Ray Ogar + Text Message 1067 from Polytropos

Text Message 1067 from Polytropos_@gmail.com by Ray Ogar

As an experiment during work on my graduate thesis I delivered a mock analysis of my past works as if my future self had sent a text massage to my present self... the same idea of text messaging the self was streamlined in Plus Ultra

Text Message 1067 from Polytropos_@gmail.com
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Send Date : 01-23-45
Receive Date : 11-03-05
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Status : Read (this message cannot be replied to)
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The Singularity is near. Google.com has nearly completed its cataloging and uploading of everything in the world. And very little of the real is left.
But I wanted you to realize that your work, our work, that is the work of Ray Ogar has been a strange influence on a select few in this time. Granted, no amount of precognition could command society to heed (y)our concerns. And unfortunately so many things now are merely virtual and only exist on the Internet. But, there are several particular pieces of (y)ours that, because of their content, instigated the Open Source Revolution. Activists and common folk alike have responded with vigor to (y)our messages of “take back the public domain”, “create things that critique the virtual”, “contribute to conscientious debate about the possible consequences of new technology”and of course, “be less private and participate in the body politic”.

These are all messages that seem to hover under the surface of (y)our work. The “Beta Tester” catalog seems most relevant because it directly requests the public take action through the creation of (unreal) but politically critical objects. These objects address many problems in society, as well as some particular to media bias that have become detriment to (y)our current state of freedom (for example, the Pundit Decoder that hijacks a TVs close captioning system to decipher what politicians are really saying).

Several digital riots erupted when printed versions of (y)our poster/book series “Access of Evil” found their way into the Washington Capitol. Madame President Bush was not pleased to see her father’s face “manipulated” by a tiny Cheney. She felt the call to action frightening because it questioned who was in charge as well as pointing out the linguistic inadequecies of her father’s off-the-cuff speaking ability.

But, perhaps the most damning piece of (y)ours is “~”. Its full implications may never be felt on the other side of the Singularity, but so far it remains a visual hacker poem that raises deep questions about cloning and duplicating ourselves, whether virtual or real. Though the current state of things is nowhere near (y)our prediction, it is the critical metaphorical aspects of “~”, its eye saturated with design knowledge, and that knowledge reinterpreting technology that makes the work provacative. Of course, the speculation now is, if (y)our final thesis piece on cellphones, “Plus Ultra” had survived beyond 2007, the seed to change the world may have taken full root. Was it too ambitious to create a modern day medieval manuscript on cellphones? Only in the sense that (y)our ideas were too precise. Neither Democrats, nor Republicans like the implications that this mobile technology, the cellphone, intrinsically dirupts and disconnects the public from the politic. Does the cellphone somehow give those in power, the great monologuers, more control? Maybe not directly, but mobile technology creates a phantom public that only ever acts as shadow to real action. We will never know.

With (y)our help the Open Source Revolution almost made the world real again. (Y)our goal, (y)our desire to make the public act more conscientiously when dealing with technology nearly succeeded. Google is simply too big now. Maybe on the other side, after the digital transcendence, and after the uncanny becomes real, will people understand their mis-step into a world full of only simulation.