From - Wed Jan 14 11:45:44 1998 Return-Path: Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mrco.carleton.ca (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA10372; Mon, 25 Jan 93 14:11:22 EST Received: from nyx.cs.du.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA15756; Mon, 25 Jan 93 13:40:12 -0500 Received: by nyx.cs.du.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA26602; Mon, 25 Jan 93 11:31:30 MST From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Message-Id: <9301251831.AA26602@nyx.cs.du.edu> X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of Denver. The University has neither control over nor responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users. Subject: FutureCulture Digest #193 To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 11:31:29 MST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 16313 X-Lines: 395 ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| Issue #193 Monday, January 25th 1993 Today's Topics: --------------- Re: subculture and clothing Artificial Organisms clothing Re: subculture and clothing Re: WIRED online? (fwd) subculture and clothing subculture/clothing/whatever happened to....? subcultures yanking up the WIRING __________________________________________________________________________ From: ahawks (stoned immaculate) Subject: Re: WIRED online? (fwd) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 0:52:05 MST Note: I gotta sleep, but hopefully I'll get that Newsweek article about Wired transcribed by tomorr-o, before I go to a Moby/Prodigy concert... To keep ya buzy, here's somethin' from Anne Balsamo.... If you remember right, you'll know her from the CNN segment (wehich becomes apparent immediately in this message)....And if you remember left, back in the haze-daze of this list, she sent me this great bibliography and resource list of books and magazine articles - most of the books were adapted to the FC FAQ, and if text didn't take up so much space, I'd've kept the magazine article index as well... [reprinted with permission] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had a chance to see the WIRED issue that was the focus of my CNN interview. My main point was to say that WIRED was coming in on a scene that was alreday happening: namely the existence of print magazines and zines that all say that they are the "Official house organ for the cyberpunk/edge." I showed the reported doing the story the dozen or so mag/zines I've collected that all roport to cover the intersections between art/technology/computer/underground: (VR, too): Everything from Detials to Mondo to Verbum to CyberEdge to Presence to Leonardo to bOing bOing to the Futurist to SF Eye to Interzone to...etc. My second main point was that it is very difficult (IMHO) for a PRINT magazine to be a very convincing channel for what's going on in a primarily ELECTRONIC medium. WIRED, like the Mondo Guide, tries to be "outrageous" through experimental print techiques: i.e., scattered paragraphs, colored ink, high-design value layouts. The media I told them to REALLY investigate if they wanted a glimspe of the future, is e-zines. AND I mentioned FutureCulture, Scream Baby, and SurfPunk, as well as the alt.groups. (The ones I most familiar with.) The final point was a lesson in the media philosophy of magazines: When the reported asked me if I thought that WIRED would do a good job of covering the new edge "scene"--I replied that that wasn't what a magazine does. COVERAGE of something that already exists isn't the way it works at all. RATHER magazines (like 'zines) actively produce the "scene" that they cover. To the extent that they develop an audience relationship by helping that audience make sense of a range of related phenomenon, they will be successful. Besides, WIRED isn't about the future, like other works of science fiction, its about what is hot now. I had one piece of criticism that comes from being a Marshall McLuhan-influenced scholar: Taking McLuhan as "their patron saint" WIRED takes on a very specific critical/cultural agenda. McLuhan was relentlessly critical of technological extensions of our CNS...that is he argued that for every new technological extension of a "natural" sensing organ, a different sensing function is lost. He tried to analyze not only what was gained by new technology, but also what was lost or irredeemable transformed. (I teach this in my science, technology and culture courses). The point is, in brief: We will not be well-served by a golly-gee-whiz (uncritical) reverence/fascination for new technology. We've got to learn how to have a healthy skepticism about things we're seduced by. The first issue of WIRED does include a very interesting article on "The Inslaw Affair" that includes some investigative journalism. THAT to me is the promise of WIRED....critical investigative reports on what the ' hell is going on. Anne Balsamo --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ Date: 25 Jan 1993 02:11:58 -0600 (CST) From: "free agent .rez" Subject: yanking up the WIRING Anne Balsame (by way of ahawks): >WIRED takes on a very specific critical/cultural agenda. McLuhan was >relentlessly critical of technological extensions of our CNS...that is he >argued that for every new technological extension of a "natural" sensing >organ, a different sensing function is lost. He tried to analyze