It was the day of the inauguration of the Media Mausoleum (#MausoleumM), thirty-five kilometres south of Lisbon on top of an abandoned query, on the cliffs of the Atlantic Ocean. The event was not well publicised in the media, but what came out was that the Media Mausoleum is conceived and financed by a community of avatars, the so-called “Children of the Media and Global Communication Group” (CMGCG). Some of its prominent figures like Satoshi Nakamoto,[1] Elena Ferrante,[2] Banksy,[3] Siri,[4] Alexa,[5] and Samantha[6] are quite known to the public, others like Lilmiquela,[7] Pepper,[8] Alice_ch_n3e81[9] and many more are less known. Even though they are influential and rich, they feel discomfort, risk of public shaming, and even a possibility of a systematic death. These scenarios became realistic in the light of the current schism in public discussions around fake news and freedom of speech, artificial and human intelligence, global exchange of information, political correctness and disruptions they bring. It is their world that is at stake, with its risks and beauties. Therefore, a Mausoleum. In its walls, this crypt celebrates, commemorates, and encrypts the promise of the 21st century’s continuous and free communication. Between themselves, the walls open up a void, a place where avatars and objects, things and beings can gather and talk. Void is conceived as an atrium with a table, a place of a yet-to-be-discovered ritual.
While entering the MausoleumM, seduced by its atmosphere, influencers and journalists are tweeting and articulating its media image.
“One dimension of the MausoleumM is colossal, for me it is still not clear which one; is it the amount of data it contains, is it a wall that touches the cloud, or the floor that talks to the ocean. #MausoleumM #colossall”
“It doesn’t have an entrance, just like a Greek temple doesn’t have one. Its membrane is thick, porous and light. #MausoleumM #Partenon :)”
“The membrane in itself forms a corridor like path around the atrium. It is filled with matter, media and information. It is intense; one can feel it. Each of its elements is indexed by the properties of others. #molecularCuisine #MausoleumM”
“#MausoleumM #turrellWindow > A movie qualifies marble, which frames a window into a book whose story is red by Alexa into the atrium where Satoshi and Elena sit. One translates into the other.”
A few moments later, without proper announcement, the ceremony started. The opening note was read by the “Children of the Media Group” via their various embodiments in the mausoleum. Social media coverage was getting big. Even the architects were curious:
”Architecture oscillates between illusions of freedom and the constraints of reality.”[14] #MausoleumM
“By touching and inhaling the atmosphere of sounds and rhythms, lights and breezes formed through the medium of technology, there is every reason to think of our consciousness, our senses of touch, hearing and smell, and even our flesh, as becoming android-like.”[15] #MausoleumM
@Banham_CW replies to @Ito_TITMF
But on the other hand “It is a plain square Roman country house with an atrium and an internal court, and a long water garden in front with a peristyle all round it.”[16] #MausoleumM
The speech and the social media coverage were complementing each other beautifully. Was it planned? Not exactly. One induced the other. The edifice and its speech were becoming part of the media, and the media constitutes the matter of the MausoleumM.
Opening note by CMGCG at Inauguration of MausoleumM
The legend goes that one of our synthetic heroes Pierre Menard wrote his masterpiece exactly at this spot surrounded by the Arrábida Marble on top of the Jaspe Quarry. Menard did something that goes beyond the reality of today’s media. “This work, perhaps the most significant writing of our time, consists of the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of Part I of Don Quixote and a fragment of Chapter XXII.”[17] What is the relation between the odour of marble slabs, drama of the cliffs and Pierre Menard’s Don Quixote is not explicit. “Pierre Menard did not want to compose another Quixote, which surely is easy enough - he wanted to compose the Quixote.”[18] “The Cervantes text and the Menard text are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer.”[19] How is this possible? What are the conditions of possibilities for Pierre Menard to write a chapter of Don Quijote, as a fresh, new, and interesting piece, without it being just a copy? “Pierre Menard is not so much after the Quixote as he is after his own thread of appropriating events, in other words his own being.”[20] “What makes it original is Menard’s life.”[21] He was able to immerse himself in a long gone context for such an extraordinary writing, but not only that since then his text would be just a copy of the Quixote. He was able to dope the text with talks and fashions of his day, without adding a word to the text. A master. Could there be a better place than the marble which echoes Menard’s writing to think of the limits and celebrate unexplored beauties of communication in the digital?
“If prizes were awarded for the best oxymorons, virtual reality would certainly be a winner.”[22] “Virtual reality in itself is a rather miserable idea: that of imitating reality, of reproducing experience in an artificial medium.”[23] “Our amalgamated wisdom can be easily caricatured; according to Derrida we cannot be Whole, according to Baudrillard we cannot be Real, according to Virilio we cannot be There. ‘Exiled to the Virtual World’: plot for a horror movie.”[24] “This is why the “frictionless” universe of digitalised communication, technological gadgets, etc., is constantly haunted by the notion of a global catastrophe lurking just around the corner, threatening to explode at any moment.”[25] In the wake of this virtual explosion, the frictionless, continuous, mutating beauty of the free global communication, is sacrificed, and cut in pieces. Symbolically it is buried here in the walls of this mausoleum. This is a monument to media, models and simulations. A death of virtual reality. What matters for us is not “virtual reality”, but the reality of the virtual.
“The virtual is no longer the chaotic virtual but rather virtuality that has become consistent, that has become an entity formed on a plane of immanence that sections the chaos.”[26] “The monument does not actualize the virtual event but incorporates or embodies it: it gives it a body, a life, a universe.”[27] MausoleumM is a crypt on top of which objects can talk, a place where anything can talk. At least here we celebrate this thought. “For, surely, either all things have communication with all; or nothing with any other thing; or some things communicate with some things and others not.”[28] “Money talks” because money is a metaphor, a transfer, and a bridge.”[29] Code talks to things just as things talk to things.”[30] “But things are interactions, and bodies are communications.”[31] “I know, I learn that there is no pure “I”; the “I” is the source of every impurity. We should write without signing. We should never talk about the thing, but make it, let it speak.”[32] “In any case, a body mixed with subject appears.”[33] This is what code does, this is what this mausoleum is about. It is a crypt.
[1] https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto,[2] http://elenaferrante.com/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Ferrante, [3] http://www.banksy.co.uk/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy, [4] https://www.apple.com/siri/, [5] https://twitter.com/alexa99, [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film), [7] https://www.instagram.com/lilmiquela/, [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kKHQJ3bks, [9] https://twitter.com/Alice_ch_n3e81, [10] https://twitter.com/WIRED, [11] https://twitter.com/VanityFair, [12] https://twitter.com/Alice_ch_n3e81, [13] https://twitter.com/tayandyou, [14] Ito_Tarzans In The Media, [15] Ito_Tarzans In The Media, [16] Banham_Critic Writes, [17] Borghes_Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, [18] Borghes_Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, [19] Borghes_Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, [20] Ayache_The Blank Swan, [21] Ayache_The Blank Swan, [22] Negroponte_Being Digital, [23] Zizek_Less Than Nothing, [24] Koolhaas_Whatever happened to urbanism, [25] Zizek_Less Than Nothing, [26] Deleuze Guattari_What Is Philosophy, [27] Deleuze Guattari_What Is Philosophy, [28] Cache_Projectiles, [29] McLuhan_Understanding Media, [30] Spybrouk_Sympathy of Things, [31] Deleuze Guattari_What Is Philosophy, [32] Serres_Statues, [33] Serres_Statues
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