[Nettime-bold] the dominion of nettime

[bc <human@electronetwork.org>]

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some write with blood. some with their tears. some use both.

this post regards the ancient past of the internetwork and a
few various subjects, interspersed, about recent posts. a
directed text may likely follow, on a specific attribute of
net.sabotage.

one of the first questions pondered when encountering the
depth and turbulence (and as a United Statesian), a whole
reality apart from anything that had ever been encountered
outside but brief mentions of vastly different perspectives,
outside monocularist view pointing, well, i always wondered
what a 'war on nettime' would be like. not an outside war,
but one inside nettime. maybe there have been such things.
seems possible, as with most lists. but it has always been
opaque, 'the network' behind nettime, as with many lists,
things are handed on, and held onto, and some of those
tensions are for better and worse, silent and also deadly.

regarding the cryptic posts of late, which it is curious how
many are able to decipher the texts, the background, the
stories and interconnections, the deep network so-to-say of
nettime as a place online, over the years, and the inter-
personal connections built up, and cultivated, harvested,
and uprooted through years of online interactions, well,
something seems off-kilter enough so that it is palpable,
at least to one subscribe. the only words that can describe
it from this point of view is that it is like one of the
earliest questions about the international/global aspects
of nettime, and its audience/participants. with so many ways
of viewing things, if there is a diversity of views that will
be discussed, then it seems that during times of cultural
conflict, these would come out in the text, in the relations
between people. and to my great surprise, nettime has always
been a place that has had a tranquil scholarly atmosphere.
or that is how it felt to one person. versus more rough and
tumble, unsophisticated takes on ideas, a certain latitude
to certain writings, formal texts, and a great education
which no school could ever replicated under any of the
same conditions, in such a wide and open range of inquiry.

yet that issue of war always sat in the last seat of the
theater. or is it an opera paradigm these days. well,
whatever it is, the curtain seems to have fallen down in the
darkness, and the light- strips on the ground seem to be
like guidance lights for people to choose their landing
strips on the stage. well, just one way to demonstrate how
one tries to rationalize posts that are so, well, inside, or
like a 2nd-network, in the nettime domain. so it gets one to
question what is going on. at least a few. maybe none, tho.

with enough tranquility the pain can go away, the eyes shut,
and one can sleep through it all. yes. but to try to
understand what is now underway is quite difficult. it is
hard to trust much of any- thing, anybody, any goals, ideas,
ideals, people themselves. as years of conflict seems to
have led to a private, behind-the-scenes resolution, but for
some, they remain outside, even though that is such a passé
concept. yet, if one could be allowed to architecturalize:

- the nettime subscriber list -

it was amazing to see the domains subscribed to nettime, not
because it listed who was on the list, but who was not. to
a strange degree of absence. spookily so. somethin about it
just does not add up, with all the issues talked about, from
ICANN to Open Source to Globalisation, Anti-Globalisation,
protests, war, ideas, all of it.

long long time ago was going to write about regular visitors
to a site that i assumed the visitors were coming from
nettime posts, as that is where related ideas were posted.
and they, in variety, always reinforced the gravity of
writing oline about ideas; what you say online can and will
be used against you in a court of law.

the lawyers, big-city types of law firms, thousands of
lawyers, global lawyer nets. then, strange types of media
accounting firms which profile content, via trademark,
copyright, and the like. and its infringement. also, any
company that is mentioned in a post is likely to trot on by
and take a look-see at where their good name is. so,
lawyers, media accountants, and enforcers, and the clients
of these. the media content bots are voracious. they come
and sift through all keyword content for whatever Fortune
500 might be on the list, or an e-mail, which is linked-
through to a user's site. and, as always, politics plays
a role, as bad PR and bad press is just bad business,
nothing to explain. and, so, any bad talk about a bad
company will likely have guns-money-and-lawyers nearby.

that was to be expected, probably so. sometimes post-Y2K
there seemed to be an increased in monitoring, this type of
content look- seeing, accounting, spreadsheeting of the
image of an entity. not as a person, but as as machine.
taking account of where things are at. booming business
that. then, here came the surveillance companies, who are
somewhere in the middle of the content and crime divisions
of investigators of website content production and
distribution. it is something like the DMCA or whatever the
latest rulemaker legislates that so too, comes these
commercial, for profit, enterpreneurs, so as to provide a
valuable service for the company and its public image.

