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 The Temporary Autonomous Zone "The T.A.Z. is like an uprising that does not engage directly with the state, a guerilla operation that liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself elsewhere/elsewhen before the state can crush it." The Age of Information has spawned and nurtured the Age of Surveillance. Each of us has been digitized and added to the growing electronic stream; our images are preserved on computers at the DMV and the IRS, at Nielson and Gallup, at school and work. Our spending habits are tabulated, our voting preferences analyzed, our sex lives dissected. The ghost of B.F. Skinner floats above us all. We are completely engulfed by the Simulation that buzzes from the speaker and flashes from the screen. In the total-immersion baptism of electronic media the line between the conditioned and conditioner blurs; we all participate in the Spectacle. The dry-clicking of the remote control and the mouse heralds the new "active" role of the passive observer. The Mythmakers proffer the New Improved Carrot while hiding the Stick behind Their backs. To deny the Gifts of Capitalism is invite excommunication from the Information Order. Their metaphors, Their Simulations threaten to choke that which is not commodified. To find an alternative is difficult... but necessary. The Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) is the epiphany that suspends the Official Myth. It peeks beneath the garments of Order and Civilization and laughs at what it sees. It is shapeless and formless: it can consist of a lone caffeine-crazed barbarian, a tender dyad, or a warehouse full of sweaty ravers; it may last a moment, a day, or a lifetime. The TAZ is the reawakening of a too-long forgotten Dance, and would like to remind you that the time to Dance is NOW...
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