________________________________________________________________________________



        Nikuko tells the truth


        "I haven't written anything in a long time, or, rather, I write 
        daily. But it's not enough. I'm jealous of all of you pushing 
        the boundaries of new media, university-connected, with the 
        latest equipment available, help just around the corner. I'm 
        jealous of beautiful moving things on the screen; my own Archive 
        cdrom is clumsy, brute directory organization, as if the back-
        and-forth jump-start were sufficient. Minimalism and the 
        workload died out a long time ago, yet both of these are rampant 
        in the piece. I'm jealous of collaborations; my miniscule perl 
        or qbasic programs permit nothing. Looking at still images, 
        reading lengthy broken - but not animated or activated - texts, 
        seems almost a waste of time, the dissection of a corpse (whose 
        demise I announced decades ago). The tiny quicktime flics are 
        still-born as well, almost invisible clumsy actions, as if the 
        low bandwidth format were somehow still in vogue - instead of an 
        indication of the poverty of the author. I can extrude neurosis, 
        body, sexuality, out into the world through the most minimal of 
        images - but without followup and the wonder of movement, 
        everything is lost in poverty. I retreat in an attempt to argue 
        that such poverty indeed carries the force of truth - but in 
        fact, all it carries is emptiness, poor thinking, organization, 
        and art in the face of capital and new media. I'm jealous of 
        everyone who is able to go to new media conferences, meet up 
        again and again with old friends, display their work. I want to 
        be part of the community; I want people to see the life in my 
        works, rise above the barrenness. Clearly this is asking too 
        much; my work courts death more than anything it seems, with 
        depression coming in a close second. No one wants to read about 
        depression or depressively, no matter how good the literary 
        sense or theoretical work - it understandably goes for naught. I 
        look at new media work and see brilliance and light and laughter 
        and late-night meetings and discussions; I look at my own work 
        and see programming ignorance, poverty, and the morgue. No 
        wonder it's cast-off, cauterized, ignored; it's caught between 
        literatures which clearly need not pay it attention, and multi-
        media - from which it is permanently and humorlessly estranged. 
        This work no longer stands on its own; it no longer has a place 
        in the cultural world. It continues to be produced, only because 
        of the addiction I bring to it, and it cannot last all that much 
        longer, already lifeless and buried," said Nikuko, alone in that 
        bar in that city.



        >>>>
        >>>>
        >>>> what
        **** Command 'what' not recognized.
        >>>>
        >>>>
        >>>> why
        **** Command 'why' not recognized.
        >>>>
        >>>>


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