Panel Statement

Panel: Mediated Nations

In our culture the anticipated future has replaced the historical past as the most fundamental and decisive reference. Web artistic activitys is a typical example of such anticipated future. It is a science fiction object. Technically it can be realised today but psychologically our society is not ready for it yet. Seemingly trivial insight crystallizes more and more to the fundamental finding of scientific and philosophical search for an consistent view of life. The high speed of the process creates a situation: from one side the illusion of overcoming of psychic trauma of the meeting with a fake reality (and any meeting with any kind of reality becomes a trauma); and, from the other side the interweaving of human extensions into the common nervous network. Virtual reality constructs a future gadget that transposes beings from the present to the `reality’ programmed and controlled by the past. Controller and controlled are transitional notions; their interchangeability can be revealed in diachronic as well as in the synchronic systems. However, while it was previously possible to juxtapose the positions of controller and controlled, in the mass-mediatized society the face-to-face opposition is vanishing in the network of cables and wires.

• Olga Kisseleva (RU/FR), Associate professor, Montpellier Paul Valery University (FR)