The Net – The Unabomber, LSD and The Internet | Lutz Dammbeck

Das Netz

The Net – the Unabomber, LSD and the Internet – 2003 | Lutz Dammbeck

Das Netz (English: The Net) is an independent film directed by Lutz Dammbeck and subtitled The Unabomber, LSD and the Internet. Das Netz premiered in 2003.

Ultimately stunning in its revelations, Lutz Dammbeck's THE NET explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th Century web of technology – a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution.

For those who resist these intrusive systems of technological control, the Unabomber has come to symbolize an ultimate figure of refusal. For those that embrace it, as did the early champions of media art like Marshall McLuhan, Nam June Paik, and Stewart Brand, the promises of worldwide networking and instantaneous communication outweighed the perils.

Working through themes of utopianism, anarchism, terrorism, and providing insights on the CIA, LSD, Project MK-ULTRA, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Dammbeck provides a fascinating view of the wider picture of the most famous neo-luddite.

Source: The Net – the Unabomber, LSD and the Internet | Lutz Dammbeck [2003]