The big rage these days is incoherence. Or maybe it is better described
as a communications breakdown based on the huge gap between public and
private channels? I am not talking about public and private sectors in
socio-economic terms. I am referring to public and private communication
spheres in terms of relative exposure–the distribution of messages (one
to many, one to one, many to many, many to one). There is a huge gap
between public and private spheres and this gap is causing an implosion
of coherence and comprehension. I have this feeling that the information
bomb we are all worried about has already been dropped, in the early
1990's, and that we are witnessing the aftermath.

People are alienated from the mainstream, finding they are not
represented by the proliferation of industrial television, radio and
print media, while they are simultaneously given license to expand the
territory of their private lives through wireless telephony, desktop
publishing, home video, digital multimedia and internet and web-based
telecommunications. Having spread themselves far too thin in these
personal communications media–having revealed way too much private
information for their own good–people realize they are overexposed,
exhausted, out of material and facing the abyss between private and
public media spheres. Finding their personal information reserves on
empty, yet realizing they are still largely unrecognized or undervalued
by others, the only clear way to bridge the gap is through acts of
violence, figurative or concrete. Symbolic or physical destructive
action cuts to the bone in a stifling, discontinuous, inanely
superficial universe of symbols, signals and noise.

There is such confusion at the microphone, keyboard or in front of the
camera. Opportunities for meaningful public communication are squandered
by people talking endlessly about themselves. Private communication,
paradox that it has always been, is now used as a soap box for amateur
politicians–or just as commonly for the diatribe–the spew of personal
venom: look and listen to me, my tongue distributes acidic barbs…no
person, no thing can deny that I exist, especially if I aggravate,
offend or hurt them. After multiple transmissions of poison, the
diatribist is eventually buried by noise or moderated or shut off by a
gatekeeper or a switching mechanism.

But ah, there are the positive gestures. There are many promoting beauty
and intelligence in the void. The wild flowers of the telematic weedbed
exist to spread elegance and generousity and love. They act out their
instinct to decorate the barren fiber optic tunnels with bright colours
and blinking signs and otherwise dazzling design innovations and to
provide and manipulate content worthy of experience. Already there are
lists of classic network artworks. Most realize the futility of trying
to produce evergreen information in a junk culture, and thus the
popularity of tweaking (appropriating) or filtering. They transform or
filter the economy of abundance (the crap) and provide moments of
clarity and order. And they too are billed for their time on-line, just
like everybody else, for the privilege of inhabiting an artificial,
inhospitable telematic space on a planet running out of clean air,
water, biodiversity, food, silence, civility… The information bomb was
dropped in the early 1990's. It created the space and time we needed to
develop our profound incoherence. Just as deregulation has facilitated
reformed monopolies, we now have a comprehensive incoherence in the name
of cultural diversity.