has involved technology
in reservation environments where culture is very much a factor and
influence in the daily lives of the people (not that it is'nt
off-reservation or in urban areas) given the uses of native languages as
either primary or secondary in homes of Indian people.
There first must be an understanding of how Indian language works to
appreciate the impact of technology and switching to a non-personal text
base form of communication, like data networks and e-mail. TV has done
much to influence values and behaviors already on Indian reservation, but
the culture and religion, traditional beliefs, are resilient!!
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113:18) jan zita grover 10-NOV-92 16:09
Silence is a very big part of conversation, isn't it? And it's difficult to
*represent* silence in online conversation. What gets uploaded into, e.g.,
an "item" on this system, a topic on The WELL, an echo on Fido, a newsgroup
on the Net, may be--probably *is*--the result of deep reflection, internal
silences as well as words, but those aren't reflected very accurately in
the written words that dance on-screen: the words roll relentlessly,
flooding the screen with the visual equivalent of sound. Often the most
intimate parts of conversations are the silences: we can only be quiet with
those we trust, most commonly. Representing such silences is almost
impossible here. Ideas?
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113:19) Joe Matuzak 10-NOV-92 21:14
Eric --
What you described on Internet reminds me of the CB section of
Compuserve. I spent a lot of time (and money) capturing
conversations there because the syntax was so wonderful: ten or
so conversations going on at once, all jumbled together one
line at a time. I thought for a while I was going to do a novel
like that. It was like playing a simultaneous exhibition
in speed chess, or fiddling with real-time cut-up. Most of what
was interesting had nothing to do with what was being said (the
handles are usually the most inventive thing going on) but it was
the accidental language constructions I found irresistable, as
well as the ways people took advantage of the anonymous nature of
the hookup to switch identities/personalities like it was some
kind of soul shopping center.Jan --
I very much like your point about silence, as, particularly in a
wide area network, a text-based medium, it's easy to wonder if
you're talking to yourself, when people may be trying to
formulate reactions. I'd like two additions to my keyboard:
a NOD and an UH-HUH key. Getting information comes with some
kind of imperative to process it, do something about it, which
leads either to pure insanity or a narrowing of personal access
or reaction to information. The TV phenomenon is processing of
info with little or no need to be responsible for other than
vicarious reaction. Getting a letter carries a different
imperative, as it's aimed specifically at you. The Net sorta
straddles those two lines, it seems.
Curt --
I think we *will* see a video based Net developed, as I'd
argue one may be developing for voice via the 900 system (albeit
it rife with idiocy and fraud, which is probably a good reminder
to us all that lurking under all this, at least somewhere, is the
profit motive). TV hasn't totally supplanted newspapers yet, in
other than economic terms, because there is certain information
which needs to be held onto, tacked onto a wall somewhere,
stuffed into a wallet, etc. Certainly, I look forward to being
able to send angry, beetle-browed video faxes to my congressman,
and so on, but there is a certain freedom inherent in text-based
systems which will keep them around. If nothing else, as was
constantly brought up in a lot of the discussions around the
planning of Arts Wire, there is a need to keep the technical
common denominator as low as possible to minimize economic
discrimination as much as is possible. That brings us to the
issue of community and impact, and I think text-based systems
probably have less of an impact, both positive and negative, when
it comes to empowering or appropriating a culture, e.g., a symbol
retains a much more enigmatic nature in language than in a visual
representation. (Whew -- that's way off the point, isn't it?)
(And *zoiks!* I meant congressperson -- sorry!)
- - - - -
113:20) jan zita grover 10-NOV-92 22:47
Joe--
The "nod" and the "uh-huh" would be easy macros, but the problem is that
they're not so easy to *insert* anyplace, right? I think about the points
in someone's online narrative where I'd like to indicate enthusiasm or
misgiving, etc., and there's not yet any convention for doing that. The
<interrupt> function in conferencing completely freaks me out--it never
feels like anything but an assault to me personally, given that I fall into
a sorta deep fugue state while online--and to have someone erupt into the
midst of that rather than sending me a quiet little pocket of mail . . . I
know that's only a *personal* rxn, but the sudden eruption of sound--of an
alarm--into what is otherwise so deeply meditative *and silent* an
operation is akin to hearing someone's car alarm going off at 3 a.m.
outside your window . . .
