Commentaries - October 2013

Digerati converged on the Writers House in 1999

Now a 30-minute podcast presents an except from this conversation.

John Brockman (left) with Andy Warhol at Warhol's factory

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

We are now releasing a new podcast — a 30-minute excerpt from a conversation with the “digerati” John Brockman assembled for a heady evening at the Writers House back in 1999.  The podcast is introduced by Emily Harnett. For more podcasts in this series, click here.

John Brockman’s world in the 1960s was a humming electronic world, in which multiple films, tapes, amplifiers, kinetic sculpture, lights and live dancers or actors are combined to involve audiences in a total theater experience. His Intermedia Kinetic Experiences permitted audiences simply to sit, stand, walk or lie down and allow their senses to be Saturated by Media. His 1969 book was By the Late John Brockman.

Yes, Brockman, the sci/tech literary uber-agent, the Happenings organizer in the 1960s and in recent years the creator of “Third Culture” and a leader of the digerati (cyber-intellectuals), came to the Writers House in 1999 along with six of the digerati. And I introduced and, with John, co-moderated a discussion about digital culture.