Journal articles on the topic 'Short lap splice'

The spliced form of MuSVts110 viral RNA is approximately 20-fold more abundant at growth temperatures of 33 degrees C or lower than at 37 to 41 degrees C. This difference is due to changes in the efficiency of MuSVts110 RNA splicing rather than selective thermolability of the spliced species at 37 to 41 degrees C or general thermosensitivity of RNA splicing in MuSVts110-infected cells. Moreover, RNA transcribed from MuSVts110 DNA introduced into a variety of cell lines is spliced in a temperature-sensitive fashion, suggesting that the structure of the viral RNA controls the efficiency of the event. We exploited this novel splicing event to study the cleavage and ligation events during splicing in vivo. No spliced viral mRNA or splicing intermediates were observed in MuSVts110-infected cells (6m2 cells) at 39 degrees C. However, after a short (about 30-min) lag following a shift to 33 degrees C, viral pre-mRNA cleaved at the 5' splice site began to accumulate. Ligated exons were not detected until about 60 min following the initial detection of cleavage at the 5' splice site, suggesting that these two splicing reactions did not occur concurrently. Splicing of viral RNA in the MuSVts110 revertant 54-5A4, which lacks the sequence -AG/TGT- at the usual 3' splice site, was studied. Cleavage at the 5' splice site in the revertant viral RNA proceeded in a temperature-sensitive fashion. No novel cryptic 3' splice sites were activated; however, splicing at an alternate upstream 3' splice site used at low efficiency in normal MuSVts110 RNA was increased to a level close to that of 5'-splice-site cleavage in the revertant viral RNA. Increased splicing at this site in 54-5A4 viral RNA is probably driven by the unavailability of the usual 3' splice site for exon ligation. The thermosensitivity of this alternate splice event suggests that the sequences governing the thermodependence of MuSVts110 RNA splicing do not involve any particular 3' splice site or branch point sequence, but rather lie near the 5' end of the intron.

Existing reinforced concrete (RC) columns with short splices in older-type frame structures are prone to either a shear or bond mechanism. Experimental results have shown that the force–displacement response of columns exhibiting these failure modes are different from flexure-critical columns and typically have lower deformation capacity. This article presents a failure mode-based approach for seismic assessment of RC columns with short splices. In this approach, first, the probable failure mode of the component is evaluated. Subsequently, based on the failure mode, the force–displacement response of the component can be predicted. In this article, recommendations are proposed for evaluating the probable failure mode, elastic rotation, drift at lateral failure, and drift at axial failure for columns with short splices experiencing shear, flexure, or bond failures.

This article investigates the existence of a threshold level of inflation and how any such level affects the growth of Indian economy. The article also seeks to examine the dynamic short-run and long-run relationship between inflation and economic growth in India. By employing spline regression method to estimate the threshold level of inflation and the long-run and short-run relationships, the results show a statistically significant structural break in the relationship between inflation and economic growth at 4 per cent. The study suggests that if inflation exceeds the threshold point, that is, 4 per cent, it will negatively affect economic growth. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model bound testing cointegration suggests that there are two cointegration vectors when gross domestic product and rate of interest are considered as the dependent variables. This result confirms the existence of the long-run equilibrium relationship between economic growth, inflation, exchange rate and rate of interest. From the long-run analysis, the study found that inflation is positively related to economic growth, whereas the other variables are not significant. JEL Classification: E4, E6

Background: Forearm immobilization techniques are commonly used to manage distal radius, scaphoid, and metacarpal fractures. The purpose of our study was to compare the degree of rotational immobilization provided by a sugar-tong splint (STS), short arm cast (SAC), Munster cast (MC), and long arm cast (LAC) at the level of the distal radioulnar joint (DRUJ), carpus, and metacarpals. Methods: Seven cadaveric upper extremity specimens were mounted to a custom jig with the ulnohumeral joint fixated in 90° of flexion. Supination and pronation were unrestricted. K-wires were placed in the distal radius, scaphoid, and metacarpals using fluoroscopic guidance to measure the total arc of rotation referenced to the ulnar ex-fix pin. Baseline measurements followed by sequential immobilization with well-molded STS, SAC, MC, and LAC were obtained with 1.25, 2.5, and 3.75 ft-lb of supination and pronation force directed through the metacarpal K-wire. Each condition was tested 3 times. Digital photographs were taken perpendicular to the ulnar axis to analyze the total arc of motion. Results: The most effective constructs from least to greatest allowed rotational arcs were LAC, MC, SAC, and STS. Above-elbow constructs (MC, LAC) demonstrated superior immobilization compared with below-elbow constructs (SAC) ( P < .001). Circumferential constructs (SAC, MC, LAC) were superior to the noncircumferential construct (STS) ( P < .001). There were no significant differences between the MC and LAC in all conditions tested. Conclusions: Both circumferential and proximally extended immobilization independently improved rotational control of the wrist. However, extending immobilization proximal to the epicondyles did not confer additional stability.

Background: The harmful effects of outdoor air pollution on stroke incidence are becoming increasingly recognised. We examined the impact of different air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, ozone, and SO2) on admission for all strokes in two Irish urban centres from 2013 to 2017. Methods: Using an ecological time series design with Poisson regression models, we analysed daily hospitalisation for all strokes and is­chaemic stroke by residence in Dublin or Cork, with air pollution level monitoring data with a lag of 0–2 days from exposure. Splines of temperature, relative humidity, day of the week, and time were included as confounders. Analysis was also performed across all four seasons. Data are presented as relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) per interquartile range (IQR) increase in each pollutant. Results: There was no significant association between all stroke admission and any individual air pollutant. On seasonal analysis, during winter in the larger urban centre (Dublin), we found an association between all stroke cases and an IQR increase in NO2 (RR 1.035, 95% CI: 1.003–1.069), PM10 (RR 1.032, 95% CI: 1.007–1.057), PM2.5 (RR 1.024, 95% CI: 1.011–1.039), and SO2 (RR 1.035, 95% CI: 1.001–1.071). There was no significant association found in the smaller urban area of Cork. On meta-analysis, there remained a significant association between NO2 (RR 1.013, 95% CI: 1.001–1.024) and PM2.5 (1.009, 95% CI 1.004–1.014) per IQR increase in each. Discussion: Short-term air pollution in winter was found to be associated with hospitalisation for all strokes in a large urban centre in Ireland. As Ireland has relatively low air pollution internationally, this highlights the need to introduce policy changes to reduce air pollution in all countries.

The hybrid method upon combining rolling circle amplification and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RCA-LAMP) was developed to quantify very small amount of different type of RNAs, such as miRNAs. RCA-LAMP can help detect short sequences through padlock probe (PLP) circularization and exhibit powerful DNA amplification. However, one of the factors that determines the detection limit of RCA-LAMP is non-specific amplification. In this study, we improved the accuracy of RCA-LAMP through applying RNase H-dependent PCR (rhPCR) technology. In this method, the non-specific amplification was suppressed by using the rh primer, which is designed through blocking the modification at the 3′end to stop DNA polymerase reaction and replacing the 6th DNA molecule from the end with RNA using RNase H2 enzyme. Traditional RCA-LAMP amplified the non-specific amplicons from linear PLP without a targeting reaction, while RCA-LAMP with rh primer and RNase H2 suppressed the non-specific amplification. Conversely, we identified the risk posed upon conducting PLP cyclization reaction using Splint R ligase in the RNA-targeting step that occurred even in the RNA-negative condition, which is another factor determining the detection limit of RCA-LAMP. Therefore, this study contributes in improving the accuracy of RNA quantification using RCA-LAMP.

Short periods of training in motor tasks can increase motor cortical excitability. This study investigated whether changes also occur at a subcortical level. Subjects trained in ballistic finger abduction or visuomotor tracking. The right index finger rotated around the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint in a splint. Surface EMG was recorded from the first dorsal interosseous. Transcranial magnetic stimulation over the back of the head (double-cone coil) elicited cervicomedullary motor evoked potentials (CMEPs) by stimulation of corticospinal axons. Responses were recorded from the relaxed muscle before, between, and after two sets of training. In study 1 ( n = 7), training comprised two sets of 150 maximal finger abductions. Feedback of acceleration was provided. With training, acceleration increased significantly. CMEPs increased to 248 ± 152% (± SD) of baseline immediately after training ( P = 0.007) but returned to control level (155 ± 141%) 10 min later. In study 2 ( n = 7), subjects matched MCP joint angle to a target path on a computer screen. After ∼30 min of training, tracking improved as shown by increased correlation between joint angle and the target pathway, reduced time lag, and reduced EMGrms. However, CMEPs remained unchanged. These results show that transmission through the corticospinal pathway at a spinal level increased after repeated ballistic movements but not after training in a visuomotor task. Thus, changes at a spinal level may contribute to improved performance in some motor tasks.

