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Illu: Federico Marigonda /
flickr.com/photos/federicovicentotono
La democracia del mouse
El open goverment y la vox populi en línea
by Manuel de Sousa
¿Maragall? ¿Eso no es un bar? ¿Atenas?
¿Cuándo abrió ese restaurante? ¿No queda
en Escudellers? En la Barceloneta, ¿no? No,
no, en Nou de la Rambla ¿verdad?
Éstas y muchas más serían la preguntas
con las que un desinteresado promedio intentaría
persuadir a algún amigo, interlocutor
o internauta, para que le brindase una
respuesta seria, distante del opiáceo ámbito
académico y ajeno al quejumbroso trámite
de vivir al margen de la gobernabilidad del
Ayuntamiento barcelonés o la veracidad
periodística de los medios locales.
En la esfera aún más informal, las conversaciones
de taberna, de pasillo de facultad
o de sala de espera de organismo de
atención pública generan un tono solemne
siempre que se hable de actualidad política.
Por ende, la democracia griega quedó fuera
del contexto público-social hace siglos, no
así el cotilleo relacionado con personajes
como el Conseller d’Educació de Cataluña,
quien recientemente, entre otras actividades,
inauguró l’Escola La Muntanyeta, l’Institut
Ernest Lluch i l’Escola Els Cossetans al Baix
Penedès según reza el titular de un dominio
de Internet denominado Diari de l’Alcalde,
una publicación en línea “que ofereix informació
d’actualitat i continguts que afecten
l’àmbit municipal de Catalunya”. Así de
inmediato y fácil puede alguien con un
sentido común de búsqueda enterarse de la
gestión oficial de su localidad. Así de anti-
Helénica (según los especuladores y los
contribuyentes alemanes de a pie) y de “on
line” es la política de nuestros días.
Los ejemplos sobran: Obama y los alcaldes
i regidors de Cataluña en Facebook, Hugo
Chávez en Twitter, referéndum para el
devenir de la avenida Diagonal por la web,
el blog de Miguel ángel Moratinos y un
exponencial etcétera mediante la inmediata
accesibilidad del simple “gugleo”.
Privacidad individual y demagogia de
contact o: el nuevo populismo digital
Si Antonio Gramsci estuviera vivo, más viva
estuviera la noción de hegemonía vinculada
a su concepto de bloque hegemónico, perfectamente
representado al corriente por los
grandes colosos de la faramalla electrónica:
Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.
Tales instituciones, como últimas expresiones
de participación atadas al dominio
de occidente, funcionan como amigables
superestructuras de contacto entre usuarios,
quienes al conceder abiertamente parte de
su intimidad, permiten que amigos y desconocidos
husmeen en sus vidas, compartan
sus anhelos, lamenten sus frustraciones o
conozcan a quien no es estrictamente
necesario conocer. Dicho de otro modo,
coleccionan cientos y hasta miles de cuadritos
con imágenes de personas desvinculadas
a cualquier lazo afectivo, laboral o
familiar. Sin embargo, en el perverso y
ambicioso ámbito político, estos cuadritos
juegan un importante papel: un cuadrito
equivale a un voto.
En tal sentido, tomando en cuenta el
posicionamiento global de Barcelona en el
paradigmático culto modernista, sus habitantes
son potenciales cuadritos que resultan
no claves pero sí valiosos elementos de
participación electoral.
Esto lo sabe tanto la Generalitat como
los ayuntamientos o los municipios barceloneses,
y en gran parte abanderados varios
como Josep Mayoral en Granollers, Manuel
Bustos en Sabadell o Salvador Esteva en
Martorell, quienes hacen política a través
de la red, y gozan, como cualquier político,
de auges y caídas en su popularidad.
El prestigio o el carisma traspasan la
barrera de lo real y conquistan el fuero virtual
que los catapulta al liderazgo y al poder,
sin perder el contacto con los ciudadanosvotos-
cuadritos, quienes pueden sentirse
más cerca de su candidato, de la opción justa
y correcta para la próxima medición, como
cuando al termino de esa canción de Sonic
Youth o Andrés Calamaro nos inducen a
“Comenzar el cambio”, ¡Montilla Presidente!,
Convergència i Unió en Spotify.