all fine and good, sure. along with it, as always but more
transparent, was the military surveillance of things deemed
a bit off for a naive group of people to be discussing, less
writing papers about, in any type of public forum, as it was
unprecedented. the early internet, and its public nature,
soon constricted enough so that such a piece of writing drew
suspician, just for being written and distributed. or so it
may seem. it may be the risk and reward of democracies
freedom. one has to take a chance, and stand behind their
decision, as it is of principle, etc etc. okay, sure. the
veins fill with cool heat, as the liquid goes up the arm,
hitting the brain like an ocean of peace.

this too is a background network. something going on behind
the scenes of the internetwork. if it could be posited there
may be a background to nettime networks, so too, it might be
posited, well, it is true in any case, that there is one to
the internet, if one starts looking at logfiles of websites.
those without websites will have to search for others logs
that are kept public, so as to see how an IP address (your
ISP most of the time) is shown in logs of websites that you
visited. and likewise, for all of the actors and actresses
above, so too, you can see how the most strange of visitors
may show up. it is a type of signaling system.

- signals intelligence -

it is quite difficult to 'tell' anyone you are being
surveiled, as it is a deeply encoded and tricky bit of
psycho-logic. not many would believe unless, 1, they
understood how you can tell, 2, they believe things that
they may not want to believe, 3, there is ample evidence of
correlation. and probably more than this, and more precise.
in any case, if one has ever been surveilled, on the phone,
say, and finds spam-that-is-not-spam in your mailbox hours
later with the word emboldened in the e-mail, it can be a
bit weird. weirder yet, when most everytime you are on the
telephone, or outside, or writing e-mail, or using a
search-engine, and some type of active feedback, a type of
private communicae arrives that is out of the ordinary, yet
directly related to a choice, do i stay or do i go. games.
you know, politics. economics. the dirty nasty stuff of war
and geopolitics. you know, when you write about such things
and you get in a bit of a mixup, and this stuff beings
happening, no one believes it, it is unprecedented,
impossible. right? right, of course, certainly. no chance.
ego. that's it. just someone, a competitor, needing
attention, what a deficit.

yet, there is something found in sending signals this way
that is truly an illuminating thing. it is done in online
forums through poetry, a type of chaotic abstraction, or
just plain complex reasoning, that one really has to invest
to understand. a lot of noise for very little signal though.
in its opposite function, it is only the signal that
matters. the keyword. the clue. the hint. it is a type of
secretism. a way of saying 'i see you', or 'i know', or
even: you will be killed. it can be a bit odd. if one would
ever believe it. but luckily, nobody has too. it is opaque.
and it is really not the point, that is all a waste, it is
in larger fields, big picture planes, multiperspectival.

yes. but then one day, a really strange thing happens. that
background of the 'dark network', if one can temporarily use
that as a descriptor, is also realized in nettime's
dominion, in its own postings. and the readings seem to be
sent for a private audience, a few dozen or hundred of the
2,500 who are subscribed to the list. it is like taking
one's brain and turning it inside out.

- dead end domain -

a transformation seems to have occured in the surreality of
the network, or so it is posited but not necessary to prove,
just to state, here. and that is that what is to be assumed,
trusted, known based on prior experience, is getting to be
more and more difficult as the outside war gets crazier in
pitch and tonality.

a funny thing about logs. about lists. about e-mails. and
ICANNism and WHOIS, how one looks up where and to who a
domain (or internet address, like .com) is 'owned and
managed' by. well, in that commercial and governmental dark.
net, most often it is stated "we are a content surveillance
and enforcement" network, etc. so you know what you are
dealing with. the price of writing, so to say. that is, are
you prepared to go to trial, face a judge, multimillion
dollar lawyers, and jailtime should things not go your way.
a choice to make. and so people post things. some may not
think twice. others may, and post. others may not post, but
read. and everyone waiting, watching and seeing.