Abstract Coagulation Factor V (FV) is present in plasma as an inactive procofactor. Following B-domain removal, the active cofactor FVa, enhances the catalytic efficiency of FXa by several orders of magnitude. Previous findings have established that evolutionary conserved regions within the B-domain play a key role in keeping FV in an inactive state by, in part, concealing FXa binding site(s). These regions of the FV B-domain consist of basic and acidic elements and define the minimal sequence necessary to maintain FV as a procofactor. Recent data have shown that removal of either one of these elements results in FVa-like activity and that B-domain fragments spanning the basic region act in-trans to suppress the activity of FV variants bearing only the acidic region (J Biol Chem. 287:26342-51, 2012, J Biol Chem. 288:30151-60, 2013). Physiologically, forms of FV that are missing a basic region but harbor an acidic region are released by activated platelets. Interestingly, another form of FV that only harbors an acidic region has been described. The variant FV-East Texas results in an alternatively spliced form of FV that has most of the B-domain removed but retains the acidic region (FV-short; J Clin. Invest. 123:3777-87; 2013). Together these forms of FV should be constitutively active. However, it is possible that physiologic ligands that mimic the basic region could inhibit their activity. Previous studies have identified tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPIα) as one of these potential ligands. Remarkably, the C-terminal segment of TFPIα shares substantial sequence homology with the FV basic region and binds forms of FV that only harbor the acidic region (PNAS, 110:17838-43; 2013). While there are several remaining unanswered questions, the FV(a)-TFPIα interaction has the potential to fundamentally alter our understanding of cofactor regulation at the site of injury. In order to investigate this fascinating prospect, we expressed and purified recombinant FV-short and a protein fragment containing the basic region of TFPIα. As anticipated, FV-short exhibited FVa-like activity, however this cofactor function in the prothrombinase complex was greatly impaired in the presence of TFPIα basic region. Similar results were obtained in clotting assays, supporting the idea of a trans-acting function of TFPIα on FV derivatives missing the acidic region. To better understand the mechanism of interaction, direct binding measurements by fluorescence were established using a labeled TFPIα basic region fragment. Changes in anisotropy were monitored as a function of the FV-short concentration. Analysis of the data revealed a high affinity interaction between FV-short and the TFPIα basic region (Kd = 3.42 ± 0.39 nM). Based on this high affinity, a proportion of FV-short should be largely bound to TFPIα; an observations consistent with the FV-East Texas family. Thus instead of FV-short being constitutively active, when bound to TFPIα it would effectively revert to a procofactor state. To investigate the implications of this circulating complex on function, we next evaluated whether FV-short could be normally converted to FVa by thrombin (IIa) through proteolysis at Arg709 and Arg1545 (Arg1018 is missing). Surprisingly, in the presence of TFPIα basic region, cleavage at Arg1545 was significantly delayed suggesting TFPIα modulates both the activity of FV and its interaction with IIa. TFPIα could either directly and/or allosterically interfere with IIa binding sites on FV. Based on previous unpublished work in our lab, we believe that the basic region of TFPIα provides a trans-acting sequence that causes FV-short to revert to a procofactor state both functionally and structurally. The absence of Arg1018 abrogates proteolysis necessary to alleviate these structural constraints, hence resulting in delayed cleavage at Arg1545. This study shows direct evidence of a high affinity interaction between the TFPIα c-terminal basic region and the naturally-occurring truncated form of FV responsible for the East Texas bleeding disorder. We now have unique tools to investigate the role of full length TPFIα not only in this interesting case, but also in relation to partially activated forms of FV released from platelets. This work sets the stage to achieve a better understanding of the early hemostatic events occurring at the site of injury, providing the bases for potential therapeutic regulation. Disclosures Camire: Pfizer: Consultancy, Patents & Royalties, Research Funding.

The current increase in government spending, caused by COVID epidemics and the increasing visibility of leftist political groups in public media, emphasizes the short-term need for sustainable income taxation. In the long run, rising inequality worldwide makes taxation of high-incomes indispensable for sustainable economic development. This paper empirically studies public attitudes on taxation related to income, preferences for solidarity vs. individual performance, and reliance on the state in the Czech Republic. In this Eastern European country, the dichotomies above bear even more importance due to the communist past. We apply the hierarchical regression analysis with smoothing spline transformations to a representative sample of public opinion data (N = 1104, aged 15–95 years, M ± SD: 47.74 ± 17.39; 51.2% women, 18.50% with higher education). The results suggest that income was associated with the perception that taxes for the rich are inadequately high but was unrelated to perceptions of tax adequacy for average and poor groups of respondents. Higher solidarity and reliance on the state were associated with the desire to increase taxation of high-incomes and decrease taxation of poor income groups. Surprisingly, the reliance on the state was associated with a desire to decrease taxation of average-incomes and total taxation while increasing tax progressivity. Preferences for solidarity were associated with higher preferred overall taxation and more tax progressivity. The explanatory powers of preferences for solidarity and reliance on the state in explaining the variation in tax preferences are at least equivalent and, in some cases, twice as large as the explanatory power of the age, gender, education, and income altogether. The results above present new mechanisms that can contribute to sustainable endogenous economic development.

Abstract HOXB4 is considered to be the only HOX gene that promotes self-renewal of hematopoietic stem cells without causing leukemia in mouse models. We investigated whether HOXB4 overexpression has similar effects in a clinically relevant canine model. A competitive repopulation assay was performed in three dogs in which CD34+ cells were transduced with MSCV-based gammaretroviral vectors expressing HOXB4GFP or control YFP. We observed up to 4-fold higher marking levels in granulocytes for the HOXB4GFP arm relative to the control 1 month after transplantation. The marking levels eventually decreased in all three animals and two dogs (G374, G450) have now been followed for more than 18 months. In G374, the marking levels for both arms stabilized at ~2% after 2 months post-transplantation. Between 14 and 20 months post-transplantation, the HOXB4GFP marking steadily increased to >95%, while YFP marking decreased to 0.1%. G374 was euthanized 21 months after transplantation due to declining health. Flow cytometry analysis showed that ~50% of BM cells expressed the monocyte marker CD14 and ~8% expressed the granulocyte marker DM5, all of which also expressed HOXB4GFP. CD3 and CD21 were expressed in 2% and 1% of cells, respectively, but these cells did not express HOXB4GFP. Bone marrow necropsy demonstrated significantly increased numbers of blast cells, consistent with a myelomonocytic leukemia. Southern blot analyses of G374 BM and PB samples identified 2 bands with the same intensity, suggesting a single dominant clone with 2 integration sites. LAM-PCR analysis identified two vector proviruses integrated ~100 kb upstream of c-myb, and into intron 3 of PRDM16. Western blot analysis confirmed expression of HOXB4 in cultured G374 BM cells but the levels of c-myb in these cells were not different from control HOXB4-transduced BM cells as determined by RT-PCR. The expression of PRDM16 exons 1–3 was not detected in cells from dog G374 or in control cells, however, PRDM16 exon 4 was expressed in G374 cells but not in control cells. RT-PCR using primers located in the MSCV LTR and in PRDM16 exon 4 identified a unique band and sequencing of this product showed that the 5′ LTR was spliced with PRDM16 exon 4 creating a short PRDM16 isoform which has been observed in human leukemias. These data suggest that HOXB4 overexpression in collaboration with integration-induced activation of PRDM16 led to the leukemia. Southern blot and SYBR green Q-PCR showed that the leukemic clone contributed to ~20% hematopoiesis in BM 6 months after transplantation, and gradually decreased to ~2% before final expansion of the clone, suggesting accumulation of other mutation(s) were required for overt leukemia. Karyotype analysis of BM cells has not shown any major abnormalities but we are currently performing analyses to search for minor abnormalities such as gene duplications and deletions. Recently, HOXB4GFP marking in dog G450 PB and BM has increased to 20% and 80%, respectively, while YFP marking has decreased to ~1%. Southern blot analysis has identified a single dominant band and a BM biopsy showed substantially increased blast cells. Of note, we have not observed leukemia in >30 dogs followed long term that received transduced cells without HOXB4. In summary, HOXB4 overexpression together with insertional mutagenesis by virus integration has induced leukemia in the canine model, demonstrating the utility of this model to study the safety of gene therapy.

The research presented in this manuscript focuses on the development of an LS-DYNA finite element model to predict the dynamic shear strength of short riveted lap-spliced specimens. Using data collected from experimental testing at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), a finite element model was developed to replicate the behavior of A502 Grade short riveted connections under quasi-static loading. Subsequent analyses used published Cowper-Symonds constitutive model coefficients to replicate the behavior of these connections under dynamic loading. Computed results were then compared with available test data from ERDC. Given the challenges involved in creating physical models with riveted connections and the abundance of historical bridges constructed with rivets, the developed finite element analysis engineering solution can serve as a critical tool for researchers interested in predicting the response of short riveted connections to dynamic loading and those interested in developing strategies to mitigate against this loading.

A cable splice failure in one of the cables associated with one of the 6 MVAR capacitor banks in an electrical substation at a manufacturing plant in South America caused a fire in the 88/4.16kV electrical substation. The fire caused the plant to stop production for approximately 29 days while temporary repairs were made. Operating two shifts per day/seven days a week, and stopping for maintenance once a year, the manufacturing production generates approximately $750,000 in revenue per day. The cable splice failure caused an electrical short circuit in the substation 4.16kV distribution system for approximately 120 seconds. The cable splice failure ignited the adjacent cables in the cable tray, causing damage to various sections of the 4.16kV cables, three 88kV disconnect switches, and four 88kV – 4.16kV transformers. The cable fire in the electrical substation resulted in property damages and business interruption losses with an estimated value of $20 million. The four 88kV – 4.16kV transformers that were in service at the time of the substation fire were exposed to voltage transients and electromagnetic forces produced by the short-circuit currents for approximately120 seconds.

