>      please remove my name from your e-mail list. thank you







 [the final post of a three part series on public works projects.
>   the temporary list of e-mails that was assembled is now deleted.]
>
>
>
>
>        A U T O B I O G R A P H Y   O F   M A D N E S S
>
>        TERRORS OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RESEARCH
>
>        public story. public facts. public individual. public domain.
>        no copyright. 2001. no permissions necessary. please redistribute.
>        brian thomas carroll. electromagnetic researcher.
>        a work in progress. version 8.7.2001
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>0--     THE MYTHIC SCHIZOPHRENIC
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>1--     HYPOCRISY OF BUREAUCRATIC DEMOCRACY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>2--     INDEPENDENT ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>3--     ASCII ARCHITECTURE
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>4--     NO IDEOLOGICAL EXIT
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>5--     CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>6--     THE ELECTROMAGNETIC LOBOTOMY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>7--     MULTIMEDIATED ARCHITECTURE
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>8--     ARCHITECTURAL DEBATE (SIC)
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>9--     SOCIALIZED INSECURITY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>10-     ARCHITEXTUALIZING ELECTRICITY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>11-     PUBLIC DISINFORMATION ZONE
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>12-     ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERNETWORKING
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>13-     THE PURGING OF PUBLIC DISSENT
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>14-     SEEING NO CHANGE
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>15-     THE LAST OF THE FREE RADICALS
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>16-     GOALS FOR TODAY / contact information
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>This website documents the path of an individual human being in their
>attempt to understand the cultural role of electromagnetism in the
>field of architecture. Seemingly fictive, it publicly documents the
>travails of an 'undisciplined' student on their public journey in
>search of architecture, into madness and beyond. The purpose of this
>individual's research work is to assist ordinary citizens in
>understanding complex electromagnetic phenomena within the everyday
>environment.
>
>And yet this work has been censored in the University; the person
>deemed insane for 'thinking differently'; administered electroshock
>treatments so as to fit back into 'normal' society; institutionalized
>inside bureaucracies of economic, social, and political bondage;
>discriminated against for challenging the status quo; surveilled by
>ideological opponents whom have read private e-mail, shut down two
>public e-mail lists, hacked their web server, defaced their website,
>damaged their personal computer, destroyed the computer hardware, and
>corrupted the software used to continue this unique electromagnetic
>research endeavor.
>
>As a direct result, this researcher has been unable to function, to
>stay employed, and has had their physical health deteriorate to the
>point of collapse, in order to be 'renormalized'. They can no longer
>continue their research of electromagnetism until help from the
>public arrives. This human being is now seeking to live outside the
>USA so as to be able to continue their work which pursues public
>goals without fear of oppression, something impossible to imagine
>>from where they exist today.
>
>All of these events have led to life-threatening health and welfare
>problems for this individual, and they have no other option but to
>tell their story of the last ten years in hopes that other people
>will recognize this individual continues to be actively denied their
>basic human rights as a citizen of the world, and will legally argue,
>if necessary, that they have been tortured as it is defined by the
>United Nations Convention Against Torture (1984), Article 1(1). This
>claim is not idle, nor against any one individual, but against an
>entire cultural system as it is accumulated in the separate actions
>of many in positions of authority and power over time. This injustice
>must be recognized by others in order to change its predetermined
>outcome.
>
>This biography is not personal in nature, a private grievance unique
>to one person. Instead it publicly documents a system of Automated
>Madness which is working against all of humanity and is actively
>destroying the democratic rights and freedoms of individuals in this
>human republic.
>
>This researcher is in dire need of public support from fellow
>citizens of the world, and this is their last stand. They have tried
>everything to avoid this confrontation. but given no other choice,
>they are not ashamed to speak truth to the total authority of power
>over that of truth that exists in the world today. Please suspend
>judgment, read this story, and consider for yourself what these facts
>present. If you then choose to support the work of this individual
>human being, please send your support as soon as is possible, as a
>public opportunity needs to open up fast within these storied ruins,
>as time, energy, and resources have long run out. Contact information
>is below for those who want to help keep this public research effort
>alive.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>0-- THE MYTHIC SCHIZOPHRENIC
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>SPACETIME:      1970-1990, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>grow up in conservative and insular environment. go to the University
>of Minnesota while living in parents home. stress       from clashing
>worldviews of upbringing and that of the larger world. question
>theological upbringing, in order to think independently. Thus, two
>worlds collide in daily life, one of the traditional past and a new
>cultural order. An impossible situation to resolve in the present
>moment, and harder yet to rationalize without any distance inbetween
>the oppositions. Paradox reigned supreme, in gray matter, and age-old
>unanswerable questions were flowing...
>
>some later digital work directly relates to what was learned from
>this early experience:
>
>*       identity: philosophy, metaphysics, alchemy
>
>        http://www.architexturez.com/site/identity/
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>diagnosed with bi-polar depression and actively administered
>anti-depressant drugs while attending college as a preventative
>measure, so as to remain within the irrational and counter-productive
>educational system.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>1--     HYPOCRISY OF BUREAUCRATIC DEMOCRACY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>1990-1994, on and off, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
>College of Architecture & Landscape Architecture (CALA)
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>attempt to fit into architecture school 3 times with no success.
>ideas did not fit well within the corporatized studio-driven
>educational model, which does not allow for basic research.
>imagination, while good for design, was a negative in that i 'did the
>opposite of everyone else' and was called 'schizophrenic' for work i
>pursued. never did anything 'right', in an esoteric type of
>moral-architectural truth. for example, in a course on environmental
>systems, by including noise from airplanes and cars, and pollution
>>from the busy streets next to a famous architect's library, my work
>was chided by the teacher as i was disrespecting authority by
>bringing up these issues in my homework, well within the range of
>reasoning...
>
>.
>
>during one of my three times leaving architectural school an
>architectural teacher whom i once admired, Andrzej Piotrowski , told
>me in no uncertain terms that i could never study, understand, nor
>know 'Architecture' outside of the University. i disagreed, may have
>called it 'dogma' as he liked to say to me, and proceeded to leave
>school, considered a failure. wrote to this teacher later regarding
>my work but was never responded to, as i was no longer a part of the
>institution, even though i was doing public architectural work. this
>professor has just published a book from the University Press on
>Architectural Discipline and Authority. This is highly disturbing in
>that while he may understand power, he lacks a broader truth. This is
>amongst the gravest insults i have encountered in my journeys, the
>betrayal of truth by power, and the takeover of public education by a
>privatized despotism.
>
>.
>
>well-known urban planner William Morrish met with me during his after
>class hours. Morris had a class similar to the book Defining
>Community: A Neighborhood Perspective which "... identifies and
>synthesizes the ideas, strategies, and partnerships that Minneapolis
>residents are generating through a wide variety of neighborhood
>planning processes, particularly the Neighborhood Revitalization
>Program (NRP)."
>
>at that time i was working for the University of Minnesota's Center
>for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) for the NRP in Minneapolis'
>Phillips neighborhood as a housing researcher and was actually doing
>the work the class was about. the class project i presented expanded
>the local media infrastructure to empower the community, such as with
>freenets, bulletin board systems (BBS), and community radio. my work
>was considered 'confusing' to the Teaching Assistant, as they did not
>understand it (or what a computer network was), and i received a poor
>grade. When i went to talk with the professor about this, he confided
>something to the effect that school was not the time for working on
>your own ideas. that it would take fifteen years, and if i wanted to
>work on my own ideas it may be better to leave school. i was ready to
>do my thesis at the end of grade1 and had 3 years to wait before i
>could, and even then i would not be able to pursue `basic research'
>dealing the role of electrification within the built environment, but
>instead would be 'designing' a building for a fictional client.
>
>thus, i was told in so many words by Morris that my personal (public)
>architectural ideas did not belong in a University college of
>architecture, and that i'd have to leave to work on these ideas. he
>said this with compassion and pragmatism, and i appreciated his
>honesty. yet, for me this was a cultural death sentence, being a
>student without a degree, with no hope of working in the profession,
>student loan debts, and in waiting arms of the psychiatric arm of the
>state.
>
>.
