Intermezzo1: Mondo 2000 and WIRED

Intermezzo: Mondo and WIRED There are fewer examples that illustrate the cultural colonization by capital than the stories of the two magazines Mondo 2000 and WIRED(3). In the first half of the 1990's there were a plethora of well-produced fringe maga-'zines' that epitomized the burgeoning cyberculture of the Bay area, and best known of these is arguably Mondo. Slick and highly aestheticized, Mondo focused on the culture of the tragically hip at the bleeding edge of contemporary culture. It featured visionaries such as Brenda Laurel, Jaron Lanier, and astrophysicist Fiorella Teranzi, among others. Mondo was the operating manual for the silicon Haight Ashbury of the early 90's

Enter WIRED. At its inception, it was the geeks' answer to Mondo 2000. Smiliarly slick and polished, the difference is that it focused less on the aestheticization of possible futures and more upon the culture of places like Silicon Valley research communities and MIT. The difference in ideology is similar to that of the Shaper and Mechanist clades in Sterling's Schismatrix Plus[4], and relates to those cultures' desire to remake humanity through genetic manipulation or technological augmentation through prosthetics. The contrast was between wetware and hardware, the soft versus the hard.

WIRED, in its alignment towards Silicon Valley research and prognostication (R&P!) gained in strength through the support of writers such as Negroponte and coverage of institutions like the Media Lab. This sort of institutional legitimation quickly made WIRED the key publication for the mapping of the digital revolution. Such strategies of legitimacy and verisimilitude (as WIRED became 'the source' for the future of technocracy) drew the attention of megapublisher Comte-Nast, which purchased the magazine. And, without surprise, the homogenizing effect of capital was seen immediately in the pages of the magazine. Less coverage about research and prognostication, and more about CEO's, entrepreneurs, and their high-tech products. The channel for the high-tech culture had been appropriated and controlled, assuring efficient delivery of product to the consumer every month, while Mondo still appears to be produced on a schedule that is fairly erratic. In assessing the two magazines and the shift in journalistic strategy after WIRED's multinational buyout, in the latter's case capital had expanded to fill the space allotted.