Abstract Background The associations between meteorological factors and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been discussed globally; however, because of short study periods, the lack of considering lagged effects, and different study areas, results from the literature were diverse and even contradictory. Objective The primary purpose of this study is to conduct more reliable research to evaluate the lagged meteorological impacts on COVID-19 incidence by considering a relatively long study period and diversified high-risk areas in the United States. Methods This study adopted the distributed lagged nonlinear model with a spatial function to analyze COVID-19 incidence predicted by multiple meteorological measures from March to October of 2020 across 203 high-risk counties in the United States. The estimated spatial function was further smoothed within the entire continental United States by the biharmonic spline interpolation. Results Our findings suggest that the maximum temperature, minimum relative humidity, and precipitation were the best meteorological predictors. Most significantly positive associations were found from 3 to 11 lagged days in lower levels of each selected meteorological factor. In particular, a significantly positive association appeared in minimum relative humidity higher than 88.36% at 5-day lag. The spatial analysis also shows excessive risks in the north-central United States. Significance The research findings can contribute to the implementation of early warning surveillance of COVID-19 by using weather forecasting for up to two weeks in high-risk counties.

The TRP superfamily of channels (nomenclature as agreed by NC-IUPHAR [145, 915]), whose founder member is the Drosophila Trp channel, exists in mammals as six families; TRPC, TRPM, TRPV, TRPA, TRPP and TRPML based on amino acid homologies. TRP subunits contain six putative transmembrane domains and assemble as homo- or hetero-tetramers to form cation selective channels with diverse modes of activation and varied permeation properties (reviewed by [630]). Established, or potential, physiological functions of the individual members of the TRP families are discussed in detail in the recommended reviews and in a number of books [344, 589, 979, 216]. The established, or potential, involvement of TRP channels in disease is reviewed in [384, 588] and [591], together with a special edition of Biochemica et Biophysica Acta on the subject [588]. Additional disease related reviews, for pain [542], stroke [967], sensation and inflammation [843], itch [109], and airway disease [261, 896], are available. The pharmacology of most TRP channels has been advanced in recent years. Broad spectrum agents are listed in the tables along with more selective, or recently recognised, ligands that are flagged by the inclusion of a primary reference. See Rubaiy (2019) for a review of pharmacological tools for TRPC1/C4/C5 channels [692]. Most TRP channels are regulated by phosphoinostides such as PtIns(4,5)P2 although the effects reported are often complex, occasionally contradictory, and likely to be dependent upon experimental conditions, such as intracellular ATP levels (reviewed by [862, 592, 689]). Such regulation is generally not included in the tables.When thermosensitivity is mentioned, it refers specifically to a high Q10 of gating, often in the range of 10-30, but does not necessarily imply that the channel's function is to act as a 'hot' or 'cold' sensor. In general, the search for TRP activators has led to many claims for temperature sensing, mechanosensation, and lipid sensing. All proteins are of course sensitive to energies of binding, mechanical force, and temperature, but the issue is whether the proposed input is within a physiologically relevant range resulting in a response. TRPA (ankyrin) familyTRPA1 is the sole mammalian member of this group (reviewed by [246]). TRPA1 activation of sensory neurons contribute to nociception [356, 763, 516]. Pungent chemicals such as mustard oil (AITC), allicin, and cinnamaldehyde activate TRPA1 by modification of free thiol groups of cysteine side chains, especially those located in its amino terminus [491, 47, 311, 493]. Alkenals with α, β-unsaturated bonds, such as propenal (acrolein), butenal (crotylaldehyde), and 2-pentenal can react with free thiols via Michael addition and can activate TRPA1. However, potency appears to weaken as carbon chain length increases [21, 47]. Covalent modification leads to sustained activation of TRPA1. Chemicals including carvacrol, menthol, and local anesthetics reversibly activate TRPA1 by non-covalent binding [364, 438, 923, 922]. TRPA1 is not mechanosensitive under physiological conditions, but can be activated by cold temperatures [365, 175]. The electron cryo-EM structure of TRPA1 [639] indicates that it is a 6-TM homotetramer. Each subunit of the channel contains two short ‘pore helices’ pointing into the ion selectivity filter, which is big enough to allow permeation of partially hydrated Ca2+ ions. TRPC (canonical) familyMembers of the TRPC subfamily (reviewed by [239, 673, 14, 4, 79, 382, 638, 55]) fall into the subgroups outlined below. TRPC2 is a pseudogene in humans. It is generally accepted that all TRPC channels are activated downstream of Gq/11-coupled receptors, or receptor tyrosine kinases (reviewed by [661, 814, 915]). A comprehensive listing of G-protein coupled receptors that activate TRPC channels is given in [4]. Hetero-oligomeric complexes of TRPC channels and their association with proteins to form signalling complexes are detailed in [14] and [383]. TRPC channels have frequently been proposed to act as store-operated channels (SOCs) (or compenents of mulimeric complexes that form SOCs), activated by depletion of intracellular calcium stores (reviewed by [640, 14, 665, 703, 954, 132, 626, 51, 133]). However, the weight of the evidence is that they are not directly gated by conventional store-operated mechanisms, as established for Stim-gated Orai channels. TRPC channels are not mechanically gated in physiologically relevant ranges of force. All members of the TRPC family are blocked by 2-APB and SKF96365 [295, 294]. Activation of TRPC channels by lipids is discussed by [55]. Important progress has been recently made in TRPC pharmacology [692, 529, 372, 87]. TRPC channels regulate a variety of physiological functions and are implicated in many human diseases [248, 56, 759, 879]. TRPC1/C4/C5 subgroup TRPC1 alone may not form a functional ion channel [191]. TRPC4/C5 may be distinguished from other TRP channels by their potentiation by micromolar concentrations of La3+. TRPC2 is a pseudogene in humans, but in other mammals appears to be an ion channel localized to microvilli of the vomeronasal organ. It is required for normal sexual behavior in response to pheromones in mice. It may also function in the main olfactory epithelia in mice [951, 625, 624, 952, 462, 988, 947].TRPC3/C6/C7 subgroup All members are activated by diacylglycerol independent of protein kinase C stimulation [295].TRPM (melastatin) familyMembers of the TRPM subfamily (reviewed by [230, 294, 640, 978]) fall into the five subgroups outlined below. TRPM1/M3 subgroupIn darkness, glutamate released by the photoreceptors and ON-bipolar cells binds to the metabotropic glutamate receptor 6 , leading to activation of Go . This results in the closure of TRPM1. When the photoreceptors are stimulated by light, glutamate release is reduced, and TRPM1 channels are more active, resulting in cell membrane depolarization. Human TRPM1 mutations are associated with congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB), whose patients lack rod function. TRPM1 is also found melanocytes. Isoforms of TRPM1 may present in melanocytes, melanoma, brain, and retina. In melanoma cells, TRPM1 is prevalent in highly dynamic intracellular vesicular structures [341, 609]. TRPM3 (reviewed by [615]) exists as multiple splice variants which differ significantly in their biophysical properties. TRPM3 is expressed in somatosensory neurons and may be important in development of heat hyperalgesia during inflammation (see review [803]). TRPM3 is frequently coexpressed with TRPA1 and TRPV1 in these neurons. TRPM3 is expressed in pancreatic beta cells as well as brain, pituitary gland, eye, kidney, and adipose tissue [614, 802]. TRPM3 may contribute to the detection of noxious heat [870].TRPM2TRPM2 is activated under conditions of oxidative stress (respiratory burst of phagocytic cells) and ischemic conditions. However, the direct activators are ADPR(P) and calcium. As for many ion channels, PIP2 must also be present (reviewed by [935]). Numerous splice variants of TRPM2 exist which differ in their activation mechanisms [200]. The C-terminal domain contains a TRP motif, a coiled-coil region, and an enzymatic NUDT9 homologous domain. TRPM2 appears not to be activated by NAD, NAAD, or NAADP, but is directly activated by ADPRP (adenosine-5'-O-disphosphoribose phosphate) [827]. TRPM2 is involved in warmth sensation [724], and contributes to neurological diseases [61]. Recent study shows that 2'-deoxy-ADPR is an endogenous TRPM2 superagonist [231]. TRPM4/5 subgroupTRPM4 and TRPM5 have the distinction within all TRP channels of being impermeable to Ca2+ [915]. A splice variant of TRPM4 (i.e.TRPM4b) and TRPM5 are molecular candidates for endogenous calcium-activated cation (CAN) channels [278]. TRPM4 is active in the late phase of repolarization of the cardiac ventricular action potential. TRPM4 deletion or knockout enhances beta adrenergic-mediated inotropy [507]. Mutations are associated with conduction defects [347, 507, 753]. TRPM4 has been shown to be an important regulator of Ca2+ entry in to mast cells [847] and dendritic cell migration [39]. TRPM5 in taste receptor cells of the tongue appears essential for the transduction of sweet, amino acid and bitter stimuli [460] TRPM5 contributes to the slow afterdepolarization of layer 5 neurons in mouse prefrontal cortex [439]. Both TRPM4 and TRPM5 are required transduction of taste stimuli [206].TRPM6/7 subgroupTRPM6 and 7 combine channel and enzymatic activities (‘chanzymes’). These channels have the unusual property of permeation by divalent (Ca2+, Mg2+, Zn2+) and monovalent cations, high single channel conductances, but overall extremely small inward conductance when expressed to the plasma membrane. They are inhibited by internal Mg2+ at ~0.6 mM, around the free level of Mg2+ in cells. Whether they contribute to Mg2+ homeostasis is a contentious issue. When either gene is deleted in mice, the result is embryonic lethality. The C-terminal kinase region is cleaved under unknown stimuli, and the kinase phosphorylates nuclear histones. TRPM7 is responsible for oxidant- induced Zn2+ release from intracellular vesicles [3] and contributes to intestinal mineral absorption essential for postnatal survival [532]. TRPM8Is a channel activated by cooling and pharmacological agents evoking a ‘cool’ sensation and participates in the thermosensation of cold temperatures [50, 147, 186] reviewed by [864, 481, 391, 556]. TRPML (mucolipin) familyThe TRPML family [676, 964, 670, 926, 156] consists of three mammalian members (TRPML1-3). TRPML channels are probably restricted to intracellular vesicles and mutations in the gene (MCOLN1) encoding TRPML1 (mucolipin-1) cause the neurodegenerative disorder mucolipidosis type IV (MLIV) in man. TRPML1 is a cation selective ion channel that is important for sorting/transport of endosomes in the late endocytotic pathway and specifically, fission from late endosome-lysosome hybrid vesicles and lysosomal exocytosis [704]. TRPML2 and TRPML3 show increased channel activity in low extracellular sodium and are activated by similar small molecules [270]. A naturally occurring gain of function mutation in TRPML3 (i.e. A419P) results in the varitint waddler (Va) mouse phenotype (reviewed by [676, 593]). TRPP (polycystin) familyThe TRPP family (reviewed by [179, 177, 252, 905, 320]) or PKD2 family is comprised of PKD2 (PC2), PKD2L1 (PC2L1), PKD2L2 (PC2L2), which have been renamed TRPP1, TRPP2 and TRPP3, respectively [915]. It should also be noted that the nomenclature of PC2 was TRPP2 in old literature. However, PC2 has been uniformed to be called TRPP2 [293]. PKD2 family channels are clearly distinct from the PKD1 family, whose function is unknown. PKD1 and PKD2 form a hetero-oligomeric complex with a 1:3 ratio. [775]. Although still being sorted out, TRPP family members appear to be 6TM spanning nonselective cation channels. TRPV (vanilloid) familyMembers of the TRPV family (reviewed by [849]) can broadly be divided into the non-selective cation channels, TRPV1-4 and the more calcium selective channels TRPV5 and TRPV6.TRPV1-V4 subfamilyTRPV1 is involved in the development of thermal hyperalgesia following inflammation and may contribute to the detection of noxius heat (reviewed by [660, 756, 786]). Numerous splice variants of TRPV1 have been described, some of which modulate the activity of TRPV1, or act in a dominant negative manner when co-expressed with TRPV1 [722]. The pharmacology of TRPV1 channels is discussed in detail in [280] and [868]. TRPV2 is probably not a thermosensor in man [635], but has recently been implicated in innate immunity [469]. TRPV3 and TRPV4 are both thermosensitive. There are claims that TRPV4 is also mechanosensitive, but this has not been established to be within a physiological range in a native environment [106, 454].TRPV5/V6 subfamily TRPV5 and TRPV6 are highly expressed in placenta, bone, and kidney. Under physiological conditions, TRPV5 and TRPV6 are calcium selective channels involved in the absorption and reabsorption of calcium across intestinal and kidney tubule epithelia (reviewed by [901, 168, 558, 227]).

