Waiting for Cyberspace
How to grab the listener? That was the starting point. How to effectively entice a wandering listener with a sonic lure, or, to put it slightly different, how to appeal to the ear's gaze? Nothing had started yet, and we were already moving into the terrain of desire. The desire to inhabit, to traverse spaces, the desire to become: radiophonic desire.
Buenos Aires, 1990. Three performers- a poet, a musician, and an actor- and a stage director, all in their late 20s, get together following an invitation to fill a gap in the ether within the independent station FM La Tribu. We decided to call our new adventure "Producciones Radio- Oído" (Radio-Ear Productions), a continuation of our work in the theatre company "Producciones ParaNada" (Productions for Nothing) that referenced Samuel Beckett's Texts for Nothing. We also established that our radio program would take place within the space of virtual waiting, and we gave it a title: "Waiting for Cyberspace."
A picture of a family of immigrants helped us to identify the hopes and deferred dreams that Waiting for Cyberspace made audible
In Argentina, the beginning of the 90s were marked by the implementation of the neoliberal agenda, that is, privatization of state's companies (electricity, gas, communications, oil exploitation, and highways, among others), and the deregulation of the economy to the rules of the market. Under Carlos Menem's second term presidency (1989-1995 and 1995-1999), with Domingo Cavallo as his minister of finance, the value of the peso was pegged to the American dollar. This situation entailed that, for ten years, middle class Argentineans were able to travel abroad repeatedly and to acquire imported goods.
At that time, the word "virtual" proliferated widely on the media. The main idea, after which all the others aligned, was that Argentina had "virtually" joined the "developed World." Every day a myriad of other events were also "virtually" happening: a soccer player was "virtually" transferred to Boca Juniors, an actor was "virtually" signing a contract, rain was "virtually" assured, and, on the same page, for example, somebody could also be said to have been "virtually" insulted. The virtual condition referred to a promise, something that would eventually happen or that was in a nascent state. This condition installed people in a continual space of waiting for that to "actually" happen. The promise occupied the space of the almost factual, "almost here/ there," replacing the more elusive, undetermined "going to happen" or the more certain "will happen."
In resonance with Argentina's sociopolitical context, Samuel Beckett' s Waiting for Godot, was a clear intertext from which "Waiting for Cyberspace" stemmed out. The cyberspace, carrying its utopian promises, had not arrived in the country yet, but the virtual condition was definitely there to stay. On December 2001, after the Argentine banking system's collapse, followed by the consequent devaluation, people finally got a clearer idea of Argentina's world positioning when they watched their peso- dollars savings being converted into the much depreciated "patacones." Cavallo's neoliberal policies showed people how, in our telematic, globalized societies, capital flows at the speed of light. From one day to the next, money had just vanished to (re)appear in foreign banks.
Referencing William Gibson's seminal sci-fi novel, Neuromancer (1984), in which the concept of cyberspace was first laid out, Chris Chesher remarks the fact that "[In the novel] economy has become entirely ephemeral and imaginary- a 'consensual hallucination'" ("Colonizing Virtual Reality", 6). Chesher dates the material appearance of virtual reality to 1989, crediting the software design company Autodesk. However, the concept of virtual reality first appeared in Neuromancer:
Cyberspace, a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts". A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding." (Neuromancer, 67) Quoted in Chesher.
In its first stage, virtual reality necessitated the mediation of a specific gear: an input- data glove and a helmet. This device was the means by which information was captured and actions executed.
Cybercom (Advertisement)
(phone ringing and background music)
"Cybercom's CEO is about to pick up the phone. Cybercom, the company that brings you your most unrealizable fantasies in a diskette's format. Cybercom designs your fantasies and gives them a name: Cyberspace or the end of utopias. Call Cybercom today and we will show you!!!"
Buenos Aires, 1990. Three performers- a poet, a musician, and an actor- and a stage director, all in their late 20s, get together following an invitation to fill a gap in the ether within the independent station FM La Tribu. We decided to call our new adventure "Producciones Radio- Oído" (Radio-Ear Productions), a continuation of our work in the theatre company "Producciones ParaNada" (Productions for Nothing) that referenced Samuel Beckett's Texts for Nothing. We also established that our radio program would take place within the space of virtual waiting, and we gave it a title: "Waiting for Cyberspace."
A picture of a family of immigrants helped us to identify the hopes and deferred dreams that Waiting for Cyberspace made audible
In Argentina, the beginning of the 90s were marked by the implementation of the neoliberal agenda, that is, privatization of state's companies (electricity, gas, communications, oil exploitation, and highways, among others), and the deregulation of the economy to the rules of the market. Under Carlos Menem's second term presidency (1989-1995 and 1995-1999), with Domingo Cavallo as his minister of finance, the value of the peso was pegged to the American dollar. This situation entailed that, for ten years, middle class Argentineans were able to travel abroad repeatedly and to acquire imported goods.
At that time, the word "virtual" proliferated widely on the media. The main idea, after which all the others aligned, was that Argentina had "virtually" joined the "developed World." Every day a myriad of other events were also "virtually" happening: a soccer player was "virtually" transferred to Boca Juniors, an actor was "virtually" signing a contract, rain was "virtually" assured, and, on the same page, for example, somebody could also be said to have been "virtually" insulted. The virtual condition referred to a promise, something that would eventually happen or that was in a nascent state. This condition installed people in a continual space of waiting for that to "actually" happen. The promise occupied the space of the almost factual, "almost here/ there," replacing the more elusive, undetermined "going to happen" or the more certain "will happen."
In resonance with Argentina's sociopolitical context, Samuel Beckett' s Waiting for Godot, was a clear intertext from which "Waiting for Cyberspace" stemmed out. The cyberspace, carrying its utopian promises, had not arrived in the country yet, but the virtual condition was definitely there to stay. On December 2001, after the Argentine banking system's collapse, followed by the consequent devaluation, people finally got a clearer idea of Argentina's world positioning when they watched their peso- dollars savings being converted into the much depreciated "patacones." Cavallo's neoliberal policies showed people how, in our telematic, globalized societies, capital flows at the speed of light. From one day to the next, money had just vanished to (re)appear in foreign banks.
Referencing William Gibson's seminal sci-fi novel, Neuromancer (1984), in which the concept of cyberspace was first laid out, Chris Chesher remarks the fact that "[In the novel] economy has become entirely ephemeral and imaginary- a 'consensual hallucination'" ("Colonizing Virtual Reality", 6). Chesher dates the material appearance of virtual reality to 1989, crediting the software design company Autodesk. However, the concept of virtual reality first appeared in Neuromancer:
Cyberspace, a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts". A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding." (Neuromancer, 67) Quoted in Chesher.
In its first stage, virtual reality necessitated the mediation of a specific gear: an input- data glove and a helmet. This device was the means by which information was captured and actions executed.
Cybercom (Advertisement)
(phone ringing and background music)
"Cybercom's CEO is about to pick up the phone. Cybercom, the company that brings you your most unrealizable fantasies in a diskette's format. Cybercom designs your fantasies and gives them a name: Cyberspace or the end of utopias. Call Cybercom today and we will show you!!!"
Discussion of "Waiting for Cyberspace"
Add your voice to this discussion.
Checking your signed in status ...