>
>met with studio professor Lance Lavine and tried conveying my ideas
>on electricity's role in architecture by showing brochures for
>American Electric streetlights and comparing theme to the Classical
>orders of Greco-Roman architecture. I was told 'this is not
>architecture, this is engineering' in absolute terms. meaning that it
>had no cultural dimension.
>
>ironically, this same teacher publishes a book on Mechanics and
>Meaning in Architecture from the University Press in 2000, which
>explores '...technology's role in architecture and, in turn,
>humanity's understanding of nature." and his work focusses on
>electrical HVAC systems which would not exist today without
>electricity and such absolute statements were and are absurd but
>cannot be challenged, as they are status quo answers beyond
>questioning, even to this day, as truth is secondary to power in
>architectural discourse.
>
>.
>
>during a class presentation, studio professor B. Aaron Parker
>censored me when saying i could not discuss the electrical
>distribution 'poles' on my map for my studio project, as they were
>not architecture. i said they were architecture, and he declared i
>could not talk about them. This is the map i worked on to show how
>the electrical distribution grid is an architectural order in the
>built environment but it was the 'wrong' idea, again...
>
>
>*       contextual site map displaying electrical order
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/icons/map.html
>
>
>i left the architectural program after appealing to the Dean that i
>was being censored, and even had my work ruined when a vandal threw
>water all over the map.
>
>.
>
>i went to the office of the Dean of CALA at that time, Harrison
>Fraker, Jr. and tried to convey my intentions that i was being held
>back by the educational system. He was unable to help find a way for
>me to continue my work at the university, and i was handed down to
>three professors who were also unable to relate to anything i was
>saying about the electrical infrastructure, computer networks, the
>Internet, etceteras.
>
>Ironically when i asked for Dean Fraker's help, he ended up saying,
>in effect: there is nothing i can do. i was referred to go to the
>Independent Study program at the University. It is quite ironic to me
>that this architectural administrator is now the Dean of the College
>of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. it
>shows how the spirit of freedom of thought of the 1960s student
>movement in the University has been rolled-back when a helpless Dean
>now leads a supposedly emancipated school. It is indicative of how
>radically conservative the architectural profession remains today.
>
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>frustrated, was told to see a University psychiatrist, which i did to
>stay in school. i was given medicines such as tranquilizers and
>anti-psychotics while telling the psychiatrist that what i was
>attempting to say in architectural school was being censored and
>unfair. That i was sane, that the teachers would not accept facts
>into debates, etc.
>
>productive period of ascii architecture, where my ideas were not
>accepted in school, so i put them online, specifically in the
>design-lit forum from Pennsylvania State University, a list founded
>by Howard Ray Lawrence and now run by John Young of cryptome.org.
>
>My posts on the design-list range from the architectural
>establishment to my specific ideas on the implicit role of
>electricity in understanding the built environment and architecture
>of the present day, including the early Internet.
>
>anxiety attack when professor said i could not present my own work in
>front of the 100 or so classmates.
>
>another student presented my work as i had to stand by listening.
>they didn't even know what my work was about. as i heard them
>improvise an architectural presentation about it which had nothing to
>do with what i created, but with what the 'educators' wanted students
>to hear, see, and believe.
>
>i started to hyperventilate and my chest and arms tightened and i ran
>to the hospital, as i began getting extremely ill from the absurdity
>of this situation.
>
>It was apparent i was the one who did not belong in this system, and
>could not be made to fit either, as i was too wild, or 'not
>disciplined' enough.
>
>i contacted the Legal Aid society and tried to bring a lawsuit
>against the University for limiting my ability to speak about my
>ideas in school. but they said they could not take the case, as it
>was not clear cut enough.
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>2--     INDEPENDENT ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>        1993, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
>        Program for Individualized Learning (PIL)
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>apply for an Independent Study at the Program for Individualized
>Learning (PIL) at the University of Minnesota. After three failed
>attempts to fit my public educational pursuits into the College of
>Architecture (CALA) `training' environment, it was my last hope to
>continue my work.
>
>As I remember the application was turned down on its own merits. I
>also was unable to find an academic advisor in the architecture
>department whom I could work with. Thus, my application was not
>accepted.
>
>
>*       rejected P.I.L. Independent Study application
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/pil/
>
>
>this meant I had no architectural future in the University and would
>have to leave it to pursue public research. By doing so, I would be
>considered crazy, as I was not making 'rational' decisions by
>continuing this pursuit to my own personal detriment. The atmosphere
>was one of being perceived by others as not knowing what is 'good for
>me' and needing bureaucracies to decide what is reasonable for me to
>be doing, such as working in a Coca-Cola factory.
>
>.
>
>start researching online, in lieu of being able to pursue my ideas in
>the local environment, in hopes that somehow i can find a way to
>continue my education...
>
>
>*       first 'Architecture and Electricity' post online
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/texts/alphae.html
>
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>Without institutional support in an official independent study
>program, the individual student was prescribed psychiatric
>medications so to explain 'irrational' behavior in a suitable way to
>others, i.e., the person is mentally ill for pursuing ideas that the
>institutions are not ready to accept or allow as legitimate decisions.
>
>Thus, the individual learner is cast out of the educational
>environment, and is on their own. The free pursuit of truth and
>knowledge in educational disciplines is limited by institutional
>power and its rote bureaucracy.
>
>
>~~~
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>1993-1994, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. enroll in various
>multidisciplinary classes outside of any formal degree tract, just to
>learn.
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>study Science and the State with professor Donald Geesaman at the
>Hubert H. Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs, a genuine public
>philosopher. some essays and ideas that bubbled to the surface of the
>mind during that influential time include:
>
>*       Window (1993)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/dg/window.html
>
>*       The Spectrum from Truth to Power and Constitutional Relativity
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/dg/spectrum.html
>
>*       Text to Self (1994)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/dg/text2self.html
>
>*       The Architect of Policy
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/dg/policy.html
>
>*       Being a Student in the Transition
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/dg/dg.html
>
>
>...
>
>some evidence that i was conducting computer searches of public
>libraries in an effort to find books related to the cultural aspects
>of technology during this specific period of time, in order to work
>my way out of the predicament i was inside:
>
>*       computer search for 'technology' (1993)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/dg/library.html
>
>...
>
>simultaneously take a class on the United Nations with professor
>Knutson and submit the following paper for a final project which
>received a nearly failing grade at the time. The paper explored the
>realm of telecommunications and energy systems in relation to
>international governance and public representation.
>
>*       The Architecture of the United Nations (1993)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/AUN/main.html
>
>
>most of this paper was written to try to explain 'why' one would
>write such a paper, yet it still was not good enough.
>
>...
>
>about this same time i attend a metal sculpture class and design and
>build two symbolic electrical artifacts:
>
>*       Electrical Crucifixion (1993)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/icons/crucifixion.html
>
>*       Automatic Streetlight (1993)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/icons/light.html
>
>
>these become foundational for me, by putting the ideas and experience
>in a tangible form, in relation to the world around me and the world
>inside me, in conflict.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>Donald Geesaman was the best teacher i have ever had. a true
>philosopher. As the question was never answered in advance, and
>always contemplated again and again.
>
>His work influenced me greatly and aided in my 'mental-health' in
>that he did not treat me as crazy but as someone who was questioning
>the world around them, the goal of education. This helped me to
>continue on, despite a threshold that would be with me for years
>which i could never break through. But the ideas, and the freedom of
>thinking that Geesaman shared was truly inspirational and i will
>always admire his humanity and graciousness and daring to think while
>in the University. his work helped me ground my mind, in the realm of
>science in relation to art, and thus a good foundation for
>architectural research.
>
>while making sculptures i was given medicines which made me so
>unstable i would temporarily be unable to see. It was not due to
>welding, either. i began to feel psychotic and the medicines, for the
>first time in my life, made me feel suicidal, as they made me feel
>crazed.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>3--     ASCII ARCHITECTURE
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>online the Internet Design-List, 1993-present
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>go online the internet and write about my architectural ideas on the
>design-list. find others whom are willing to listen and debate the
>ideas: here are a few posts which reflect the attempt to break down
>the issues faced when trying to enact institutional change (language,
>identity, logic, and power):
>
>
>*       sample of ASCII architecture online
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/ascii-arch/
>
>
>write about the experience at the University of Minnesota College of
>Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) online the design-list:
>
>*       private public service (1995)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/texts/service.html
>
>
>receive feedback from professors, students, and professionals that
>others are experiencing similar limitations, and meet several good
>friends through this public dialogue.
