The title the Berkeley Oracle questions history and recalls the history of questioning... The Internet is an Ex-Utopia. On the Internet, one normally looks for answers, information or anonymous conversation. Behind every question lies a voice. Soon nobody will be interested in knowing who the answers came from. A question is a question. An answer is its counterpart. A question is addressed to somebody who might be able to give an answer, even if the latter is isolated in space and time. The person who asks is seeking the presence of another, is asking from a position of absence and need.

Angelika Stepken, 1999

… While questions posed to the Oracle at Delphi were predominantly concerned with the future, the vast majority of the questions posed to The Berkeley Oracle were concerned with the present. These are questions about what is, not what will be. One question in particular, epitomises this mind-set: "Where is my future?" … The future is not only no longer in the future (it is now), but it is (or at least questioner hopes it is) spatially locatable. The future has slipped from time into space, consisting of possibilities arrayed throughout an extensive present. … The inability to ponder a future time coincides with the sceptical spirit of our age. We don't plan, we just shuffle about, unable to commit with any seriousness to a particular perspective or point of view, unwilling to imagine the world as it might be. Gerz' The Berkeley Oracle is, finally, more a monument to scepticism than it is a reenactment of Greek divination.

Laurence Rinder, 1999