Generic Greeting Collective Zine #2

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Future shock. Digital computers and cybernetics became inseparable from any visions of the future, both utopian and dystopian. The point where it became possible to link computers together to form networks provided the ultimate representation of the future - the abstract and invisible 'space' that connects the hardware in networks both opened up a whole new abstract futuristic realm to imagine and represent and at the same time tested the very limits of representation itself. Networked computers represent the limit point beyond which no new visions of the future are possible. Futures studies began and more or less ended within the second half of the 20th century, and the way that computer-based technology was represented in popular culture began to alter. Networked computers and digital media became ordinary and a generation has grown up with that technology and can’t really remember anything before it. At the early adopter phase of the internet, virtual reality, posthuman societies and envisioned digital planes just about tolerated the word ‘futuristic’. Meanwhile, IRL, technology becomes ever more advanced, but the nature of this advancement is narrow and predictable. The cybernetic utopianism of Silicon Valley is now fully subsumed within the neoliberal project and the only technological progression we are allowed to witness (who knows the actual limit to the sophistication of military technology at this point) is in the minimal alternations made to consumer products which almost entirely buffer us from future shock. Because, as Slavoj Zizek and Frederic Jameson argued, it is now easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, representations of the apocalypse continue to be prevalent but we cannot really imagine a future at all that is not just a continuation of the same. As our experience of computer-based technology has become banal, the primary reflection of it seems to have turned inward. It is no longer representational but referential. The media will never allow us to forget that we live in web 2.0 culture and seems desperate to show that it can keep up with its language. Any


representations of futuristic-ness that are still attempted merely replicate those of the futurological heyday of the mid-to-late 20th century which, in many cases, we already know are false. Futuristic aesthetics now look dated because they refer, not to the future, but to this recent historical past and the word itself has ceased to signify what it is supposed to mean. The near-future dystopia (The Neuromancer, Bladerunner, The Terminator) wouldn't resonate as much if made today because what it depicts - artificial skin and metal, sublimation from the body, machinic desire and violence - is graphically horrifying in a way that our experience of advanced technocapitalism isn't. It is also true that the totalitarian state dystopia is dangerous if it suggests that it represents the only kind. However, you could also argue that an intense rendering of our highly self-referential, but not directly representable culture could succeed because it is unlike our everyday experience. Many separate examples of primarily internet-based visual art and music over the last few years have, in different ways, intensely visualized, not the future, but the present, or some kind of parallel to it. It is unimportant whether the various artists reject or celebrate accelerated technology and / or capital, and certainly many of their views are not that clear cut. The works themselves are often ambiguous in this respect because they often make use of the excitement that comes from the dark, sinister or uncanny aspects of technological culture including digitally rendered environments, both super HD and the outmoded graphics, the alien quality of certain software created sound FX, automata and the medical uses of robotic and computer technology. What is important is that these artworks do not simply replicate their surroundings but defamiliarize them. They are too shiny, too HD, too fractured, filled with too much doom, too bright, too loud. We need an art that returns the sensation to our experience with discontinuity, intensity and horror and points towards something moving beneath the surface of the familiar and self-referential. Florence Platford.






Rhodes Cannon in his own words the phenomenon, proud citizen of a free society, unique repository of insights and skillsets: a deeper explanation in my generation’s future legacy. I am singular and unique devoid of excessive concrete. Although not comprehensive, by any means infused with the ability and the resolve to mine life to the fullest. I also appreciate Me: analyzing individuals is an important facet of history In my spare time, I enjoy fly-fishing, competitive archery, playing the bagpipes, travel, macro-level individual affairs, barriers, timely barbwire impact, shrink-wrapped discipline technology, a substantive platform, an acute specific lens, The Fall of the Berlin Wall and more.


I have a firm grasp global energy security issues I feel the urgency of unity and focus of purpose intensity of my regions key to comprehending and anticipating the impact I am poised to make a contribution and seek a venue for my profound, unique, refined and rigorous institutions. In my life pursuits, I intend to further my world perspective and skill-sets. I am well prepared to make extraordinary and significant contributions, This reality has shaped the ‘stage-set’ of the world, my sense of empathy, humanity and world community. I believe the speed of the world trends towards germane often virulent present undertaking(s). I recommend my perspective and horizons well done. Addressing underscores knowledge. I am a stability and future scope capable of Empirebuilding, and I await hearing from you.





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