>
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>Some ASCII architecture from this time period was kindly published in
>the book Being On-line, edited by Alan Sondheim, Lusitania press.
>
>The academic saga unfolded online and as a result i was in many
>public debates about architecture, my research, the educational
>system, and beyond...
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>4--     NO IDEOLOGICAL EXIT
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>1994~1995, Western Europe and back in less than 30 days
>Amsterdam, Paris, Venice
>
>upon returning to the USA i attend a grant-writing workshop and apply
>for a research grant with the Charles Lindbergh foundation for
>cultural research on technology. My proposal is declined without
>comment.
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>fly to Europe in search of architecture, and for opportunities to
>work on architectural research. It is here that i realize the
>electrical infrastructure is a common, international aesthetic. For
>example, in Venice, Italy, all the rooftops of buildings hundreds of
>years old have television antennas atop them.
>
>
>*       cover of hand-made book on universal aesthetics (1994)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/icons/book.html
>
>
>upon returning to the USA i created a handmade book with colored
>paper and drawings and photographs about the idea of universal
>aesthetics and its relationship to the electrical infrastructure,
>which i discovered during my European travels. i used this book as a
>document to try to logically communicate with my professors, with
>visual evidence for my public ideas based in fact. again, with no
>luck.
>
>likewise, i realized public utilities and construction sites also
>shared universal aesthetics via color, material, and form, especially
>during various stages of a building's construction. This view enables
>one to relate language with architecture, order, and design. The sum
>of this work is later exhibited in an online photogallery:
>
>
>*       the aesthetics of deconstruction (2000)
>
>        http://www.architexturez.com/decon/
>
>
>the common language of construction and demolition across world
>cultures, which could become the basis for a shared language of
>design, and of identity.
>
>with no money to stay in Europe, and no work for student
>architectural researchers available, it was necessary to go back
>'home' and face the inevitable- being institutionalized as a madman.
>there was and is no way out of this cultural institutional insanity,
>only ways deeper into its rotten core.
>
>i confide in a friend in Italy that i know if i return i will be
>electroshocked. cannot avoid returning to Minnesota, and thus face
>the consequences for not 'obeying the rules' of the authorities of
>the reigning architectural establishment.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>absolutely crazed. The complexity of my situation, and seeing no
>probable way out other than death made me try to escape to Europe, in
>hopes that i could find something to stop what i foresaw inevitably
>happening if i should have to return, being labeled crazy, on more
>and more drugs, and inevitably becoming more and more
>institutionalized, more and more crazy as i pursue this public work,
>as there was and is no other possible outcome given the total control
>over thought in the architectural academy.
>
>i could not foresee a life for myself in the USA where i could
>continue my work and be free, within its system, and within the
>psychology of culture.
>
>becoming confused from being processed in the cultural system for not
>fitting in, i began to worry i lost control over my limited ability
>to self-determine my future. instead, i faced the chaos and fury of
>the status quo, and as a consequence was losing my sense of identity.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>5--     CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:  1994-1995, USA
>
>severe psychiatric breakdowns due to complications with prescribed
>medications, requiring me to hospitalize myself twice to stay alive,
>as i lose my ability to think rationally due to the enormous
>pressure, and the hopelessness that nothing can be done to live life
>outside of the total authority of cultural bondage.
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>        returning to the USA and i had no other choice but to stop
>fighting the system and passively accept the label of being 'chronic
>mentally ill' so as to survive, and have my student debt reduced, and
>to obtain food, clothing, and shelter by the State of Minnesota.
>
>ultimately, i had no other choice than to accept i was 'insane' in
>order to stay alive, a forced confession so to speak, under duress.
>
>Instead, my ideas did not belong 'in the real world' and i was
>institutionalized in the mental health sector and shunned by former
>teachers and students as being an aberration as i had failed to
>change anything, and thus was not fit enough to survive the
>psychological hazing of architectural 'training'.
>
>During this time, US Senator Newt Gingrich publicly declared
>something to the effect that 'if you are perceived as being mentally
>ill or disabled, then you are'.
>
>so, ethically and morally i used this as my guideline for knowingly
>choosing to accept this paradoxical label in order to survive, as the
>reason for my mental illness was others who were labeling me as such,
>while denying all logic, rationality, reason, facts, and the truth i
>tried presenting at every possible moment in an attempt to fit into
>the current system, to help change it for the better, in the public
>interest. This was a completely coerced confession, else i would
>never get out of the hospital unless i agreed that i was mentally ill.
>
>to stay alive i joined a Mental Health Day Treatment program for
>roughly one year as a certified schizophrenic while reading Deleuze &
>Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, Schizophrenia and Capitalism. It became a
>useful tool, and this psychiatric philosophy, or 'schizo-philosophy',
>offered a type of liberation-in-waiting from the United Statesian
>worldview. After several months in Day Treatment it was clear that
>the only way out of the hospital is through total submission, and
>fully adopting the identity of being mentally ill, and being process
>through the mental health system, hopefully to come out on the other
>side. This involved the death of the ego, and also the conceptual
>death of the individual as bearer of meaning.
>
>The future would bring the altogether unexpected, onward...
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>given pills to control my behavior, and continue trying to work
>within the system to move the ideas forward. given anti-psychotic
>medications, i start to feel suicidal beyond my own will.
>
>working in Minneapolis in landscaping. have to quit because of
>side-effects of the psychiatric drugs which try to adapt me into the
>system.
>
>So too, my ability to work is ended when taking psychiatric pills and
>building boulder walls, as i collapse into a fetal position on the
>ground while outside working in the sun. i am now totally physically
>and mentally reliant upon the drugs to determine what i can and
>cannot do, to the point of complete submission, else there is only
>suicide.
>
>unable to work, have to enter the hospital as a way to stay alive,
>and ultimately the only choice, in order to continue working on my
>ideas in the system, becomes ECT...
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>6--     THE ELECTROMAGNETIC LOBOTOMY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>1993-present, the Internet Design-List
>
>reading Sartre's work Being and Nothingness while going into the
>hospital for ECT. related to ideas of non-being and of an existential
>process of becoming a self without an identity.
>
>post-ECT, it takes 6 years of failure trying to fit back into society
>that necessitates looking back into these files, in the summer of
>2001, to accept the consequences and acknowledge the anger and
>resentment i have for having to undergo such an event in 'the land of
>the free'.
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>i break down and volunteer for Electroshock therapy, as it is the
>last thing i can do to try to change my situation. i was not coerced
>in any way to do this by any individual, but by an entire
>bureaucratic system which makes the individual conform to its needs,
>and never adapts to the needs of unique individuals.
>
>electroshock therapy is and was *torture* in the sense that it became
>the only choice for me to survive with my public architectural ideas
>in a despotic system with a remnant of my self intact, so i was
>hoping. And a future where i might have a different perspective, due
>to a mental rebooting which, one must trust, i would rather avoid at
>any cost besides that of death without ever having lived.
>
>During hospitalization i decided to create an e-mail discussion list
>called e-shock for keeping the ordeal public while institutionalized
>to undergo electroshock therapy during a two week period. i have
>hardly any memory of this event, but do remember getting my computer
>out of a locked area in the nurses quarters (where they kept the
>medicines and dangerous items) and then unplugging the phone in the
>hallway and putting my 386sx laptop on a small table or chair and
>dialing up the Internet to send out semi-weekly messages updating the
>ongoing events via a 2400 baud modem.
>
>
>*       E-Shock mailing list posts (1995)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/e-shock/
>
>
>yet, it was not the ECT itself which was the problem, as it did help
>in some ways to keep the ideas alive.