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113:21) Joe Matuzak 11-NOV-92 8:10
Jan --
Given your "fugue state" online, would you feel that a language
interruption -- an UH-HUH -- would be disruptive in real-time in
the same way the <interrupt> function is? If not, that's an
intriguing area to think about, if so, perhaps what we're talking
about is some kind of annotated text, sort of graffitied with
reaction, which isn't satisfying, either. So we need to think of
a cyber-particular option, I guess. The problem is that
conversation, where all these physical reactions can be displayed,
is different than communications by writing, where, if things
like that are displayed, it's intrusive unless part of a straight
one-to-one exchange. Rather like reading a book someone else has
highlighted.
What about that "fugue state"? Is it akin to anything else, or it
(sorry) is it something that is unique to the Net experience?
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113:22) jan zita grover 11-NOV-92 10:34
I'd be inclined to think that I simply read the silence at the other end of
one of my transmissions projectively, as I'm too inclined to do f2f, if it
weren't for the fact that the *almost*-silence of "uh-huhs" f2f are
encouraging rather than otherwise, whereas a interrupt, even if it were to
utter a textual "uh-huh", would seem intrusive to me. There's something
qualitiatively very different about online "talk" for me--think it's closer
to a soliloquy that I know will sooner or later become instead a part of a
colloquy. And writing, at least for me, is far closer to a pursuit of
subtlety and complexity than speaking out loud can ever be, so it's easier
to interrupt in a way. That, and the often-mentioned difference between
having no visual/audial clues to your message's reception in online
communicaion, make online "talk" far more introspective than any of my
Nordic maunderings ever are in f2f conversations--I think. . .
- - - - -
113:23) Sarah Lutman 11-NOV-92 11:31
I've noticed in my own developing life on-line that I do feel oddly free to
be more personal -- part of it is the act of writing itself as an
introspective process - but the lack of visual/audio "clues", as Jan put
it, also informs how you FEEL about being on-line.
- - - - -
113:24) jan zita grover 11-NOV-92 12:29
Last winter, the Walker Art Center here in Minneapolis
installed a Jennie Holzer show; to advertise and make it
"interactive," the staff put up an LED message board in the
lobby connected to a keyboard terminal. Alongside the
keyboard was a rather prim and controling little message
inviting people to type in their responses to the Holzer
show.
I sat for about 40 minutes watching what people actually
did with the device: they wrote their names, their phone
numbers, political slogans, affiliations ("Southwest
Rules!"), and bits of sentiment ("Brad loves Lena"). No one
undertook a critique of the Holzer show.
This raised for me the same question that online
opportunities and terrain do: to what extent are our present
uses of online communication simply importations from a
parallel (and largely middle-class) universe of high
literacy, broadcast media, institutionalization of human
relations, fondness for and dependence on computer
mediation? I think of how new media have usually first been
applied in ways that emulate/parallel the media they are
supplanting: photographs first emulated painted miniature
portraits and historical paintings; lithographs first
emulated the subjects and forms of etching and engraving;
hot-type printing first emulated letter press.
In the short time that microcomputers have been widely
available, similar changes have been charted--foe a
lot of zines.
But what about online communication *itself*? Initially it
was used mostly for email and file transmission related to
the net and to the physical sciences/engineering that the
net supported. Like literacy three hundred years ago--a
relatively closed system in which producers (writers)
wrote for other formally educated people not unlike
themselves--the net was initially a relatively closed loop
whose members could speak in abbreviated ways because of
their shared experience. Initially the materials available on
the net (as well as on BBS) were related *to* the net/BBS
and the technologies that made them possible. Now that the
online base of users has widened so greatly through both
commercial and community access, the net and its
individual nodes have widened their services and focuses.
Popular culture--games, dating, sex, car-talk, horoscopes,
12-Step meetings in cyberspace--crowd the matrix. Losses
and gains, hmmm? Shapes no longer very clear.
Do you remember a few years ago when Southwestern
Bell did a trial program in either Dallas or Houston,
installing dumb terminals like Minitel's in citizens' homes? Big Bucks for
people to continue
using the service; almost everyone turned the terminals
back in.)
