On December 5th, 1999, I posted this exact set (below) of three texts to
Rhizome, Thingist, and Nettime. Eventually, I finished a longer text,
MILLENNIAL SPURN, comprised of twenty-three such texts, including these
three. MILLENNIAL SPURN was an attempt to describe the nature of network
culture in 1999. T.S.


BORED PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS

People want to be mindreaders. They're nosey. They want to invade other
people's consciousness. They want to control mindshare. Ultimately, they
want to remote-control people. Exploitation is constantly being redefined
by advancing technology.

On the question of how to leverage eyeballs to your Web site, what are we
looking at? We're looking at a mob of exhibitionists dying, vying for
your attention, constantly upping their levels of exposure. They're
playing chicken with the real probability of psychological implosion.

Plucking eyeballs out of the skulls of the on-line masses is disgusting,
by the way. This obsession with attention is sick.

Once they have the attention they so desperately seek, they'll turn
aggressive. They'll flip from desperate exhibitionists into control
freaks. First, they'll author media releases that function like hypnosis.
They'll cast a spell. Then they'll fashion media packages that pack the
wallop of a stun gun.

Control is based on predictability. Surveillance and reducing uncertainty
is at the heart of the matter. Eliminating risk and theft and loss
is the main obsession. People want to know what's going on when they have
something at stake, otherwise they could care less. Unless they are bored
stiff. Then they'll watch anything. Bored people, given the opportunity,
will just bug people at random to find out what they are doing.

—–

BULK ERASING AND REPURPOSING

People say that information garbage disposal and recycling are not yet
profitable. But I've seen forecasts of massive recycling campaigns
generated by the people for the people, where everyone recycles cultural
garbage for their own amusement. They will make things out of abandoned
software the way people used to make floormats out of bottle caps, or
decorative chains of dead novelty watches from fast-food outlets. And
then there is the information-demolition trend. Blowing up or otherwise
disintegrating rotten information is very entertaining and it is a service
our societies obviously need.

—–

T NOT P

Increasingly, we are bored stiff. We may be leading longer lives, but our
lives are increasingly empty. They have a monotonous, flaccid tone. We
are tired, made weary of constantly adapting to change. We are constantly
asked to accommodate technological change, apparently arbitrary change.
This flatness or deadness of heart is unnerving. Don't check for my
pulse, I just want to be a dial tone.


Tom Sherman, 1999

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There will be a book signing for Tom Sherman's

Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information Environment

at Printed Matter, Inc., New York, NY

Saturday, October 19, 2002, 5 to 7 PM


Printed Matter is very pleased to announce a book signing for Tom
Sherman's book _Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information
Environment_, to take place at Printed Matter, Inc., on Saturday,
October 19, 2002, from 5 to 7 PM. Printed Matter, Inc. is located at
535 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues (New York, NY).

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