Question : Does this art actually exist? If it does, how soon until it "breaks"...
Searching for Bobby Chombo - I'm on about chapter 31, and just noticing that the characters are all about to crash together. Interesting how he's been able to keep NY and LA seperate for this long...
He did get asked about it at the Edinburgh Signing. He said that Bruce Sterling had been prodding about the locative art stuff for a while and that it's kind of possible if I remember rightly.
I'll check what I wrote down...
---------------------------------- "A million monkeys were given a million typewriters; it's called the internet" Simon Munnary
Posts: 247 | Location: Glasgow, UK | Registered: October 15, 2006
Technically I can see it being almost possible, but I'm never entirely convinced of the accuracy of GPS, even these days, and depending on the art work it strikes me that even being a bit out might hurt things...
Posts: 18 | Location: London | Registered: September 04, 2007
I'm editing my article about the Book Festival this morning. Here's what I wrote about what Wibson said about Locative Art.
Other people ask about the themes in Spook Country. The host draws attention to the idea of ‘locative art’ and asks how Gibson came into contact with the idea. He says that he was introduced to the idea by Bruce Sterling (who collaborated with Gibson in the steampunk novel The Difference Engine) but he imagines a more lowbrow, low-tech version in which he could explore what happens to cyberspace and how it everts into the real world. He calls this a ‘blended reality’.
---------------------------------- "A million monkeys were given a million typewriters; it's called the internet" Simon Munnary
Posts: 247 | Location: Glasgow, UK | Registered: October 15, 2006
I did some exploring on Locative art, and it seems the government takes this GPS stuff pretty seriously. I kept coming up with analysts for government agencies doing talks on it between 2004 and 2006.
Glock - Inventive way or procuring a weapon for Brown no? Too bad Brown turned out being completely batshit. I was actually sort of able to justify his position for a good part of the book.
Chombo - Good name for a piece of software. Also a good name for a dog of just about any type.
Toolmaker - Where did we lose the trail of the skull cap guys. I will bemoan this point for as long as I am involved in writing here. They were like the Boomzilla element - but with a very abrupt disappearance from the entire script. Certainly they were more than just dealers - how many do you know of that discuss social engineering?
The Man Who Shot Walt Disney - Bobby Chombo was pretty clever - maybe pretty clever - but a bit weighed down by ther circumstances of his idiot family members. Anyone else here feel that put upon from time to time? Its ok to raise your hand. We all have them. The ones that just won't leave well enough alone when you are too busy to be disturbed in your work.
The Curfew - As a band - they probably had something going for them for a time. The story of a heroin addicted guitarist vaguely reminds me of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Alice in Chains. It goes without saying that the sound of the band was probably more like the Cure or something projected from The Cure. But in today's age. Getting 5000.0 from a dead bandmate is about as useful as someone giving you a used wedding ring. You just don't want it and it would serve all the wrong functions in your life. Good thing Milgrim had a nice breakfast in Vancouver.
Besides - what good is cash - except to buy stuff that isn't sanctioned anymore. Its good for very few things. A hot meal, some firearms, and enough ICE to make you volitile. Even McDonalds and Mr. Sipee take credit.
Bodybag - They put a toetag on Phoenix and wheeled him off into the night. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade viewers cried when they saw the news. He was the Last Boyscout. We remember because we know it was the last good thing that appeared on the screen. Since the early 90's nothing has graced the screen like the boy on his Horse, leaping from railcar to railcar and speaking Greek in reverse while surviving a pit of snakes and a Lion Taming Act. He may as well have been a Ring Master, and Gibson tamed him for you - showed the body on the ground, and you ate it up. The zipper on the bodybag put an end to our notion that a Boy Scout was good. The perverts had had their way with him, pumping him full of their drugs and drinks, and he may as well have been tossed in the back dumpster of the Viper Room. Now they dance around on the floor of the Viper Room in Pirates Uniforms on the silver screen, digging up a Dead Man's Chest , and swashbuckling their way into the American Gay consciousness like a Mongolian Death Worm on Fire. The cold chalk outline left where the corpse lay, whisked away by footprints in Hollywood is all that remains. And the bodybag will probably be sold to the highest bidder, if it hasn't already. Because if there are flesh mechanics, there are collectors of fine snuff memorabilia. I just hope whoever gets it is ready for the hole I am about to tear in their reality with round after round from my E-Machine as it controls the droid guns on my braun transformer. I've encountered your kind before, and I will encounter your kind again, and I will stand my ground, and the darkness will leave the room in shock from the lightening in my Thunderheart just like it did this very night when it made an attempt to enter my soul in my sleep. You can curse me from afar, you can send your demons to do your bidding, you can pull the darkest blanket of night over my very room, but the one thing you cannot do, is hit me on the Dance Floor of the Viper Room - because the Viper is my ride when I dance over the furies and they lose the eye in the blindness of their crockpot of bones. Yes - I will Dance Over The Fury, and you will be robots in my universe. But I'm a cruel master when it comes to dealing with the sadistic. I usually just have them executed on sight rather than contending with them long enough for them to issue a curse. I'm a bitch of a good sport when it comes to playing this game of chess. Knight to Queen's Rook 3. Forkmate.
