drawing: finn harvor, from the PLASTIC MILLENNIUM module "What is the Source of Insane Ideas?", see circle 1991
As the news cycle works its way through the maw of 21st Century Event Horror and we find ourselves confronted not only with nuclear powers that are secretly continuing their smitten crush on the Bomb and a globalized industrial output that is pushing carbon levels right up to dinosaur-age levels, we also find -- well, we also find that intelligence agencies married to surveillance technologies are not a harmless mix (that is, of course, unless you're Terry Glavin).
What has happened -- what is happening -- is current events seem to be unfolding, unspooling, unraveling at such tremendous speed that it is understandable why both certain kinds of people and fields of cultural endeavour (say, in this case, literary publishing) would prefer to just wish the whole mess away. But it won't be wished away. Like a slowly mutating virus, techno-modernity only spreads when it is not paid bright attention to.
The drawing above is from a graphic fiction (we called them comics back then) entitled "What is the Source of Insane Ideas?" In this panel, socially pro-active financier Conrat Lindt has just learned from one of the scientists at his privately funded research institute that a form of society-managing artificial intelligence is secretly being constructed. The comic was completed in 1991, and is part of PLASTIC MILLENNIUM, a mega-novel I've been working of for some time now. Of course, 1991 is more than twenty years ago. So the entire story line is out of date.
Plus ca surveille.....
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