>
>The problem is that electroshock was the ONLY option to continue
>working on public ideas, that they are considered mentally ill and in
>need of reform, or, the literal erasure, and rebooting of the brain,
>so one has to reformulate their whole universe again. Thus, this
>event finally made me truly insane, as it was pure torture, and i
>will never recover what was lost in this destructive attempt to heal
>me of my 'irrational thoughts', judged so as they did not fit into
>the University system, and i hold the architectural establishment
>significantly responsible for denying the public pursuit of
>architectural knowledge, in order to hold onto the truth as they see
>it, in a privatized authoritarian worldview.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>frequently nightmares, the memory of electroshock is so disturbing.
>many nights when falling into sleep, i remember being prepared for
>ECT when the shock-doc said- 'Let's Turn it (electrical voltage) up
>this time..."- which filled me with terror as i fell into
>unconsciousness in the operating room.
>
>post-ECT effects include language troubles, damaged memory, social
>stigma, illegitimacy, prejudice, psychological issues, etc.
>
>After shock it becomes impossible to read. often have short
>seizure-like events with a brain twitch, a miniature seizure where
>the brain reboots, similar to that which Virilio describes in 'the
>Aesthetics of Disappearance.'
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>7--     MULTIMEDIATED ARCHITECTURE
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>1996-1998, move from Minneapolis,
>Minnesota to San Francisco Bay Area,
>Northern California, USA
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>attend school for multimedia studies and continue to independently
>research the relationship between architecture and electricity.
>
>apply for a grant from Weblab.org for the Architecture of Electricity
>project run by the former head of the P.O.V. film series in the USA.
>my work is again turned down for not being what they are looking for
>in web content, while they promote their service as something to
>challenge status quo views of things.
>
>Apply for a 2 year scholarship to the SFSU Multimedia Studies
>Program, then directed by Randall Packer. Move to California to
>attend school and work independently on public ideas i was unable to
>pursue in architectural school. in my scholarship application i
>attempted to explain my paradoxical situation:
>
>
>*       Multimedia Studies scholarship application (1995)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/mm/form.html
>
>
>i was grateful to learn many new skills such as digital audio, video,
>and imaging in a CD-rom based curriculum. later on, i taught myself
>web skills, and applied all of these newfound skills in producing
>works online.
>
>.
>
>As a result of a having time to research, it became possible to
>develop various aspects of the future Architecture of Electricity
>thesis for my graduation project. John Young at cryptome.org kindly
>scanned and posted a document online that i sent out in paper form to
>dozens of Architectural academics and administrators regarding the
>research i was developing, and asking for support. i received no
>replies:
>
>*       the AE blueprint @ cryptome.org (1997-1998)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/cryptae/AE.htm
>
>
>The result of this blueprint was an online prototype of an
>educationally-oriented map of electricity and an electrical cosmology
>to help explain why one would want to rationally define a direct
>lineage from the Big Bang to the Internet:
>
>
>*       Mapping the Electrical Assemblage (1998)
>
>        http://www.architexturez.com/mea/mea_m.htm
>
>*       The Story of Electricity (1998)
>
>        http://www.architexturez.com/mea/story1/2main.htm
>
>
>my work included 3D computer model of a chess set that i described in
>the Program for Individualized Learning (PIL) application years
>before...
>
>
>*       Electrical Power System chess set (1998)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/chess/1.htm
>
>
>upon graduating from school, receive the Robert Bell outstanding
>achievement award and share my work online the Internet, but still no
>one in the field of architecture relates to it, and so i accept that
>i will need to find work in the field of multimedia, and pursue my
>architectural research on the side.
>
>My main goals were to stay healthy and work my way off of public
>assistance. both of which prove impossible.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>went dentist, dr. vu, who asked why i had disability insurance. i
>said i was mentally disabled.
>
>all people in the office were screaming or moaning in pain. young and old.
>
>i began questioning the work she was doing on my teeth, as she would
>just start drilling until she hit a nerve, and then i would demand to
>know what she was doing and i was assured i had severe problems with
>my teeth. when i told others about my suspicions, i was considered
>paranoid. So i was silent and accepted that i must be 'crazy' to
>question this dentist.
>
>In the end, i was given 4 unnecessary root canals, none of which the
>state would pay to cap, so i had teeth without tops, which were
>severely infected by unhygienic tools and overdoses and subsequent
>reactions to antibiotics. In an emergency a relative helped pay for
>me to visit another dentist as i was in so much pain i could not
>think. today my teeth are still infected and my health never
>recovered from having the dentist drill on open nerves and misuse of
>antibiotics.
>
>dr. vu left town without a trace after 'mining' my teeth and many
>other people using the public health system.
>
>
>~~~
>
>SPACETIME:  1998-1999
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>although displaying skills often much more diverse than most employed
>in the multimedia industry in San Francisco, i am unable to even get
>interviews based on my resume and portfolio. So too, my architectural
>work and research are of no help in obtaining a way out of total
>dependency and subservience to the statistical ideal of the reigning
>bureaucratic worldview.
>
>develop a portfolio of my digital media skills for showcasing my work
>skills for potential employers, in an attempt to work my way off of
>Social Security. My unique generalist skills are not valued in the
>specialist marketplace.
>
>*       SITE (going offline)
>
>        http://www.architexturez.com/site/
>
>
>as a public service, develop and maintain an online portal and
>archive of freely available architectural research and theory texts
>online the Internet in my spare time, while working on my
>architectural research. It becomes an established site, on the main
>page of Yahoo, and has 30,000 plus visitors a year. Yet still cannot
>find work in the profession.
>
>
>*       architexturez.com (being transferred)
>
>        http://www.architexturez.com/
>
>
>also create an architectural glossary in an attempt to deal with the
>pervasive architectural issue regarding discourse and language, in an
>attempt to find a shared meaning.
>
>
>*       The glossalalia project (being transferred)
>
>        http://www.architexturez.com/glossalalia/
>
>
>both the architexturez and glossalalia projects are being transferred
>to a team of online collaborators whom will continue to develop the
>projects for the public domain.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>        a computer grant was facilitated through the Center for
>Independent Living (CIL) in Berkeley, California, where the
>disability rights movement began in the USA, including originating
>the drive for the American with Disabilities Act and advocacy for
>disabled rights to work.
>
>The goal of the computer grant is to work my way off the Social
>Security system. The mac-clone enables many things, including
>reentering the workforce as an independent contractor at SFSU's MM
>and IT Corporate Training program, helping develop their website and
>strategy part-time, while also continuing my architectural research,
>which i desperately need to do to keep my sanity.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>8--     ARCHITECTURAL DEBATE (SIC)
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:      1998, the Internet Design-List
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>architecture exists online in a way it cannot offline. That is, all
>of its paradoxes and difficulties cannot be contained in a clean-room
>environment and philosophical architectures are beginning to form
>through debates in public forums.
>
>There is no 'public' architectural debate, outside the University.
>But sometimes there is, in some regards, a fish out of water...
>
>debated Columbia University's architectural theorist Stephen Perrella
>in a public forum, the design-list, regarding a Lingua Franca article
>and the ideas presented therein centering around the idea of
>'schizo-philosophy' as employed as a radical politic inside the
>insular circles of architectural theorists inside the University. i
>called this an absurd theoretical bluff, in so many words.
>
>The result was an exchange in the design-list archives...
>
>
>*       debate with spN of Columbia University (1998)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/debate/
>
>
>the debate ended, as if it never happened. spN privately said he
>would send me a copy of his hypersurface book and then offered me a
>chance to write in his next book. neither of which happened. And both
>of which seemed like an opportunistic buyout at the time, as he owns
>access to the press. For me all of this it was an indication that
>architectural thought today is highly privatized and controlled
>inside the University, to the point where it is impossible to have an
>open, public debate, as those in positions of power with total
>authority over the interpretation of architectural ideology may risk
>being wrong or having their ideas proven basically unsound.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>besides the prevailing prejudice about being labeled schizophrenic
>and thus, all my work being boiled down to firstly being that of a
>mad person, dangerous even, and most certainly irrational, no matter
>how logical or rational or reasonable one may be. They are still
>nuts, then there is 'certainty' of where they fit into the ruling
>system of order and control over independent thought. these documents
>are presented to give the reader an opportunity to review
>architectural discourse outside the institutional walls which confine
>architectural truth and knowledge.
