[stream] experiencing virtual aesthetics

What consists in the textual aesthetics of the virtual... the textual, in English? The language of modern science, what potential has it to dream the accounts of our times? The grammar and the vocabulary, sampled and traced the mass of canons and thousand corpus... transformed, will they suffice to discover a new tune? (Transform how?) To recall the silent wares of logic, deeply embedded in our being, and remembering, to express again, to generate again, to experience fully again this exhiliration of our already always present logical imagination.

[stream] "dream towards"

Opening my eyes I saw lit neon, trailing, flashing, blinking in and out of existence, perfect renderings of lit trajectories. I heard the whispers of the metro, the declarations of engines and aluminum machines, the primal rhythms of footsteps and jumbled noise, the procession of perpetual fluoresence.

Sliding into the wires I slipped out to the empty darkness of space. Motioning along at the speed of light, I was still and never moving. The cluster of million points of light accelerated towards me, and slowing, transformed into transecting lines of alphanumericals. I have arrived at the city of incessant exchange. The entity of digital atoms has come to me.

Through the white blur of neon data I catch a glimpse, a series of transparent body forms, now here, now gone. I hear voice, one there, one there, one here, one here. Soft, precise, doppling sounds and images fade in and out, of people, persons, the fellows of my own.

[C/i/a] picturing utopia part i

Working on a competition today for the fournos center for digital culture, on the topic of utopia :

"The term utopia has been used in philosophy, art, literature, architecture even in politics to describe ideal situations that are impossible or very difficult to implement. These approaches may have a financial, political or social basis but in any case utopia is always strongly connected with an optimistic, idealistic or almost impossible perfection. The references to the utopia are innumerable, the most famous examples standing out are: Plato's Republic, New Jerusalem by Augustine of Hippo, Utopia by Sir Thomas Moore [that first used the word utopia], New Atlantis by Francis Bacon, the Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Andromeda Nebula by Ivan Efremov and the Cloud Of Maggelan by Stanilav Lem."

My idea is that after all that's said and done, and crafted, utopia is a state of mind. It's of already being there, of enjoying one's own being there with other people. No delusions of needing to get there, since already there in the involvement, no matter what joyous or violent drama happens to take the stage in an ephemeral moment. The Buddhists have the idea for self-cultivation that one can envision the world as perfected, in which everybody is just going along the act to help you reach fulfillment. It's a bottom-up approach, not necessarily towards any ends (since a state of perfect happiness for everybody still leaves room to choose between ecstatic drama and quiet tranquility etc), but towards suggesting others to seek a personal understanding of their each being-in-the-world. From this perspective, there is no urgency to achieve some final event of consensus between all the people in the world, in the form of a realized utopia or otherwise. It simply hints quietly at the possibility of recognizing that we are "being together", that we are the ones making the play, together.

The actual problem statement:

"Which are the most familiar forms of utopia for today's world? Utopia is a temporal and spatial illusion that examines reality and transforms it. It is connected to the facts and the conditions of each period converting them to something higher, idealized. Today's utopias are connected to contemporary technology and science, their fast development and their possibilities. They leave behind the images of ideal paradises and societies close to nature. They are inspired and they use material from the internet, the mobile and wireless technologies for new conditions of social and political co-existence. Other forms of utopia are shaped into virtual environments from the fields of creation and entertainment."

In a sect of the IT development, eg. Open Source Movement and Creative Commons, we are experiencing and articulating and acting some form of a utopian being-together. Am thinking of reviewing some stuff on that tonight and letting that inform how I develop this image further.

Here's what I have so far :