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THE WELL: WHOLE EARTH LECTRONIC LINK
An Interview with Stewart Brand
by George Por
The first multi-user, public access computer communications utility in the San Franscisco Bay Area is alive and WELL (Whole Earth Lectronic Link). As you walk in the "corridors" of this huge electronic conference facility with many "floors" and many conference "rooms", you'll see signs on the "doors" saying: Music, Desktop Publishing, Hackers/Homebrew, Photography, Macintosh, Unix, Education, Politics, Video, Databasics, Writers, etc... just to mention a few of the mushrooming new online groups.
Its founder, Stewart Brand, was described by Paul Levinson, Director of Connected Ed and faculty member of Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI), in "Space Guests", a branch of Paul's historic electure on "Space" in Parti on The Source, as follows:
"Steward Brand first became known in the 1960s with his request for a photograph of the Whole Earth. He later developed this planetary consciousness into the hugely successful Whole Earth Catalog. More recently he has published the Whole Earth Software Catalog, and advocates computer conferencing as a means of improving our awareness of life and our place in it.
"Stewart is a biologist in the best sense of the word -- he is concerned with life as living system, and much prefers the whole picture to any sort of fragmenting dissections."
The following interview was conducted online.
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George Por: First question. Stewart, what do you want to tell our readers about the space in which you receive my questions?
Stewart Brand: I think of where we're meeting sometimes as Hyperspace, sometimes intelligences dislodged from strict time and space, minds brushing minds. You press keys on your computer, and suddenly you're sucked out of your body into engrossing discourse with intimate strangers. But where is it you're sucked into? Hyperspace. A fiction, a conventional noplace.
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GP: Whom can we consider the WELL's parents?
SB: The WELL owes its origins to our co-venturer, NETI (Network Technologies International, of Ann Arbor, Michigan). They developed the software, Picospan, over several years of evolution, and they provided the hardware The WELL runs on.
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GP: What do you think, how does your personal vision affect the WELL?
SB: The vision I work with that may be affecting The WELL is a biological one. Evolution occurs by increments and in intense co-adaptation with other creatures, and that's how we're developing The WELL. Rather than being a Utopian Plan or finished product, it is a process of unceasing self-design.
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GP: Stewart, among the readers of this interview there will be people who will receive it at their computer terminals all over the world, including members of the Electronic Networking Association (ENA).
I noticed in The WELL excerpts of the "ENA Journal" discussion which had originally appeared on the EIES network (Electronic Information Exchange System), and somebody ported it over here. What do you think of interconnecting networks through human "gateways," frequently called "porters?"
SB: I think that "porters" serve a double function. Besides bearing information they also pick at it; they're editors. As telecom continues to grow from a torrent to a deluge to a flood of information, the pickers and choosers of select stuff for select audiences will have a growing role. Eventually an essential role.
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GP: Thank you Stewart, see you again online . . .
For further information, contact: Matthew McClure at the WELL, 27 Gate Five
Road, Sausalito, CA 94965 (415- 332-4335).