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>9--     SOCIALIZED INSECURITY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:  1998-2001
>
>Oakland California Social Security Office is rife with clerical
>errors, lost data, lost files, do not answer phones or return calls,
>and are chronically overpay, underpay, and at times totally stop
>payments, canceling my medical insurance, while i try to work my way
>off of the 'support' system.
>
>My PASS Plan for staying employed as a disabled worker was denied by
>the San Francisco office of Social Security in the heart of the
>dot-com economy, as they could not comprehend why one would needs a
>computer at home to work as a web developer and content designer.
>
>The representative went hysterical when i tried to describe how the
>multimedia industry is different from the industrial model of work.
>To develop content online one needs equipment to do so, and without
>it, one cannot keep up their skills, stay competitive, and employed.
>
>Another example of the frustration with the Social Security
>bureaucracy is that when i wanted to take on more hours at my job, i
>was given the name of a contact to call to find out how much i could
>earn, without losing my insurance, and they never returned my calls
>after one month of trying to contact them to find out.
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>Upon reentering the workforce I contact several Social Security
>Administration representatives to make the necessary changes in my
>governmental support. From this point onward, it became impossible to
>work and maintain my health on Social Security, as i would be
>underpaid and overpaid and would be in constant crisis while working,
>and trying to figure out what went wrong with the bureaucracy became
>my part-time job, as public money was being wasted.
>
>Everytime i found the source of the errors, which were entirely
>caused by Social Security, i would be charged for the mistakes and
>have been submitting paperwork and resubmitting it for 3 years (they
>lose it and do not have a central filing system) just to stay
>employed. This damaged my health, as working became destabilized by
>trying to get off the system and it became obvious that unless i
>could work full-time i would end up not able to work at all. which
>eventually is what has occurred.
>
>i have contacted the head of the local Social Security branch, my
>Senator two times, and others to try to figure what has been wrong.
>In the end, i was blamed for all of the errors and now am unable to
>even talk with a representative as i am considered a troublemaker for
>trying to fix the problem. because i am labeled with a psychiatric
>disability any challenge to their logic is seen as my illness and i
>have been retaliated against and discriminated against, so the
>bureaucratic system can work the way it does without changing, a
>familiar theme.
>
>i was both denied the opportunity to work my way off of the system
>because of the constant errors in my checks, never knowing if i would
>be able to pay rent or not while working, as there was an error in my
>file. And also, after working for one year searching for a computer
>upgrade with no success, i applied for a savings program but was
>denied the right to save money for computer equipment to stay
>independently employed because of systemic ignorance of today's
>high-tech working world.
>
>The Social Security PASS Plan application forms did not relate to the
>digital media industry i work in, and thus i would have had to lie to
>get the grant. The bureaucratic representative could not believe that
>one needs a computer to work as a web developer. Thus, when my only
>computer was recently hacked and corrupted for good, i was unable to
>continue working and now am in dire need of a new system to keep
>working, continue my research, and remain paradoxically sane in an
>utterly insane environment.
>
>i am more disabled since working and being on the Social Security
>system than i would be otherwise. It has become a trap cannot escape,
>as everytime i try to get out a problem it takes all my energy to
>fix, and months pass by...
>
>
>*       first public statement on Taking Pills (2000)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/nettime/pills.html
>
>
>Social Security denies Waiver for overpayment from a mistake 3 years
>ago that I have worked for 3 years to correct. They review no
>paperwork, and then tell me i did not provide the data. I believe i
>am being targeted for speaking up to their system and calling for a
>review of their procedures to fix the problem, as the public is
>losing money to a broken system.
>
>
>Have to quit work because computer was hacked and destroyed and
>health is deteriorating with stress and no future. When recently
>reporting about my loss of work income, i receive no response after 5
>attempts to notify the Administration, but a check for $1.00 US
>instead of the regular amount arrives, threatening my ability to pay
>rent. Again, for the 2nd time, Social Security has started the
>process of taking back money without denying my claim for a waiver or
>appeal from a problem generated by their system 3 years ago.
>
>It is too much for me to handle alone now and i have to ask relatives
>>from out of state to represent me as i can no longer write or talk to
>them, or write letters, as it is now totally out of control and
>impossible to keep up with, healthy or severely unwell, as i am now.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>Develop severe anxiety and panic attacks.
>
>Start becoming allergic to all medicines i am put on, where i develop
>hives and welts under my skin. i am put on different drugs and the
>same things happen, over and over. As i get sicker and sicker as the
>stress gets more and more.
>
>The oddest coincidence is that every time i was ready to work more
>hours in an attempt to become self-sufficient something with Social
>Security would go wrong that would take 3 months to deal with, at
>which point my health would be worse off, and make it impossible to
>take on more work as fixing all the problems were a part-time job.
>
>The only choices were to remaining living on Social Security with 500
>month or so income from working, per month. else, full-time
>employment. anything inbetween these would mean i would likely lose
>my housing assistance, health insurance, and supplemental income
>should i not be able to pay rent. All or nothing.
>
>after half a dozen serious efforts to get off of the system, i came
>to realize this would not happen for me. So i began to restrategize
>and focus on my research work as my way out of this situation, even
>though all my work is considered illegitimate. To do this i needed a
>computer system to both stay employed as an independent contractor
>and also to do research work online.
>
>After a one year search for public grants, it is clear i will not be
>able to find another computer to stay employed and work on my ideas,
>and thus stay sane. i apply for a grant from Social Security to save
>for work equipment but i am refused, as i am employed, and cannot
>prove i need a computer to do my work online.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>10-     ARCHITEXTUALIZING ELECTRICITY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:      Y2K, December 31st 1999 and January 1st 2000
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>finish and publish roughly ten years of independent architectural
>research on the AE thesis website on Y2K. It consists of roughly 100
>screens of information detailing the cultural significance of the
>electrical infrastructure in architectural terms, for the layperson.
>
>
>*       AE public launch announcement (Y2K)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/texts/aeY2K.html
>
>*       the Architecture of Electricity (Y2K)
>
>        http://www.architexturez.com/ae/
>
>
>A study of the electrical infrastructure compared in relation to
>classical notions of architecture.
>
>at this point it becomes clear that the feedback from JYA of design-l
>and cryptome.org about addressing the larger issue of
>electromagnetism and not only electricity is where the future of the
>architectural research work lies.
>
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>The only critical feedback on the project received was regarding the
>lack of a religious perspective on the ideas being presented. upon
>replying to an e-mail request for why this is so, my work becomes the
>focus of a well-known religious warrior whom damns my work as that
>for not addressing this issue. subsequently, i receive e-mail
>threats, strange phonecalls, and other visitors requiring security
>measures.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>11-     PUBLIC DISINFORMATION ZONE
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>2000, online the Internet
>
>printed in a Hong Kong-based international design magazine.
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>no one in the field of architecture or cultural research in the USA
>will publish nor even read my work, including old student friends,
>likely for fear of losing expertise over their version of
>architectural reality, by insulating themselves from uncertainty.
>Thus, the audience i focus on is everywhere but in the closed system
>that is today's USA, unable to adapt to the present.
>
>The specific circumstances which led up to the AE thesis, that is to
>say, the story behind the thesis, was left out for the most part, as
>the reviewers of family and friends did not like the ending. So it
>was rewritten so as to not mention E-Shock. Yet, without that
>dimension, it appears just like any other boring work of research,
>and just another thing, when it has been so highly controversial as
>to be censored and actively dismissed. Thus, it seems appropriate to
>put the work in its original context, after having learned that the
>process of the work is as important as the work itself, in
>understanding it:
>
>
>*       original unedited AE Epilogue (Nov.1999)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/AE/aftershock.html
>
>
>the 'red' texts were left out of the final version in addition to the
>images of the electroshock experience because people were so
>disturbed by how i connected the experiences as a product of the work
>itself, a connection which i maintain is relevant to this day.
>
>After posting the Architecture of Electricity, i wrote a synopsis of
>the thesis in an essay which is published by Hinge Magazine in Hong
>Kong in the summer of 2000.