Atentos al descontrol de la “súper autopista
de la información”, hacen campaña,
dan la mano, besan ancianas, prometen y
divulgan sus propuestas a pocos links de
distancia, desestimando la traición del cibernauta
que puede sin más cerrar la ventana,
“navegando” ambas partes por las aguas
Habermasnianas de la “infravaloración de
la multiplicidad”.
De las redes sociales a la blogosfera pública:
refugios del nuevo orden electrónico
Indigestión volcánica y temporada de tormentas
en América Central. La cobertura
mediática, que dilatante y diligente nos
informa diariamente de calamidades o
emociones marginales como el triunfo
teutón en Eurovisión, alivia las procesiones
intestinas del ciudadano común quien,
desde su triste desacomodo “poorgoise”,
observa su mezquino patrimonio tambalearse
según cuenta la retórica de la caída
del castillo de naipes del Capital.
¿Dónde se puede ir? ¿Cómo refugiarse de
la espeluznante semiótica actual? Los vanguardistas
de laboratorios occidentales y la
izquierda de Caracas, Bangkok, Atenas o
Reykjavik apuntan al rebusque ontológico,
algo que los indios practican desde hace
más de tres mil años, igualados a los animales
menos racionales y confiando la evolución
de su ser al poder de los estómagos semivacíos
y al Capital Mystic que comparten
con su par Chino en el seno de la esperanza
y la salvación financiera de los países BRIC.
¿Qué queda ante tanta atenuación globalista?
El barrio, el municipio, los consejos
comunales, las reuniones vecinales, la autogestión;
signos de representatividad que,
aunque lejos del aislado y vigente recurso
amazónico del trueque, generan diálogos y
discursos, fuentes perpetuas de acuerdos y
desacuerdos, conflictos y resoluciones que
también están on line, aparecen en “gúgel”
y funcionan como fundamentos del refugio
íntimo de la gestión local.
Un comentario para el candidato, la
pregunta para el alcalde, la queja para el administrador
de la finca: las nuevas formas
de acceso a la administración pública o un
nuevo orden democrático electrónico, un
nuevo modelo de gestión pública, temprana
definición del blogger Daniel Linares quien
la describe como “la forma de relacionarse
entre la Administración Pública y los ciudadanos,
que se caracteriza por el establecimiento
de canales de comunicación y contacto
directo entre ellos”. De aquí surgen
ejemplos como el eGovernment de la
“Smart City” de Barcelona o el GenCat, el
portal del gobierno de la Generalitat de
Catalunya, así como Localret, un portal
conformado por las administraciones locales
de Cataluña, “para actuar en el desarrollo
de las redes y los servicios de telecomunicaciones
y de la sociedad del conocimiento en
el entorno local”. Todo un paradigma que
trastoca el concepto tradicional de democracia,
que no se aleja de la realidad política
off Internet, ni de la práctica retórico-discursiva,
como en las palabras de César
Calderón un estudioso del tema, quien sin
descubrir el agua tibia del sistema político
virtual apunta que “Muchos políticos tratan
de escamotear la información pública para
usarla a su antojo”. Por su parte, el pueblo
alza la voz y saca a relucir su posiciones,
moderaciones y radicalismos, comentando
y participando vía textos moderados o radicales,
un furor de clics con tintes democráticos
y ademanes arcaicos.
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Foto: Jake Nash
Sound Cloud #9
Oh, give it, give it, give it, give it -
Until you just can’t give no more
by Lena Wiget
It’s been a while since Charlie Chaplin made
Modern Times – that was back in 1936, when
industrialization was in full swing. But hardly
anything has since been produced that paints
the dream of Progress so poignantly. How
could you better mock man’s compulsive obsession
with technology and his belief that
superior gadgets will lead to the betterment
of the human race than by inventing a feeding
machine that shoves screw nuts down
your throat? And, as if the wicked apparatus
didn’t spell it out clearly enough, a possessed
Chaplin delivered the punchline, going mad
over his monotonous work at the conveyor
belt and applying his tool to noses, ears, buttons
and bosoms.
Of course, technological advancements
have led to significant changes since Modern
Times, and I’m not referring to high-tech but
poorly construed animation films like Avatar.