Perhaps one of the most defining shapes of cyberspace as it
becomes this second-generation, multi-use carrier no
longer defined solely as an *information carrier* will be
its parallel development as a carrier of the unquantifiable-
-human relationships. Friendships, whether f2f or online,
*need* lots of time and amiable inanity; they are fueled by
the small, local, particular facts of feeling. I like the idea
of the fragile gestures of friendship flying T3 down the
highways of the net as well as jolting along a partyline at
300 baud. Long windy proses like this one don't cost much
more to up- or download than short, pithy ones, and we can
warm ourselves at safe hearths dozens of times a day.
Maybe the cyberfuture looks a lot like the neighborhood past
. . . .
- - - - -
113:25) Randy Ross 11-NOV-92 13:22
Here's something to think about folks, contributed by Dr. George Baldwin in
one of his unpublished writings:
"Traditional education is text-book driven and success requires mastery of
cognitive academic language proficiency, which Native students (generally)
do not achieve (Fox 1987, 1988, 1990). Computer conferencing as used
deployed by all of the networks discussed in this paper are based on screen
interfaces that symbolically represent the written page, books, and
libraries. This leasd us to the hypothesis that where Indian people
attempt to communicat on-line, the grammatic quality of their written
comments may be poor, influencing the credibility of the writer in the mind
of the message reader. At worst, it implies that Indian children have
difficulty being understood".
Dr. Baldwin goes on and states: "In comparison, expectations of spontaneous
discussions is not at all the case for NativeNet. Many of the postings
have been carefully crafted by professional writers who thrive in the
networks of written thought".
Dr. Baldwin has not joined us on this conference but I will be urging him
to watch for us. This unpublished paper is not yet complete but has some
interesting substance with regard to learning styles and culture.
- - - - -
113:26) jan zita grover 11-NOV-92 23:11
What words would we use online if we had to limit them to a very few?
What visual language would we use in person if we chose to use no words at
all?
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113:27) Randy Ross 12-NOV-92 10:54
I remember listening and watching my grandfather speak in his Native
language to his peers, and of their responses to him. There was a lot of
use of hands, arms, facial expressions, intonations, his eyes, that made
the language come alive, a as a result a very few words had a lot of
meaning and depth. Even in the music he sang, the words were short, but
the song meant quite a bit about a particular situation.
For American Indians who still speak their language, I don't know of any
computer program that can enhance the totality of language and music
through the keyboard. Even the translation of Indian music to
euro-standards on a keyboard does not work! Perhaps there is some home in
(that should be hope) in the new graphics programs that can be used on-line
such as art graphics, pictorials, the creation of native languages on-line,
etc.
I know one thing, rather than struggle to read James Fennimore Cooper in
Old English Prose, it's more easier for Indian people to go see the movie
in dolby sound and technicolor!
- - - - -
113:28) Frank Burns 13-NOV-92 3:56
ha ha.... well said, Randy.
On this whole matter of cyberculture -- which I propose we use as
a shorthand code for "culture-in-cyberspace" -- I have great hopes
for the future benefits that breakthroughs in technology will bring
us. I want to hear a drum while I'm online. I want to look around
the circle. I want to see the fire. I want to smell the sweat.
I want to feel the closeness. I want to know that others will
notice my silent nods. I want so many things like this.
And I want "my software" to be in alignment with my cultural values.
I want "my system" (my "home" network) (arts wire cum metanet) to
stretch my imagination while it also comforts my contemplation.
- - - - -
113:29) Jeff Gates, ArtFBI 14-NOV-92 15:24
I posted this on another conference but thought I might also do so here: A
course is being offered on "how to navigate the internet" on the Internet.
Its free! To sign up post e-mail to: rs@usl.edu. Now, if I could only
figure out how to get out of the edit mode of the editor I use on the
university's unix system so I send that message! :-(O~
- - - - -
113:30) Eric S. Theise 14-NOV-92 23:42
Jeff, try a period on a line by itself or ctrl-d. Do you know what
editor you're using?
- - - - -
113:31) Jeff Gates, ArtFBI 17-NOV-92 17:56
Eric, its all been taken care of. My terminal emulator was not set and
therefore I was having a problem with the vi editor on elm.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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