funny thing is, those dark networks sometimes are
dead-enders. if one can use a covert analogy, it is like a
domain name is a front-company, and one may go to a website
that never loads, has no ICANN nor WHOIS or NSLOOKUP
information on it. else, it may, but may be a ruse. like a
stage set of making- believe, shaping perception. but in
fact, it is a fake site. not unlike some of the posts that
are on nettime lately. fake sites are being distributed. and
it seems odd some may not know the 'parody', or great
'humor' involved. the irony is supposedly of brilliance, of
this type of deception which is the same deception being
used by its supposed equal and opposite force. both of
power.

for example, one e-mail address, a generic one that cannot
be traced as it is never postede with, will be a dead-ender.
pretty impossible unless you are on special terms with a
company to find out who it is. the only way for the public
to know is if you are a private person using that e-mail.
and you tell a friend. and so the public may not know. but
it is a safe bet to say that others do know you you are,
dark networkers, so to say. thus, the word 'alias', as a
pseudo-name or avatar, or persona, or listening device.
whatnot. thing is, it is a ubiquitous technique. used mainly
for surveillance, for better and worse. for example, in the
deeply competitive and vicious academic world, it may be
used as a way to find out what the open thinkers are doing,
while plotting one's tactic and operations around what is
perceived their weakness, giving their ideas away, sharing,
being vulnerable, public, weak in way. easy to take down.

but using the techniques of the surveillance companies, as
trope, let's say, and doing art-investigations, and
agitations, and sabotage and all the other dirty-tricks one
might imagine the mysterious 'bad guys' to do, while the
omnipotent artist, effete, fully engages without rules the
reality they define before them, and find all the nooks and
crannies of a domain, and make and break things as a way of
learning, doing, teaching, and making a living. a lifestyle.
a brand. idea.

- domain as place -

someone once challenged, rightly so, the validity of a
website that is like a library as a community. i think in
the end it is possible to agree, this can be so, if things
develop a certain way. a list too. different types, by
definition. a moderated list, say, its policies, versus an
unmoderated list, with few rules. it is a type of applied
philosophy. maybe even anarchism, aristocracies, oligarchies,
plutocracies, democracies, communist, socialist, capitalist,
and other forms of ownership variations are tested in all
the experimentation of what way is best for the content being
served. nettime seems to have one of the most contentious yet
most engaging moderation scenarios i have seen. it is of a
type of peer-review, it seems, and so has benefits that
single moderation does not have. although, with such a
list, it is a heavy load surely, for any who are involved
to bear, as it is work to keep things, ideas, churning,
active, here.

not sure about the other 2,500 people, but list moderators
are most times in a very difficult spot. that 'cannot please
everyone all of the time' seems to apply, as complex, social,
psychological, political, and etiquette questions come into
play, and many more surely, in making a tough decision of
what and how to post, or how to not post something. it takes
time, energy, effort, and sometimes great backlash. yet, even
if posts sometimes do not get through, oftentimes there is
care to say why, and offer suggestions. the point being,
there is a type of interaction between poster, moderators,
and the list, the public. it can be looked at politically,
solely, and become conspiritorial for some. but some posts
are imponderables. things that are too difficult to figure
out on the fly. and so it is rough work. having moderated
lists for a while, it is easy to send things on that fit
the domain, but others are a type of diplomacy, that is
sometimes hard to address in an idea way. it takes effort.

nettime has always seemed to have some aspect of feeling, or
emotion. probably subdued. but maybe not a boarish fantastic
andrenaline rushing spike viperous drool which makes
everyone run around a fire in a circular line, chanting some
secret chant to the methodological madness of a community in
these very difficult times. look outside the computer
window, as one does offline, and see and feel all of the
pain, see the deaths, the anger, the naive policies, and
strong-arming of destinies, the traps and ploys and
long-term adjusting to future outcomes, like a chess game.

so, never believing in any disconnect, yet never finding
that harsh nettimism, that rough and tumble commuity, in the
house of the internetwork, in this locale, in this cultivate
region, in this place where one might dream of change and be
able to dream and not be kicked off the list or told to stop
their lunacy. no. yet, recently, madness, the world of war,
seems to have invaded the dominion of nettime. maybe it was
always here. in those private posts from a few, snickering
that it is best not to post anymore, that words are not
needed. or in those who seem to have private information
from your computer, as a type of 'dark nettime' in the
background. in a type of older group, genesis myth, complete
with origin story and legends and evil in the mix. awhh,
probably conjecture. meaningless, hard not to agree.
foo-fah.