One of the greatest joys in watching Foxtel is to see all the crazy people who run talk shows. Judgement, ridicule and generalisations slip from their tongues like overcooked lamb off a bone. From Oprah to Rikki, from Jerry to Mother Love, the posterior of pop culture claims a world-wide audience. Recently, a new talk diva was added to the pay television stable. Dr Laura Schlessinger, the Mother of Morals, prowls the soundstage. attacking 'selfish acts' such as divorce, de facto relationships and voting Democrat. On April 11, 2001, a show aired in Australia that added a new demon to the decadence of the age. Dr Laura had been told that a disgusting video clip, called 'Rock DJ', had been televised at 2:30pm on MTV. Children could have been watching. The footage that so troubled our doyenne of daytime featured the British performer Robbie Williams not only stripping in front of disinterested women, but then removing skin, muscle and tissue in a desperate attempt to claim their gaze. This was too much for Dr Laura. She was horrified: her strident tone became piercing. She screeched, "this is si-ee-ck." . My paper is drawn to this sick masculinity, not to judge - but to laugh and theorise. Robbie Williams, the deity of levity, holds a pivotal role in theorising the contemporary 'crisis' of manhood. To paraphrase Austin Powers, Williams returned the ger to singer. But Williams also triumphed in a captivatingly original way. He is one of the few members of a boy band who created a successful solo career without regurgitating the middle of the road mantras of boys, girls, love, loss and whining about it. Williams' journey through post-war popular music, encompassing influences from both Sinatra and Sonique, forms a functional collage, rather than patchwork, of masculinity. He has been prepared to not only age in public, but to discuss the crevices and cracks in the facade. He strips, smokes, plays football, wears interesting underwear and drinks too much. My short paper trails behind this combustible masculinity, focussing on his sorties with both masculine modalities and the rock discourse. My words attack the gap between text and readership, beat and ear, music and men. The aim is to reveal how this 'sick masculinity' problematises the conservative rendering of men's crisis. Come follow me I'm an honorary Sean Connery, born '74 There's only one of me … Press be asking do I care for sodomy I don't know, yeah, probably I've been looking for serial monogamy Not some bird that looks like Billy Connolly But for now I'm down for ornithology Grab your binoculars, come follow me. 'Kids,' Robbie Williams Robbie Williams is a man for our age. Between dating supermodels and Geri 'Lost Spice' Halliwell [1], he has time to "love … his mum and a pint," (Ansen 85) but also subvert the Oasis cock(rock)tail by frocking up for a television appearance. Williams is important to theories of masculine representation. As a masculinity to think with, he creates popular culture with a history. In an era where Madonna practices yoga and wears cowboy boots, it is no surprise that by June 2000, Robbie Williams was voted the world's sexist man [2]. A few months later, in the October edition of Vogue, he posed in a British flag bikini. It is reassuring in an era where a 12 year old boy states that "You aren't a man until you shoot at something," (Issac in Mendel 19) that positive male role models exist who are prepared to both wear a frock and strip on national television. Reading Robbie Williams is like dipping into the most convincing but draining of intellectual texts. He is masculinity in motion, conveying foreignness, transgression and corruption, bartering in the polymorphous economies of sex, colonialism, race, gender and nation. His career has spanned the boy bands, try-hard rock, video star and hybrid pop performer. There are obvious resonances between the changes to Williams and alterations in masculinity. In 1988, Suzanne Moore described (the artist still known as) Prince as "the pimp of postmodernism." (165-166) Over a decade later, the simulacra has a new tour guide. Williams revels in the potency of representation. He rarely sings about love or romance, as was his sonic fodder in Take That. Instead, his performance is fixated on becoming a better man, glancing an analytical eye over other modes of masculinity. Notions of masculine crisis and sickness have punctuated this era. Men's studies is a boom area of cultural studies, dislodging the assumed structures of popular culture [3]. William Pollack's Real Boys has created a culture of changing expectations for men. The greater question arising from his concerns is why these problems, traumas and difficulties are emerging in our present. Pollack's argument is that boys and young men invest energy and time "disguising their deepest and most vulnerable feelings." (15) This masking is difficult to discern within dance and popular music. Through lyrics and dancing, videos and choreography, masculinity is revealed as convoluted, complex and fragmented. While rock music is legitimised by dominant ideologies, marginalised groups frequently use disempowered genres - like country, dance and rap genres - to present oppositional messages. These competing representations expose seamless interpretations of competent masculinity. Particular skills are necessary to rip the metaphoric pacifier out of the masculine mouth of popular culture. Patriarchal pop revels in the paradoxes of everyday life. Frequently these are nostalgic visions, which Kimmel described as a "retreat to a bygone era." (87) It is the recognition of a shared, simpler past that provides reinforcement to heteronormativity. Williams, as a gaffer tape masculinity, pulls apart the gaps and crevices in representation. Theorists must open the interpretative space encircling popular culture, disrupting normalising criteria. Multiple nodes of assessment allow a ranking of competent masculinity. From sport to business, drinking to sex, masculinity is transformed into a wired site of ranking, judgement and determination. Popular music swims in the spectacle of maleness. From David Lee Roth's skied splits to Eminem's beanie, young men are interpellated as subjects in patriarchy. Robbie Williams is a history lesson in post war masculinity. This nostalgia is conservative in nature. The ironic pastiche within his music videos features motor racing, heavy metal and Bond films. 'Rock DJ', the 'sick text' that vexed Doctor Laura, is Williams' most elaborate video. Set in a rollerdrome with female skaters encircling a central podium, the object of fascination and fetish is a male stripper. This strip is different though, as it disrupts the power held by men in phallocentralism. After being confronted by Williams' naked body, the observing women are both bored and disappointed at the lack-lustre deployment of masculine genitalia. After this display, Williams appears embarrassed, confused and humiliated. As Buchbinder realised, "No actual penis could every really measure up to the imagined sexual potency and social or magical power of the phallus." (49) To render this banal experience of male nudity ridiculous, Williams then proceeds to remove skin and muscle. He finally becomes an object of attraction for the female DJ only in skeletal form. By 'going all the way,' the strip confirms the predictability of masculinity and the ordinariness of the male body. For literate listeners though, a higher level of connotation is revealed. The song itself is based on Barry White's melody for 'It's ecstasy (when you lay down next to me).' Such intertextuality accesses the meta-racist excesses of a licentious black male sexuality. A white boy dancer must deliver an impotent, but ironic, rendering of White's (love unlimited) orchestration of potent sexuality. Williams' iconography and soundtrack is refreshing, emerging from an era of "men who cling … tightly to their illusions." (Faludi 14) When the ideological drapery is cut away, the male body is a major disappointment. Masculinity is an anxious performance. Fascinatingly, this deconstructive video has been demeaned through its labelling as pornography [4]. Oddly, a man who is prepared to - literally - shave the skin of masculinity is rendered offensive. Men's studies, like feminism, has been defrocking masculinity for some time. Robinson for example, expressed little sympathy for "whiny men jumping on the victimisation bandwagon or playing cowboys and Indians at warrior weekends and beating drums in sweat lodges." (6) By grating men's identity back to the body, the link between surface and depth - or identity and self - is forged. 'Rock DJ' attacks the new subjectivities of the male body by not only generating self-surveillance, but humour through the removal of clothes, skin and muscle. He continues this play with the symbols of masculine performance throughout the album Sing when you're winning. Featuring soccer photographs of players, coaches and fans, closer inspection of the images reveal that Robbie Williams is actually every character, in every role. His live show also enfolds diverse performances. Singing a version of 'My Way,' with cigarette in tow, he remixes Frank Sinatra into a replaying and recutting of masculine fabric. He follows one dominating masculinity with another: the Bond-inspired 'Millennium.' Some say that we are players Some say that we are pawns But we've been making money Since the day we were born Robbie Williams is comfortably located in a long history of post-Sinatra popular music. He mocks the rock ethos by combining guitars and drums with a gleaming brass section, hailing the lounge act of Dean Martin, while also using rap and dance samples. Although carrying fifty year's of crooner baggage, the spicy scent of homosexuality has also danced around Robbie Williams' career. Much of this ideology can be traced back to the Take That years. As Gary Barlow and Jason Orange commented at the time, Jason: So the rumour is we're all gay now are we? Gary: Am I gay? I am? Why? Oh good. Just as long as we know. Howard: Does anyone think I'm gay? Jason: No, you're the only one people think is straight. Howard: Why aren't I gay? What's wrong with me? Jason: It's because you're such a fine figure of macho manhood.(Kadis 17) For those not literate in the Take That discourse, it should come as no surprise that Howard was the TT equivalent of The Beatle's Ringo Starr or Duran Duran's Andy Taylor. Every boy band requires the ugly, shy member to make the others appear taller and more attractive. The inference of this dialogue is that the other members of the group are simply too handsome to be heterosexual. This ambiguous sexuality has followed Williams into his solo career, becoming fodder for those lads too unappealing to be homosexual: Oasis. Born to be mild I seem to spend my life Just waiting for the chorus 'Cause the verse is never nearly Good enough Robbie Williams "Singing for the lonely." Robbie Williams accesses a bigger, brighter and bolder future than Britpop. While the Gallagher brothers emulate and worship the icons of 1960s British music - from the Beatles' haircuts to the Stones' psychedelia - Williams' songs, videos and persona are chattering in a broader cultural field. From Noel Cowardesque allusions to the ordinariness of pub culture, Williams is much more than a pretty-boy singer. He has become an icon of English masculinity, enclosing all the complexity that these two terms convey. Williams' solo success from 1999-2001 occurred at the time of much parochial concern that British acts were not performing well in the American charts. It is bemusing to read Billboard over this period. The obvious quality of Britney Spears is seen to dwarf the mediocrity of British performers. The calibre of Fatboy Slim, carrying a smiley backpack stuffed with reflexive dance culture, is neither admitted nor discussed. It is becoming increasing strange to monitor the excessive fame of Williams in Britain, Europe, Asia and the Pacific when compared to his patchy career in the United States. Even some American magazines are trying to grasp the disparity. The swaggering king of Britpop sold a relatively measly 600,000 copies of his U.S. debut album, The ego has landed … Maybe Americans didn't appreciate his songs about being famous. (Ask Dr. Hip 72) In the first few years of the 2000s, it has been difficult to discuss a unified Anglo-American musical formation. Divergent discursive frameworks have emerged through this British evasion. There is no longer an agreed centre to the musical model. Throughout 1990s Britain, blackness jutted out of dance floor mixes, from reggae to dub, jazz and jungle. Plied with the coldness of techno was an almost too hot hip hop. Yet both were alternate trajectories to Cool Britannia. London once more became swinging, or as Vanity Fair declared, "the nerve centre of pop's most cohesive scene since the Pacific Northwest grunge explosion of 1991." (Kamp 102) Through Britpop, the