historia

Historia

This is a place to record fragments of the history of the Internet

I've set this up following two people (RA, DS) mentioning to me in the past two weeks the same cybercafe in Brecon :

"the first cybercafe in the world, I think it was..."

I have a basic aim to document some of the people, things, places and events that go towards making the history of the Net.


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Some musings on "Historia", in the world of the Web, Google and Wi-Fi

The Janus face of history and technology, in our passage of the present,looks backwards to the Enlightenment and forwards to Dystopia?

HISTORY, in general signifies an account of some remarkable facts which have happened in the world, arranged in the true order in which they actually took place, together with the causes to which they were owing, and the different effects they have produced as far as can be discovered. The word is Greek istoria (in greek alphabeth); and literally denotes a search of curious things, or a desire of knowing, or even a rehearsal of things we have seen; being formed from the verb istorein (in greek alphabeth), which properly signifies to know a thing by having seen it. But the idea is now much more extensive, and is applied to the knowledge of things taken from the report of others. The origin is from the verb ishmi, ‘I know’; and hence it is, that among the ancients several of their great men were called polyhistores, i.e. persons of various and general knowledge.

(...) With regard to the study of history, we must consider, that all the revolutions which have happened in the world have been owing to two causes. 1. The connections between the different states existing together in the world at the same time, or their different situations with regard to one another; and, 2. The different characters of the people who in all ages constituted these states, their different geniuses and dispositions, &c. by which they were either prompted to undertake such and such actions of themselves, or were easily induced to it by others. ("History", The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Third Edition,1788-1797: source here)

"Of course," he says, "we have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile. (...) We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition." (William Gibson, Pattern Recognition,2003)

1
Documenting the present

I have long felt that the flow of current events was escaping documentation, authentication and understanding.

In the flow of daily projects one is always making "the next" happen. Today's narratives evaporate into yesterday. The flow of data overtakes us. Important facts get lost. The activities of seperate years begin to merge, with a tendency towards the fragmented, the fractured or the forgotten. Writing a CV suddenly becomes a crisis. One's mind can feel more familiar with "the Victorian period", than with our own shifting present.

The history of the Internet- and of the digital communications revolution - is largely invisible. Nineteenth century Industrialism dominated all in its monumentality- landscape, body and soul. We may nowadays speak of "The Invisible Wealth of Nations". The digital revolution is emerging within the plethora of the everyday, subtly transforming our ways of doing things, insinuating itself into our assumptions and our daily rythms. I am struck by the sense of a lack of documentation, of a fugitive history, whilst the status quo of the present is assisted by its eclipse of any pre-history. A history and a map of the terrain which might place us at a different crossroads.

2
The networked Muse?

The Dystopian Muse speaks of contingent times as the certainties of the Enlightenment give way to the uncertainties of Modernity (in this later, liquid and speeded-up phase).

The Utopian Muse? There are those who have dared to dream of space and light and speed. Of satellites orbiting the heavens, of Maxwell's Rainbow, and of glass threads lacing the ocean floors. Of a universal conversation, weaving a web of words and images.

The networked Muse? In the world of the Web 2.0 the classical agora meets the Web, the conversation of the many-to-many, the Bazzar versus the Cathedral?

3
Feed your head

The thoughts inside the Janus god's head lie dispersed across the network. The otaku collector's impulse- pattern recognition, or apophenia?

As we negotiate our continual crossroads of choice, may we engage the historia muse and wisdoms (-innovations, options) of past travellers to assist us in seeing beyond the poverty of the present horizon(-empiricism, economism)? Can we even trust the signs we are presented with at the crossroads?

What chronicle or collector's cabinet, mnemonic device or memory palace, database or archive can we depend upon?

posted by J. @ 2:30 PM