in any case, in 'architecturalizing nettime' as a place, one
might pick a city for the community herein. one might even
pick a network of caves, with a electronic version of Tora
Bora where the Nettime Moderators hang out, if that is the
slant one has. or, the nettime background as a type of
shadow nettime network, like the bunker that the US
government sets up in times of war, in defense of the .US
domain and subdomains. yeah, here come the grenades, lobbed
at all americans (united statesians as one may be instructed
to say, as it is unfair to everyone to say americans, the
plain conceit). all amercans are bad, evil. that may be
someone's position. so too, another might think a lot of
net.artists are pip-squeeks - like a referenced
architectural theorist who goes to all the same conferences,
who may be at some of the same scenic events in the
electronic networked landscape, wasteland that it is, all
the while, in another domain, just like the net.artists
share their work in public here, calls their work, with
total guffaw: net.fart.  while one like myself did not
laugh, wow, this person could not stop laughing, nor
apprarently all of the net.architectural.theorists and
net.architects who are close compatriots. haha. i guess. but
it seems juvenile and cruel to talk about ideas like that in
closed quarters, to ridicule, yet when in public, to only
surveille, to not taken on the ideas, and challenge them, to
learn and grow, and maybe find oneself wrong. but that has
never happened online with traditional professions. the
people willing to take the risks are doing so as they want
change. they want to work on the mystery. they take the
challenge. not just the rewards. but wow, there are so many
medals, competitions, calls for papers, it is hard for one
who is doing a-ok to not be in the internal guts of the
backround network, or so it seems. yet, for some reason, it
is hard for some. they just do not fit. sad saps. it is
said, in whispers. they are stupid. 'not smart like us',
those who hide their identies behind masks of power say, not
being away that masks are not concealing their psyches. and
sometimes these can go sour. or worse, rotten.

- trust. friendship. loyalty. -

as much as one may try, they may always be, well, ignorant.
and they may know it. they are so imperfect they cannot even
try, with all of their might, to look good, by design,
visually. aesthetically, that is, to industrial educational
training operations.

what a weakness not-knowing is. it is the basis for
knowledge. but also humility, at times, for some, for
others, not. but it is a road of hard knocks.
rough-and-tumble. hahah. look at pain and suffering, 'i
cannot believe it' 'i choose not to believe as if i based
everything on myself, it is not possible, all one has to do
is choose to make it'. funny how people are. in competition.
artists, architects, people in most fields but in the most
chaotic of the forums, sociological fountainheads arise, in
the sense of an overriding ethos, so one may wish, it may be
just another network apparition.

see, stupid people like myself, maybe it is an american
thing (USA, that is), or maybe it is not. maybe it is just
something of an ignorant person. they come and share their
ideas, work with others, try to make common goals happen,
and they do so based on a presumed trust. a type of honesty.
friendship. collegiality. not a sports-metaphor (metaphor,
hah, as if it only goes that far), as there are criminal
owners, spies even. no. it is a basic type of destructive
realisation of being, or, more accurately stated, of
not-being, and while trying to become, to exist, that in
that liminal stage, of which psychologists might relate to
as transference, or, in terms of ideas, bringing critical
ideals into the real, just as theory relates to alchemy, so
too, philosophy to chemistry.

but where does this leave one, who is more the chemist, with
an understanding and even if need be said, an appreciation
and respect for the limited validity of theory as a guide to
investigations, if theory is the reigning 'paradigm', haha,
another one of those keywords, so passe, it. wonder what the
'right' word would be on 03/21/2002.

in any case, to share ideas, a certain level of trust needs
to be there, loyalty, even. and hopefully respect and
friendship. somethign some lists can have, even with a
vicious disagreement over ideas, ugly as hell, but still, to
mend the wounds, and appreciate the other for being
not-the-same, but not completely different. paradox. well,
this is somewhat like community. if one looks at it
idealistically, one might be utopian in their vision,
listening to the circuit-going net.architects weave tales
about the deep background architectural network mysteries of
the black art of architecture, a world unto itself,
literally, but so sublime no one will notice the secreted
eyeshake, over pixels burnt out from staying on the same
screen too long.

