During the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, 2005, I experienced tumultuous emotion as Kate Smyth approached the finish line in the Women’s Marathon. The race had earlier been won by another athlete: Australia’s Kerryn McCann. But Smyth had continued running and her athletic poise was disintegrating. Her back was stiff and unnaturally arched, her legs gelatinous. Smyth finished the race, then collapsed in the arms of athletics officials. Deeply moved by her circumstance, it was only when I began planning this essay that I realised Smyth’s image of exhaustion could be recontextualised. When considered within the framework of cultural convergence it not only illustrated Stelarc’s aphorism: ‘The body is obsolete’. (1. Tofts, 2005, 42) It also represented the culmination of a struggle that has occurred within the global media landscape since the end of the Cold War.
In 2006, the struggle for control of the dominant form of communication has reached its inevitable conclusion. Like Kate Smyth’s disintegrating muscles, paradigms of resistance have exhausted their efforts in an attempt at creating a free and intelligent cyberspace. Powerful minorities now control the global media landscape. If paradigms of resistance are to do more than just survive, they must reconsider their position; one strategy being complete immersion within the realm of Supraliteracy.
A subtle tyranny
Tyranny has many forms; at its most sophisticated it can be a subtle force that controls cyberspace, until those immersed within that space remain unaware of its presence.
In of Grammatology, Derrida dismantles Sausserian linguistic theory by exposing it as a semiotic system underpinned by a belief in a divine presence. Derrida does not waste time decrying the existence or otherwise of this divine presence. In contrast to Saussuire’s theory, he points out that any system of thought, religious, political, linguistic... is nothing but a system of signs. One that can be interpreted in many ways, and part of the game of language. (2. Derrida, 1976, 50) Given this widely accepted view, that any system of thought is decentralised and plural, not singular or unified, cyberspace in 2006 generally exhibits a sonorous singularity in the guise of corporate domination. Even apparently innocuous teen environments such as ‘Habbo Hotel’ (www.habbo.com/) are modelled on principles of buy and sell, private ownership, and exclusive membership. Significant here is not that cyberspace has an ideological bias. But that the divine force underpinning this ideology is a backlash against the linguistic and philosophical insights of late 20th century Post-structuralism. The form and content of cyberspace in 2006, stripped of its corporate disguise, is a reaffirmation of this divine presence. Implicit within the form of much of the world wide web, it is also explicit in the religious Right’s partial control of the space of flows. (3. Wark, 1993, 159)
And here lies the subtle tyranny of cyberspace in 2006. Free speech and independence of thought, such as outlined by Ted Nelson in his proposal for an interdisciplinary hypertextual environment, (4. Nelson, 1993, 15) might appear to occur within a multi-user domain such as Habbo Hotel. But next time you check in take note of the utter singularity of its form and content. God might be dead in the actual world, (5. Nietzsche, 1981, 14) , but He is well and truly alive on-line.
Quick relief from anonymity
A direct link exists between the anonymous presence of this divine form, and a desire by those immersed within it, for quick relief from the anxiety created by its thunderous silence. Naturally, most people seem unaware of this phenomenon. Users sense themselves as anonymous entities before a faceless God and seek relief from His irreducible omnipotence. It is for this reason that Hyper or Convergent media has emerged as the dominant form of communication. Not, as McLuhan envisaged, because of a global communication utopia. (6. Buick & Jevtic, 1996, 6). Consequently, powerful communication environments have evolved out of a desire by users to escape the anxiety imposed upon each by the tyranny of the environment they inhabit; multiplying its power, and addicting the user to an endless sequence of diversions. Simply logging out heightens anonymity and is not a viable option. It follows that ‘Hyper’ or ‘Convergent’ media are no longer adequate terms for explaining the dominant form of communication. Cyberspace is inherently hierarchical; its appropriate term is ‘Supraliteracy’.
Two characteristics of supraliteracy are speed and multi-sensory stimulation. When combined within a virtual environment speed becomes multi-sensory, to the point where there occurs a masturbatory desire for relief from the anxiety created by inhabiting a form presided over by an irreducible presence. (Note the androgynous design of a ‘Mouse’; a vehicle for transmitting a multi-sensory response, it is at once vaginal and penile, without necessarily being either). When combined with the staggering number of people using digital communication equipment, not only is supraliteracy the dominant form of communication, but its capacity for controlling behaviour becomes obvious.