Fewer people work on nightmarish conveyor
belts and more of us surf webs, play with
clouds, and vegetate in front of computers.
Yet, at heart, the issue remains the same: we
invent apparatuses only to subject ourselves
to them. We insinuate the types of technology
we use into our day-to-day lives, altering our
way of being in the world. We lament that we
cannot press ctrl+f when the office keys can’t
be found or ctrl+z when things have spilled
over. Disconnect from the Web for just a day
or two and you’ll experience a devilish
withdrawal. But somehow, in the grand narrative
of Modernity, the Internet is still portrayed
as an efficient tool that advances the
goals of its users, who are to be understood as
pre-constituted, instrumental identities, impervious
to technology’s influence.
If you’ve ever signed up for online banking
only to find that it comes with new charges,
new frustrations, and a mind-boggling array
of pin codes, you know that a relationship
with the Internet is anything but innocent.
With every new use the Web affords, new
power relations evolve, and we sometimes
find ourselves in thrall to the same forces that
affect our analogue existences. Let’s say we’re
bowled over by the wonder that is Spotify, for
instance. New music, old music, lovely interface,
and all for free. It could be heaven...at least
for a while. After all, Spotify is a business,
and a modern, high-tech one at that, meaning
that they’re not fiddling around with state-
of-the-art information technology just to
regurgitate what’s already out there. They
plan to shape and reinvent, knowing well that
information doesn’t go unchanged when circulated
among different material substrates
and platforms. In fact, according to Spotify’s
CEO, Daniel Ek, they want to “move people
from the ownership model to the access model.”
So, if “people” are lethargic consumers
to be moved, and the euphemistic “access
model” eases us into subscriptions to data
that the company may remove at any time,
the question that should inform our use of
this device is whether we’re winning or losing
out in this new regime of power relations. We
can amuse ourselves with an imaginary Q&A
session, can’t we? Let’s dive into the rabbit
hole and kill the Jabberwocky.
A concerned consumer
I have heard that iTunes will soon launch a
cloud-based service. I hope Spotify won’t be
aborted before seeing the full light of day?
Dear Believer,
Jim Butcher, Spotify’s head of press, is 100%
unwilling to say anything about the subject.
No, wait; that’s incorrect. He did tell us to
“Watch this space ;)”. And, yes, he did use the
emoticon. Put two and two together and the
only thing to do is back up your playlists. A
novel platform with potential (Spotify) might
be able to pay minuscule amounts to artists
and survive, but only until a competitor
emerges with a bigger cloud and more money
to disperse. It very much depends on how
many people decide to switch over to Spotify’s
new paid subscription model. If you are a
believer, sign yourself up and shell out the
cash. Atheists should save some money to invest
in music right now so the DTs don’t hit
too hard when the plug is pulled.
Another concerned consumer
There’s that one song I need to play in the mornings
while eating my müsli – it’s the Yeasayer’s
“Tightrope”; the line “Oh, give it, give it,
give it, give it, give it - Until you just can’t give
no more” helps me start the day. It’s been on
Spotify for months but as of last week it is no
longer available. I experience terrible difficulties
getting out of bed.
Dear Suicidal Müsli Glutton,
A change of diet is in order. Regular müsli
may be healthy but in the long run it will desiccate
your spirits. The same is true of Spotify.
Since Heidegger, philosophers have warned
of the dangers of technological artifacts.
They argue that a good tool draws you in through
its “readiness-at-hand”, its convenience.
It completely withdraws, integrating itself
into your lifeworld, and Boom! You’re done in.
You desire it, you need it and you despair
when you can’t have it. Any “user” who buys
into not buying music (as if the step from
analogue to digital in the past few years wasn’t
enough change for one decade) must be aware
that his status changes from owner to subscriber
and that this change in status implies a
loss of rights over the material consumed.
“Tightrope” is part of a compilation and is no
longer available because, as Jim Butcher says
can happen, “the rights holder chose to remove
it.” Get yourself some coffee and wake up.
A concerned musician
Do the artists have any say as to which top five
songs appear in the 123-section? People always
play that one song I wrote for a special
someone who fucked me over big time. It’s just
a lame love song and I hate being defined by it
as a musician. Is there any way I can make it
disappear from the Top5?
