New Probes

Data-mining the Shaver canon, with particular attention to the Deros, evokes a maligned form of the meanderthal. Mutant and mean-spirited, the deros or “detrimental robots” were allegedly borne of irradiation from e-waste left behind by negligent Titans and, or, Atlans millenia ago. From within the inner-Earth they accumulate attention capital by way of malevolent social networks—sabotaging and disappearing people, places and things on Earth’s surface.

“A man who is equipped like a territory is no longer an inhabitant; he becomes a habitat.” – Paul Virilio, Crepuscular Dawn.

Within Virilio’s critique of techno-accessorizing and auto-colonization is also a possibility space for more mysteries a la Shaver. E-waste as alien implant, a time capsule, an out-of-place artifact from a future imperfect. “History is spatial,” notes Tom Sherman, “there are going to be anachronisms in your neighborhood.” (Before and After the I-Bomb) The shadow economies of electronic refuse remain on the back of our minds, figuratively or literally, depending on how far we push this amazing story.

A Message From the Fish

“Fish don’t know water exists [until] beached,” warned McLuhan in one of his memorable metaphoric quips in 1968’s War and Peace in the Global Village. Invisible ideologies and submerged sensibilities are redolent of an omnipresent media environment, one that imperceptibly conditions its denizens to particular worldviews and prescribed modes of interaction. McLuhan advised the pursuit of “counter,” or “anti” environments as a salve. These figurative other-worlds were necessitated to develop alterna-analyses of virtual spaces opened up by new technologies.

An enduring metaphor for the immaterial activities of the information age, but incomplete without consideration of the hard wear inflicted by hardware. In villages like Guiyu, north of Hong Kong, acres of e-waste (nonbiodegradable materials from high-tech electronics—including leaded CRTs and circuit-boards) are hazardously dismantled and burned up to retrieve precious metals within. Noxious dust and fumes are an immediate pollutant, toxins from circuitry seeping into Guiyu’s groundwater soon follow. “In the mid-1990s, not long after e-waste began arriving, the groundwater became undrinkable,” describes journalist Elizabeth Grossman in her recent book High Tech Trash.

Grossman continues, “The entire village must now have its drinking water trucked in because local supplies have been fouled up by high-tech trash. But given the expense of buying potable water, residents still wash dishes in contaminated groundwater. Children still play and swim in the toxic river water. River fish supply food for the local community.” (p.185)

A Message From the Fish: Invisible ideologies surrounding the production of obsolescence and elevated expectations of immaterial information space drown out truly anti-environmental effects of media on physical places (and the inhabitants therein)