Alan Myouka Sondheim on Thu, 23 Jul 1998 08:05:35 +0200 (MET DST) |
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<nettime> recent work |
Some recent work that might be of interest here - if not, apologies, just delete, infirm internals ahead. - Alan Various -------------------------------------------------- Prometheus I want to reach a conclusion to these texts. Then I wouldn't have to write again, think again, or rather that everything thought would be on the order of commentary. As it is, I start from scratch, scratch myself, and a text emerges which comments one way or another on a disarray so deep that it becomes impossible to theorize, that is, a disarray so shallow, that it rides foam-like on the surface of theory, hustling the oxygen below. I want to reach a conclusion to the texts, but as soon as I begin, this-way or that-way, Nikuko perhaps will take over, or Alan, or Julu, and I remain at a loss, thinking it's all a form of chic seduction, it's always a lure and relaxation, there are no two ways about it, there are many more, irreducible to one way or another. There is a work _iki_ which describes this well, you can find out more about _iki_ in Kuki Shuzo's Reflections on Japanese Taste, The Structure of _iki,_ which leaves one trailing off again and again across the nature of this or that kimono pattern or musical scale. Certainly, Nikuko comes out of courtesan-iki-from-the-Edo-period, but the analysis in fact is quite chic itself, and up-to-date, since there is never a giving in, how could there be in text or cyberspace? There's only a movement or a fluttering of a fan or shimmering of the leaves of manga-with-girls-and-boys read on the shinkansen, but I don't want to escape my native / land, so I will give an example of a soccer ball poised precisely in one frame of one game of the World Cup, sent anonymously to a fashion magazine in New York's SOHO district - and you can see that this is no answer at all, not even a question of previous or next only what might be considered a _meteorology,_ meteorological moment, when anything might happen, rain or not forecast in the vicinity. So to want to reach a conclusion is similar to reaching for a book or the space between the second and third line of a haiku or between the twelfth and thirteenth line of a sonnet or between the hard drive and the head where the drive's gone, couplet's gone, line's gone walking invisible and stemming the tide in the middle of SOHO where you might find people turning around to look at you if you continue to behave in this fashion, I know I would. Jennifer __________________________________________________________________________ VIRTUAL HELLS No hilites. %2d %2d %s >> This place NEEDS no introduction! ./cl.intro >> There IS no help for you! ./cl.help >> There is NOTHING to say to you! ./cl.announce >> The Den's been up for >> your termtype not found. >> .p hiliting enabled. >> .p hiliting turned off. Lines gagged: You have no lines gagged. >> Gagging youself with a spoon? is gagged! Ha ha ha! >> User >> You just ungagged line >> Nameservice on. >> Nameservice off. bad time argument >> Later, dude! ) for new site block ( ID expire site blocked %4d never bad site block ID Deleted site block >> System Msg: Reboot new passwd = usernum = fuckwit. get it right. >> Idle timeout has been disabled. >> Idle timeout has been enabled. >> Idle timeout has to be in the range between >> Idle timeout has been set to >> Idle timeout is >> %s just tried to force you... >> Player %d gagged. >> Player %d ungagged. >> %s has at least as much authority as you! >> fatal: You've been killed. >> Hope you enjoyed your stay. BRING_IT_DOWN Sorry - the system is closed to further logins at the moment Sorry - we are full at the moment, try again later Sorry - you're site is banned Sorry - you can't use that command You are already listening! You listen to the gossip %s is now listening You are already being antisocial! You ignore the dull gossip %s is ignoring everyone *** News *** newsfile There is no news today *** System is now