Well, we did it. Neither the blizzard nor the resultant gridlock were enough to keep us, our equipment, or 400+ people from showing up last night at the Coral Room for our first gig as PTV3 - and my first real gig as a keyboard player.

Predictably, a few of the people writing listings for the event assumed that I was on the roster as an author, and announced that I was doing a 'reading' on the same bill with a music performance by Psychic TV. Sorry to anyone who came expecting that! (And sorry to the guy who brought Media Virus for me to sign, that I didn't have time to talk. Do send an email if you like.)

It was quite a profound event for me. On the one hand, PTV and its associated industrial scene is a little removed from my own aesthetic sensibility. When it comes to music listening, I'm more Neil Young and Boards of Canada than Throbbing Gristle. And some of my friends were a bit freaked out by seeing Genesis P-Orridge perform up close and personal - gold teeth, d-cups, and mania. He's an acquired taste.

Luckily for me, though, the set list emphasized Psychic TV's musicality more than its industrial roots. That's partly because those of us in the current line-up are there as musicians first, and quite focused on songs and sounds. So it has more of the quality of Genesis singing with a rock band than a traditional PTV or Throbbing Gristle performance.

But to play in a band, and a tight band at that, for an hour or so, for several hundred enthusiastic PTV fans, was a peak life experience for me. Really. Giving a talk to a thousand college kids and answering questions is definitely a high - but it's not the same. (If doing rock gigs was a regular thing for someone, and she had the chance to do one big lecture to a thousand college kids, would that feel as special to her as the rock show felt to me? Maybe.)

Chalk it up to early mid-life crisis if you like, but whenever I played piano as a kid I imagined myself actually *in* one of the bands I was pretending to play along with. Although playing alone gave me pleasure, it was at least in part the pleasure of anticipating the day when I'd do this for other people. Chalk it up to the principle of social currency, but it's the connections that matter. Playing a particularly intense organ section last night, I felt the reality of what I've been talking about all these years: the music itself is just a medium for interaction. It's an excuse for a kind of intimacy between the members of the band, and between the band and the audience.

In a sense, it doesn't matter what the music sounds like or what the lyrics say. These are just the agreements we make in order to enter the state of consciousness and connection, together. (That's why we want our rock or hiphop stars to have some sort of integrity or hipness - so we feel safe letting go. We don't want to find out they're sold out or molesting babies.) For some, I'm sure the music we were playing was, no doubt, too dark or loud or perhaps even too gentle for them to take the leap into sharing that space with us. Not every invitation is right for everyone. (Chances are they wouldn't have braved the storm if they weren't already committed to this scene in some way.)

But for pretty much everyone I could see from the stage last night - fans who had more of a history with this music than many of us in the band, even - it is Genesis's very fierce, self-indulgent depravity that gives them permission to let go and join with us in the reverie. And that's all that matters: access to one another, by any means necessary.

1:35 PM | link | 4 comments

 

From The Center for Cognitive Liberties:

Wired Magazine reports on a new drug-detection patch under development by SpectRx. "For the monitor to work, employees first have to have four microscopic holes -- about the size of a human hair -- burnt into the outer layer of their skin by a handheld laser... The oval patch houses a miniature vacuum pump that sucks out interstitial fluid, a clear, water-like fluid that surrounds cells in the body.") When a drug is detected, a miniature transmitter sends out an alert signal.

Users of recreational drugs aren't the only ones who should be concerned by such an innovation. Though it's only a step or two more voodoo than testing people's hair or urine for signs of whether they've engaged in a consensus-challenging visionquest, it's also a step or two more invasive.

The better our technologies get at doing what we ask them to, the better we must get at refusing to submit to the ones we don't want in our lives, or our bodies. Workers should never have submitted to drug testing in the first place.

7:40 AM | link | 1 comment

 

In honor of the Grid Blog about branding, I humbly post a link to this chapter from Coercion, about
the history of the BRAND.



8:34 AM | link | 4 comments

 

I got a very kind letter from an organization called standwithus.com, inviting me to work with them on helping Jews more "persuasively justify the Jews' right to Israel."

I don't have time to work on any more committees, anyway, but - after reviewing the material on their website - here's the response I sent them:

Dear Roz,

Thanks for your letter and kind words. I appreciate your efforts to help Jews and others articulate a more balanced understanding of the crisis in the Middle East. The facts you offer those of us engaging in such discussions are quite useful.

I'm not really sure how much I could collaborate with standwithus.com, however. I'm quite overwhelmed with my current associations, writing, teaching, traveling, lecturing, and documentary-making.

In addition, while I support a safe Israel I don't believe that distributing propaganda that ultimately demonizes Palestinians is going to do much to help Israel's public image. I feel the way to change public opinion will be through action.

I suppose this puts me on the so-called 'left' in this debate. And yes, I'm a contributor to Tony Kushner's new "Wrestling with Zion," looking for more progressive solutions to this needlessly polarized struggle. This doesn't mean I think it's "our fault" or that the terrorists aren't wrong for blowing people up. It only means that I think the solution will require transcending sides, altogether.

Perhaps that's more than you wanted to hear. In any case, I am glad for the data, if a little less so for the tone in which it is contextualized. Although I don't have time to develop ideas with you further, I do wish you luck in bringing more questioning, debate, and truth to the table.

all my best,
Douglas

10:00 PM | link | 4 comments

 

As promised, here's the reading list for my upcoming NYU class, "Theoretical Perspectives on Interactivity." The order will change as I figure out how I'm going to organize this material. And the "recommended" readings usually refer to books for which I'll provide hand-outs of one or two chapters.

I may attempt to do an online version of this course, as well, if there's interest. Then, perhaps, we can have the 'real' class interact with the virtual one.