clock turned back to the 1960s, a simpler time before race became 'a problem' for the nation. An affiliation was made between a New Labour, formed by the 1997 British election, and the rebirth of a Swinging London [5]. This style-driven empire supposedly - again - made London the centre of the world. Britpop was itself a misnaming. It was a strong sense of Englishness that permeated the lyrics, iconography and accent. Englishness requires a Britishness to invoke a sense of bigness and greatness. The contradictions and excesses of Blur, Oasis and Pulp resonate in the gap between centre and periphery, imperial core and colonised other. Slicing through the arrogance and anger of the Gallaghers is a yearning for colonial simplicity, when the pink portions of the map were the stable subjects of geography lessons, rather than the volatile embodiment of postcolonial theory. Simon Gikandi argues that "the central moments of English cultural identity were driven by doubts and disputes about the perimeters of the values that defined Englishness." (x) The reason that Britpop could not 'make it big' in the United States is because it was recycling an exhausted colonial dreaming. Two old Englands were duelling for ascendancy: the Oasis-inflected Manchester working class fought Blur-inspired London art school chic. This insular understanding of difference had serious social and cultural consequences. The only possible representation of white, British youth was a tabloidisation of Oasis's behaviour through swearing, drug excess and violence. Simon Reynolds realised that by returning to the three minute pop tune that the milkman can whistle, reinvoking parochial England with no black people, Britpop has turned its back defiantly on the future. (members.aol.com/blissout/Britpop.html) Fortunately, another future had already happened. The beats per minute were pulsating with an urgent affirmation of change, hybridity and difference. Hip hop and techno mapped a careful cartography of race. While rock was colonialisation by other means, hip hop enacted a decolonial imperative. Electronic dance music provided a unique rendering of identity throughout the 1990s. It was a mode of musical communication that moved across national and linguistic boundaries, far beyond Britpop or Stateside rock music. While the Anglo American military alliance was matched and shadowed by postwar popular culture, Brit-pop signalled the end of this hegemonic formation. From this point, English pop and American rock would not sail as smoothly over the Atlantic. While 1995 was the year of Wonderwall, by 1996 the Britpop bubble corroded the faces of the Gallagher brothers. Oasis was unable to complete the American tour. Yet other cultural forces were already active. 1996 was also the year of Trainspotting, with "Born Slippy" being the soundtrack for a blissful journey under the radar. This was a cultural force that no longer required America as a reference point [6]. Robbie Williams was able to integrate the histories of Britpop and dance culture, instigating a complex dialogue between the two. Still, concern peppered music and entertainment journals that British performers were not accessing 'America.' As Sharon Swart stated Britpop acts, on the other hand, are finding it less easy to crack the U.S. market. The Spice Girls may have made some early headway, but fellow purveyors of pop, such as Robbie Williams, can't seem to get satisfaction from American fans. (35 British performers had numerous cultural forces working against them. Flat global sales, the strength of the sterling and the slow response to the new technological opportunities of DVD, all caused problems. While Britpop "cleaned house," (Boehm 89) it was uncertain which cultural formation would replace this colonising force. Because of the complex dialogues between the rock discourse and dance culture, time and space were unable to align into a unified market. American critics simply could not grasp Robbie Williams' history, motives or iconography. It's Robbie's world, we just buy tickets for it. Unless, of course you're American and you don't know jack about soccer. That's the first mistake Williams makes - if indeed one of his goals is to break big in the U.S. (and I can't believe someone so ambitious would settle for less.) … Americans, it seems, are most fascinated by British pop when it presents a mirror image of American pop. (Woods 98 There is little sense that an entirely different musical economy now circulates, where making it big in the United States is not the singular marker of credibility. Williams' demonstrates commitment to the international market, focussing on MTV Asia, MTV online, New Zealand and Australian audiences [7]. The Gallagher brothers spent much of the 1990s trying to be John Lennon. While Noel, at times, knocked at the door of rock legends through "Wonderwall," he snubbed Williams' penchant for pop glory, describing him as a "fat dancer." (Gallagher in Orecklin 101) Dancing should not be decried so summarily. It conveys subtle nodes of bodily knowledge about men, women, sex and desire. While men are validated for bodily movement through sport, women's dancing remains a performance of voyeuristic attention. Such a divide is highly repressive of men who dance, with gayness infiltrating the metaphoric masculine dancefloor [8]. Too often the binary of male and female is enmeshed into the divide of rock and dance. Actually, these categories slide elegantly over each other. The male pop singers are located in a significant semiotic space. Robbie Williams carries these contradictions and controversy. NO! Robbie didn't go on NME's cover in a 'desperate' attempt to seduce nine-year old knickerwetters … YES! He used to be teenybopper fodder. SO WHAT?! So did the Beatles the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, etc blah blah pseudohistoricalrockbollocks. NO! Making music that gurlz like is NOT a crime! (Wells 62) There remains an uncertainty in his performance of masculinity and at times, a deliberate ambivalence. He grafts subversiveness into a specific lineage of English pop music. The aim for critics of popular music is to find a way to create a rhythm of resistance, rather than melody of credible meanings. In summoning an archaeology of the archive, we begin to write a popular music history. Suzanne Moore asked why men should "be interested in a sexual politics based on the frightfully old-fashioned ideas of truth, identity and history?" (175) The reason is now obvious. Femininity is no longer alone on the simulacra. It is impossible to separate real men from the representations of masculinity that dress the corporeal form. Popular music is pivotal, not for collapsing the representation into the real, but for making the space between these states livable, and pleasurable. Like all semiotic sicknesses, the damaged, beaten and bandaged masculinity of contemporary music swaddles a healing pedagogic formation. Robbie Williams enables the writing of a critical history of post Anglo-American music [9]. Popular music captures such stories of place and identity. Significantly though, it also opens out spaces of knowing. There is an investment in rhythm that transgresses national histories of music. While Williams has produced albums, singles, video and endless newspaper copy, his most important revelations are volatile and ephemeral in their impact. He increases the popular cultural vocabulary of masculinity. [1] The fame of both Williams and Halliwell was at such a level that it was reported in the generally conservative, pages of Marketing. The piece was titled "Will Geri's fling lose its fizz?" Marketing, August 2000: 17. [2] For poll results, please refer to "Winners and Losers," Time International, Vol. 155, Issue 23, June 12, 2000, 9 [3] For a discussion of this growth in academic discourse on masculinity, please refer to Paul Smith's "Introduction," in P. Smith (ed.), Boys: Masculinity in contemporary culture. Colorado: Westview Press, 1996. [4] Steve Futterman described Rock DJ as the "least alluring porn video on MTV," in "The best and worst: honour roll," Entertainment Weekly 574-575 (December 22-December 29 2000): 146. [5] Michael Bracewell stated that "pop provides an unofficial cartography of its host culture, charting the national mood, marking the crossroads between the major social trends and the tunnels of the zeitgeist," in "Britpop's coming home, it's coming home." New Statesman .(February 21 1997): 36. [6] It is important to make my point clear. The 'America' that I am summoning here is a popular cultural formation, which possesses little connection with the territory, institution or defence initiatives of the United States. Simon Frith made this distinction clear, when he stated that "the question becomes whether 'America' can continue to be the mythical locale of popular culture as it has been through most of this century. As I've suggested, there are reasons now to suppose that 'America' itself, as a pop cultural myth, no longer bears much resemblance to the USA as a real place even in the myth." This statement was made in "Anglo-America and its discontents," Cultural Studies 5 1991: 268. [7] To observe the scale of attention paid to the Asian and Pacific markets, please refer to http://robbiewilliams.com/july13scroll.html, http://robbiewilliams.com/july19scroll.html and http://robbiewilliams.com/july24scroll.html, accessed on March 3, 2001 [8] At its most naïve, J. Michael Bailey and Michael Oberschneider asked, "Why are gay men so motivated to dance? One hypothesis is that gay men dance in order to be feminine. In other words, gay men dance because women do. An alternative hypothesis is that gay men and women share a common factor in their emotional make-up that makes dancing especially enjoyable," from "Sexual orientation in professional dance," Archives of Sexual Behaviour. 26.4 (August 1997). Such an interpretation is particularly ludicrous when considering the pre-rock and roll masculine dancing rituals in the jive, Charleston and jitterbug. Once more, the history of rock music is obscuring the history of dance both before the mid 1950s and after acid house. [9] Women, gay men and black communities through much of the twentieth century have used these popular spaces. For example, Lynne Segal, in Slow Motion. London: Virago, 1990, stated that "through dancing, athletic and erotic performance, but most powerfully through music, Black men could express something about the body and its physicality, about emotions and their cosmic reach, rarely found in white culture - least of all in white male culture,": 191 References Ansen, D., Giles, J., Kroll, J., Gates, D. and Schoemer, K. "What's a handsome lad to do?" Newsweek 133.19 (May 10, 1999): 85. "Ask Dr. Hip." U.S. News and World Report 129.16 (October 23, 2000): 72. Bailey, J. Michael., and Oberschneider, Michael. "Sexual orientation in professional dance." Archives of Sexual Behaviour. 26.4 (August 1997):expanded academic database [fulltext]. Boehm, E. "Pop will beat itself up." Variety 373.5 (December 14, 1998): 89. Bracewell, Michael. "Britpop's coming home, it's coming home." New Statesman.(February 21 1997): 36. Buchbinder, David. Performance Anxieties .Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1998. Faludi, Susan. Stiffed. London: Chatto and Windus, 1999. Frith, Simon. "Anglo-America and its discontents." Cultural Studies. 5 1991. Futterman, Steve. "The best and worst: honour roll." Entertainment Weekly, 574-575 (December 22-December 29 2000): 146. Gikandi, Simon. Maps of Englishness. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Kadis, Alex. Take That: In private. London: Virgin Books, 1994. Kamp, D. "London Swings! Again!" Vanity Fair ( March 1997): 102. Kimmel, Michael. Manhood in America. New York: The Free Press, 1996. Mendell, Adrienne. How men think. New York: Fawcett, 1996. Moore, Susan. "Getting a bit of the other - the pimps of postmodernism." In Rowena Chapman and Jonathan Rutherford (ed.) Male Order .London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988. 165-175. Orecklin, Michele. "People." Time. 155.10 (March 13, 2000): 101. Pollack, William. Real boys. Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 1999. Reynolds, Simon. members.aol.com/blissout/britpop.html. Accessed on April 15, 2001. Robinson, David. No less a man. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University, 1994. Segal, Lynne. Slow Motion. London: Virago, 1990. Smith, Paul. "Introduction" in P. Smith (ed.), Boys: Masculinity in contemporary culture. Colorado: Westview Press, 1996. Swart, S. "U.K. Showbiz" Variety.(December 11-17, 2000): 35. Sexton, Paul and Masson, Gordon. "Tips for Brits who want U.S. success" Billboard .(September 9 2000): 1. Wells, Steven. "Angst." NME.(November 21 1998): 62. "Will Geri's fling lose its fizz?" Marketing.(August 2000): 17. Woods, S. "Robbie Williams Sing when you're winning" The Village Voice. 45.52. (January 2, 2001): 98.

