Manifest Destiny II - Limits and Exceptions

Similar to the seemingly boundless nature of the Old West, the irony of the Net is its finitude. This limitation stems both from the limitations of the possible number of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses available, but also from sources related to taxonomies of desire as well. The most limiting parameter of the informational terrain comes from the fact that there are only so many easily recognizable domain names, and so defines the battleground of the cybernetic sheep for the best informational fodder. If one can find some similitude in the words of Frank Zappa, reason states that the cyberspatial equivalent to the vast unpopulated expanses of Montana is www.zirconiumencrustedtweezers.com, an understandably undesirable identity. Returning to our parallels between the expansion of 18th Century America and the rush to the Internet, it is evident that the actions of artists in our study make visible trajectories of cybernetic culture as it expands toward the Internet's Malthusian limits of intellectual property. This is not to say that, as in previous days, emerging infrastructures such as the Internet II informational network may (or may not) be opened to public access its predecessor. Such an action could alleviate some of the technical limitations intrinsic to the present system, but the metaphorical creation of a new continent does not address the questions of the sustainability of information density in the environment of the Internet.

At the turn of the millennium, a plethora of additional top-level domains, the suffixes following the 'dot', as in dot.com, dot.net, dot.org, and the like have opened up, but this does not replace the auratic primacy of the first three domain names. Regardless of the suffix appended to a domain name, browsers typically search on these three TLD's, leaving the others, while opening up territory for new Internet-based real estate, left as poor cousins of the first settlers of the digital frontier. The recognition of being a dot.com, even though the cultural connotations of this distinction have been diluted somewhat by the Internet stock crash of 2000, is still strong in the private sector. Until the more widespread usage of the new TLD's becomes more common, the old domains, and especially the dot.coms, will be the valued sites of online identity property, and the impetus for more border wars between cultural enclaves and the private sector.

The issues at play in the conflicts arising from the cultural colonization of the Internet reflect power discourses employed by dominant hegemonic/oligarchic forces that repeat throughout history. However, the mode in which the politics of control are unfolding in cyberspace, especially those relating to intellectual content, reveal the paradigm shift from the atom to the bit (tangible/intangible) as foretold by Negroponte [31]. Furthermore, the current exercise of considerable influence by the corporate sector exposes the framework of power that strives to dictate the nature of the information society and possibly control the nature of expression through quantification and commodification. Traditional logic assumes that present trends may continue until the occurrence of an ethical or economic crisis, mandating the legislation of moral standards like liberty or freedom of expression. This reflects Hardin's position that such traditionally materialist stances would exploit available resources until restrictions become a necessity.

The attempts to simply map previous methodologies that were successful under materialist mindsets do not represent the fundamental paradigmatic shifts evinced by the rise to prominence of the Internet. Changes in the modes of communication, symbolic exchange, and expression challenge global culture to create new mindsets that run contrary to previous cultural forms of human intercourse. The power discourses made visible by artists questioning the role of intellectual control, especially by the corporate sector, reveal a bricolage of reinscribed cultural borders intermixed with glimmers of different, if not new, models for human interaction. From the current epistemological trajectory that the conflicts between various sectors of society in their quest for establishment of the New World of the Internet, it would be logical to assume that the current trend of reasserting the cycle of capitalist consumer culture into E-space will continue. In contrast, a critical dialogue must be shaped regarding the continued formation of the global electronic culture through the continued use of tactical inquiries such as those employed by artists like plagiarist, etoy, irational.org, and ŪTMark. It is through such topical engagement that insight into the social and power relations of the developing electronic world can be gained. Also, as part of a larger dialogue, aesthetic interventions could hopefully influence the shape of our cyberspatial milieu. But then, the current level of comfort with the First World techno-economic expansion could inscribe apathy inherent in global shopping mall culture that will only map itself to the electronic realm. If so, I should inquire into printing up a few thousand Lichty T-shirts and keychains.

See you at the mall. I'll be at the Museum Store.