In Computers as Theatre Laurel outlined a case for an Aristotelian interpretation of ‘Agency’. (7. Laurel, 1993, 4) One that allowed for the user to become an active and equal participant in cyberspace. But it would appear that early hopes for a fair and intelligent distribution of power have been replaced by Foucalt’s panopticon, and its capacity to surveil large groups of people by controlling the discourse. (8. Turkle, 1996, 248) In 2006, this invisible eye is not Bentham’s prison guard. More a divine presence concealed within the fabric of much that qualifies as cyberspatial. A presence that users are coerced into placating in the same way as attending church and confessing sin will redeem the soul.
The information elite
We have flushed out the divine presence lurking within cyberspace in 2006. In doing so, we have discovered how this irreducible force demands placation - if not subservience - and that users of the dominant form are conditioned to escape anonymity via an auto-erotic loop that becomes addictive. Historically, control of the dominant form of communication has resided with religious, military, industrial, and bureaucratic elite's. But since the advent of supraliteracy, there has occurred a hybridisation of these previously disparate powers into a global force. One way of thinking about this monolith is by categorising it as an ‘Information elite’.
From the interiorisation of the alphabet (9. Tofts, 1998, 50) to the space of flows possession of the dominant form of communication has oscillated between institutions within society that seek to control the population. In ancient Greece, the shift from pictogrammatic forms of writing to the simplified alphabet resulted in a sophisticated military expansion that allowed for the conquest of the known world. (10. McLuhan, 1995, 83) Similarly, the advent of the telegraph, and a capacity for information to travel faster than human beings (11. Wark, 1993, 163), undermined the tyranny of the natural world, replacing this with sophisticated forms of human interaction.
This cursory glance illustrates the fact that control of the dominant form of communication has inevitably resulted in a concentration of power within a disparate minority. Control the medium: distribute the message: manipulate the population. The same pattern has repeated itself since the origins of Western civilisation. But with the advent of supraliteracy, there has occurred one very important difference. The basic human drive toward ‘Becoming’ (12. Tofts, 2002, 3) has seen previously disparate elite's combine into a global conglomerate; one that almost defies interpretation. Donna Haraway describes this experience as similar to being “...in the belly of the monster”. (13. Haraway, 2002, Rear cover) But it is more like a hurricane, or some other natural phenomenon; an audio-visual organism comprised of living data. (14. Reck, 2005, 10) One point is clear; history shows us the emergence of an information elite is no accident, and was always an inevitability.
It would be a mistake to oversimplify the motives of this information elite by suggesting its members have conspired in an attempt at global conquest. Yet there are more similarities between those comprising this elite, than there are differences. Rupert Murdoch may have dabbled in Marxism during his time at Oxford, (15. Murdoch, K.& R., Chifley, B., 2001, 200) but aspirations toward social democracy were soon swept aside in favour of U.S. citizenship, the Pentagon, fundamentalist Christianity and nuclear power. Meanwhile, recalcitrant Islamic fundamentalists fly jumbo jets into the world trade centre in an attempt at replacing one repressive hierarchy with another. Where are paradigms of resistance in all of this ?
The problem of democracy
‘Democracy’, as an appendage of political thought connected to a body comprising institutions that construct a society, like marathon runner Kate Smyth’s muscles, is disintegrating. To speak of an electronic agora, (16. Mitchell, 1995, 8) a common place in cyberspace within which individuals are free to gather, express themselves, and define the method by which cyberspace may be governed, is to pay lip service to an exhausted utopianism.
Blogging, often hailed as the medium for the citizen journalist, in most cases, is a substitute for mindless individualism. In a desire to escape the anxiety prompted by a sense of anonymity, most bloggers, like the Italian fascists during World War 2 (17. Hood, Crowley, 1996, 167-68) set-up cyberstates; within which each can do as they please. Claims of a democratic medium are soon silenced by the erasure of dissenting opinions. (A dangerous indulgence self-evident in the personalised web-site).
And here lies the problem of democracy. As a system of governance it is no longer ‘Government of the people, etc...’. Neither is democracy a meaningless concept that has outlived its usefulness. In cyberspace, democracy masquerades for autocracy. Explicit in blogging, disturbingly implicit in cyberspace’s divine form, ‘Democracy’ in 2006 has become an excuse for a tendency toward fascism.