Dear Lovebird,
We all make mistakes. You can either choose
to completely remove the song from Spotify,
or you can learn to live with its Top5 status.
The top lists are 100% user-driven and based
purely on popularity measured by the number
of streams. You can’t argue with taste…
Another concerned musician
I heard that Lady Gaga got a check from Spotify
for $167 from a million streams – does that
mean that I’ll never be able to make a living
through Spotify? Let’s say my rent is 500 Euros
and I eat and drink for another 500 Euros –
how many times would my songs need to be
played per month so that I can cover basics?
Dear Math Duffer,
Please sit tight. The answer is: 10,000,000 times.
Even the Beatles would have starved if
their lives depended on Spotify. An artist without
a record deal needs to sign up with an
aggregator and the amount of money paid to
the artist per song depends on the agreement
that that given aggregator has with the company.
Spotify “doesn’t go into specific details,
as these are confidential deals agreed with the
various rights holders (labels, collecting societies,
artists etc.)” (That’s Jim Butcher again).
All fine and good – we like secrets – but let’s
assume that if they had better news to report,
they would. I once saw a great performance
by an artist named Hyperpotamus in Barcelona.
He played in front of a small crowd of 40
people. Each of us paid 4€ to hear him sing
and a few bought a copy of his CD. A few days
later I discover his album on Spotify and asked
him about his deal. He replied, “For every
time someone listens to a song of mine on
Spotify, I earn 0.0001€. Not kidding, I repeat:
0.0001€. Of course it’s absolutely symbolic!
Still, having your CD on Spotify is viable for
an upcoming artist in the sense that it looks
good and professional, plus people can listen
to your music whenever they feel like it. Gano
mucho más dinero a través de tocando que
vendiendo discos. Lo de la venta de discos es
un pequeño plus que viene bien, pero si alguien
quiere vivir de esto, que sepa que sólo
será a través de tocar mucho.” You’ve got to
hit the road, again, my dear. Or, you could
also consider “Sweding” your music, like Jack
Black in Be Kind Rewind. Exclusivity sells.
And apropos of verbifying nouns, what about
de-Murdochifying Myspace and ourspacifying
Spotify? Wouldn’t it be grand if there
were a global social platform that wasn’t owned
by a private company with obscure shareholders
but by musicians and fans - together?
Wouldn’t that be worth subscribing to?
But this is not a dream we awaken from once
we’ve killed the Jabberwocky. We are stuck in
this technological wonderland that we have
created for ourselves for good. Cloud-based
computing will surely play a part in its future
and maybe Spotify, too. Just remember that
even if you decide against the subscriptionbased
service, nothing is ever 100% “free”. If
you want to listen to good music you’ve got to
support the bands. Support as in “spend your
money”…
OMG, I am a Lady of the Evening. ROFL?
by straypuppy
I decided to become a life actress on the
Internet about a month ago. I have had
some online dating profiles since 2004 or
2005, but it’s only over the last year that I
really began using them, as I was one man’s
floozy for my entire twenties.
Listing I was interested in casual sex on
my profile turned out to be similar to hanging
out a global shingle proclaiming my whoredom;
I immediately began getting a great
many brusque come-ons. Earlier this year,
an entire mobile phone conference tried to
order me from the Interclogs. One chat
went:
“You look like a great fuck.”
“That’s very forward, isn’t it?”
“&$%’# @€ ¿ $%&*!”
“Have you ever heard of the word ‘overfamiliarity’?”
I queried some of these individuals as to
why they didn’t call up an escort agency or
simply visit their nearest watering hole. It
seemed a kind and sensible suggestion. And
I tried to engage in conversation, oft to no
avail. Many of them just weren’t listening at
all, like a lovely gentleman who goes by the
username **omatose* and was quite insistent.
