Introduction from the Bunker
This morning, another Substack writer announced their exit from that platform to this one. Sometimes, Substack may seem to be too much. I love how much the platform offers and am always discovering some other way of amplifying my signal through the noise of cyberspace. Substack has brought me back to that feeling when I first stepped into the Internet even before the World Wide Web browsers showed up.
1994
It was August of 1994 and I’d just returned from an 8 week immersive program at the Goethe Institute in Prien-am-Chiemsee, a lovely little hamlet in the South-East corner of Bavaria.
Email was my first hint at what was possible. I’d been told about it by John Watson, who was then the conservtor of musical and scientific instruments at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. To be able to reach out and touch the mind of another member of my species at distance for practically nothing seemed to me to be absolutely incredible.
Anna Paquin was there.
In January 1994, telecommunications company MCI launched a famous, surreal series of television commercials starring 11-year-old actress Anna Paquin** to promote its information superhighway initiative, “networkMCI.” Fresh off her breakout, Academy Award-winning performance in The Piano* (1993), Paquin was chosen by MCI’s advertising agency, Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer Euro RSCG, to put a comforting, innocent, and human face on intimidating high-tech concepts.
The Campaign Concept & Imagery
Director & Locations: Directed by Peter Smillie, the commercials featured a dreamlike, avant-garde aesthetic. They were filmed in stark, visually striking landscapes like the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and the rugged Oregon coast.
Wardrobe: Paquin famously wore an oversized, dark bowler hat and a crisp white shirt while addressing the camera.
The Message: Rather than selling specific phone plans, the campaign served as an early prophetic vision of the World Wide Web, explaining how fiber-optic cables “thin as a human hair” would effortlessly connect computers, scientists, teachers, and everyday people.
“There Will Be No More There”
The most famous advertisement in the series focused heavily on the erosion of distance through digital communication. Walking through a barren, minimalist landscape, Paquin delivered poetic, philosophical monologues about data transmission:
“There will be a road. It will not connect landmasses; it will connect minds. Its speed limit will be the speed of light. It will not go from here to there... because there will be no more there*.”*
The campaign is widely remembered by early internet users as a definitive piece of 1990s tech nostalgia, capturing both the wonder and the slight eeriness of the oncoming digital age.
It was a remarkable piece of advertising. It sticks with me even now. When I began writing this, I wasn’t intending on writing about the early days of the Internet and the World Wide Web, however, here we are. I was entranced by this sudden ability to shrink the distance between us.
1996
I was stunned by the enormity and began working on my own web site in the summer of 1996.
I was then fresh out of my first post-divorce relationship. I’m so grateful for having been afforded that opportunity although it had very nearly cost me my life as I had taken the ending very hard and nearly drowned myself in my own fluids by dint of having attempted to treat a flu contracted on the evening of February 9, 1996 with Scotch.
Recovering from the resultant pneumonia in the early summer of the that year, and teaching German at the University of Pittsburgh, I was also taking a course in Linguistics. I’d sit and read “The Language Instinct” by Stephen Pinker. I remember it being a blissful state as I headed into the fall semester with a third year of support from the department since I had nearly died from sepsis from pneumococcal pneumonia during what ought to have been my final semester.
1997
The coming year would find me immersed in my studies. With the help of my fellow graduate students, I successfully managed to launch some extra-curricular activities for our undergrads to help them use their German-language skills outside of the classroom. The ripple effects from that continue. For my part, however, I faded from the scene following my own star. Within short order it would lead me to a period of time working behind-the-scenes at the Carnegie Museum of Art, part of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. In the Conservation Department, we cared for the collections of the Andy Warhol Museum as well as the Oakland-based CMOA. On my way out, I was able to help with the set up of the Carnegie International 99/00. I had so many outstanding experiences during my nearly three year tenure there, first as a volunteer, then as a paid intern, and finally as the secretary to the then-Chief Conservator.
The 59th Carnegie International is on display now! It is called “if the word we” and focuses on the first person plural pronoun. We are co-creating this world we live in.
And now I am back into biography but it’s really the story of my personal use of the Internet. As the Carnegie International was getting underway, I was sent a link to what was then one of the earliest social media platforms: Sixdegrees: ** Launched in 1997, SixDegrees.com** is widely recognized as the world’s first true social networking platform. Named after the “six degrees of separation” theory, it pioneered core features still used today: creating personal profiles, curating friend lists, and visualizing connection paths.
The platform introduced several features that defined early digital social connection:
Profile Creation: Allowed users to establish personal identities.
Connection Engine: Users could invite friends, family, and acquaintances. People could interact with others up to three degrees away.
Messaging & Bulletins: Users could send messages and post items on bulletin boards.
Why it didn’t last: SixDegrees was famously ahead of its time. When it launched, internet penetration was low (under 20% of US households) and dial-up speeds made loading graphics difficult. Ultimately, it lacked the user base to sustain itself and shut down in 2001.
The Six Degrees Patent is now owned by LinkedIn.
Before it dropped from the scene, however, I had used the platform to establish connections with people around the world. I was a bit random about it. It didn’t set all that well with my then-fiance that I was interested in having conversations with many people all over the world, however, she was soon out of my life anyway. I took up with a former student for a time, but the age difference between us was significant and it didn’t last. All the while, in the background, a conversation with the then-manager of Athelas, a modern-Danish classical sinfonietta in Copenhagen led to an eventual in-person connection. That led me to looking for a job there in Denmark. I was successful.
2009
The internet transformed my life at such a fundamental level that when I got the opportunity to attend the International Semantic Web Conference in 2009, I jumped at the chance. Being in the periphery of these events - breathing the same air - I managed to get a good look at how we were cooperating - much as Anna Paquin had promised at the beginning back in 1994. At leaast, that was the beginning for me.
My wife’s stroke in early November 2009 threw a wrench into my active participation in these events at an international scale. A year later, we began our transition into our DC residence from which I observe the passing show of history. All of what we are doing here is weaving the future for our progeny. I like to take a long view of history.
Yesterday
While I am simply another cog in the machinery, I’m awake and aware that I am also significant as well as insignificant. If I can help to amplify a signal through the noise of cyberspace, I will. Occasionally, I get amplified as well. As I stepped out of Daily Provisions and prepared to “Go Live” on Substack yesterday afternoon, I was surprised to see that Jesse Paris Smith had mentioned me in one of her articles:
I am astonished by Jesse Paris Smith’s generosity. If you don’t know her yet, follow her or, better yet, subscribe to her! She is consistently helpful in providing questions for us to answer. She is also the daughter of Patti Smith who, in a similarly generous manner, shares her perspectives with us. As Patti says, “Use Your Voice!” - and so I do.
Now
Now it’s time to go back to the top and see if I can’t discern a pattern or structure to this bit of writing. I had in mind to talk about Tuhat.net - a new platform for posting 1000 word essays without all that Substack has added over the time that it has been gathering steam. I started my first introductory essay on that platform and promptly lost it as I moved to the inner sanctum of the Bunker this morning. Up since a little before 4 AM, I’m writing at a leisurely pace now.