what is robotamerica?
before robotamerica became my handle, before it was a blog, %%green%%it started as a two-edition mini-zine that was sold at punk shows%%. i created the zine sometime around '98. it was a dadaist and situationist inspired little booklet with some essay-like writing and a series of collages and sketches.
%%yellow%%the premise of the zine was a critique of everyday life and consumerism (overconsumption) in the so-called developed nations.%% that was the origin of the name as well, "robot america", describing what i saw as an almost robotic impulse for consumerism around me in the nineties. %%purple%%everyday folk becoming robots, automatons, consuming for the sake of consuming%%.
strangely, robotamerica was a sort of tongue-in-cheek parody that became a little more prophetic. especially now, with ai-driven marketing algorithms, and the current social media trap, %%red%%we appear to be becoming a little more robotic, a little less agentic, a lot more caught in the spectacle of things%%.
i no longer have copies of the original photocopied zines. but i remember each one opened with a quote:
the robot, like the slave, is both good and perfidious: good as a captive force; perfidious as a force that may break its chains.
%%green%%jean baudrillard%%, %%purple%%the system of objects%%
the need to imitate which is felt by the consumer is precisely the infantile need conditioned by all the aspects of his fundamental disposition.
%%green%%guy debord%%, %%purple%%the society of the spectacle%%
it is a little strange that, while holding these sorts of philosophies close to my heart for so many years, i am still a bit of a technological optimist. i think it comes down to the idea that %%orange%%it is not the technologies we need to worry about, but who owns them%%. in capitalist society, it certainly isn't the people, and the people taking ownership is the goal.
%%green%%welcome, again, to robotamerica%%.