in an odd way, twisted really, there is someting about
nettime as architecture, in the traditional sense, so much
more alchemical, and non-sensical to the outside world of
wars and realities and issues on how to constructively and
peacefully address such issue of change, instead of ignore
them in a closed circuited box-top e-mail insider crowd
crunching, ego pumping, lost world despotism founding, black
magic ritualism.

what was that? (oh, yes, please quote this, the weakest
link, you devil you, haha).

a domain has a public and private aspect to it. and so too
does nettime and most other lists it seems. people are in
public contact with their posts, and in private contact via
private-to-private communications. so there are a few
networks, or multitudes if a catchy-keyword will add density
to the idea. critique, dissent, more and more.

yet, what if others do not know of the private domain, have
a naive trust in basic human nature that it is not
vindictive, greedy, mean spirited- one means by this that
someone would not do something illegal, like that which they
protest against so much so in public, i mean, surveil and
all the rest, just to compete and win by blackmail, rather
than by the ideas- well, what if someone trusted, and
wrongly so. and found out that in the background threading
of nettime, that another network lurks, that is parsing the
same information, and making a type of judgement behind the
scenes, not as individuals, but as groups. it may not
matter, it may be totally natural. but what if one finds
that the pettiest and most thin- skinned and least-scholarly
qualities are associated with such a network: such that to
publicly critique a text is to find one-self with a plethora
of background nettime network enemies? that one never may
know about until it is too late, that they share their work,
opening up ideas to try to work togetgher, and yet it is
judged via the apposite and opposite qualities and virtues
expressed by the very same posters, or imposters, if one may
call them that, should they be rightly described as such,
given their actions. what if nettime is like the university
system, only that it is different, yet replicates the same
venal and inbred and power brokering and insider-trading and
dubious merit and all of the rest which can happen with
ideas when power precedes them in a structured place.

okay, for an architectural analogy. maybe this will make a
bit of sense. maybenot. but, being totally unsophisticated,
why not, nothing to lose, right, as everyone has it the
same. haha. what logic, what brilliance, surely, genius all
around, so smart...

nettime as city. digital city. done a million times. there
is a market- place, stores, houses, parks, all the rest,
which is mediated through content, messages, signs.

nettime as building. as a colliseum of sorts. sports stadia.
soccer clubs, all the rest. competition. winners and losers.
boxing ring-like. moderators as Don King-impersonators. or,
Roman battleships mock warfares, or lions and gladiators, or
plain old death matches between contestents.

of the city and building analogies, one might say that
nettime is like a city when it is public, neighborly in a
way, and in private, at least from one person's vantage, it
may turn a bit darker, meaner in intent, cruel even.
inhumane. destructive. and more about power and prestige and
playing around than about ideas and thinking. this is not a
grand-explanation or assumption or statement, but partial. a
partial guess at whatever the weirdness that is now
happening, that seems to be seeping through the psychic
cracks, maybe it is a type of corruption of conscience,
where the world of wars is making people reevaluate their
own power grabbing. and how they go about things. i know it
does me. but i am not everyone, of course. but all may not
think this way. you know, millions sometimes believe one
represents all. like an avator, an alias, an artgroup behind
the mask that is a falling curtain on fire.

one puzzling thing, is that, from the architectural sector,
it has been one of the most enjoyable and learning-filled
experiences to read and think and discover and listen to all
that other people, from other places and techniques and
strategies and all the rest, seem to approach the problems
we all face in some degree. yet, as our problems seem to get
closer and closer, say for example, global war, that there
is still not a shot in hell that the discursive methods will
find a way out. there seems to be a trap. never understood
it. yet it relates back to the idea of signals, secret nets,
and the differences and similarities between art and archi-
tecture, oddly enough. here goes...