not only >what was gained by new technology, but also what was lost or irredeemable >transformed. (I teach this in my science, technology and culture courses). >The point is, in brief: We will not be well-served by a golly-gee-whiz >(uncritical) reverence/fascination for new technology. We've got to learn >how to have a healthy skepticism about things we're seduced by. okey dokey. i'm online, attempting to embed the SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS of "What's Going On" within the matrix which is doing the changing. here above it's laid on the line. so what, to you (yes, YOU) is Going On? i have a fairly good reason to take stake in this as well. i've CHOSEN to be in here. haven't i? what are we being seduced by? what point are we dancing around? what about you? .rez - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Tell the story as if it were only of interest to the small circle of your characters, of which you may be one. There is *no other way* to breathe life into the story." ______________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 07:37:33 -0500 From: Sean Michael Carton Subject: Re: WIRED online? (fwd) The whole problem with any sort of paperbound (and I use "bound" advisedly here) work is that by the time that it gets out to the stands, just bout everything in it has become past history. The e-zine/mailing list/alt.whatever is really the only "real" way we have of reflecting the culture. Real as in real time. Real as in really honest. Real as in real people. Magazines usually go to press 1-2 months before they ever hit the stands--1 or 2 months ago a lot of different stuff was happening. As with the Mondo guide (which I did buy), I think that getting too gee-whiz about everthing with a battery or plug attached to it is missing the point. Gadgets are tools and amusements--not ends in themselves. I think that the entire ethos of the Users Guide was summed up on one of the last pages: the superhip glossy, full color page that introduced "Mondo The Shopping Mall." Thats it, in a very expensive nutshell. However, the irony is that because of printing delays, a lot of that stuff isn't even available anymore! (Going Gaga, for example). I see a lot of so-called "edge" stuff being dulled by a combination 60's trancendance mentality coupled with an 80's materialism and jumped on by a 90's propensity to label and divide and become nostalgic over past decades. I'm excited about the possibilities and scared of those who just want to make a quick buck off the whole thing. Maybe that's why e-zines are resisted by mainstream media--they are not succeptible to the economy of capital. You can't put a price on a bit...\ Sean Carton ______________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 14:57:39 +0100 From: cardell@lysator.liu.se Subject: subculture and clothing Just recently I found an old paper I wrote about subcultures. In it I stressed the importance of clothing in various cultures. Now I wonder, out of sheer curiosity, what the readers of FC wear at this moment. Sure, one can discuss if Random J. Futuroid is a member of a certain subculture, for example the cyberpunk culture (haven't deciced if I like that word yet), but for this little experiment let's say that he is. Well, what are you wearing while reading this? :) I can start with myself so you all won't feel alone: Right now I'm wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of worn out black jeans and John Lennon type glasses resting on my nose. I usually wear a black, thread-bare, coat when hitting the streets. mikael cardell S P U N K P R E S S ______________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 9:35:52 EST From: Tim Driscoll Subject: Re: subculture and clothing Blue shirt with white stripes; grey tie with burgundy, purple and black patterns; grey pants; black belt; brown shoes ( I know, Zappa sez brown shoes don't make it), and Buddy H type glasses resting on my nose. Almost forgot the grey socks. tim driscoll _IT'S A WONDERFUL DAY_ ______________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 16:00:25 +0100 From: tor@geomatic.no (Tor Langballe) Subject: subculture and clothing I'm wearing black jeans, and a "I wish I was deep instead of just macho" T-shirt. I usually wear a black leather jacket or a lumberjack jacket. I want to get a black leather trenchcoat soon though, I'm fed up of my current outfit. -Tor ______________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 10:14:36 EST From: grass@chaos.ento.vt.edu (Scott Huddle) Subject: Re: subculture and clothing Brown khakis, red&white stripe button-down shirt, sweater, loafers. Counter culture is neither. -scott ______________________________ Date: 25 Jan 93 10:29:07 EST From: Jennifer.M.Collins@Dartmouth.EDU Subject: Re: subculture and clothing Wearing a long black sweater with a stretchy neckline that comes down around my shoulders, a silver broccoli pin bunching the sweater up in my midsection, black, purple, gold, blue, tan and greeb paisley, baggy, "Arab" type pants that button at the bottom and have a drawstring at the top, opaque black tights and worn black shoes that are gettin' salt stains from all the snow-melting material they're tossing on the sidewalks around here... other silver jewelry here and there ... :) >>Almitra<< >>Into theMatrix<< ______________________________ From: eknipp@lobo.rmhs.colorado.edu (Ethan Knipp) Subject: Re: subculture and clothing Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 8:57:08 MST > Just recently I found an old paper I wrote about subcultures. In it I > stressed the importance of clothing in various cultures. Now I wonder, > out of sheer curiosity, what the readers of FC wear at this moment. > Sure, one can discuss if Random J. Futuroid is a member of a certain > subculture, for example the cyberpunk culture (haven't deciced if I > like that word yet), but for this little experiment let's say that he > is. Well, what are you wearing while reading this? :) Well, curredntly I'm wearing shorts and a tshirt- I just got up. Normally I wear combat boots, baggy pants, sorta-lenonesque glasses (which I am wearing now- I have too). I have my left ear pierced twice, and have a mohawk style haircut. I also wear a leather jacket all the time. Does that fit? -- Ethan The Unbeliever eknipp@lobo.rmhs.colorado.edu ______________________________ Date: 25 Jan 1993 09:38:20 -0800 (PST) From: Vlad the Impaler Subject: subculture/clothing/whatever happened to....? > Just recently I found an old paper I wrote about subcultures. In it I > stressed the importance of clothing in various cultures. Now I wonder, > out of sheer curiosity, what the readers of FC wear at this moment. > .... Judging from the responses so far, I spy a slight trend here. Since you all are just on the edges of your seats as to what I'm wearing, I'll prolong the suspense by addressing something else first. :-> Being the college dork that I am, I was internet access-less for about a month in late December and early January. At the time I was going away there was a thread going about concerned with artificial organisms/life/net pets/etc... that I was interested in. I did a bit of reading over break, and found some interesting stuff/theories on the whole situation. Am curious whatever happened to the thread. Did it fluorish? Did it die an agonizing and anonymous death? Does anyone else care? As for clothing, currently I am garbed in navy Doc Martens, two pairs of socks, one black, one white, shorts, and a 'Shadow of the Beast II' t-shirt. Pretty pathetic, huh? Bret Ambrose -bambrose@pomona.claremont.edu -bambrose@jarthur.claremont.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The man of little learning grows like a bull; his flesh grows, but not his wisdom." - The Buddha mikael cardell S P U N K P R E S S ______________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 12:09:11 EST From: alfred@ejv.com (Alfred Broderick) Subject: subcultures > Just recently I found an old paper I wrote about subcultures. In it I > stressed the importance of clothing in various cultures. Now I wonder, > out of sheer curiosity, what the readers of FC wear at this moment. Doc Martens, Levi's Silver Tab (black), Hand Knit Irish Sweater. Alfred ______________________________ Subject: Artificial Organisms From: Chaos Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 12:54:10 -0500 I've thought a bit about doing some artificial organisms myself, and I think the neatest way to do it would be on a MUD. if you don't know what a MUD is, its mostly like a multiuser text adventure, where the players themselves can modify/extend the world. Anyways, I was thinking along the lines of having a special mud set up for creating artificial life. We could use a mud server with a programming language so we could program special behaviours and mating stuff etc. The cool part is that we can watch the things that happen, and tweak things as they happen, etc. -Chaos (s442223@nexus.yorku.ca). "i am not cold; you are my electric blanket." ______________________________ From: Richard Powers Subject: Re: subculture and clothing Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 11:25:39 -0500 (EST) mikael cardell pondered: > Now I wonder, out of sheer curiosity, what the readers of FC wear at > this moment. Exactly now I'm wearing faded blue jeans, a black hooded Front 242 >TFY< sweatshirt, shiny black shoes, and black-in-front metallic (slightly tinted) glasses. Good thing I got dressed before dialing up today! -- ( Richard Powers ) Please do not use this document ( rpowers@panix.com ) as toilet tissue. ______________________________ Subject: clothing From: Chaos Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 13:02:44 -0500 Who cares what I'm wearing? Does it really prove anything about the person? A lot of people dress just to conform to the image of a punk or houser or whatever. Don't be a conforming non-conformist! Be totally weird! Be weird in the face of weirdness! -Chaos (s442223@nexus.yorku.ca) "to have one physical kiss i would be content" _________________________________________________________________________ | | | That's all for today! | | To send a message to the list: future@nyx.cs.du.edu | | To subscribe/unsubscribe/change format: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | All other requests: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | List Maintainer is: (andy [aka hawkeye]) ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu | |_________________________________________________________________________| | | | The opinions expressed in FutureCulture are those of the individual | | author only. | |_________________________________________________________________________|