From Cyberspace to AI Civilization
This collection began as a series of letters and essays written primarily for G.H. Hovagimyan, Adrianne Wortzel, and the enduring presence of Robin Murphy as we continue exploring what might become the next chapter of a collaboration that began more than thirty years ago. Drawing on memories of artnetweb, PORT, books, exhibitions, conversations, and the rapidly changing landscape of AI, these reflections are not intended as finished conclusions. They are thinking made visible—an ongoing dialogue searching for the ideas, values, and forms that might help shape a culture worthy of the future now unfolding around us. Others are warmly invited to follow the conversation and, perhaps, become part of it.
- Reflections on Neuromancer, PORT, and Gestation — 7/6/26. — Thirty years ago we imagined cyberspace. Today we live inside it. The challenge before us is no longer to invent the digital world, but to invent a civilization worthy of living within it.
- A Personal Note to GH and Adrianne — 7/4/26 — I wrote this as an email to GH and Adrianne but I’ve decided to place it in my personal journal as well because it addresses several aspects of transtions in life.
- Coming Full Circle — 6/25/26 — Sometimes it takes thirty years to understand what a chapter in your life was really trying to teach you. Looking back now, I can finally see the pattern—and why the conversation GH, Adrianne, and I are having today feels like a return rather than a beginning.
- A Place I Would Want to Spend Time In — 6/24/26— If AI can help us build almost anything we can imagine, the real question is no longer what we can create, but what kind of place would truly make us want to gather, think, and return every day.
- Notes Toward an ArtNetWeb Ecology — 6/23/26 — Looking beyond technology, I begin to wonder whether ArtNetWeb was never simply a platform, but a living ecology where different creative temperaments combined to produce something none of us could have created alone.
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