RTMark interview.
by Alessandro Ludovico
The U.S. 'new economy' virus is spreading fast around the world. What'd be the worst risk of that in the medium-long period?
In http://rtmark.com/globalization.html, in the third section ("An accomplished seducer"), we talk about exactly that. The worst thing in the medium-long period would be a total destruction of European quality of life, similar to what's happened for a very large segment of the U.S. population over the last fifty to one hundred years.
Art on the net must fight the new economy or it better has to suck their money out? So art could still be a (digital) hammer?
Sure, to a degree. Depends how you think of art--in the U.S. terms, it's completely inoffensive.... See http://archee.qc.ca/114_rtmark.htm for some more thoughts about RTMark and art (http://archee.qc.ca/ar.php3?btn=texte&no=114 if you prefer it in french).
George Bush Junior and Shell. Your iconoclastic sites are perfectly coded to disorientate the absent-minded audience. How much the aesthetic is important and strategic in the corporate communication? How much the *moving* images (gif and Flash) are key elements to hypnotize the audience?
Everything is important. The moving images are just the latest. It of course can be done on cardboard just as well as with animations. Everything is used for one goal: to profit,to increase profit. The moving image element is not important in itself.
To obtain such results, do you think that the amount of public information you'd obtain relating to someone, is proportional to the chances of contrasting him?
I think people often know a lot more about people than is openly revealed...
I feel RTMark as a multiple identity, absolutely no individual faces and names. What's your concept of personal identity within your group? Do you individually feel yourself as part of a collective *person* or as anonymous individuals under a collective name?
We're just anonymous for pragmatic reasons... We are a corporation, meaning that essentially we are a group that comes together as one body (corporeal). This is a kind of bastardization of the idea of collectivity, insofar as it does not really imply sharing equally labor and benefits as one might on a collective farm. The corporation, as opposed the the collective, has been legally defined to give the best business advantage to captial without the nasty side effects of liability. So we come together as a body in order to create a fall guy, someone who can absorb the liability for all the actions of participants. So, we are anonymous because we have no need to exist in this equasion. we already share a body, and that body has a name and an identity.
What you think of the rest of the 'media activism' (Adbuster magazine or the Luther Blisset Italian group for example)?
Great! Very nice, all of it. Some of it's very effective. Luther blisset is one of our favorites. He is a very special human. We appreciate his phenomenological excesses. Adbusters: they do what they do, and they do it well. But advertising is only the symptom of a much larger problem, we are bigger fans of the groups that treat the disease itself. We are also big fans of many of the groups listed on our links page, check it out.
Your approach to the music is very effective as Deconstructing Beck and Extracted Celluloid prove. Do the majors copyright fight still have sense, or soon they'll realize that in the digital present they have to change the approach?
Yes, they always adapt to the environment. It's not profitabl for them to fight this sort of thing. They'll fight something else instead. Maybe they'll lower wages in their factories or something.
Cultural resistance is very difficult to fund. How do you succeded in it?
Our funding is important because it is a symbol. The small amounts we come up with do not really fund anything--they are not sufficient to fund people or actions. They are useful in that they show some interest by people--enough interest to give money.
Is there any possible serious net.catastrophe you are afraid of?
See the answer to your question about Europe, same answer.
If you'd program a computer virus, what it'd be able to do?
Perhaps we could et a computer virus that taps into the unseen forces of the afterlife, bring to our cause an army of vengeful ghosts? Ghosts are very effective at what they do, i've seen it in the movies. But this is a good question, that is why i can't answer it so quickly...
May, 2000.