- morals and ethics -

art, from someone who has worked in many mediums, and does
not find any label worthy of an idea that is beyond labels
(as some do with their religious deity(s)), it is a word
that is not spoken. it is done. and for others to judge.
there is a jury, of peers, who may and likely do, disagree.
maybe this whole thing has been missed by this observer, but
the label seems to be defined and contested, via net.art.
which in a sense, seems odd, but in another sense,
understandable, in that art can explore such a wide range of
strategies. still, it seems their success is still judged
based on their incorporation into traditional models, while
having net.speak, a different lingo, or, as in the USA, if
one can be blunt, a type of POMO-jingoism, which becomes
noise. the work is the work. and art, it seems, can explore
morality in ways that other professions or working-
strategies cannot, in such a pure way. it is like an
interface upon which one builds an idea, or reveals a way
of understanding, visually, conceptually, everyone here
probably has an entire range of possible talents in which to
communicate, and signal, their intent. and the success could
be if this is received, that is, if the message makes it to
its destination. signals intelli- gence, like .mil.

so an artist, say, like on the West/Left (US) Coast years
ago, puts a fake bomb in a streak (sic. street), it seemed
to be. and in a tranquil- ized world, the fear was
localized. and the moral testing of the limits of experience
and the input and knowledge gained from this exercise might
be evaluated in certain terminologies and whatnot. okay.
but, there could also be a line in the sand, so to speak,
doing this interfacing with all that is, and with an
ill-defined public and private zone on the internet, it
could indeed be that internet.artists might cross the line
into illegality, pushing limits, to do their work, to walk
that crazy line, where one does  not necessarily know the
outcome. exciting. dangerous even. chance. risk. change.
some may say: guts.

well, what if, in the process of an internet.artist doing
such a work does it in the Janus, or two sided, network of
nettime, publicly viewed and privately, so only some know
what is going on in the back parlour room, where the bets
are being made. say, an alias for a group of people, who may
actually break-in to another person's computer and instead
of publicly engage in ideas, shut the competitor (why not
cooperator, a naive believer in basic human goodness is to
wonder) down? what if they ruined their life. a person had
to quit working. was in the hospital 2x for massive pain
caused by stress. and what if people who were artists were
doing this intentionally, and without any feeling of
remorse, of apology, and in fact, openly, that is, in
public, 'signaling' that such has indeed happened, it is
publicly archived and may be deciphered in SIGINT and those
who are aware of the issues of morality involved, that is,
right from wrong, can apologize without giving excuses (it
is retri- bution for questioning our private network, you
bastard, take it or leave it, i'm sorry, okay, yes.).

whereas, in architecture, because of the physics in the
meta-, or the chemistry needed in the alchemical potentions,
due to pragmatic, don't hurt your occupants, your human
inhabitants of the domain you build, make it strong, protect
them, the community, be civil but vital, but respect
nonetheless that in all of the past of architecture there
has been some aspect of public ethics involved, in which to
due harm is to be liable for the harm done, legally.
meaning, something that happens is the architects problem.
thus, as petty and small as it may seem, if taking the
offline value of a human life in a catastrophic situation, a
building like that of a famous architect in Japan which made
a stair- case not to regular code, but 'experimented' with
it, so it was difficult to walk down, and the architect
shared with glee how funny it was that the clients tripped
on the steps. well, ask someone trying to get out of a
burning building, or into a burning building and back out,
how funny it is to burn to death because of that aesthetic
conceit. that is, basic safety and human value, versus,
architect as god complex, well documented by Objectivist
philosopher Ayn Rand, in the book, the fountainhead.

so art has morals, architect ethics. but another thing
architecture has is public and private space. well, it
doesn't really. it is said to not exist anymore. not even
online. nope. forget about even considering it. but the
concept is not going to disappear just because disciples of
D&G know it is, by way of a direct-line to immanent
connections to the truth by way of despotic delusions of
grandeur.

architecture has this god complex thing pretty heavy, it is
a central theme in its story. goddess, if you like. the
architect as designer. and because of the practical everyday
ethics invovled, there is some weight to the responsibity to
deal with reality, real people, and not go off into fiction
land, unless one is of an elite, untouchable, blackmagic
crowd of theory-alchemists, gone bad.

so too with art, it seems, if there is a private network,
and this artist- as-god/dess issue is not central, if ethics
are not discussed, and morality is a guilt-trip, then what
is to stop someone from going too far, and others along with
them, into something so unsavory it may invert the sides of
which one professes their work to be exploring. people may
hate a philosopher for belonging to a horrific political
party, but it may not be their philosophy which guides it,
but the one that precedes it, setting the stage for the
language, the illogical rationalism, authoritarian power
structures, and heliotropic identities.

