" Disco fever and the new desecration of imagery "

In this media age, as images are chopped up like video clips, orgasmic staccatos in super-sexy symphonies of colour flash through the minds of the young at cyber speed – consumed by the cult of celebrity and hedonism by the age of 18. In Midas style, the leviathans of a new empire with global dimensions pit themselves against the treasures stored in the vaults of a glorious past. Global players – modern-day Madonnas – are giving rise to a cultish new dance around the golden calf. Sexist texts vibrate on the incus in sequences that pound the erogenous zones to the point of virtual orgasm. Millions, billions and trillions of beads of sweat evaporate into the geometric hairstyles of the new-life generation. The illusion of love is celebrated by dreams and reality. How can cloned babies hope to build a future without invoking the wrath of the gods? How will an intellectual eunuch embark on sex with a fragile but nymphomaniac Amazon over the Internet? Orpheus has entered the business world: heavily styled hermaphrodites are dancing maniacally to the beat of the hit parade, rejoicing in diabolical rites under the cool influence of designer drugs. Lusting for power, Venus-like beauty commits murder in the temple of Artemis, manifesting the brutal emancipation of the virtual future. Soulful melodies inject rhythm into brown hips; Latin rumps, their depravity shored up by silicone, gyrate with mathematical precision. Dream triumphs over reality, bodystyling assumes Olympian dimensions. Hopelessly passé, receding with the fading lustre of marble, are the Venus de Milo, the Venus de Medici and the Aphrodite of Cnidos. Under pressure, the Apollo Belvedere, the Farnese Hercules and the Borghese Fencer are in retreat; banished to obscurity, the Gaul dies. Philosophy drowns with him in the mire of spiritual anarchy. Media stars – interrupted only by time-consuming advertisements – are the Apollonian heroes of the new vanity. Floating on the beguiling aroma of cosmetic ingredients, they scale a Mount Olympus of dollar bills. Meanwhile, postmodernity builds palaces of Babylonian proportions, cramming the halls with the utter confusion of Anglo-American slang. The aspirations of Icarus are cut down abruptly by laser light, leaving behind only the white dust of oblivion. Is it time for the global capitalist party to end, even as the politically correct global war machine demands pre-emptive surgical strikes? Will the documents we leave behind betray a media-controlled reality? Can our videos, CDs, discs and microfilms fill once-virtual cabinets and shelves?