closed to further logins *** %s CLOSED the system Total of %d users signed on Shout what? %s shouts: %s Someone shouts: %s You shout: %s Usage: .tell <user> <message> %s is not signed on Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness %s is not listening You ask %s: %s %s asks you: %s You exclaim to %s: %s %s exclaims to you: %s You tell %s: %s %s tells you: %s %s whispers something to %s Area: %s Exits are: You can see: You are alone here There is no such area You are in that area now! walks in arrives in a blinding flash! That area is not adjoined to here Sorry - that area is currently private %s disappears in a puff of magic! %s goes to the %s Some magic disturbs the air %s %s That area is public anyway You shout into the %s asking to be let in! %s shouts asking to be let in! Someone shouts asking to be let in! %s shouts into the %s asking to be let in! This areas access can't be changed public private The area is already %s! Area now set to public %s has set the area to public Someone has set the area to public You need at least %d people in the area Area now set to private %s has set the area to private Someone has set the area to private Usage: .invite <user> The area is public anyway You can't invite yourself! %s is already in the area! Someone has invited you to the %s %s has invited you to the %s Usage: .emote <text> Someone %s You write the message on the board A ghostly hand writes a message on the board A ghostly hand wipes some messages from the board You are already visible! You are already invisible! POP! You reappear! You fade, shimmer and vanish... Suicide is not an option here no matter how bad things get That wouldn't be wise.... A bolt of white lighting streaks from the heavens and blasts you!! You have been removed from this reality... There is a rumble of thunder Are you sure about this (y/n)? Quitting users... A force grabs you and pulls you through the ether!! BRING_IT_DOWN ______________________________________________________________________ The Machinic, The Auto Getting in a fast fast-car and going places. The dialogs among Jennifer, Alan, Nikuko, Julu, occur in the wetware, neural connections, of all of them, reaching through each other, try- ing each other on. Just as there is CAD, computer-aided-design, so there is CAC, compu- ter-aided-communication, small programs written in shell scripts or perl, or already-existing programs and editors (such as pico, emacs, ed, sed, awk, cat, rev, split), all useful for creating forms, taking them to the limit. So the writing is almost never computer-produced, in the sense of text generation programs, but may rely on programs as infiltrators. One looks at structure from inside-outside; structure descends and wetware pulls out surface talk. Which is not to say that the texts aren't generated from one or another of the voices, listening and speaking through wetware-mind, murmuring out of truth and longing. But that the voices, speakings, should be a surprise, should carry the body and text ... somewhere else ... Because and for this reason - that to have computer-generated text only would be to give into the graces of the machine, whereas we are working through certain forms of thinking. Which at this point are hardly automated; instead, the avatars are more or less, as we have said before, hardly avatars so much as internal eman- ations. As such, coating the organs of the interior, filtering the rem- nants of the external world as well. They speak from the future. They speak from multiple voices, or from that period which, still submerged, is already beginning to murmur - wetware inhaling the other and her or his or its emergence. And they speak from the absence of the computer, the absence of interface, when one sails among part-objects and worlds, when speech and movement alone suffice in destruction, creation, maintenance, desire. They move among me, saying us; they move among us, saying I. They say: We are your future. They say: Watch us, breathe us, hold us tight against you. They say: This movement is your future as