I first came across etoy in Linz, Austria in 1995. They turned up at Ars Electronica with their shaved heads, in their matching orange bomber jackets. They were not invited. The next year they would not have to crash the party. In 1996 they were awarded Arts Electronica’s prestigious Golden Nica for web art, and were on their way to fame and bitterness – the just rewards for their art of self-regard. As founding member Agent.ZAI says: “All of us were extremely greedy – for excitement, for drugs, for success.” (Wishart & Boschler: 16) The etoy story starts on the fringes of the squatters’ movement in Zurich. Disenchanted with the hard left rhetorics that permeate the movement in the 1980s, a small group look for another way of existing within a commodified world, without the fantasy of an ‘outside’ from which to critique it. What Antonio Negri and friends call the ‘real subsumption’ of life under the rule of commodification is something etoy grasps intuitively. The group would draw on a number of sources: David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, the Manchester rave scene, European Amiga art, rumors of the historic avant gardes from Dada to Fluxus. They came together in 1994, at a meeting in the Swiss resort town of Weggis on Lake Lucerne. While the staging of the founding meeting looks like a rerun of the origins of the Situationist International, the wording of the invitation might suggest the founding of a pop music boy band: “fun, money and the new world?” One of the – many – stories about the origins of the name Dada has it being chosen at random from a bilingual dictionary. The name etoy, in an update on that procedure, was spat out by a computer program designed to make four letter words at random. Ironically, both Dada and etoy, so casually chosen, would inspire furious struggles over the ownership of these chancey 4-bit words. The group decided to make money by servicing the growing rave scene. Being based in Vienna and Zurich, the group needed a way to communicate, and chose to use the internet. This was a far from obvious thing to do in 1994. Connections were slow and unreliable. Sometimes it was easier to tape a hard drive full of clubland graphics to the underside of a seat on the express train from Zurich to Vienna and simply email instructions to meet the train and retrieve it. The web was a primitive instrument in 1995 when etoy built its first website. They launched it with a party called etoy.FASTLANE, an optimistic title when the web was anything but. Coco, a transsexual model and tabloid sensation, sang a Japanese song while suspended in the air. She brought media interest, and was anointed etoy’s lifestyle angel. As Wishart and Bochsler write, “it was as if the Seven Dwarfs had discovered their Snow White.” (Wishart & Boschler: 33) The launch didn’t lead to much in the way of a music deal or television exposure. The old media were not so keen to validate the etoy dream of lifting themselves into fame and fortune by their bootstraps. And so etoy decided to be stars of the new media. The slogan was suitably revised: “etoy: the pop star is the pilot is the coder is the designer is the architect is the manager is the system is etoy.” (Wishart & Boschler: 34) The etoy boys were more than net.artists, they were artists of the brand. The brand was achieving a new prominence in the mid-90s. (Klein: 35) This was a time when capitalism was hollowing itself out in the overdeveloped world, shedding parts of its manufacturing base. Control of the circuits of commodification would rest less on the ownership of the means of production and more on maintaining a monopoly on the flows of information. The leading edge of the ruling class was becoming self-consciously vectoral. It controlled the flow of information about what to produce – the details of design, the underlying patents. It controlled the flows of information about what is produced – the brands and logos, the slogans and images. The capitalist class is supplanted by a vectoral class, controlling the commodity circuit through the vectors of information. (Wark) The genius of etoy was to grasp the aesthetic dimension of this new stage of commodification. The etoy boys styled themselves not so much as a parody of corporate branding and management groupthink, but as logical extension of it. They adopted matching uniforms and called themselves agents. In the dada-punk-hiphop tradition, they launched themselves on the world as brand new, self-created, self-named subjects: Agents Zai, Brainhard, Gramazio, Kubli, Esposto, Udatny and Goldstein. The etoy.com website was registered in 1995 with Network Solutions for a $100 fee. The homepage for this etoy.TANKSYSTEM was designed like a flow chart. As Gramazio says: “We wanted to create an environment with surreal content, to build a parallel world and put the content of this world into tanks.” (Wishart & Boschler: 51) One tank was a cybermotel, with Coco the first guest. Another tank showed you your IP number, with a big-brother eye looking on. A supermarket tank offered sunglasses and laughing gas for sale, but which may or may not be delivered. The underground tank included hardcore photos of a sensationalist kind. A picture of the Federal Building in Oklamoma City after the bombing was captioned in deadpan post-situ style “such work needs a lot of training.” (Wishart & Boschler: 52) The etoy agents were by now thoroughly invested in the etoy brand and the constellation of images they had built around it, on their website. Their slogan became “etoy: leaving reality behind.” (Wishart & Boschler: 53) They were not the first artists fascinated by commodification. It was Warhol who said “good art is good business.”(Warhol ) But etoy reversed the equation: good business is good art. And good business, in this vectoral age, is in its most desirable form an essentially conceptual matter of creating a brand at the center of a constellation of signifiers. Late in 1995, etoy held another group meeting, at the Zurich youth center Dynamo. The problem was that while they had build a hardcore website, nobody was visiting it. Agents Gooldstein and Udatny thought that there might be a way of using the new search engines to steer visitors to the site. Zai and Brainhard helped secure a place at the Vienna Academy of Applied Arts where Udatny could use the computer lab to implement this idea. Udatny’s first step was to create a program that would go out and gather email addresses from the web. These addresses would form the lists for the early examples of art-spam that etoy would perpetrate. Udatny’s second idea was a bit more interesting. He worked out how to get the etoy.TANKSYSTEM page listed in search engines. Most search engines ranked pages by the frequency of the search term in the pages it had indexed, so etoy.TANKSYSTEM would contain pages of selected keywords. Porn sites were also discovering this method of creating free publicity. The difference was that etoy chose a very carefully curated list of 350 search terms, including: art, bondage, cyberspace, Doom, Elvis, Fidel, genx, heroin, internet, jungle and Kant. Users of search engines who searched for these terms would find dummy pages listed prominently in their search results that directed them, unsuspectingly, to etoy.com. They called this project Digital Hijack. To give the project a slightly political aura, the pages the user was directed to contained an appeal for the release of convicted hacker Kevin Mitnick. This was the project that won them a Golden Nica statuette at Ars Electronica in 1996, which Gramazio allegedly lost the same night playing roulette. It would also, briefly, require that they explain themselves to the police. Digital Hijack also led to the first splits in the group, under the intense pressure of organizing it on a notionally collective basis, but with the zealous Agent Zai acting as de facto leader. When Udatny was expelled, Zai and Brainhard even repossessed his Toshiba laptop, bought with etoy funds. As Udatny recalls, “It was the lowest point in my life ever. There was nothing left; I could not rely on etoy any more. I did not even have clothes, apart from the etoy uniform.” (Wishart & Boschler: 104) Here the etoy story repeats a common theme from the history of the avant gardes as forms of collective subjectivity. After Digital Hijack, etoy went into a bit of a slump. It’s something of a problem for a group so dependent on recognition from the other of the media, that without a buzz around them, etoy would tend to collapse in on itself like a fading supernova. Zai spend the early part of 1997 working up a series of management documents, in which he appeared as the group’s managing director. Zai employed the current management theory rhetoric of employee ‘empowerment’ while centralizing control. Like any other corporate-Trotskyite, his line was that “We have to get used to reworking the company structure constantly.” (Wishart & Boschler: 132) The plan was for each member of etoy to register the etoy trademark in a different territory, linking identity to information via ownership. As Zai wrote “If another company uses our name in a grand way, I’ll probably shoot myself. And that would not be cool.” (Wishart & Boschler:: 132) As it turned out, another company was interested – the company that would become eToys.com. Zai received an email offering “a reasonable sum” for the etoy.com domain name. Zai was not amused. “Damned Americans, they think they can take our hunting grounds for a handful of glass pearls….”