- but it is art, we're not responsible -

in the age of surveillance, the artist and architect can
contribute to the problems by ideological assumptions, that
can never be tested in public as it is the entire basis for
their power over interpretation of content. of ideas. and
they, and their good books, have disciplines, and their
sermons, and their regular readers, guruing around in the
magic castle.

but is it really so, it seems unlikely. it seems it could
only be a worse case that the humanities, as the sciences,
could be as corrupt as the political-economic captist,
bureaudemocracy they perform their skills within. it seems
so unfair to judge, but even harder to accept this is not
the case in days like these, if there indeed is a
backchannel nettime network which has turned rotten, and
could be as or more dangerous than the outer world of wars,
as this is in the league of the invincible, amoral, artists
and those who do not have to question the premises upon
which the whole foundation of their traditional
interpretations are based. it is simply this: it is so. take
it or leave it. be gone, would you. you're a pain. no go?
we'll pain you! how dare you question us. how dare you
challenge. how dare - freedom.

closed systems refine themselves, an example being
bureaucracies. take universities. while grant narratives may
be passe, they are justification and legitimation for the
long story, the substance of the traditional work. even if
new, it needs to fit, puzzle piece like, with the rest of
the bunch. which is fine and necessary. but also, its all
about competition. it is all about doing the footwork, the
sneaky-network, the gaming. oh, the game.

yes. its all a game. war. that's not a game. but this is
online. it is a game. ask those surveillance companies who
are watching this one person's web- site, how funny is you
are hacking into it in times of war, that they likely know
exactly who you are, may be listening to your conversations,
and reading everything you send online, where you go with
your website, just as you do to everyone else, omnipotent,
no one is, unless they believe it. the dot-com bubble burst,
maybe the network-bubble-blowing will too. as when things
get illegal, say, well, that's a hard one to pass off as
art, as someone may be getting hurt, humiliated, and others,
laugh in glee. but a joke is no longer funny if no one is
laughing. and, even, to see that some may still be gloating
behind their mask, how invisible, invicible are we, not
knowing they are throroughy in the deepshit-network now, and
are not going to have a nice future of it, unless they
wake-up quicky, re- adjust their guidance systems, and
apologize for illegal wrongdoings. and apologies can be
accepted. it can be understood. but in limited time. and it
is past that time, almost. by the second. so, now you're the
target. black-to-white haute couture may be looking in your
private collection of lifestyling decision making, and if
they see and feel, and know that the line has been crossed,
well, say goodbye to your professional life. maybe your
computer will be hacked. maybe you will be physically put
under surveillance. maybe your phone calls and e-mails will
be parsed, maybe you will get signals saying things like:
stop, or else. life insurance.

nice funny, hilarious spam like that. you know, when you're
on the edge of things. not posing and playing around. but in
deep trouble for politics, yours, and the ones you put
others into, as a result of your net.despotism. hacking and
cracking code is mental as physical. it is about psychology
too. and thus, the only reason it is worth writing this bile
  and throwing it back at the background nettime network,
whoever those 10-100 people are, is to let you know that
without ethics, less morality, real evil can be manifest.

you know the old morality tales, or, if living in europe,
concentration camps, bad stuff, you know, someone taking
something so literally that they loose their humanity and
become the machine, and This Is A Good Thing supposedly. how
sick. there is evil on the network that only comes with a
dead heart, or one that never feels outside of its own
private domain. maybe no one person is this fully bad, but a
group of alchemical theorists of art and architecture are
not to be underestimated for their dubious intentions to
wield power at all costs, including the destruction of
others' scholarship and censoring of their work, their loss
of income, health, etc.  it need be said, at least to one
very disturbed human being, that this person has never
before faced something so cleary and purely evil as that
demonstrated in the background nettime network. something
wicked lurks on the network, and it is not just a corporate
government or military spyminds. it is the corruption of
thought and its loss of agency to that of power. the
direction things go in a closed system, where truth is
secondary to career, prestige, money, and greed.

not a religious person (because it is in the private domain,
do not discuss it with anyone much, only in person) and yet
meeting this dark network has shaken me to the core, for i
never believed evil could be so close to the present, in
human beings, with all that is known, lessons learned, and
awareness raised. and less so, in the realm of thinkers, and
more, those of the activist crowd- artists and architects.
it has been the most power- fully disturbing even (sic.
event) of one person's life. enough so that they consider to
consult with a theologin and priest about the direct,
hands-on practice of people who meet suffering and how do
their understand badness, and evil. the force of it. why
would people turn so bad and ugly and unconscienable.

