intro

Introduction
In The Artificial Kid, by Bruce Sterling, the title character surrounds himself with cameras, controlling his presentation of himself through them and the use of careful editing. He sells these tapes to make a living, in effect selling himself, albeit as an image over which he retains complete control. He calls himself a "combat artist," demonstrating his view of his work as an art form. In his exaggerated world, constant filming of oneself for distribution is both an occupation and avocation, but it points out the potentials of today's advancing media technologies. The computer occupies a position as a bridge between home and the office, work and play and technology is concurrently becoming both a way of life and work. The Internet also allows users to bypass traditional media organizations that have historically mediated the interaction between information, production and the masses. Now everyone can be a content provider as well as an audience member, and a distributor of their creation. The Artificial Kid also demonstrates a conjunction between the cultural and the economic, a world in which aesthetics are wedded to production, and art is the primary economic commodity. The close bond between cultural and economic signifiers in the novel mirrors the current intersection of capital and culture in today's global economy. Cultural products have become a major industry, though decidedly American and Euro-centric. In a world where General Electric owns NBC television and oil companies own record labels, an analysis of culture cannot be divorced from economic structures. But can the Internet, with its potential to propel American cultural hegemony even further on its process of global encroachment, be deployed simultaneously as an oppositional tool? Despite the attempts by advertisers to create a teleology and rigidly defined discourse for their products, the actual uses are still contested. The marketing would have the consumer believe that the greater personal accessibility offered by information technology can make work more like leisure, though that possibility is accompanied by the specter of constant work. Conversely, if the declared intentions of digital Internet technologies are rejected by consumers in favor of the oppositional possibilities, the culture industry could find itself dealing with a self-inflicted wound to its dominance. The progression of capitalism has left little room for a revolutionary avant-garde, but the technological tools of the culture industry have the potential to facilitate new discursive spaces. Since the global economic situation still lends itself to a Marxist critique, the evolving internet-dominated information age is susceptible to examination for oppositional possibilities along Marxist lines. During the past century of evolving Marxist thought, the incorporation and resignification of cultural products through techniques of montage and juxtaposition has consistently been viewed, by groups from the Frankfurt school to contemporary "culture jammers," as the way to open an oppositional space within the system. This practice can lead to its own complications if artists lose control over their intellectual property rights, but it also discourages blind receptivity to mass media input. The Internet and digital media technologies are both an expansion and an area of contestation of global, multinational capitalism. In the race to develop new commodities, corporations have facilitated technologies with far-reaching effects on the economic and cultural hegemony of Americo-centric multinational businesses. If used as intended by the culture industry, they have the potential to blur the distinction between work and play, with its attendant positive and negative potential implementations. If used oppositionally, the Internet can foster a new participatory dialogue of avant-garde cultural critique on a mass scale. Web-based media technology is a tool with the potential to undermine the culture industry. Its marketing presents it as a way to attain the Marxist ideal of negating the estrangement, brought on by industrialization, between man and his work, but it carries with it the risk of continued invasive commodification. The truly revolutionary potential for a revision of economic/cultural relationality lies in the technology's oppositional potential to open an avant-garde discursive space within the culture industry.

Introduction

In The Artificial Kid, by Bruce Sterling, the title character surrounds himself with cameras, controlling his presentation of himself through them and the use of careful editing. He sells these tapes to make a living, in effect selling himself, albeit as an image over which he retains complete control. He calls himself a "combat artist," demonstrating his view of his work as an art form. In his exaggerated world, constant filming of oneself for distribution is both an occupation and avocation, but it points out the potentials of today's advancing media technologies. The computer occupies a position as a bridge between home and the office, work and play and technology is concurrently becoming both a way of life and work. The Internet also allows users to bypass traditional media organizations that have historically mediated the interaction between information, production and the masses. Now everyone can be a content provider as well as an audience member, and a distributor of their creation. The Artificial Kid also demonstrates a conjunction between the cultural and the economic, a world in which aesthetics are wedded to production, and art is the primary economic commodity. The close bond between cultural and economic signifiers in the novel mirrors the current intersection of capital and culture in today's global economy. Cultural products have become a major industry, though decidedly American and Euro-centric. In a world where General Electric owns NBC television and oil companies own record labels, an analysis of culture cannot be divorced from economic structures.

But can the Internet, with its potential to propel American cultural hegemony even further on its process of global encroachment, be deployed simultaneously as an oppositional tool? Despite the attempts by advertisers to create a teleology and rigidly defined discourse for their products, the actual uses are still contested. The marketing would have the consumer believe that the greater personal accessibility offered by information technology can make work more like leisure, though that possibility is accompanied by the specter of constant work.

Conversely, if the declared intentions of digital Internet technologies are rejected by consumers in favor of the oppositional possibilities, the culture industry could find itself dealing with a self-inflicted wound to its dominance. The progression of capitalism has left little room for a revolutionary avant-garde, but the technological tools of the culture industry have the potential to facilitate new discursive spaces. Since the global economic situation still lends itself to a Marxist critique, the evolving internet-dominated information age is susceptible to examination for oppositional possibilities along Marxist lines. During the past century of evolving Marxist thought, the incorporation and resignification of cultural products through techniques of montage and juxtaposition has consistently been viewed, by groups from the Frankfurt school to contemporary "culture jammers," as the way to open an oppositional space within the system. This practice can lead to its own complications if artists lose control over their intellectual property rights, but it also discourages blind receptivity to mass media input.

The Internet and digital media technologies are both an expansion and an area of contestation of global, multinational capitalism. In the race to develop new commodities, corporations have facilitated technologies with far-reaching effects on the economic and cultural hegemony of Americo-centric multinational businesses. If used as intended by the culture industry, they have the potential to blur the distinction between work and play, with its attendant positive and negative potential implementations. If used oppositionally, the Internet can foster a new participatory dialogue of avant-garde cultural critique on a mass scale. Web-based media technology is a tool with the potential to undermine the culture industry. Its marketing presents it as a way to attain the Marxist ideal of negating the estrangement, brought on by industrialization, between man and his work, but it carries with it the risk of continued invasive commodification. The truly revolutionary potential for a revision of economic/cultural relationality lies in the technology's oppositional potential to open an avant-garde discursive space within the culture industry.