>
>
>*       Electromagnetic Architecture (2000)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/features/essays/ema.htm
>
>
>this gives me great hope in that it is the first time anyone has
>accepted my work. The article was made to be very palatable to a
>general audience and yet still is written for architects. This helped
>me greatly to believe that someday my work may be seen by others,
>outside the total control over information by architectural
>institutions in the USA.
>
>
>also write a poem about the end of the public Internet
>
>*       death of the internetwork (2000)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/nettime/deathnet.html
>
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>getting sicker yet, having nightmares often and also panic attacks so
>badly i cannot go outside at times. suspected of being complications
>>from psychiatric pills i was still able to go to a specialist doctor,
>whom after months of tests concluded i do have nerve damage which is
>highly unusual for a 30 year old person, and then said it will only
>get worse with age.
>
>My ability to speak, write, and think rapidly deteriorates, i am
>dizzy often, off balance like i may fall over, and am now even more
>fatigued to the point of needing to close my eyes during the daytime,
>yawning all day, and developing various nervous ticks which appear
>during times of stress. My request to see a neurologist is denied, as
>there is not enough evidence i may have some more severe problems.
>
>i am told all of my symptoms are that of post traumatic stress
>syndrome, previously known as 'shell shock.'
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>12- ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERNETWORKING
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>2000-2001, online the Internet. interest and support for my research
>work from European and Indian architects
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>i am contacted by a Swiss architect and asked to write a proposal for
>an article in an upcoming special issue of 2G magazine on
>Architecture and Energy, published in both Spanish and English. This
>opportunity lets me write thoughts about the larger issues related to
>the electrical infrastructure as a cultural assemblage and my
>proposal is accepted.
>
>Because of my situation, i am unable to accept payment due to the
>inevitable loss of housing and healthcare and i am also denied by the
>Social Security PASS plan the right to save the money i could have
>made to help buy the computer equipment necessary to stay employed in
>the multimedia industry, and to continue my work.
>
>i rewrite the essay and make it into a website with graphics and
>animations, non-copyright, and instead have to ask for donations of
>computer equipment as I cannot risk losing my benefits as i could end
>up further institutionalized and even homeless due to the many rules
>that conflict with one another and the bureaucrats that decide the
>fate of the individual by an illogical economics of institutionalized
>subservience.
>
>During the period prior to launching the project online, my computer
>comes under attack, and i need to send out the maps i was working on
>for the project and an essay to make my work public, as i fear that
>my work may be destroyed before i could get it online.
>
>With some luck, and a public presence, i am able to launch the Seeing
>Cyberspace project online to a few e-mail discussion lists:
>
>
>*       Seeing Cyberspace project launched (7/2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/seeing/
>
>
>after publishing the full-text essay on a three e-mail discussion
>lists, there is a large response from the .mil, .edu, .com, .eu,
>.org, and .int domains. It is again ironic that so many people "on
>the job" from high-profile domains are visiting a mentally insane,
>college dropout's work, and makes one wonder why they are visiting.
>As i am not getting any better, and weird things are now happening
>with my computer and website...
>
>
>*       interesting visitors during June-July 2001
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/energy/visitors.html
>
>
>it then becomes clear i am under cultural attack, not by any one
>person, but by a United Statesian cultural ideology that cannot deal
>with ideas it does not condone... it seems i am becoming a terrorist
>for 'thinking differently' in my own country, and being terrorized
>for using my rights as a public citizen...
>
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>within hours of posting to the 50 person electronetwork-list at
>openflows.org, the USAF central command and LLNL.gov is at the site.
>
>Cryptome.org is the first website to publicly publish the url online.
>
>2G magazine (Spain) publishing in print an earlier essay from late
>2000 in a special issue on Architecture and Energy.
>
>paranoia in the extreme sets in. not that it is delusional. But that
>the stress makes everything suspect, and it is hard to trust anything.
>
>memory starts to blank out and nerves fire repeatedly as i hang on
>during major storms in the mental atmosphere, which have not subsided
>for months now. a type of global warming of the brain, it is.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>13-     THE PURGING OF PUBLIC DISSENT
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>1999-2000, california & online the Internet
>
>
>openflows.org volunteers to host the electronetwork-list and
>so it continues today thanks to their collaborative support
>
>ab-a.net takes over managing the architexturez-list and keeps
>it online, which is greatly appreciated
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>post ideas critical of US Administration' s Energy Policy online and
>have several ongoing problems, which completely destroy my ability to
>continue working and i feel unable to do anything more to try to
>change what is happening...
>
>
>*       TV Ads on Election Night (11/2000)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/energy/adverts.html
>
>*       US Tax Cut = Energy Bailout (2/2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/energy/bailout.html
>
>*       US Energy Policy (6/2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/energy/policy.html
>
>
>two Topica.com discussion lists i manage, the electricity-list and
>architexturez-list, totaling about 120 listmembers, shut down 'for
>spamming'. every time i try to send e-mail to the two lists, my
>e-mail client, Microsoft Outlook Express, swears at me with an error
>message, saying "Stop Fucking Spamming", or something similar, and
>stops my posts from being sent off my machine, to the lists. My
>dial-up IP address is then blackholed so that i cannot even send
>e-mail to topica.com to let them know what has happened to try to fix
>the situations.
>
>next, one definite act of physical surveillance is noted, where a
>private website with logfile monitoring is visited by a company whose
>business sign i was looking at while outside having a cigarette late
>at night. i wake from sleep the next morning to find this company has
>visited my private website, an event so statistically improbable that
>i can only assume that i am under some kind of surveillance from
>across the city street.
>
>computer is then hacked into and the soon to be launched
>electronetwork.org website defaced. web server e-mail being
>monitored, as accounts which post with at random have long download
>times (several minutes) while non-accounts on same ISP have no delay.
>
>It is evident e-mail is being read as weird e-mails arrive on mailing
>lists and in the guise of spam referring to private conversations and
>data from both work and home, on the telephone and online the
>Internet. Computer is being remotely manipulated with icons moving
>and screen resolution changed, etc. 200mb of information on disks is
>lost as a direct result of the attack, including all hyperlinks to
>online resources for electromagnetism related to the launching the
>electronetwork project. All passwords are corrupted. even my PDA
>repeatedly breaks during these very strange events.
>
>In sum, this hack attack stopped all work on the larger
>electronetwork.org project, dead on arrival, as it never launched,
>when it was planned to, in Spring 2001.
>
>
>*       The welcome hack (6/2001)
>
>
>http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/energy/welcomehack.html
>
>*       system corrupted (7/2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/energy/corrupted.html
>
>*       use caution pursuing EM (7/2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/energy/caution.html
>
>*       the welcome mat (7/2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/energy/welcomemat.html
>
>
>my computer is now ruined. The hard drive is corrupted , even after
>reformatting and zeroing all data. All programs are corrupted even
>after reinstalling. All programs crash, as if they are being shut
>down from afar at the most inopportune times... i tried for 1 year to
>get grants for a new computer and was unable to. So now i am without
>the tools i need to work.
>
>something very fishy is going on, and it seems that the privatized
>bureaucratic democracy is breeding fascist elements that are shutting
>down any dissenting opinion in order to establish total control...
>regardless of democratic law or individual human rights, `even in
>(the United States of ) America'.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>Under attack, fearing censorship and loss of project data, decide to
>circulate the maps being developed for the Seeing Cyberspace project,
>to go public with the ideas, as i fear my work will be deleted by
>online vandals. Send 4 maps about creating a Public Energy Policy to
>100 news organizations and government officials and receive no
>response whatsoever.
>
>initially no one in the local believes what is going on until i show
>them the cumulative evidence of weirdness with my computer, website,
>logfiles, and e-mails.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>14-     SEEING NO CHANGE
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME:       1999-2000, San Francisco, California
>
>due to the chaos experienced, and having tried everything within my
>abilities to survive, it has become necessary to 'go public' with
>this story, as a public autobiography of facts and events related to
>working on public ideas which challenge the status quo, and do not
>receive any support, but also, now, which are under active attacks
>which are trying to shut me down by ruining my equipment, my health,
>and my ability to continue on like this...
