<nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...[2x]

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   Re: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...                      
     scotartt <scot@systemx.autonomous.org>                                          

   Re: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...                      
     t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>                                                  



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Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 10:54:41 +1100
From: scotartt <scot@systemx.autonomous.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 04:43:14PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Dan Sheetz wrote:
> 
> >The comparison between digital networks and the toilet networks seems
> >quite apt
> 
> Must come naturally to a guy named Sheetz!.
> 
> Anyways, toilets were a big deal.  The digital network is a big deal. The
> toilet taught us nothing about sharing.  Hopefully the network will.

I would argue, quite contrary to the sanitation network, the really
important city-network, and one which DID teach us about sharing, was the
water distribution system aka the aqueduct. One of the most popular
measures a new Caesar looking to consolidate his power could take was to
extend the aqueduct system. In Rome you can still drink from public
fountains with inscriptions 'Dedicated to the people of Rome by the
Emperor Claudius' (or whomever, i forget which one it actually was on the
one that i saw (and drank from); probably a later one like Trajan or
Hadrian I imagine).

Of course, another distribution network the Romans were famous for, were
roads, but that topic's already been done to death (cf "information
superhighway").

regs
scot.

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Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 20:58:36 -0500
From: t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...

dhenwood@panix.com (Thu 11/08/01 at 04:43 PM -0500):

> Quite the contrary, re: the toilet. Dominque Laporte argues in his
> profound and charming little book History of Shit
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0262122251/leftbusinessobseA/>
> that the toilet contributed heavily to the creation of the bourgeois
> Western individual.

a more limited, maybe flakier, but nonetheless pretty interesting 
argument along these lines can be found in some work, uh, emanat-
ing from an exhibition called 'the process of elimination' pulled
together by ellen lupton and abbott miller. (i think i misspelled
both their names.) in one such emanation, which appeared in _zone_
6 ('incorporations'), they argue that the development of central-
ized plumbing transformed 'the house' (which they treat as a hom-
ogeneous construct) into a homologue of the human body; i'm skep-
tical about that but there's no question that it did tend to iso-
late domestic interactions with water to two rooms--one of them a
new creature, i.e., the bathroom ('toilet,' 'washroom,' etc). and
to the extent that recent-modern bourgeoise mores are established
and enforced through architecture, there you go.

unfortunately, lupton and miller also go off on speculative rants
about how modernity's fascination with streamlining is 'actually'
an anal fixation. which could be true, but whatever.

cheers,
t
- -

\|/ ____ \|/
@~/ oO \~@    so much for the past.     --danilo kis
/_( \__/ )_\  
\_U__/         


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