- networks and evil -

it is necessary, as a person, to make such interactions
known, as it is in the best interest of those 2,500 people
to know that this place is not immune from the vaguaries of
warfare, and in being so, can also be part of the very
problem that is publicly stated as being unquestionably
off-the-table as an analysis of art as it is defined by
paradigms constructed by judges themselves.

once, had the pleasure of having a well known person read a
thesis on the role of electricity in the world. and got into
a short exhange about why the role of god/God was not
mentioned in the text. having given reasons, next thing is
to find out that this person happens to be the one who puts
up the names of abortionists, and is conntected (sic.
connected) with an army of like-minded people, and the work
reviewed was to the person that of the devil, for not
mentioning or believing or stating in public how belielfs
about such. to the point of, being raised in a christian
religion, it was very threatening. people standing outside
of apartment. phonecalls hanging up constantly, no body on
the other line. needing to get a tracer on the phone, etc.
this person was a warrior for their beliefs. which, i
happened to disagree ,with, and tried to kindly ask to be
left alone. eventually, this happened. and it is over. and
positions remain basically the same. the point being, while
of different views, there was still, no mattter how gray it
may seem to a participant, some respect for the others point
of view, not agreement, but awareness of what is going on,
responsibility and willingness to fight over an idea,
whatever the cost. some people have got a bullet in the head
who are on this person's website.

now, back to net.artists and net.architects and
net.theorists who are using tools that may be illegal, and
someone may not know about it, and a war is going on, and
everyone is being surveilled, and if someone is found to be
screwing around with someone's system, and this is sent in
e-mail, someone else (the authorities, likely) will know
about it through the broad sweeping of personal rights of
privacy, or, exploits that can be holes to explore, it
matters how one perceives it. yet, it is not a one way
thing. as, if a person is under rather serious surveillance.
such that, they walk outside and someone signals that they
see them. or they write an e-mail and get a signal, not from
a net.place person, but let's say, the background net of the
internet, all the while these sophisiticated aesthetes are
playing around, joking about how someone is pathetic in
their life while they are strong, etc. and it is at that
time that theory games are no longer games. as it is about
survival.

- a warning and an offer of peace -

whoever has been manipulating data and reading private data
in the nettime or other art and theory and architecture
networks, it may be wise to stop, and let others know where
you stand. and if need be, acknowledge and also apologize.
as anything that goes beyond this is a battle that will not
end until the unconscienable network.despots are unmasked,
and have to deal with the realit (sic. reality) of the world
they may not be prepared to handle. beyond their profession.
that is. world stuff. like, getting in trouble. hopefully
peace will make these truly sad people stop and see that the
party is over. and then knowledge can again be at the
forefront of the mind, not power plays and dungeon games.

if one wants to see a movie that replicates the background
network, and its dynamic, and as a model of the network
itself, there is a film called Beowulf (1999) which is
relatively short and to the point, about the nature of evil.

an outdated, uncouth, unsophisticated word. overdone, oh
yes. so too with spyplanes, what kind of psycho-ego is
imparted in such descriptions, one can only guess. it is
pure pathos that is at work, or idling, destroying work. and
it is hoped, but it is in no way assumed, nor trusted, this
situation will change for the better unless the majority of
people invovled dismantle the network, leaving the
shrivelling scoundrals who are infested with this bug to get
some help and find a way to get their humanity back. it will
come to an end one way or another. currently, people have a
choice. but not forever. as it will be destroyed, the
fascist network in academic is going to crumble.

please decide. it is the future. please unmask. good luck.

for those who decide not to be responsible- be ready.

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