“Any one of our new media is in a sense a new language, a new codification of experience collectively achieved by new work habits and inclusively collective awareness.”

Do you remember when Habibie gave his testimony from Germany in a virtual trial—about giving up East Timor—held in a courtroom in South Jakarta in 1999? The video conferencing technology which was used dismissed how we define the physical presence of a witness, and virtual presence promptly became part of jurisprudence. In this event, space-time on two different continents was united by a media machine in a definition of real-time. From this immaterial presence, we can also understand why the Bali bombing terrorists didn’t have to be blown apart themselves. They simply sacrificed a cheap cell phone and altered the ringtone to become a long-distance bomb triggering device. Clearly that event was a crushing blow to our sense of humanity. But there is still a bitterness left by these violence worshiping Laskar (militants) as if they are mocking us. While the mainstream celebrates the cell phone as a lifestyle gadget, they expertly exploited this media technology to become a political statement. ▶10.4