lynn hershman leeson words

15 may 2008, after she spoke at the rhizome benefit i asked her for a copy and she handed me the (inspiring) notes, here's what she read from (sans caps):

"

i feel privileged by this honor and thank you for this wonderful recognition.

rhizome represents to me, a growing community of visionary artistic and scientific activists – a range of individuals who use tactical strategies to create significantly hacked and utopian worlds.

in this world our evolution suggests that there has been a concerted effort to overcome human limitations. we obsessively augment our own senses with the mechanics of subrogated implants, from telescopes to robotic and nano probes, from contact lenses to cosmic rays, ultimately creating enhanced cyborian bodies that are capable of communicating to a mind at large. mcluhan's prophetic prediction of nearly half a century ago that eventually "we will wear all of mankind as our skin" has come true.

rhizome is the skin in which we now live, the horizontal underground stem of organic rootlessness. it is a system that encourages trespass into perpetually reconfigured digital territories. signifiers that have eroded in real life, revivify in these kinds of networks, perhaps to reconcile the erasure. in this space we have become stationary nomads, wandering a non-delineated global universe seeking not closure, but rather expanded aperture, tolerance and connectivity.

in fact, rhizome has become a diaspora of its own. we are the united citizens of rhizome and we form a mighty trans nation, if only we knew it!

"