Re: <nettime> What *ARE* New Media? [4x]

[Newmedia@aol.com]

Y'all:

HA!!  And, I fed NewZoid -- "Nettime Claims Member Made Internet
Profitable, Must Be a CoInAge Agent" . . . <g>

As for Alan's questions -- remember that we're dealing, as always, with
FIGURE and GROUND relationships here.

"Acoustic space" has been considered by many to be the *ground* of our
experience in the era of the electric media environment -- thus it was
subliminal and, superficially, we still found ourselves pretended that the
VISUAL was dominant.  For instance, people still think that television is
a "visual" medium even though we know that its neuro-muscular effects are
more like a massage -- thus "tactile."

Accordingly, we have been pretending that we are "individuals" with
"opinions" that matter (figure) -- while we actually feel like we have
been obliterated (ground).

Now that we're exiting the electric environment, we can PLAY with our own
"disappearance" as we all begin to "reappear" and, as far as I can tell,
this gives us the chance to thrust acoustics into the role of FIGURE . . .
dancing on the new subliminal GROUND.  So, the "waking" experience of
THREESPACE is likely to be acoustic, in particular three-channel stereo
(3CS.)

In the key passage in what might be McLuhan's most important work -- the
1968 album "The Medium is the Massage" -- he has the ancient mariner flip
the line from having our inventions SHAPE us to having them APE us . . .
just as Alan suggests.

Threespace is, therefore, an experience which goes beyond (disem)BODY(ed)
and beyond MIND(less) -- by introducing a third aspect that permits us
retrieve both mind and body from the electric media that stole them from
us in the first place.

Best,

Mark Stahlman
New York City




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