‘Plus je pense, plus je pense’ wrote Paul Valéry in 1898 as the first line of a never finished poem, Agathe, Sainte du Sommeil.

Paul Valéry’s handwriting facsimile in a 1956 posthumous publication of
Agathe, Sainte du Sommeil, Tallone, Paris, 1956

In Jakarta at Periplus bookstore (publishers of the priceless Periplus Adventure Guides, that’s what channeled us there) I buy edge.org Jonathan Brockman’s (ed.) ‘Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?’, to read on the flight home. Reproduced from their site, where the 2010 question appears to be phrased “How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?”, okay, some random checks prove the answers remain the same online as in print. The list of contributors rings a 1990s early adopters familiar bell: Esther Dyson, Jaron Lanier, Kelvin Kelly, Eric Drexler, Danny Hillis, Howard Rheingold, Douglas Rushkoff, Stewart Brand, Roger Schank, David Gelernter, Mihaly C., Tim O’Reilly... What is thought of thinking ‘by the net’, after almost two decades of the medium’s explosive popularization?

The more I surf, the more I surf? Well, to surf and to think have at least one common effect.

Most of the answers that I read speak of changes in what is thought (about), or obviously, how thoughts are now tested against or built up on the thoughts of others. The Internet delivers endless data and connects us to those who, like ourselves, construct and contextualize information. Many contributions in one way or another regret the older thought accompanying and provoking and connecting data centers like libraries. But sure, that’s not all there is. Since I slept during that long flight (and wandered off a couple of hours in Hong Kong) the book is now reopened on my Amsterdam table. Delving into it a little more I will keep posting bits to NQP, for its ‘Quotes’ department.

The Internet also alters our perception of duration. Sometimes, when working on an obstinately analog process such as the actual fabrication of an object, the internalized shadow of fleeting Internet time in our consciousness makes us perceive how the inevitable delays inherent in the fashioning of things (in all their messy ‘thingness’) ground us into appreciating the rhythms of the real world. In this way, the Internet’s pervasive co-presence with real world processes, ends up reminding us of the fact that our experience of duration is now a layered thing. We now have more than one clock, running in more than one direction, at more than one speeds.

(Raqs Media Collective, New Delhi: Artists, Media Practitioners, Curators, Editors and Catalysts of Cultural Processes)

rock in sea side bar, 4 january 2011 and ever after

Gorontalo, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Outside Gorontalo’s east side harbour a shady rock sits in the middle of a small bar. Minuman dingin — cold drinks — would be served, probably just over the weekends. The bar is closed. Up in the village I am invited to play a set of table tennis. The table is made of planks but otherwise in even condition. The small crowd gathering is easily entertained. As with any new adversary we have a problem with each others serve. We don’t keep the score.

sun rise crowd, 4 february 2010 and ever after

Back to Kanniyakumari

Three seas, three winds, three suns await us.