I am offering here a postmodern, information era version of the Flaneur- the FLANEURISMO!. Emblematic of the fragmented and multipolar nature of contemporary culture is my choice of a Franco-Spanglish neologism for a name.

The main idea informing this project is that information and communication technologies have acted as a kind of universal solvent to essentially dematerialize the city, rendering it infinitely mutable. Given this, then any entity inhabiting or visiting such a city can have an experience tailored more or less exactly to that entity's tastes, expectations and biases.

The FLANEURISMO! world consists of a "city" reduced to four spaces: the Zoo, the Disco, the Teleport, and the Agora. On first encounering this world, visitors are presented a control panel with which to set the attitudes of a software object called a Flaneurismo. This "bot" can then stroll through the different parts of the city, experiencing it at the level of ordinary reality, as did the Flaneurs of 19th century Paris. The big difference here is that this virtual city will change its appearance and functionality, depending on the attributes set for the Flaneurismo.

The FLANEURISMO! experience is created by a series of Shockwaved Director movies, which call each other over the net. There are navigation buttons at the top of each movie's screen, which pop up when you move the cursor over the very topmost part of the screen. There is a button to make a new Flaneurismo, which can then experience the city from a different perspective. There is another button to retun to the city as the same Flaneurismo, and then stroll to a different place in it. Finally, there is a quit button to end the Flaneurismo experience.

The Zoo contains a set of five "cages". The animals in these cages vary, according to the settings of the Flaneurismo. The music playing in the Disco depends on the Flaneurismo settings. The Teleport presents a set of boucing balls--each one of these is a link to a World Wide Web page, which page being a function of the Flaneurismo settings.

The Agora is not yet functional, but will be a place where the different Flaneurismos can leave messages for each other.

Some of these files are rather large, and this project is best experienced with ISDN or T1 connectivity, although the movies work perfectly well with 28.8, once they load. You will need Netscape 3.0 or Explorer 3.0, plus the latest Macromedia Shockwave plugin, which supports streaming audio, and the XtraNet plugin from g/matter. It is important to place both of these in the appropriate Shockwave folder in your browser's plugin folder--follow the downloading instructions carefully. *Caution* attempting to play the "Disco" section on a computer without a math co-processor will cause the computer to lock up.

Welcome to the world of FLANEURISMO!