Development log? I suppose. Some kind of record feels necessary: a chronicle of this thing that’s growing inward from without, like a reverse hangnail, consuming my processes & subverting me to its will.
When people talk about their work having a life of its own? This is where I’m at right now with PROJECT ZERO EIGHT.
Fuck. It needs a proper name.
Just finished re-reading William Gibson’s Burning Chrome. That’s part of it, part of what this process has become. A subconscious-cum-conscious desire to consume certain facets of media like mana, as though I could fill myself to the brim with a near-dead subculture in the attempt to understand it in a new way. To apply a new lens through which its weakened light might refract, then project fresh images.
Cyberpunk. What does that even mean, anymore? Is it still relevant?
I don’t remember when I first read Burning Chrome. I was young, it was before the drugs. Gibson’s words had had a profound effect on me; his poetry-like prose. Hadn’t inspired me to write, but had in some way supplemented my burgeoning love for technology, & computers. I knew “hackers” back then, when the entry into secured systems was announced by the horrible electronic gnashing of low-baud modems. Sounds like broken robots mating. Chewing our way into bulletin board systems & multi-user chat rooms, hanging with actual phreakers who spoke in languages I couldn’t comprehend, but feeling a sense of belonging nonetheless.
Maybe that was it. The discovery of a place where I felt like I belonged. In & among the dim promises from phosphorescent LED displays, tangled in the wires, lost in the code.
A shame then, that the drugs became a far more interesting & rewarding escape than the hardware/software. But we have to see certain things through in order to appreciate them better, & without experience our words are only noises without substance.
So here we are, some 21 years later & I’m once again finished reading words that still resound with the same strength they did when I was an idiot teenager.
Somehow, this is important.
And now this, this record-making in the middle of the night. Compiling & consuming lists of films, books, animations, websites, Wikipedia articles, & important persons all somehow connected to this endeavor I’ve undertaken for 2013. This project. This thing.
This dream coming true.
Further posts in this data thread appear at cyberdrvnk.tumblr.com
NOCTURNALISM
[Lost content: image, alt-text: “Howlin’ At a Digital Moon”]
For the past 3 weeks the habits of 27 months of focused discipline have been waylaid in favor of freeform scheduling that respects neither time nor body.
If you’ve been following along diligently—and you have my utmost love & respect for doing so—you’ll know I’ve been a creature of some rather diligent habits. Rising & sleeping early, subjecting myself to the physical rigors of, as the Rock likes to say, “clangin’ & bangin’” in addition to ashtanga yoga & distance running. That all changed when I embarked on the Cyberdrunk Project.
My daily routine has consisted of rising past noon, drinking all day & well into the night, finally collapsing into bed around six in the morning. I’m certain many other independent workers can relate to this “schedule”, with or without the alcohol abuse.
Production is at an all-time high. Not only in volume but in quality. I’ve shoved reams of C# & PHP training into my brain, consumed vast swaths of cyberculture, & built a brand new commercial-ready experience thatwith a little luck & a lot of laborwill launch in time to qualify for the #1GAM entry for January.
There isn’t anything else to report. If you’re following the various channels you’ll know if the 1GAM ships on time, & if you want more clues into the nature of the Cyberdrunk Project I heartily recommend following the Tumblr development microblog.
2013.01.01 – 2013.01.31