U.S. Department of Art & Technology
Media Release
For Immediate Release: November 5, 2004
FOLLOWING ELECTION NIGHT REMIX
SECRETARY VOWS TO ACTIVATE
THE AESTHETIC HYPERCULTURE
SECOND-TERM AGENDA INCLUDES PROGRAM
FOR EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL RESEARCH
WASHINGTON, DC - "With the will of the people at my back," Secretary Randall M. Packer confidently vowed yesterday to use his "political capital" to push an aggressive social agenda in a second term, beginning with new 21st century tactics to awaken the disenfranchised and activate the aesthetic hyperculture.
At a news conference at US DAT Headquarters, a day after the highly successful Election Night Remix at the Black Cat nightclub in Washington, DC, in which the Department momentarily engaged the young and disengaged with the Media Deconstruction Kit, Packer spoke repeatedly about the need for "a sustainable hyperculture, the conservation of the avant-garde and an anarchist spirit-state."
"I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it," the Secretary said. "I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is - "to inhabit the medial space with a polymorphic and long-lived presence."
Accompanied by his Under Secretary for the Bureau of the Aesthetic Hyperculture, Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, who collaborated with the Secretary for the Election Night Remix, went on to say, "In the dreamtime of the hyperculture, there can be no single line of thought, no immanent thread of action but a simultaneous enlivening of all networker cells and the suggestion of unlimited possibilities."
Under Secretary Miller added, "The young have grown up in an era of multiplex consciousness, a media-saturated culture where meaning is no longer tethered to the ground of its origins. So why isn't there a broad artistic movement focused on coping with the information vertigo we experience daily? Americans are trapped in what I call a micro-niche mentality. We lack any awareness of the big picture, we passively accept the status quo, we do nothing besides pressing PLAY."
The Secretary responded, "Reforming the social system for generations to come is a difficult issue; otherwise, it would have already been done," he said. "But it is necessary to confront it. 20th century hierarchical controls systems represent the cultural mentality left from the age of imperialism. Divide, conquer and place the known universe inside a specimen jar. With the advent of information technology all that has changed: social power results from the exploitation of information through collective expression in the emerging aesthetic hyperculture."
Department officials, who asked not to be identified, said they are preparing to move quickly with a multimedia package designed to transform social spaces across the nation and around the world.
The Secretary concluded, "I came here to get some things done, and we are doing it."
The US Department of Art & Technology
http://www.usdat.us
The US Department of Art and Technology is the United States principal conduit for facilitating the artist's need to extend aesthetic inquiry into the broader culture where ideas become real action. It also serves the psychological and spiritual well-being of all Americans by supporting cultural efforts that provide immunity from the extension of new media technologies into the social sphere.
Contact:
US Department of Art & Technology | Washington, DC Fax: 202.342.1293 | E-mail: press@usdat.us
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