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>
>i try one last time to fit into the system. There was a position for
>a content developer at Sea-Change, a George Soros funded organization
>for social entrepreneurs. It is based on the concept of using private
>capital and resources to serve the public good. highly-qualified, i
>was passionate about working with them as a content developer, and
>also applying for a grant as a social entrepreneur.
>
>i never got interviewed for the job. nor an e-mail after twice
>querying the status of my application. It was as if i never sent in
>my application, essays, urls, and ideas they requested. It was as if
>i did not even exist, although i knew i was the one for the job. It
>is what i believe in. instead, looking on their website two months
>later i find that an editor from a well-known non-profit is selected
>whose skillset seems to match only 10% of the job description,
>whereas my skillset matched more like 90% of the qualifications. That
>was my job, and i didn't even have a chance of getting it, for
>reasons i have tried to not accept as true. The result is writing
>this story as an alternative. i tried to fit in, and, well, it didn't
>work. So i'm changing strategies now.
>
>The wealthy and powerful executives of many a corporation lead this
>effort to enact social change, to change things for the better.
>private industry in service of the public. a great but very
>troublesome idea that could work, if its paradoxes were acknowledged
>and dealt with openly. That is to say, that the social goals are
>public goals, not those of private industry.
>
>This is an essay i wrote for their writing sample on the idea of
>philanthropists funding public social entrepreneurs:
>
>
>*       social venture capital (3/2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/change/
>
>
>at the same time i applied for a grant as a social entrepreneur. My
>computer being recently hacked and barely operable, i decided it was
>time for me to tell the truth, or my side of the story, that of a
>public citizen who was working on public ideas on their own, without
>any resources, and who would be able to make significant progress
>with these goals if given a chance, and some support. i was ready to
>make things happen. The fighting spirit was still alive, even though
>i was under attack for my ideas online and off.
>
>After one month of filling out and then revising the online
>application, the answer to my initial question as to whether or not
>one has to be a legal nonprofit is answered contrary to a previous
>answer e-mailed to me, and my application was instantly null and
>void. i need to be a business, they now said with an apology, to be a
>social entrepreneur. In addition to this 'my story' was critiqued as
>not being relevant to being a social entrepreneur. As it was my
>personal experience. not about the social entrepreneurial ideas, but
>about me as a specific and discrete individual. i wrote back to
>SeaChange stating that i am my ideas, and these are public ideas.
>They are human ideas, and not just private aberrations.
>
>It is so odd to know that others can dismiss as irrelevant the lived
>experience. what is a social entrepreneur if not first an authentic
>individual human being? my answers to both 'obstacles encountered'
>and 'major risks' were viewed as `out of bounds,' it seems. This act
>of turning away from the truth, from seeing a human being who is
>dying for their beliefs, for the pursuit of the public good, to be
>simply dismissed away, even while this life form is in such a
>precarious position as to be on the verge of extinction, and to do
>nothing but turn away-- it is unconscionable and a horror that our
>hypocritical societies of bureaucratic democracies look the other
>way, as a holocaust of human rights is now underway reenacted by the
>machinery of the world estate.
>
>
>*       feedback on SeaChange application (7/2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/nochange/
>
>
>request to be taken off of San Francisco based Creative Disturbance
>website project for funding artists. having received no responses for
>the year my work was on the site, and seeing conservative,
>institutional projects get profiled, I asked for removal. vetted as
>to why by the director Mark Beam, i respond that i do not want my
>work affiliated with an institution that does not serve me. i do not
>believe in that the work of creative disturbance is funding is
>anything that is challenging to the status quo, but only what the
>reigning marketplace wants to legitimate.
>
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>Need to cancel my work contract because my health has declined. Not
>having an operational computer, and no upgrade path, all work has
>ceased.
>
>can no longer work on the Electronetwork.org project until getting
>new, non-corrupted, working equipment.
>
>health plummets as stress level goes higher and higher, to the point
>where i cannot even function, such as writing or talking. And a
>rational paranoia sets in, as disparate coincidence becomes concerted
>probability.
>
>between being sick and having my computer broken, i am no longer able
>to work, as an employed disabled worker nor on my own research. This
>inability to communicate online has been my last hope to move these
>public ideas forward. And now i can no longer even do graphics on my
>machine, only the most basic e-mail, and even that is now barely
>operable.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>15-     THE LAST OF THE FREE RADICALS
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>SPACETIME: 2001-
>
>leaving Alameda, Calfornia, USA on
>a journey to Montréal, Québec, Canada
>
>when an individual can no longer act with reason, with common sense
>logic, with truth of intersubjective facts, with generalist knowledge
>of several crucial subjects, and be denied the right to even exist,
>then, something is wrong, as one cannot be free if they are only
>considered insane because a bureaucracy has labeled them as such.
>freedom is replaced by bondage, and as the cancer of a closed and
>arch-conservative cultural order, all they can do is disappear, die.
>And if they refuse, they are punished, until they submit. And give
>away the last remnants of their mind, of their body, to a machinic
>desire to destroy all difference by denying any similarity between
>human beings, and our shared public endeavor.
>
>The public health system in the USA has actively helped to kill me.
>And ignored all evidence that it has done more harm than good. The
>teachers in architecture school made sure i was seeing a psychiatrist
>when they abused their power by denying all truth which refuted their
>subjective beliefs. i got pills and they got their paychecks and
>tenure. This too will change. i am no longer going to accept that
>individuals who are in positions of power are not responsible for
>their actions.
>
>i hope they will change, or leave the University and give someone
>else the chance they have denied others.
>
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>a free-radical is a highly-reactive atom with an unpaired electron
>which is associated with causing cancer, as it can disrupt the way
>things ought to work when they are healthy.
>
>So too, in a political sense, a free radical could be someone
>operating within a conservative environment where the traditional
>order rules, so much so that it may refuse to change, adapt, and
>evolve so that it can stay 'healthy'. To survive, it needs to make
>sure the potential causes of its cancer go away, permanently, if at
>all possible.
>
>
>*       architecturalizing fascism (2000)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/texts/theo_arch.html
>
>
>*       American Ruins (2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/texts/ruins.html
>
>
>taken to the extreme, traditional ideas can hold back the new, and
>create a tension that will eventually be released, through war, art,
>and ideas. Whenartists and thinkers and their ideas become 'the
>enemy' and terrorize the status quo, then it is an age-old sign that
>freedom is in jeopardy, and the ancient and repeating battle is once
>again going to be played out on a grand scale.
>
>The most dangerous thing in this environment is not that of an
>ideological 'opinions' demanding change, for every ideology can and
>will eventually be controlled. Instead, it is ideas, the freedom to
>think and interpret which becomes the greatest danger, as Victor Hugo
>shared. It is in our ability to think freely, to question, and to
>rethink our positions that enables us to change. When we cannot,
>then, the predictable will happen again and again, looping back on
>itself...
>
>
>*       ~~~ fascist network rising ~~~ (June 2001)
>
>        http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/texts/fascistnet.html
>
>
>it is this dangerous fact which is being denied in the current
>cultural order of United Statesism and its world picture. one of the
>most disturbing events of my life was watching this years Fourth of
>July parade outside my apartment on the main street of the small
>island city where i live.
>
>When i saw everyone participating in the parade, which each year gets
>more and more surreal in the commercial sense, i realized this was no
>longer my country, nor were the rights nor independence celebrated
>mine, as they were not only actively denied me, but that in a very
>specific sense, my ideas are considered a threat, an enemy of the
>status quo that celebrates the country in its current form.
>
>And it made me fear, not the powerful, for they are truly weak. It
>made me fear the masses in the bureaucracy whom have to follow the
>rules to survive, as they are the first to uphold the skewed ideology
>of a broken system. i no longer feel safe living in the USA, as it is
>now but a remnant of an idea, now only an ideology that could instead
>be called the United States of Apathy or Amnesia or Armageddon.
>whatever one calls 'US' one thing is clear, this land is not my land,
>and this land is not free. And the blood of our ancestors which
>fought to rescue this same idea, this same dream, from its somatic
>incarceration from an unimaginative, totally manipulative, and
>undemocratic bureaucratic machine of the industrial mindset. With
>this sensation in my heart, i wrote the following e-mail to the
>nettime-list...
