a .doc file can take anything. a browser will take you wherever you never intended to go. the net is an orchestra (or a pop band) for everyone – what a cacophony it produces. then again, a musical metaphore may not be appropriate for a phenomenon such as the world wide web. but we must have analogies to things we’re familiar with in order to study something new. and this is new – a couple of years is nothing for a thing as big as the Net. so, how do we label it? give me a category and a differentia specifica! turbo-charged means of communication? define: internet.. an electronic network of computers. a contraption. and what is it we’re creating with this extension to our tongues and our fingers? is it an enormous jigsaw-puzzle: you get to paint a piece – or a few, if you own google. are we creating, or do we even want to create anything? or is it about destruction again? assuming the net does not become a conscious entity and enslave mankind, what is this universe of static and dynamic web content, multimedia whatchamacallits, and words, an overwhelming flood of words? a symphony, a painting, a building, a super-sized hall of mirrors, a myriad of distorted images… a revolution (duh). perhaps “virtual reality” is the most adequate term. although it may be the next revolution, there is no need to wait for the “patch my senses directly to a 3D simulation wherein buildings are actually data” technology before we start calling the Web what it is: a virtual reality. reality depends on our mind for interpretation anyway, which makes it a very vulnerable concept.
music: “Second Toughest In The Infants” - Underworld
movie: “Ghost In The Shell” – Mamoru Oshii
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