The Wall Street Journal today ran a lead article about websites like Google and Wayback Machine that archive pages. Years of websites that are currently unavailable because they've been dismantled have been stored away. There is no way now to subvert the strands of time and feign a nonexistence: if you've had a web presence but need to make yourself scarce, you can't. This came up in various court cases, usually about domain and copyright infringement. Rather than "Googling," lawyers simply "Waybacked" to prove particular site owners were at one point in violation of certain codes or statutes, etc.
It appears that even the web world, the sphere of "time-space compression" (David Harvey) cannot escape historicization. History finds a way even there. Of course, it is a strange new history, one where the archive dominates. Rather than a narrative, it is a file.
The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (reprise)
While watching Access Holywood tonight (umm, for research of course), I was informed of a new television drama about the current gulf war. The creator of such classics as NYPD Blue is making a series that documents the trials of soldiers both in the field and off. They want to work in backstory, the struggle of the families, etc, and not just focus on "everyone going to the party / have a real good time / dancin' in the desert / blowin' up the sunshine".
The producers are getting flack mainly because the war is still going on and some find this distasteful and in poor judgment. But I think it's perfectly in order with the logic of our current times for the hyperreal to merge with the real and absorb it. We don't really know or care which one is real and which is the copy.
Baudrillard's little manifesto in response to father Bush's escapades-
- appears to be repeating itself.
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