Unfortunately for him, his IQ was insufficient
to coerce me. He kept telling me
that he was going to give me the best orgasm
I’d ever had, and I had no idea how to politely
convey that I could already tell his capacity
for turning me on was similar to that
of a loaf of bread; our interaction was making
my girl bits more juiceless by the
keystroke. I kept accepting his chats, though,
and he kept trying—every time he was
here on business, in fact. No matter how
many times I told him I wasn’t coming to his
hotel room, he persisted in thinking I was
being coy. The last time we spoke he requested
I fly myself to Madrid to entertain him. His
attitude seemed to be that any woman up for
a romp in the hay with a special someone
just needed the right bit of pushy prodding
to acquiesce. He is not alone in this misassumption.
Are we all free to be whoever we want, to
do and say what we please on the Internet?
This must be part of its great yawning
beauty; the interconnected noosphere is
our playground.
This is when I created my fake escort
profile. I used a profile I have had for five
years but had kept blank to peruse anyone
sketchy, since you can see who clicks you on
this site, but if you disable it others are invisible
too. I thought: you now feel free to chat
me right up, looking for a good time with
nary an hola. I have a game I’d like to play
too!
Oh great World Wide Wishing Well
(WWWW)! Bring me the paper, cheap flights
and gleaming young French twins to sodomize
at my whim! Like Ol’ Dirty Bastard, you
want pussy and everything else for as free as
possible. Well, there’s nothing wrong with
wishing on a star. Here’s my try: I want to
make my love life my well-paid part-time
job. I want to buy my building and a piece of
land on the coast. I want to move my parents
to Spain to retire them in style. I want
to travel again. I am a simple girl, and I can
be your very own My Little Puta.
Along with the plethora of online catcalls
from my 3,000 new Internet suitors, I’ve received
a lot of messages asking who I am.
They ask to see my ‘real’ profile, know my
name to Google me or see my face, and they
often ask for this immediately. It feels strange,
since I have always put a lot of myself online
without a second thought, and my profile is,
as it were, honest and actually me. The most
striking difference between my two profiles
is the photos; the writing is the same, and I
am the same, albeit much more lewd. In my
now defunct original profile I had put up all
of the pictures I was allowed to, and each of
them showed my face. In this profile I only
show my ass. But this is the first time I have
concealed my identity in this way, which I
have come to realize many do, because they
can or need to or are more careful than I
have historically been. How many of you
boys have your separate profiles? How many
of you keep them blank because you are
only here to peruse the goods, or for the
same reason I myself did? Most of you are
just being yourselves, and I like and prefer
that, but I think I will carry on in my thorough
reappraisal of what I share with the
Web and how easy I am to find. The Internet
is the most public place to ever exist in the
history of the world. Eyes are everywhere,
and who knows how long a shelf-life
anything you do or say there will have.
It’s been a gas engaging in a little intercourse
with all of you. These days even Pornhub
has become a social networking site,
and you proposition me in ways you would
never dream of if, say, we worked together or
met at a concert. I’m sorry if I’ve come off
cracked in some of our exchanges, but at
times I truly have felt bewildered or dazed.
Oh, the things you say! You tell me all the
things you want to do to, on, or with me, and
sometimes it makes my jaw drop. You want
to tie me up, ride me, suckle me, tickle me.
You want me to dress you in frilly knickers,
poke you, pee and sit on you. You want threesomes
and moresomes and thank me repeatedly
for giving you a fat one at your desk.
You want to know what you get for your money
when you take me seriously. But also:
many of you tell me that you might lavish
me with attentions and goodies, but would
never outright pay for sex. I wonder if that is
congenital dishonesty. You don’t express the
same objection to hustling me. I don’t need
a pimp, baby, but feel free to give me some
good press. And, of course, a few of you are
angry or perturbed at me, want to let me
know you disapprove, or have a need to
textually take something out on a stranger
from across an ocean or continent. One of
you proposed marriage in your first message.
So much has been said. All I can really say is
thanks, because frankly it’s nice to have so
much attention and I truly am a lovely,
horny girl. Speaking of good times…
When I’m not dizzied by my new, semipublic,
mostly anonymous role on the Infobahn,
I’m laughing uncontrollably or masturbating
myself silly. This feels like a kind of
fame, and I think I’m drunk on it. I’m not
sure if or when I will be meeting anyone
from it in meatspace, but I have a feeling I
will. Until then, un beso!
okcupid.com/profile/straypuppy
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