This is an excerpt from the ARPANET Dialogues, a ARPANET test conversation that took place in 1975. participants: Edward Said, Marcel Broodthaers, Ronald Reagan, and Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda was late, though, and not in the conversation. (I am taking the site at its word that the dialogue took place and is not an artistic reimainging.)
- Edward Said
- Who are we waiting for. Im Edward.
- Marcel Broodthaers
- Hello.
- Ronald Reagan
- Hi Ed. Call me Ron.
- Edward Said
- Hi Ron you dont mind do you.
- Marcel Broodthaers
- Hello Edward. Well Im told we are waiting for Jane Fonda.
- Ronald Reagan
- No my wife calls me Ronnie.
- Ronald Reagan
- Jane Fonda. Really. Well Ill be.
- Ronald Reagan
- Interesting line up.
- Edward Said
- Hello everyone. Oh Jane. Shes quite something.
- Marcel Broodthaers
- Yes certainly.
- Marcel Broodthaers
- A woman of many talents and interests from what I hear.
- Ronald Reagan
- Bit controversial too around these parts.
- Marcel Broodthaers
- Oh really.
- Edward Said
- Itll be great to have her give a lecture here at Columbia.
- Ronald Reagan
- Hanoi Jane and all that.
- Edward Said
- Oh Ron. come one.
- Edward Said
- You cant stand lefties can you.
- Ronald Reagan
- Oh lets not reduce ourselves to labels Ed.
- Ronald Reagan
- Right. Left. Whats it all mean anyway.
- Edward Said
- No labels Ron. No labels.
via www.arpanetdialogues.net
The site says it is an artistic reimagining, albeit tacitly, when it says, "The ARPANET Dialogues is an ongoing project by Bassam El Baroni, Jeremy Beaudry and Nav Haq.
Vol. I of the dialogues was presented as part of OVERSCORE, Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum’s (ACAF) curatorial contribution to Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art which took place in the region of Murcia, Spain in 2010.
Vol. II is presented as ACAF’s contribution to MARKER at Art Dubai 2011. The second edition features guest collaborator Khwezi Gule, a curator, artist, and writer based in Johannesburg, South Africa."
here: http://www.arpanetdialogues.net/about/
Amusing how many fell for it.
Posted by: Leo837 | March 31, 2011 at 07:54 AM
But it also says:
In the period between 1975 and 1979, the Agency convened a rare series of conversations between an eccentric cast of characters representing a wide range of perspectives within the contemporary social, political, and cultural milieu. The ARPANET Dialogues is a serial document which archives these conversations. Even more unusual perhaps was the specific circumstances of the conversation: taking advantage of recent developments in telecommunications technology, the conversation was conducted via an instant messaging application networked by computers plugged into ARPANET, the United States Department of Defense’s experimental computer network. All participants in the conversation were given special access to terminals connected to ARPANET, many of them located in US military installations or DOD-sponsored research institutions around the world. Excerpts from each session will be published as they become available.
Posted by: Jodi | March 31, 2011 at 10:21 AM
on the nettime mailing list:
Ted:
Correct -- it's not a HOAX; it' a FLIP (or reversal, see McLuhan's "Laws of Media" and the just published book "Media and Formal Cause").
It's an example of the *effects* preceding the *causes* -- all these people SHOULD have been talking to each other, so the ARPANET was invented so that these conversations could happen.
Pushing the notion of Cold War researchers talking to each other, which being "watched" by their funding agencies, to its *extreme* becomes Fonda talking to Ron, with all of us watching.
Mark Stahlman
Brooklyn NY
Posted by: Jodi | March 31, 2011 at 10:22 AM