<thingist> Demagogues in light of the WTC

[Frederic Madre]

At 21:29 18/09/2001 -0400, Beatrice Beaubien wrote:
>Blackhawk,
>
>As I have mentioned in passing to you before, I think a collective contribution to the idea of avatars is needed. The way personalities use them as a defense/offense/reference is highly diverse. Some (like nn) need them to shield (strongly) offensive action. Others (like mez) use the avatar method to communicate and transduce.

I do not perceive either nn or mez as more of an avatar as anyone of us.
Online persona, perhaps, would be a better term for those. At no moment have I seen either of those persons communicate otherwise than under their adopted online names and, to some extent, style even in private conversation (this in itself is a whole box of threads as it seems that no online correspondence can be safely understood as private anymore and that is not because of carnivore echelon and their ilk but rather by the dispersion of common sense aka netiquette).

In what way can those be cornered as avatar and not, say, a person that is known to all as Blackhawk or another as Biti, a third as porculus, and last but not least, a so called Frederic Madre ?
how different are "patrick lichty" and voyd at voyd.com ? totally apart and absolutely the same at once. One meat-meet with Dr. Joseph Nechvatal is pudding proof of this and I won't let myself enter a debate about 'the other' and 'the self', this is for fresh out of school artists or the grey haired acamedics who taught them.

mez, nn, you and me are not avatars. they are us (respectively, ok ?).
it all comes down to style. we are recognized by our styles, or we are not recognized and ackowledged if we have none. This bothers the styleless who can only survive this economy of attention by trying to pinpoint (and bitch about) the elements of the style of others, looking to ridicule it as 'just style'. (now there was a fast link to ted byfield here, I'm short circuiting it for the sake of keeping to what matters). now, when I read this kind of comment: "nn's conversation is not much different from most bad translation software" it makes me not only wary because I have read it so many times before (and it was already challenged by others x times that) but because it shows a definite lack of curiosity. anyone that has actually read 3 posts by nn knows that there is opinion aplenty in there and that those opinions, more importantly than the form they take, are what gives nn a recognizable style. Those who constantly denigrate her (please notice that I do not say 'her work', a term that I despise) do it because she challenges their comfortable vision of the world as I like her because we share much of the same vision and a lust for the abrasive power of humor against the lap dogs of the establishment.

I find nn speak emulators totally ridiculous. there is only one person that can produce her kind of output and that is her.

as for, "the nn syndicate idea" to be "common currency" (<sigh> indeed, biti) it is again a detour to thought prompted recently (this rumour can be traced back probably to a year or a year and a half ago) by her being represented at various conferences by "rented bodies" other people who are there to physically impersonate her: real world avatars. It is also a way to minimize her perceived output.

I do not see why it is so impossible to think that nn is just one nice 23 year old girl, out there in amsterdam writing music software, reading books and watching nouvelle vague movies in the seclusion of her apartment. rich, bored and educated: I swallow it hook and sinker. and I love her green spiky shirt.

What I see is that the expression of individuality thru stubborn dedication to style is a threat to the well-minded defenders of the lowest denominator consensus. the status quo is so rewarding to the feeble minded.

blackhawk:
 >[tb] said that this person is merely the latest
> >"recruit" & that earlier ones are still active.

sure, ted byfield knows about this... next thing you know he's going to say that it is bin laden that attacked the wtc towers!

>   >the things which makes it much easier is the utilization on an ultra-specific
> >text/language form.

I assume that she sits now a huge library of mail fodder: ascii drawings, a history of sig files, poetry, excerpts from books, fan mail, hate mail and she can copy-paste it into newly formed comunications adding new stuff all the time. i'd be interested to know if this library is organized in some way or if she relies on memory, but this is only petty detail. there is also a constant re-utilization of personal mail that she receives and it is often that one can see bits of their stuff appearing inside her posts, regurgiated as is.

> >like TB but I still don't think he knows much about art

then what would he understand about nn ?

last, I would add that if tb is certain that nn is a collective it adds to the evidence that she is not.

f.