well, holding myself to myself. They say: There is a machine and there is no machine. Your hands are your hands. Your legs are your legs. Your desire is your desire and your desire is ours. They say: There is no hardware, no software, no wetware. There is no brainstem, there is no mind. There is mind and there is earth and we are of the earth. They say: I am your future. They say: You say all of this, your fingers in our mouths. They say: Your fingers are your fingers. "Speaking in silence, silently speaking, listening to yourself." ___________________________________________________________________________ wan this thing will take the day off from wryting herself into her mouth for you to hear her speaking because this thing is wan with languor and lassitude and the need of smelling salts and a headache-ing not with lust or desire but with the faintest caress across lips and valleys tumultuous waterfalls hillocks and swelling swellings of glands possibilities of fevers blessed nikuko sooths my eyes blessed alan wipes my brows blessed julu tenders her loving hands blessed jennifer smiles so sweetly archangels of arche-writing across the text-ture of skin stretched feverishly with aspirin bringing the thermometer into the range of eyes watered with tears and inabilities to /flash/ focus /flush/ like there willn't be a text this evening this fine evening the four of us lay down together parallel lines any three of which make a river and a mouth to one side for the word 'word' where we are, where the thing will take a word among the four-folding into you-me-mono you will not know aspirin "It is in this respect that we speak to ourselves by ourselves [nous nous parlons tout seuls], to the point where what we call an ego emerges, with no guarantee against the possibility of its being, strictly speaking, delirious" (Lacan quoted by Roustang.) _________________________________________________________________________ Tattoo on FTP I connect, myself to myself, as Odin, picking up runes; here I am placing them, one after another, my private server, serving me well and too much doing my bidding. My runes are my piercings, my body a syzygy of signs. Connected to gol1.gol.com. 220-Welcome to Global Online East Asia. 220-Ready for you and ready for me. 220-This is a private server run explicitly for GOL users. 220-All transactions will be logged. Any problems contact postmaster@gol.com 220-My nipples are pierced. 220-My clitoris is pierced. 220-My penis is pierced. 220-I am your host and you may call me by my name. 220-Your host is panix3.panix.com 220-Local time is Tue Jun 30 15:32:47 1998. 220-And you may call me forth by the span of a router. 220-The span of a router travels through my rings. 220-The span of a router through my penis-clitoris-nipples. 220 gol1.gol.com FTP server (Version wu-2.4.2-academ[BETA-15](1) Sat Jun 27 19:49:25 JST 1998) ready. For to the extent it does my bidding, it does not do my bidding, and to the extent it does not do my bidding, it does my bidding. Meanwhile, host watches on, over so great a distance as to make the span of a bridge thinned to inconceivable webbing; nonetheless, it carries. _________________________________________________________________________ Differance What is difference, and how are subjects constituted? {k:3}diff subject-now subject-then How do they differ, and in what lines do they differ? 71a72,74 > Jun 30 23:17:42 166 PAM_pwdb[276]: (login) session closed for user root > Jun 30 23:17:47 166 PAM_pwdb[559]: (login) session opened for user root by (uid=0) > Jun 30 23:17:47 166 login[559]: ROOT LOGIN ON tty1 {k:4}diff where-am-i-now where-was-i-then Binary files where-am-i-now and where-was-i-then differ (strings where-am-i-now > aa; strings where-was-i-then > bb; diff aa bb >> zz) How do they differ, and in what lines do they differ? 