Page 65 - The Documenta issue of World of Art magazine (2002)

elite umBerto eCo
Travels In Hyperreality (1990). The Limits of Interpretation (1990). Foucault’s in the Middle Ages (1988). Leonardo Cremonini: Paintings and Watercolors
Pendulum (1989). On the Medieval Theory of Signs (1989). The Aesthetics of 1976-1986 (1987). Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984). The Sign
Chaomos: The Middle Ages of James Joyce (1989). The Open Work (1989). The of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (1984). Postscript to The name of the Rose
Bomb and the General (1989). The Three Astronauts (1989). Meaning and Mental (1983). The name of the Rose (1983). The Role of the Reader: Explorations in
Representations (1988). The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas (1988). Art and Beauty the Semiotics of Text (1979). The Theory of Semiotics (1976)

and tons of dissertations and papers from my students. So of course I did not have will reduce the pressure on the kind of icon figure, the expert, or do you think
time at this moment to play with Internet. In the next six months probably, when that whole thing is a myth, a total myth?”
I have finished a lot of things, I will do it. OK. It’s only a practical problem. My first reaction was: OK, finally we have an acephalous system. Acephalous:
Apropos the icon thing: the only way is to try and resist this iconisation - you without a head.
answer no, no, no. But the problem has reached uncontrollable dimensions in the “Without a head, headless. yes, I liked that rhizome idea of yours.”
mass-media kingdom, because now it is not only your statements that makes a A kind of a modern quillian network, a sort of neural net...
scoop, but it is your silence too. “An organic system...?”
“OK, I see, yes?” yes, without archetypes, and without - well, you know all that - and this
I always quote one particular episode, because it is typical; but there are will probably change enormously the filtering of information. now, on second
tens of thousands of such thoughts, I have two problems: How much can this system remain acephalous?
episodes. One day, as usual, finishing my class at 7 p.m., together with my The overloading of the network at some point will impose some filtering and
assistants and students we went to a bar for a chat until 8 p.m. and then I went discipline, and at this point we don’t know what will happen. The Internet is the
home, with some of them following me and chatting. We crossed Piazza verdi greatest possibility of abolishing any or every Great Brother...
in Bologna, in which we have the Opera House. What I didn’t know was that this “Big Brother...?”
particular evening there was an important premiere. Well, I didn’t know about Big Brother. But it can in a second step open up the possibility for some Big
that, of course I don’t know everything. Brothers to occupy the main lines and the main network. At this point, I do not
He smiles. know. Secondly: if it remains acephalous, then the abundance of information will
Well, we crossed the square and I went home to do something, or to be such that either you have reached such a level of maturity that you are able
watch television, or to fuck - I don’t know what. The day after, the headline in to be your own filter, or you will desperately need a filter...
the newspaper was: “Umberto Eco did not attend that premiere! “Which is not “Some professional filter?”
a piece of news at all, because I usually do not attend these things. So, it was ...some professional filter. So once again you will ask somebody...an
not a piece of news, but probably they had nothing better to talk about, so my information consultant...to be your gatekeeper!
absence became a... Take the example of a book shop. In the thirties a book shop was a small
“A sign?” place in which every week there were one or two new books. If you went there
...yes, a sign. Well, at this point you cannot do anything but to try and often you knew pretty well how to isolate the interesting new items and so on.
disregard those kinds of accidents. now, a book shop like the FnAC in Paris, or the Feltrinelli here in Bologna, is an
“To return to Michael Crichton - I think I wrote this in those questions in Internet in itself: you have everything. now - an this concerns not only the young
those papers I gave you - was talking of this idea of the mediasaurus, the big student, but also myself - if I don’t read the cultural pages of the newspapers to
publishing houses. Do you think the media giants are at risk because people will know what is happening, then I am lost. There’s this excess of information. Once
be able to go directly to the sources of information? I mean, do you think that again it makes you need a gatekeeper...
(to be continued in the next number)
World of art 63