New Media

[Doreen Peri]

So. Here we all are sitting here on different sides of the planet or country or universe or all of those, typing out our hearts and souls and hopes and whole and half-dreams and most of the time being more honest than we could ever be in person, or so they tell me, whoever they are.... communicating.

We are in a brand new media. We're residing here or stopping by to acknowledge each other's existence, or making a living on the media somehow. Or we're hanging in chatrooms, creating music, disassembling art theories, writing poetry 'til dawn, dusk on the edge of the painting waiting to emerge with the meaning of it all but I remember when color tv came out, 'cause yeah, i'm that old, and I was like 5 or so and before that, everyone I saw was black & white & grey. Then, there came technicolor, in 1960 something.

Before all of this, my Grandmother witnessed the horse'n'carriage being mechanized into an automobile and the first people moved on a screen and the indians, apparently, thought there might be gods in there and left the theater quick! - in fear.

Today, we have blogs and google, people attempting the lift the fog from their eyes by writing whatever comes to mind. It's like we're sitting at a campfire. Mesmerized by the glow of the light from the central location in the middle of a family room, fired by connection.

Where do you think this media will go within the next five years? Do you have a website? What's the purpose of it? Being visible, perhaps. Becoming recognized for your work? This is the new media.

We are exchanging mp3s, making movies, posting images of how we wished the world could be, carrying on epitomes of wonder in relation, creating what seem to be sometimes-viewed tv stations, having arguments about the politics of beginnings and war, storing it all on various hard drives all across the world, often sharing stories, files, death, birth, question. Answering each other with intention, some intervention by others necessary for the toil.

I don't know. I use this media for being where I am when I am there, discussing music and mantra with far-away souls in hopes to find some hole to penetrate so I will feel part of the process. Or add to it. Or effect it in a way that somebody knew I was there, anyway.

Where is this media going?

Here we are. My friend, Karen, back about 5 years ago used to tap on the box. Hit on the screen with her knuckes or palm... beat beat beat... knock knock knock..... "There are PEOPLE in there! There are PEOPLE in there!," she'd say, or so she told me in all those emails and y'know what? I believed her. Why? Because I loved her and it's an amazing thing that people can meet this way and report news on the fly and then meet in person eye-to-eye because of their original connection with the immediately published word like this ......

So, here we all are. What do you think?

[Lightning Rod]

I'm amazed by your grasp of the obvious, doreen
technology has been the driving force for cultural change
since they discovered fire.

things are just moving faster these days.
One person can do the work of ten
because of the technology.

whether it's the threshing machine
or the cotton gin or that
Luddite nightmare, the flying shuttle.

Or the car or the aereoplane
or compound interest or cloning
or the cracking of the atom.

you can't stop technology
any more than you can stop evolution
or our journey toward heaven.

'dora's box contained knowledge
like the apple of eve
once it's opened or bitten, the cat's out of the bag.

Time moves in one direction,
but light can go anywhere.
like the internet, the new medium.

[BuddhistPunk]

Technology has given us many great and some not so great things. It has provided us with an astounding advantage over our previous generations. It has also created an environment where by man has become dependant on technology. Everything we do from the moment we rise to the moment we slumber is controlled or affected by technology in some way. Mankind cannot survive long without technology and technology needs power. What are we to do and what will become of us when we no longer have the use of technology. Oil is getting scarce and viable alternatives even scarcer. There is an old Arab saying which goes something like 'my father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son will fly a helicopter, and his son will ride a camel'. I wonder how prophetic that might prove to be.