ABSTRACT There is apparently a paradox in that, as artists, some of us become progressively process-oriented , but continue to produce art objects . For me this is necessary since I work on two levels from a common set of attitudes: on the social level, elaborating plans for a Cybernetic Art Matrix; on the intimate level making individual art works. Both processes are concerned with creating triggers —initiating creative behaviour in the observer/participant. Modern art is characterized by a behaviourist tendency in which process and system are cardinal factors. As distinctions between music, painting, poetry, etc. become blurred and media are mixed, a bahaviourist synthesis is seen to evolve, in which dialogue and feedback within a social culture indicate the emergence of a Cybernetic vision in art as in science. My artifacts come out of a process of random behaviour interacting with pre-established conditions. The Cybernetic Art Matrix is seen as a process in which anarchic group behaviour interacts with pre-established systems of communications, hardware and learning nets. In both cases the processes are self-generating and self-critical. Basically they are initiated by creative behaviour, and in turn give rise to its extension in other people.

The coherence of living systems may be due in part to an information network of biophotons emitted by DNA molecules. This network can be seen as parallel to the telematic networks that connect the planet. Nanotechnology can play a significant role in the emergence of a moistmedia substrate for technoetic art. Immaterial connectedness confers a spiritual dimension on both telematic art and quantum mechanics. Field theory supports the contention that the material body may be a consequence rather than a cause of consciousness. A technoetic art may locate its ground in the triangulation of connectivity, syncretism and field theory.

This paper is an attempt to make sense of the Japanese word orai and to consider in what way the author's own “comings and goings” across artistic, literary and esoteric pathways led to the formulation of his practice, later to be theorized as telematic art and to be understood as a form of associative connectivism . The paper focuses on La Plissure du Texte , his first project involving distributed authorship.

As the planet becomes telematically unified, the self becomes dispersed. The convergence of dry silicon pixels and biologically wet particles is creating a moistmedia substrate for art where digital systems, telematics, genetic engineering and nanotechnology meet. A technoetic aesthetic not only will embrace new media, technology, consciousness research and non-classical science but also will gain new insights from older cultural traditions previously banished from materialist discourse. In the present post- 9/11 crisis, collaborative transdisciplinary research is needed if a truly planetary culture is to emerge that is techno-ethical as well as technoetic.