Re: <nettime> Interview with Peter Lunenfeld

["Peter Lunenfeld" <peterl@artcenter.edu>]

Dear Richard --

There was no misunderstanding to clear up. In fact, your rephrasing, "the
New World makes good things and thinks lazy thoughts," rankles even more
than the original. 

It should come as no surprise that some of the earliest critiques of West
Coast techno-libertarianism originated cheek to jowl with the hype. Take
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Hackers: Reading Mondo 2000" by Vivien Sobchack. 
Sobchack originated this dead-on dissection of "optimistic cynicism" and
"the ambivalence of mondoid desire" as a short piece for Artforum in 1991
while she was still living in Santa Cruz, and then expanded it for Mark
Dery's Flame Wars in 1993, after she had moved to LA. So, don't blame
California (much less the whole of the New World) if too many Europeans
took WIRED at face value. "The New World: Thinking rigorous thoughts since
1776." 

Yours --

Peter




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