REQUIRED:

Packer, Randall and Ken Jordan. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393049795

Morrison, Grant. The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution. DC Comics, 1996. ISBN: 1563892677

McLuhan, Marshall. The Essential McLuhan. Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, eds. New York: Basic Books, 1995. ISBN: 0465019951

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 0415281296

Ryan, Marie-Laure, Wendy Steiner and Gerald Prince Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, November 2003. ISBN: 0801877539

Himanen, Pekka. The Hacker Ethic. 0375505660

Carse, James P. Finite and Infinite Games. Ballantine Books, July 1994. ISBN: 0345341848

Rushkoff, Douglas. Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace. Clinamen Press Ltd., April 2002. ISBN: 1903083249

RE/Search #4/5: W.S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Throbbing Gristle. ISBN: 0965046915

Landow, George. HyperText 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. ISBN: 0801855861

Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. ISBN: 0738208612

RECOMMENDED:
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens : A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971. ISBN: 0807046817

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media - The Critical Edition.
ISBN 1584230738

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York: Noonday Press, 1973. ISBN: 0374521506

Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Paul Ranibow, ed. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1984. ISBN: 0394713400

Horkheimer, Max, Theodore Adorno and Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford Univ. Press, 2002. ISBN: 0804736332

de la Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1988. ISBN: 0812690230

Spinoza, Benedict De. A Spinoza Reader. E. M. Curley, ed. Princeton Univ. Press, February, 1994. ISBN: 0691000670

Anarchy For The Masses (the Invisibles)
ISBN: 7895034

Book of Lies, Disinformation. ISBN: 7998725

In the Beginning was the Command Line
Neal Stephenson. ISBN: 0380815931

Leary, Timothy. Chaos and Cyberculture.
ISBN: 0914171771 (used only)

Laurel, Brenda. Computers as Theatre. ISBN: 0201550601

Strate, Jacobson, and Gibson, editors. Communication and Cyberspace, second edition. ISBN: 1572733934.

Futureritual, Publication Date: September 1995
ISBN: 1573531073

Painful but Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge
Publication Date: May 2002m ISBN: 1887128883

Electronic Revolution
Publication Date: December 1998
ISBN: 388030002X

Back in No Time : The Brion Gysin Reader
Format: Trade Paperback
Publication Date: January 2002
ISBN: 0819565296

Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. ISBN: 0596001088

Rushkoff, Douglas, Open Source Democracy. Demos: UK Open Source Publisher. http://www.demos.co.uk

Rushkoff, Douglas. Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture. ISBN: 0345397746

Rushkoff, Douglas. Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say. ISBN: 157322829X


7:59 AM | link | 17 comments

 



The next incarnation of PsychicTV - PTV3 - will debut at the Coral Room in NYC on December 5. According to the press release:

"The line-up ov PTV3 is Douglas Rushkoff, Lady Jaye, Electric Eddie, Isaiah Singer,Alice Genese, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. With video sculptures presented by HONEYGUN LABS, and live sound mixed by Scott Reiter. This event is cosponsored by BBgun Magazine whose new issue features Breyer P-Orridge and Psychic TV ideas. With host Lyle Derek,deejay sets by Nick from the YEAH YEAH YEAHS and more."

More info at BBGun Magazine.

8:59 AM | link | 12 comments

 

The Forward, a pretty established Jewish publication out of New York, has just announced its list of the
Forward Fifty - a list of "the most influential members of the American Jewish community." And right there in the section labeled 'ideas' is yours truly, "a latter-day Baruch Spinoza."

That's about as good as it gets.

8:45 AM | link | 7 comments

 

A posted a while ago about an invitation I received from Danny Pearl's parents to contribute to a volume of thoughts about Judaism/Jewishness in the wake of his murder called 'I AM JEWISH: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS INSPIRED BY THE LAST WORDS OF DANIEL PEARL.' I asked for some guidance from you all about what to say. Thanks for your many thoughts - they were of great help.

I know I said I wasn't going to be posting any more 'religion' stuff, particularly because it gets so many people irrate, but here is my short entry to the book:

--
Jews are not a tribe but an amalgamation of tribes around a single premise: that human beings have a role. Judaism dared to make human beings responsible for this realm. Instead of depending upon the gods for food and protection, we decided to enact God, ourselves, and to depend on one another.

So, out of the death cults of Mitzrayim came a repudiation of idolatry, and a way of living that celebrated life itself. To say "l’chaim" was new, revolutionary, even naughty. It overturned sacred truths in favor of sacred living.

We are not passive recipients of law and truth, but active creators of ethical systems and models for the Divine. We are not believers, or even doubters, but wrestlers. Israel, more than a nation-state, is this very confrontation with the Divine. The wrestling is our continuity.

It’s important to me that those who, throughout history, have attacked the Jews on the basis of blood not be allowed to redefine our indescribable process or our eternally evolving civilization. We are attacked for our refusal to accept the boundaries, yet sometimes we incorporate these very attacks into our thinking and beliefs.

It was Pharaoh who first used the term Am Yisrael in Torah, fearing a people who might replicate like bugs and not support him in a war. It was the Spanish of the Inquisition who invented the notion of Jewish blood, looking for a new reason to murder those who had converted to Catholicism. It was Hitler, via Jung, who spread the idea of a Jewish "genetic memory," capable of instilling an uncooperative nature in even those with partial Jewish ancestry. And it was Danny Pearl’s killers who defined his Judaism as a sin of birth.

I refuse these definitions.

Yes, our parents pass our Judaism on to us, but not through their race, blood, or genes—it is through their teaching, their love, and their spirit. Judaism is not bestowed; it is enacted. Judaism is not a boundary; it is the force that breaks boundaries.

And Judaism is the refusal to let anyone tell us otherwise.



3:16 PM | link | 4 comments