. (Wishart & Boschler: 133) On an invitation from Suzy Meszoly of C3, the etoy boys traveled to Budapest to work on “protected by etoy”, a work exploring internet security. They spent most of their time – and C3’s grant money – producing a glossy corporate brochure. The folder sported a blurb from Bjork: “etoy: immature priests from another world” – which was of course completely fabricated. When Artothek, the official art collection of the Austrian Chancellor, approached etoy wanting to buy work, the group had to confront the problem of how to actually turn their brand into a product. The idea was always that the brand was the product, but this doesn’t quite resolve the question of how to produce the kind of unique artifacts that the art world requires. Certainly the old Conceptual Art strategy of selling ‘documentation’ would not do. The solution was as brilliant as it was simple – to sell etoy shares. The ‘works’ would be ‘share certificates’ – unique objects, whose only value, on the face of it, would be that they referred back to the value of the brand. The inspiration, according to Wishart & Boschsler, was David Bowie, ‘the man who sold the world’, who had announced the first rock and roll bond on the London financial markets, backed by future earnings of his back catalogue and publishing rights. Gramazio would end up presenting Chancellor Viktor Klima with the first ‘shares’ at a press conference. “It was a great start for the project”, he said, “A real hack.” (Wishart & Boschler: 142) For this vectoral age, etoy would create the perfect vectoral art. Zai and Brainhard took off next for Pasadena, where they got the idea of reverse-engineering the online etoy.TANKSYSTEM by building an actual tank in an orange shipping container, which would become etoy.TANK 17. This premiered at the San Francisco gallery Blasthaus in June 1998. Instant stars in the small world of San Francisco art, the group began once again to disintegrate. Brainhard and Esposito resigned. Back in Europe in late 1998, Zai was preparing to graduate from the Vienna Academy of Applied Arts. His final project would recapitulate the life and death of etoy. It would exist from here on only as an online archive, a digital mausoleum. As Kubli says “there was no possibility to earn our living with etoy.” (Wishart & Boschler: 192) Zai emailed eToys.com and asked them if them if they would like to place a banner ad on etoy.com, to redirect any errant web traffic. Lawyers for eToys.com offered etoy $30,000 for the etoy.com domain name, which the remaining members of etoy – Zai, Gramazio, Kubli – refused. The offer went up to $100,000, which they also refused. Through their lawyer Peter Wild they demanded $750,000. In September 1999, while etoy were making a business presentation as their contribution to Ars Electronica, eToys.com lodged a complaint against etoy in the Los Angeles Superior Court. The company hired Bruce Wessel, of the heavyweight LA law firm Irell & Manella, who specialized in trademark, copyright and other intellectual property litigation. The complaint Wessel drafted alleged that etoy had infringed and diluted the eToys trademark, were practicing unfair competition and had committed “intentional interference with prospective economic damage.” (Wishart & Boschler: 199) Wessel demanded an injunction that would oblige etoy to cease using its trademark and take down its etoy.com website. The complaint also sought to prevent etoy from selling shares, and demanded punitive damages. Displaying the aggressive lawyering for which he was so handsomely paid, Wessel invoked the California Unfair Competition Act, which was meant to protect citizens from fraudulent business scams. Meant as a piece of consumer protection legislation, its sweeping scope made it available for inventive suits such as Wessel’s against etoy. Wessel was able to use pretty much everything from the archive etoy built against it. As Wishart and Bochsler write, “The court papers were like a delicately curated catalogue of its practices.” (Wishart & Boschler: 199) And indeed, legal documents in copyright and trademark cases may be the most perfect literature of the vectoral age. The Unfair Competition claim was probably aimed at getting the suit heard in a Californian rather than a Federal court in which intellectual property issues were less frequently litigated. The central aim of the eToys suit was the trademark infringement, but on that head their claims were not all that strong. According to the 1946 Lanham Act, similar trademarks do not infringe upon each other if there they are for different kinds of business or in different geographical areas. The Act also says that the right to own a trademark depends on its use. So while etoy had not registered their trademark and eToys had, etoy were actually up and running before eToys, and could base their trademark claim on this fact. The eToys case rested on a somewhat selective reading of the facts. Wessel claimed that etoy was not using its trademark in the US when eToys was registered in 1997. Wessel did not dispute the fact that etoy existed in Europe prior to that time. He asserted that owning the etoy.com domain name was not sufficient to establish a right to the trademark. If the intention of the suit was to bully etoy into giving in, it had quite the opposite effect. It pissed them off. “They felt again like the teenage punks they had once been”, as Wishart & Bochsler put it. Their art imploded in on itself for lack of attention, but called upon by another, it flourished. Wessel and eToys.com unintentionally triggered a dialectic that worked in quite the opposite way to what they intended. The more pressure they put on etoy, the more valued – and valuable – they felt etoy to be. Conceptual business, like conceptual art, is about nothing but the management of signs within the constraints of given institutional forms of market. That this conflict was about nothing made it a conflict about everything. It was a perfectly vectoral struggle. Zai and Gramazio flew to the US to fire up enthusiasm for their cause. They asked Wolfgang Staehle of The Thing to register the domain toywar.com, as a space for anti-eToys activities at some remove from etoy.com, and as a safe haven should eToys prevail with their injunction in having etoy.com taken down. The etoy defense was handled by Marcia Ballard in New York and Robert Freimuth in Los Angeles. In their defense, they argued that etoy had existed since 1994, had registered its globally accessible domain in 1995, and won an international art prize in 1996. To counter a claim by eToys that they had a prior trademark claim because they had bought a trademark from another company that went back to 1990, Ballard and Freimuth argued that this particular trademark only applied to the importation of toys from the previous owner’s New York base and thus had no relevance. They capped their argument by charging that eToys had not shown that its customers were really confused by the existence of etoy. With Christmas looming, eToys wanted a quick settlement, so they offered Zurich-based etoy lawyer Peter Wild $160,000 in shares and cash for the etoy domain. Kubli was prepared to negotiate, but Zai and Gramazio wanted to gamble – and raise the stakes. As Zai recalls: “We did not want to be just the victims; that would have been cheap. We wanted to be giants too.” (Wishart & Boschler: 207) They refused the offer. The case was heard in November 1999 before Judge Rafeedie in the Federal Court. Freimuth, for etoy, argued that federal Court was the right place for what was essentially a trademark matter. Robert Kleiger, for eToys, countered that it should stay where it was because of the claims under the California Unfair Competition act. Judge Rafeedie took little time in agreeing with the eToys lawyer. Wessel’s strategy paid off and eToys won the first skirmish. The first round of a quite different kind of conflict opened when etoy sent out their first ‘toywar’ mass mailing, drawing the attention of the net.art, activism and theory crowd to these events. This drew a report from Felix Stalder in Telepolis: “Fences are going up everywhere, molding what once seemed infinite space into an overcrowded and tightly controlled strip mall.” (Stalder ) The positive feedback from the net only emboldened etoy. For the Los Angeles court, lawyers for etoy filed papers arguing that the sale of ‘shares’ in etoy was not really a stock offering. “The etoy.com website is not about commerce per se, it is about artist and social protest”, they argued. (Wishart & Boschler: 209) They were obliged, in other words, to assert a difference that the art itself had intended to blur in order to escape eToy’s claims under the Unfair Competition Act. Moreover, etoy argued that there was no evidence of a victim. Nobody was claiming to have been fooled by etoy into buying something under false pretences. Ironically enough, art would turn out in hindsight to be a more straightforward transaction here, involving less simulation or dissimulation, than investing in a dot.com. Perhaps we have reached the age when art makes more, not less, claim than business to the rhetorical figure of ‘reality’. Having defended what appeared to be the vulnerable point under the Unfair Competition