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There are flows of data everywhere. Driven by currents of electrons, created by turbines, extracted from the multiverse.

There are flows of desire in all directions. Driven by passions, created as affects, vibrating through bodies.

There are flows of fear lurking in the shadows. Driven by desire, created as anaphylaxis, turning isolated individuals against each other.

These three types of flows can be arranged in many ways, and this is why Telecomix works as an interruption machine (the machinic expression of siphonophorae). The Telecomix interruption machine has several user-friendly interfaces: Flows of data are modulated by cryptography and traffic routing, darknet explorations. Flows of desire are conjugated through cyborg encounters, in which the parts enter into isomorphic relations. Flows of fear are cared for by the use of tunnels and burrows.

The Telecomix machine creates its own world. Just like the ocelot of the South American jungles, which has adapted its night vision, its territoriality and its camouflage to the specific needs of the habitat, Telecomix has refined its sensors to fit a specific surrounding. To exist, to dwell in a habitat, you need shelter and camouflage. You need to make it your home. Unlike the ocelot, however, Telecomix is not at home in the jungle biosphere, but has instead developed its sensors in the meshwork mechanosphere. It should be noted that this does not exclude Telecomix from associating its tentacles with the jungle or the desert, the oceans and the skies.

On the contrary, there is a jungle expression of Telecomix (haptic movement, near object vision, sounds and smells), a desert expression (optical monitoring of the horizon, celestial navigation), a marine expression (vortices and streams) and a Telecomix of the stratosphere (territorial aspiration, clear breath). Telecomix migrates through various habitats, but always returns to one specific location: the burrow.

Burrows are found throughout large parts of the animal worlds. Fish make burrows, so do birds and reptiles. Even insects. A burrow is usually constructed underground, in sand or dirt (sometimes even in trees). A burrow has many functions, but the primary ones exploited by the Telecomix system are: א) hiding from visibility, ב) sheltering its inhabitants by creating a refuge from predators, ג) extending a tunnel system that circumvents walls and fences, ד) rebuilding AT&TLantis, the lost city-state we dream of, the origin of our tele-diaspora.

But unlike a rabbit or a meerkat, Telecomix does not dig tunnels in dirt. It digs tunnels by converting plaintext to ciphertext. We take the flows of data of the internetworks, the meshwork mechanosphere, and instantly encrypt and redirect them. In every instance, the predator only sees white noise. Tunnels connect to other tunnels, creating an underground dark network. Internet becomes darknet.

In the Aleph-one computerized societies, there are walls that separate the inhabitants of the internetworks. There is the Great Firewall of the East, the PRISM of the West, the Bundestrojaner of the North, and the Rabbit Proof Fence of the South. Around the world there are fences and walls, created by states and corporations that have no respect for burrowing animals. The Telecomix interruption machine drills holes in these walls, digs tunnels under the fences, allows data to flow. When configuring new flows of data, novel flows of desire start to occupy the tunnels. Enveloped by the tunnel, the inhabitants of the nodes develop a special type of desire to stay in touch, to touch each other remotely.

While the desire to touch is primary to the tunnel, a secondary fear is constructed inside the burrow. This is the ever present danger of becoming a burrowing animal. The passionate desires of tunnels in all directions, the means of connecting and touching, are sometimes silenced by a dark veil; fear strikes the underground. You are deep down in your encrypted burrow, you maintain it in minute detail, you make sure it is safe, you spend more time securing it than you spend connecting with other beings. You gradually start dwelling in paranoia. Encapsulated now by walls of cipher, your burrow becomes a bunker, a place for yourself only. Every little opening is shut down, locked up tight. You suffocate, and nobody will notice, because you have imploded your burrow. All that is left will be the residual white noise of your ciphertext.

This is why fear must be avoided at all cost. This is why Telecomix is an interruption machine; it creates tunnels and burrows, but it never leaves them to implode. Nobody shall suffocate in a burrow, you have to create another tunnel, you have to touch once again. Do not desire the collapse of your underground network. Leave nobody behind!

The urban sprawls are already full of burrows and bunkers. There are underground networks of subway tunnels, drug routes, abandoned apartments and factories. You can tunnel your face with a balaclava. You can even hyper-tunnel your thoughts by concentrating on a specific idea, creating a flow directed towards one singular problem. Then you share it, and it multiplies, mutates, migrates and germinates. There are so many tunnels that you can construct, with dirt and sand, concrete and steel, ciphers and routers.

When connected to someone else through a tunnel, Telecomix has made a connection where there was supposed to be a wall. Sometimes it works, sometimes it breaks down. But for those brief moments of connectivity, a space opens up in which true creation can take place. You see a light, you breathe, you touch, there are sudden knots and intertwinements. A tiny collision between endnodes takes place, erupting with the speed of light; inside fibreoptics, but outside every form of control.

2014-03-16

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cameron ||AT|| telecomix.org