Re: <nettime> A Puff Piece on Wikipedia (Fwd)

[Karl-Erik Tallmo <ketallmo@nisus.se>]

Keith Hart wrote:


>"text warez" wrote:
>
>>you completly misunderstood the role of an author. <
>
>There is no identification of the person addressed as "you", but I will
>fill in.



Well, not only does that text lack recipient, if there is no such 
thing as author it even lacks a sender. Neither a "you" nor an "I" ...

And this is more than a pun. If text creators (or other creators of 
information) are not acknowledged in some way - maybe we could all 
have numbers - all discussion will become impossible. It will be like 
trying to debate anonymously in a darkened room where everybody 
listens and talks through microphones and headphones with som 
equalizing sound device that makes voices unrecognizable. Even all 
sense of direction would be lost.

I believe this is an aspect that is very important to realize, now 
that we live in what is sometimes called the knowledge society. 
Knowledge will deteriorate without a possibility to evaluate the 
sender of information. We do it all the time, in trivial situations. 
Say you read a film review - you will probably judge the reviewer's 
opinion from what you know earlier about him/her and his/her 
writings. Imposssible without authorship. And in science there is 
more at stake than a bad evening at the movie theater.



>What interests me is that you think there is only one role of the
>author and that whoever doesn't share your idea of it has "misunderstood".
>You didn't have to give clues to the genealogy of your line (Nietzsche,
>Derrida, Foucault -- why not list all the usual suspects?).



I agree with Keith. And it wouldn't even be possible to mention Nietzsche,
Derrida, and Foucault if there are no authors. You would have to say 
something like "the container of intertextual discourse presently 
labeled as Nietzsche",
etc.



/The Container of Intertextual Discourse Presently Labeled as Karl-Erik Tallmo


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