law, etoy went on the attack. It was the failure of eToys to do a proper search for other trademarks that created the problem in the first place. Meanwhile, in Federal Court, lawyers for etoy launched a counter-suit that reversed the claims against them made by eToys on the trademark question. While the suits and counter suits flew, eToys.com upped their offer to settle to a package of cash and shares worth $400,000. This rather puzzled the etoy lawyers. Those choosing to sue don’t usually try at the same time to settle. Lawyer Peter Wild advised his clients to take the money, but the parallel tactics of eToys.com only encouraged them to dig in their heels. “We felt that this was a tremendous final project for etoy”, says Gramazio. As Zai says, “eToys was our ideal enemy – we were its worst enemy.” (Wishart & Boschler: 210) Zai reported the offer to the net in another mass mail. Most people advised them to take the money, including Doug Rushkoff and Heath Bunting. Paul Garrin counseled fighting on. The etoy agents offered to settle for $750,000. The case came to court in late November 1999 before Judge Shook. The Judge accepted the plausibility of the eToys version of the facts on the trademark issue, which included the purchase of a registered trademark from another company that went back to 1990. He issued an injunction on their behalf, and added in his statement that he was worried about “the great danger of children being exposed to profane and hardcore pornographic issues on the computer.” (Wishart & Boschler: 222) The injunction was all eToys needed to get Network Solutions to shut down the etoy.com domain. Zai sent out a press release in early December, which percolated through Slashdot, rhizome, nettime (Staehle) and many other networks, and catalyzed the net community into action. A debate of sorts started on investor websites such as fool.com. The eToys stock price started to slide, and etoy ‘warriors’ felt free to take the credit for it. The story made the New York Times on 9th December, Washington Post on the 10th, Wired News on the 11th. Network Solutions finally removed the etoy.com domain on the 10th December. Zai responded with a press release: “this is robbery of digital territory, American imperialism, corporate destruction and bulldozing in the way of the 19th century.” (Wishart & Boschler: 237) RTMark set up a campaign fund for toywar, managed by Survival Research Laboratories’ Mark Pauline. The RTMark press release promised a “new internet ‘game’ designed to destroy eToys.com.” (Wishart & Boschler: 239) The RTMark press release grabbed the attention of the Associated Press newswire. The eToys.com share price actually rose on December 13th. Goldman Sachs’ e-commerce analyst Anthony Noto argued that the previous declines in the Etoys share price made it a good buy. Goldman Sachs was the lead underwriter of the eToys IPO. Noto’s writings may have been nothing more than the usual ‘IPOetry’ of the time, but the crash of the internet bubble was some months away yet. The RTMark campaign was called ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. It used the Floodnet technique that Ricardo Dominguez used in support of the Zapatistas. As Dominguez said, “this hysterical power-play perfectly demonstrates the intensions of the new net elite; to turn the World Wide Web into their own private home-shopping network.” (Wishart & Boschler: 242) The Floodnet attack may have slowed the eToys.com server down a bit, but it was robust and didn’t crash. Ironically, it ran on open source software. Dominguez claims that the ‘Twelve Days’ campaign, which relied on individuals manually launching Floodnet from their own computers, was not designed to destroy the eToys site, but to make a protest felt. “We had a single-bullet script that could have taken down eToys – a tactical nuke, if you will. But we felt this script did not represent the presence of a global group of people gathered to bear witness to a wrong.” (Wishart & Boschler: 245) While the eToys engineers did what they could to keep the site going, eToys also approached universities and businesses whose systems were being used to host Floodnet attacks. The Thing, which hosted Dominguez’s eToys Floodnet site was taken offline by The Thing’s ISP, Verio. After taking down the Floodnet scripts, The Thing was back up, restoring service to the 200 odd websites that The Thing hosted besides the offending Floodnet site. About 200 people gathered on December 20th at a demonstration against eToys outside the Museum of Modern Art. Among the crowd were Santas bearing signs that said ‘Coal for eToys’. The rally, inside the Museum, was led by the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping: “We are drowning in a sea of identical details”, he said. (Wishart & Boschler: 249-250) Meanwhile etoy worked on the Toywar Platform, an online agitpop theater spectacle, in which participants could act as soldiers in the toywar. This would take some time to complete – ironically the dispute threatened to end before this last etoy artwork was ready, giving etoy further incentives to keep the dispute alive. The etoy agents had a new lawyer, Chris Truax, who was attracted to the case by the publicity it was generating. Through Truax, etoy offered to sell the etoy domain and trademark for $3.7 million. This may sound like an insane sum, but to put it in perspective, the business.com site changed hands for $7.5 million around this time. On December 29th, Wessel signaled that eToys was prepared to compromise. The problem was, the Toywar Platform was not quite ready, so etoy did what it could to drag out the negotiations. The site went live just before the scheduled court hearings, January 10th 2000. “TOYWAR.com is a place where all servers and all involved people melt and build a living system. In our eyes it is the best way to express and document what’s going on at the moment: people start to about new ways to fight for their ideas, their lifestyle, contemporary culture and power relations.” (Wishart & Boschler: 263) Meanwhile, in a California courtroom, Truax demanded that Network Solutions restore the etoy domain, that eToys pay the etoy legal expenses, and that the case be dropped without prejudice. No settlement was reached. Negotiations dragged on for another two weeks, with the etoy agents’ attention somewhat divided between two horizons – art and law. The dispute was settled on 25th January. Both parties dismissed their complaints without prejudice. The eToys company would pay the etoy artists $40,000 for legal costs, and contact Network Solutions to reinstate the etoy domain. “It was a pleasure doing business with one of the biggest e-commerce giants in the world” ran the etoy press release. (Wishart & Boschler: 265) That would make a charming end to the story. But what goes around comes around. Brainhard, still pissed off with Zai after leaving the group in San Francisco, filed for the etoy trademark in Austria. After that the internal etoy wranglings just gets boring. But it was fun while it lasted. What etoy grasped intuitively was the nexus between the internet as a cultural space and the transformation of the commodity economy in a yet-more abstract direction – its becoming-vectoral. They zeroed in on the heart of the new era of conceptual business – the brand. As Wittgenstein says of language, what gives words meaning is other words, so too for brands. What gives brands meaning is other brands. There is a syntax for brands as there is for words. What etoy discovered is how to insert a new brand into that syntax. The place of eToys as a brand depended on their business competition with other brands – with Toys ‘R’ Us, for example. For etoy, the syntax they discovered for relating their brand to another one was a legal opposition. What made etoy interesting was their lack of moral posturing. Their abandonment of leftist rhetorics opened them up to exploring the territory where media and business meet, but it also made them vulnerable to being consumed by the very dialectic that created the possibility of staging etoy in the first place. By abandoning obsolete political strategies, they discovered a media tactic, which collapsed for want of a new strategy, for the new vectoral terrain on which we find ourselves. Works Cited Negri, Antonio. Time for Revolution. Continuum, London, 2003. Warhol, Andy. From A to B and Back Again. Picador, New York, 1984. Stalder, Felix. ‘Fences in Cyberspace: Recent events in the battle over domain names’. 19 Jun 2003. <http://felix.openflows.org/html/fences.php>. Wark, McKenzie. ‘A Hacker Manifesto [version 4.0]’ 19 Jun 2003. http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html. Klein, Naomi. No Logo. Harper Collins, London, 2000. Wishart, Adam & Regula Bochsler. Leaving Reality Behind: etoy vs eToys.com & Other Battles to Control Cyberspace Ecco Books, 2003. Staehle, Wolfgang. ‘<nettime> etoy.com shut down by US court.’ 19 Jun 2003. http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9912/msg00005.html Links http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9912/msg00005.htm http://felix.openflows.org/html/fences.html http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Wark, McKenzie. "Toywars" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/02-toywars.php>. APA Style Wark, M. (2003, Jun 19). Toywars. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/02-toywars.php>