A different modality of deploying anthropophagic strategies
has been adopted in various net.art projects such as m9ndfukc, JODI's
game SOD and Mark Nappier's Shredder, to name but a few. Unlike the
frontal attacks launched by the good people mentioned above, the
approach taken here locates cannibal activity in the very dynamics of
code and its transmutational power in a networked environment.
m9ndfukc is perhaps the most elusive and bizarre of
the three infophagic entities under examination here. I dare not provide
a coherent description of what m9ndfukc is or does, you better go
straight to the site, I will, however attempt to show how it can be said
to unleash energies that are more than worthy of a Cannibal On Line.
The core of the site is. the "multi-plateforme" based programme
nebula_m81 which is part of the "usik systm". It is a cutting edge
system that makes it possible to simultaneously process several data
channels connected to selected URLs. The system allows one to generate a
hybrid signal out of heterogeneous Internet raw material. This module is
in fact a real Web deconstruction machine which functions like a digital
vacuum cleaner sucking up data designated by a URL and which it then
regurgitates in the form of a remodeled, restructured sound and image
substance. The digestion of the pages creates an abstract universe that
bears little resemblance to the source feed. The source remains intact
and undamaged. These simple web pages grazed from the public domain are
injected into this alternative browser as inert mater. Instead of
blindly following the code instruction, the system swallows it up and
breaks it down into a dynamic and minimalist aesthetic of wild whirls of
naked code.
To add to the general code jumbling mayhem m9ndfukc has also devised
a sort of cyberanto of which the following is a typical sampling "...
noctilucent - ektachrome 020 is the first autonomous + programmable web
browser mikrobe m9ndfukc pour netskape. prol!ferate dze protoplasmz dze
senseless agens!ez. dze formulated asp!rat!onz. eff!c!ent kausat!on \+\
subjekt!v a!m. - 3 k 0 r. if desired it may also be utilized for
unartistic unpurposes and\or korporate fascist presentations. " Clearly
cannibal territory, but this time situated at the level of code, on the
' 'protoplasms' level eating away at the borders between machine,
information, code and user.