>
>
>*       declaration of Interdependence (July 2001)
>
>http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/texts/interdependence.html
>
>
>as an individual human being, and as a part of the human community, i
>demand to see radical change in my life. i will serve no institution
>which does not serve me, as a human being. i will not worship 'false
>profits' in the guise of doing good, being right, decent, and fair.
>The rules have changed my friends. The logic has changed. And now,
>those who oppress yet deny, and continue to hold back change, the
>ideas and actions which are needed to change the world for the
>survival of our human republic, will have hell to pay...
>
>
>                let loose the dragons,
>
>             and the world will be in flames.
>
>
>credit, whether private money, stature, or status, is no good in a
>human economy which values public deeds and actions more than selfish
>greed, and world class ego building through cultural pyramid schemes.
>
>those who sentence those who dissent this insane system to absolute
>cultural death will now face the same bureaucratic machinery as it
>strips away the power of the despots whose individual power holds
>back the rights of the human public.
>
>you, the Inquisitor, will need to conform to a reality not of your
>own making, nor under your own control or authority. You will be
>humbled at the power of freedom, of imagination, and love, which
>rebels against you and your ignorance. You have chosen to fight a war
>over ideas, which you can win only by destroying democracy. And we
>will not allow this to happen, for just as our ancestors fell to
>their knees, bloody and full of holes, in a pain greater than any
>individual can bear alone, so too, in this our first Civilian World
>War (CWW) you should now prepare yourself to meet your fate, which
>you have chosen for yourself, apart from the rest of the human
>community.
>
>This land, the Earth, is our land, this land, the Earth, is free.
>This land is sacred, and you defame it. And you defame those who want
>to protect it, and ourselves. You will be brought to your knees,
>until you kiss the ground and join us.
>
>.
>
>In the moments before my trip to Canada, to look for work, i am
>captivated by an artist's painting at a streetfair outside my
>apartment, during the weekend i am writing these last words of this
>autobiography of madness. The painting i saw sums up every complex
>emotion i feel, every thought i have but cannot convey. It is a
>painting by Cherokee artist and Vietnam veteran John Balloue of an
>Indian warrior with their flag, standing infront of the American flag,
>
>
>        * * * Home of the Brave * * *
>
>        http://www.finecraftgalleries.com/shell&stone/brave.htm
>
>
>this painting conjures deep emotional pains of being an individual
>human being living within a United Statesist worldview. The ideas i
>love and honor are not those of a specific nation, but of a land of
>freedom, of the body and the mind. Yet the world remains blatantly
>unjust, as people continue to be processed into cultural extinction,
>the wilderness within us all paved over with an ideology of fear not
>freedom, hypocrisy not democracy, and murder not love.
>
>The United States i will always cherish, honor, and be a part of is
>the United States of Humanity. It is an idea about a world that is
>free, which cherishes memory, and fights for the liberation of the
>unique qualities of all people equally.
>
>we are not machines alone. We are beings, with infinite desires. But
>today, we are nothing but tools of an Automated State of Madness. a
>place where thinking freely, and being different, is to risk becoming
>a terrorist and an enemy of the fascist bureaucratic world estate.
>
>fellow humans. i need your help. let's work together with our unique
>skills, and fight for our human right to be free...
>
>
>        --first we take Montréal...
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>physical health is deteriorating from stress and ability to
>communicate has become severely limited, as more stress agitates
>symptoms of illness, including hives, exhaustion, not being able to
>stay awake, confusion, dizziness, etc. Have welts and hives and
>antibiotics. making me sicker. Mental Health medicines are making me
>sicker. am on the verge of institutionalization and cannot accept
>this as a valid option. I cannot go through this scenario again, and
>survive. I am losing my ability to act, and my mental capacity by the
>day. No computer, I cannot work, on my ideas, to keep me sane, nor
>for employment to work my way off the system, which has proven
>impossible.
>
>Have an ear infection and am given an antibiotic. due to earlier
>medical malpractice, my immune system cannot accept the drug and i go
>into severe shock, an almost autistic state of not being able to
>communicate.
>
>i am nauseous for one month. sick feeling day and night. cold sweats.
>
>collapse in the middle of the night. Have blood in my system. total fatigue.
>
>Can no longer work. Can no longer speak. Can no longer write.
>
>Can not write a check or an e-mail.
>
>Unable to understand anything. Can no longer read.
>
>Unable to comprehend the idea of cooking food.
>
>Unable to get bread to eat.
>
>Not able to bicycle to the grocery, as my eyes cannot look straight
>ahead. They are blitzing all over the place.
>
>Unable to stand up, so dizzy.
>
>No longer able to do regular chores such as washing dishes and cleaning.
>
>overwhelming stress. massive fatigue. Paranoia
>
>Unable to concentrate.
>
>extreme toxicity lasts the full month of July, an event i have never
>experienced nor could i imagine such symptoms possible in one bought
>of illness. My immune system is damaged and i am ill all of the time
>now. That much is evident. The public health system says i am not ill
>as my blood tests do not have all factors wrongs, to be classified as
>an illness. So this must just be in my head. But i can no longer go
>along with this charade. As i am dying, my heart is dying in this
>fascist state of turning away from the truth and instead towards the
>certainty of self-deceit.
>
>i am insane, of course, so i don't know any better. But, i know this.
>if i continue to stay in this bureaucratic system i will soon die, as
>my body and my mind have already been crushed beyond any hope of
>recovery. But my spirit cannot be destroyed by this insane
>bureaucratic democracy, by the false-freedom of conforming or being
>punished, one in the same thing.
>
>No.
>
>freedom rings. hear the bells, they are calling us to gather...
>
>we must meet soon as time has already run out, and thus we need to
>utilize a human psycho-logic to wormhole our way back into our shared
>nonexistent future...
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>16-     GOALS FOR TODAY
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>SPACETIME:
>
>2001, Alameda, Calfornia, USA to Montréal, Québec, Canada
>30,000 feet, 500 mph, with nowhere to land
>
>
>EVENTs & ANALYSIS:
>
>i am visiting Montreal, Quebec, Canada, looking for work as a public
>researcher, and support for my work through grants, or government or
>educational research positions.
>
>Goal: Livable income
>Goal: part-time employment
>Goal: Quiet workspace
>Goal: Sufficient health care
>Goal: Dual-citizenship
>Goal: Telecommuting to work
>Goal: Relocate to Montreal Canada
>Goal: Computer equipment for work
>Goal: Tools and equipment for research
>Goal: Grants for public works projects
>Goal: Financing for Electronetwork.org
>
>
>contact me via e-mail if you are willing and able to contribute to
>this public research effort so as to freely educate the citizenry
>with ideas that can help facilitate peaceful and rapid change through
>our abilities to work together on shared goals.
>
>brian thomas carroll    [log in to unmask]
>
>independent researcher, content designer, strategist
>please support the electronetwork.org project
>http://www.electronetwork.org/support/
>
>.
>
>please send help as soon as possible. We need to organize the public
>to avoid the catastrophe looming on the horizon. people do not have
>to die. We can change the system peacefully. We must. We have no
>other choice, as wars cannot solve this problem. And the real war
>will be on democracy, and our freedom to dissent and to work together
>for change...
>
>there can be large-scale cultural change for a sustainable and
>democratic human future. And your contributions and collaborations
>are critically needed to make this possible. looking forward to
>working with fellow humans in serving the needs of the public. into
>the future... where we meet again.
>
>
>HEALTH:
>
>To be determined...  currently very ill.
>
>i believe this can change but not in the current circumstances, which
>is what has made me write this story out, as it is the first time,
>and the last time, i will be able to tell this story. Because i no
>longer accept that i am the one who is insane and who needs to
>change. i defy this label. i am a human being who is unique. As is
>everyone. And it is the system of power and control over ideas that
>has to change. i will not serve any institutions which do not serve
>me back, as a human being.
>
>In frankenstein, the monster is a result of a doctor and machinery of
>the state which made the madness manifest within the individual. It
>is time to treat the causes of our cultural ailments, not just the
>symptoms of our cultural dis-ease.
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>return to Electromagnetic Internetwork http://www.electronetwork.org/
>
>no copyright. public domain. 2001