' The easy life, plentiful money and an obscure
but un-obscured view to a present. The feeling
of more of the same, just integrate ones – self
into the smooth functioning system to find ones
own path, the aim, to eclipse the opportunities
and achievements of the generation before.
This all felt possible and achievable, or the
environment made it seem so.
Someone's business fails and you can’t get a job
and you cant afford to pay your bills and your
food seems to get more expensive every week.
The official statistics back up your feeling that
things have become harder and more expen –
sive, the tone of the politicians and the texture
of the mediated slogans imbue the world with a
pessimistic hue. A helplessness in the face of
larger uncontrollable technological cultural
social forces.
The power of data, the unstoppable growth of
computer memory capacity and of processing
speeds. The shrinking of device-size. The move
to ‘THE [heavenly] CLOUD’ the virtual –
virtual astral plane. We have no need to
physically retain our own data anymore, in
true capitalist fashion this job is outsourced to
lower cost locations, in data centres on business
parks in Leipzig or Palo Alto or Mumbai or
Wherever.
Since 2000 all we’ve heard is that there is a
crisis. There is a crisis happening now, in our
world all around us, although we can’t always
see it or feel it, it is there in the images and the
articles and replays and the data. A financial
crisis in the world economy. A crisis in the
world. A world crisis. What more do we need
to see to make it real. How many more govern
– ment budgets need to be slashed and taxes
increased before we see the enormity of the
problems. How many sick and unemployed
and disabled and marginalized people must we
force to straighten up and fly right before we
FEEL the crisis. We are either in a period of
latency or complacency. The system is broken
and no one knows how to fix it, or whether we
should bother to fix it because you know it
kinda works right? You have a job and a roof
over your head and internet and a twitter
account and you can follow whoever you want
and you can share and swap and swirl and
whirl the infinity of data and electronic and
physical commodities of our age around you
in a blanket of comfort and a sly wink to your
buddy and the irony, the marginalized who
cant keep up who aren’t aware who don’t
want can't occupy this space and don’t know
how to use it. As we disappear into this black
hole the REAL WORLD carries on with its
building sites turning into factories producing
goods shipped and packaged and barcoded and
delivered by a man in a brown van wearing an
overall designed by someone to your home wh –
ere you live and there you go you have what
you want need now.
The numbing synthesis. The white horse in the
corner of your burger. The dislocation and the
cleanliness of your hands. '
#hand2hand
:0)
Sincerely,
B N