Given that money is power, and that corporate power is a result of progress derived from the astute investment of wealth, the emergence of an information elite, as a consequence of the human drive to ‘Become’, is not surprising. Hybridisation may be a buzz word, but the symbiosis of societal institutions and its parallel with the emergence of powerful literacies is an ancient phenomenon; one evidenced in Plato’s praise for speech, expressed via its antithesis of writing. (18. Plato, 1973, 98) What is surprising, especially when considering the unrealistic hopes for a free and intelligent cyberspace in much writing from the early 90’s, is that paradigms of resistance have allowed the complexion of cyberspace to drift dangerously to the Right. There is culpability here: cultural and media theorists, students, media artists, community groups, political activists and also, consumers, (for, rhetoric aside, are we now not all consumers of the dominant form of communication ?), were bedazzled by utopian visions, careers, the promise of genuine political clout, and other high ideals. If we had taken time to consider our history books, the nexus between literacy and power would have been all too apparent. Consequently, the cultivation of a diverse cyberspatial discourse has been all but pulverised by a corporate-religous force. Arbitrary and irreducible, this force has little regard for its detractors. Worse still, because of a type of cultural dilettantism, paradigms of resistance now find themselves unwittingly indoctrinated into the faith. Unlike the Panther Moderns of Neuromancer, we lost sight of our complicity in the media gestalt. (19. Gibson, 1993, 75) An intelligent discourse within a free cyberspace is the price we have paid for what in retrospect should have been a foreseeable mistake.
The survival shuffle
I spent much of the 90’s living in very unfashionable digs in fashionable St. Kilda, a bayside suburb of Melbourne. I also studied Dramatic Art at perhaps the most prestigious art school in the country. During this time I did a lot of running; in search of the ‘Runner’s high’, coupled with a desire to complete a marathon, I ran on average 70-100 km per week. I've always been a runner. But given I had somehow entered the realm of a cultural elite, running became a mystical experience. On the verge of transcendentalism, I pounded the beat on Beach Rd., or followed the Yarra river from Northcote to Bulleen. Consequently, my body transformed. My vascularity protruded through my skin until I resembled a thoroughbred on race day, and my resting pulse rate trundled along at 45 beats per minute. This had to be it; I was God in a pair of Adidas runners, (since collapsed into the universal dustbin). Then one day, I encountered the survival shuffle.
A strategy for survival is less a strategy, and more a mad scramble or configuration of haphazard tactics employed to prevent the onset of an inevitable conclusion. When Kate Smyth began experiencing difficulties half way through the Women's’ marathon, she probably knew the race was lost. (20. Smyth, 2006, 5) Upon entering the Melbourne Cricket Ground in a distressed state, any strategy would have been overridden by twin desires. Smyth’s brain would have involuntarily directed its function toward protecting her vital organs. While in some other part of her cortex, who knows exactly where, there would have existed a grim determination to resist the pain of her body’s disintegration, and finish the race. In 2006, much the same can be said for paradigms of resistance as they shuffle along in a genuine, but defeated attempt at instilling a diverse discourse within the realm of cyberspace. Yet before I propose a model for resisting the omnipotence of the information elite in the 3rd millennium, a fundamental question needs to be asked.
Why resist..?
A recent advertisement for a multinational hamburger chain claimed resistance to its cuisine’ was futile. But we know that by consuming too many of the chain’s hamburgers we will make ourselves sick. A diverse diet is required in order to maintain a healthy body, and the same can be said for cyberspace. ‘Winning’ a struggle is for the birds; or should I say, the Pentagon Hegemonists. But this is all the more reason why paradigms of resistance must remain vigilant. The information elite plays to win. Consequently, the balance of power has shifted. Defeat, if it has not already arrived, is most certainly imminent. But recognising defeat can also be the beginning of a new strategy; not just for survival, but with the intention of actively creating a free and intelligent cyberspace.
Intimations of a cyborg revolutionary
Toward the climactic moment in the film Blade Runner, the off-world outlaw Roy Batty announces to the flailing detective, Deckard “It’s time to die”. (21. Fancher, 1980, scene 116) It’s a curious statement. Not because of what it says about a fictional American future. But because of an indirect connection it has with Australia’s past. “Such is life” said that other outlaw, as the gallows trapdoor opened and his life snapped shut. When he donned his armour at Glenrowan in a crude precursor to a very contemporary fusion of the artificial and the organic, he could not have realised that by protecting flesh with metal he would become Australia’s first intimation of a cyborg revolutionary, and a model for resistance in the 3rd Millennium.
