Lost Networks

Somewhere, possibly in Cinnamon Streets, Bruno Schulz writes of the silvery imprint of the footsteps of angels. A couple of nights ago, I was sitting at home after a long dinner and nice wine, watching the lights on my wireless router flickering as people sent me things. The impersonality of the transport of stuff online still frustrates me as strongly as it did years ago. Indications of passage, but absence of presence. Of course there is now a much wider range of social media applications — Instant Messaging, the blogosphere — than when I was first writing about this, but with the precepts of In Your Face systems in mind, it still seems a shame that all transactions unless specifically anonymised don’t leave at least some silvery footsteps in their wake — an IP address in your weblog isn’t the same as knowing who was at the keyboard browsing. Lost networks of chance interconnections.