Of course, this attempt at resistance failed. But what is remembered is the attempt, not its failure, and contemporary Australia would be a different place if this attempt had not occurred. But it is not the hollow rhetoric of revolution I wish to impart. Like Stelarc, and the legal quandary proposed by his desire to graft a polymer ear onto his forearm, (22. Tofts, 2005, 105) Australia’s most prominent outlaw was also willing to put his body on the line in favour of an ideal. But he also realised the flesh was weak. If an attempt at resistance was to succeed, the body required ‘Souping up’ in such a way that it departed from its organic origins, became a multiple of human being and machine, (23. Stelarc, 2002, 204) and was able, in spite of an initial failure, to significantly influence the direction of a discourse in such a way that it continues to resonate 150 years later. No dilettantism here; and yes, there may have been political ambitions circulating within that republicanised cylindrical helmet, but allow me to ask this question. Among paradigms of resistance in 2006, who else would be willing to risk their life, let alone their career, in support of an ideal ? Simultaneously, self-sacrifice should not be a prerequisite for resistance. There has to be, and are, more circumspect methods for having a significant impact upon the future direction of cyberspace.
The real estate of the 3rd millennium
In 2006, the struggle is no longer for control of cyberspace, the struggle is cyberspatial. Any strategy for controlling the dominant form of communication should be abandoned in favour of a ‘Mixed reality’. (24. Innocent, 2002, 194) The ‘Real’ world no longer exists. It follows that this exhausted term will not suffice when explaining the phenomenon known as supraliteracy. To speak of a mixed reality, is to recognise an absorption of the ‘Actual’ into the virtual. It pinpoints a moment in time when our perception of the world is in a state of transition. To be immersed within a virtual environment is no longer an interface with a computer or mobile phone. It is dreaming and loving: or having breakfast, then stepping outside and heading to work. Our perceptions have been altered in such a way that we, flesh and blood individuals, now carry within us the condition known as supraliteracy. Important for paradigms of resistance is an awareness of the hierarchy implicit within the supraliterate world. If cyberspace is to be altered in such a way that it results in the creation of a free and intelligent discourse, complete immersion within the realm of supraliteracy is not only necessary, it is self-evident. But like the Panther Moderns, we must be vigilant in remaining self-conscious of our presence in the media gestalt. By doing so, we become capable of creating a free and intelligent cyberspace. Outlaws on a new frontier who one day might yet transform this virtual world.
Bibliography
1. Tofts, D., Interzone: Media Arts in Australia, Melbourne, Craftsman House, 2005.
2. Derrida, J., of Grammatology, (Translator: Spivak, G.C.), Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, 1976.
3. Wark, M., Suck on This, Planet of Noise !, from Cultural Studies, Pluralism and Theory, ed. D. Bennet, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1993.
4. Nelson, T. Proposal for a Universal Electronic Publishing System and Archive & Problems of Hypertext, from Literary Machines 3.1, Sausalito, Mindful Press, 1993.
5. Nietzsche, F., Thus Spoke Zarathustra, from an introduction by R.J. Hollingdale, Hammondsworth, Penguin Books, 1981.
6. Buick, J., & Jevtic, Z., Cyberspace for Beginners, St. Leonards, Allen and Unwin, 1996.
7. Laurel, B., The Nature of the Beast, from Computers as Theatre, Menlo Park, Addison-Wesley, 1993.
8. Turkle, S., Virtuality and its Discontents, from Life on the Screen. Identity in the Age of the Internet, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1996.
9. Tofts, D. & McKeich, M., Memory Trade: A Prehistory of Cyberculture, Sydney, Interface Books, 1998.
10. McLuhan, M., The Written Word: An Eye for an Ear, from Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995
11. Refer note 3.
12. Tofts, D., (Sen. Ed.) Johnson, A., Cavallaro, A., (Ed’s.) prefiguring cybercultue; AN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY, Sydney, Power Publications, Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press (Co-Published) , 2002.
13. Ibid.
14. Reck, T., The Digital Hurricane Data Dance, from Real Time 70, Sydney, Open City Inc., 2005.
15. Correspondence between Keith and Rupert Murdoch, and Ben Chifley, 1949-50; from True Believers : the story of the federal parliamentary Labour Party, Faulkner, J., & Macintyre, M., (Ed’s.) Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2001.
16. Mitchell, W., “Electronic Agoras”, from City of Bits. Space, Place and the Infobahn, Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 1995.
17. Hood, S., and Crowley, G., Marquis de Sade for Beginners, St. Leonards N.S.W., Allen & Unwin, 1996.
18. Plato., from The Phaedrus, trans. W. Hamilton, Harmondswoerth, Penguin, 1973.
19. Gibson, W., from Neuromancer, London, Harper Collins, 1993.
20. Smyth, K., Long way to the Finish, from The Sports Factor, ABC Radio National, 2006.
21. Fancher, H., Blade Runner, Hollywood, Calif., Brighton Productions Inc., 1980.
22. Refer note 12.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
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