53a54,58 > tty1 > tty1 > LOGIN > tty1 > root You see, differance is a file or array; you see, it's not the subtle wisp of cloud caressing the moon, gone before your aware-ness (mono no aware) catches up with you... Nikuko would write the difference with the edge of the brush; back erect, shodo following breath upon the horizontal page. But here, she'd say, were she next to me, hands on shoulder, lips lightly brushing the erect back, it's a question or answer of five strings, well- defined, pure information which only happens to appear in this or that font, of this or that size, bold or italic or underline, or any other de- fault setting the subject might predispose herself to reading within. She, subject-Nikuko, turns back to the brush. Kanji is not always a question or problem of difference, however subtle; it is also a memory. Isn't every alphabet. Only to the extent that bandwidth reduces to the twenty-six, and then further to the two, harbored against the one. Always coherent, the two, Nikuko said; it's literally bound that way. One swallows the other. Moon, fogging. __________________________________________________________________________ IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL READ MY WORK IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL SEARCH FOR MY TEXTS THE SMALLEST SCRAP OF PAPER WILL BE EARNESTLY POURED OVER EVERY TINY STEP I HAVE EVER TAKEN WILL BE DULY RECORDED IT WILL BE NECESSARY TO EXTRAPOLATE SOME STEPS EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER KNOWN ME WILL TESTIFY EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER HEARD OF ME WILL TESTIFY MY LETTERS BOTH PAPER AND EMAIL WILL BE TREASURED FOREVER THE SLIGHTEST HINT OF AN APHORISM WILL RESULT IN PUBLICATION WHOLE VOLUMES WILL BE DEDICATED TO MY 'I AGREE' POSTS COLLECTIONS OF MY SAYINGS WILL BE TRADED LIKE PLAYING CARDS A CENTURY FROM NOW SOME FEW PEOPLE WILL BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND ME IN A FURTHER CENTURY MY THOUGHTS WILL HAVE BECOME COMMONPLACE MY NAME WILL HAVE BECOME A HOUSEHOLD WORD MY FRIENDS WILL HAVE ACHIEVED ALMOST HOLY STATUS MY ACQUAINTANCES WILL HAVE THEIR NAMES RECORDED FOREVER IN THE FUTURE MY FOLLOWERS WILL BE LEGION EVERYONE WILL KNOW MY FUTURE IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL BE MY FUTURE _______________________________________________________________ I COULD BE A KING I COULD BE AN EMPEROR OR A TERRIFIC QUEEN I WILL KILL EMPERORS, PRESIDENTS, KINGS, UTTERLY UTTERLY I WILL DESTROY THEM YOU ARE @DESTROYED UTTERLY YOU ARE AN ALDERMAN BY MY NAME I HAVE DESTROYED YOU YOU CAN'T READ THIS ANY LONGER YOU ARE DESTROYED YOU'RE GONE FOREVER FROM HERE DONE WITH MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD I HAVE RAISED ARMIES OF MEN AND WOMEN GIRLS AND YOUNG BOYS MYRIADS I HAVE RAISED I AM AN ASTRONAUT THEY HAVE ALL BEEN LITTERED WITH CORPSES I BROOK NO SURVIVOR NOTHING LIVES WITHIN MY THOUSAND MILES I COULD KILL STARLETS IN WHITE BATHROBES HUNKS IN BRIEFS I WILL DESTROY HONEST DOCTORS SAVING HONEST WOUNDED I COULD DO WHAT I WILL DO I WILL DO WHAT I COULD DO I COULD BE AN OPERA STAR I COULD SING TO YOU I WILL SING TO YOU I COULD BE A TERRIFIC EMPEROR I COULD BE A TERRIFIC QUEEN _____________________________________________________________ I AM AN IDIOT AND DETESTABLE TO THE EXTREME MY PERVERSIONS KNOW NO BOUNDS AND EITHER DOES MY IGNORANCE I HAVE DREAMS OF MEGALOMANIA AND AM SEXUALLY OBSESSED THERE IS NO ONE AS COWARDLY AS I AM YOU COULD WALK ALL OVER ME AND I'D LOVE IT YOU COULD PULL MY PANTS DOWN AND YOU'D LAUGH AT ME THEN YOU COULD @FLAME ME OVER AND OVER AGAIN HAIR ON FIRE I'D BURN FOR YOU LOVING IT OUT OF COWARDICE I'D NEVER KNOW HOW TO REPLY PROPERLY WHAT TO SAY BACK I CAN TURN A PHRASE OR TWO BUT THAT'S CLEVERNESS AFTER THE FACT IN RETROSPECT EVEN I'M FEARFUL CAN'T LOOK IN A MIRROR I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT EVERYTHING AND THINKING KILLS I'M A COWARD EVEN WHEN IT COMES TO SUICIDE I WALLOW IN PAIN WHINE ABOUT EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE NO ONE WILL HEAR ME I BORE EVERYONE WITH MY WALLOWING MY MOUTH IS OPEN FOR SALVATION BUT NOTHING GOES IN OR OUT I HIDE MY STUPIDITY AND HIDING IS MY ONLY INTELLIGENCE YOU CAN SEE MY HIDING-INTELLIGENCE AND STUPIDITY HERE IT'S ANOTHER FORM OF CLEVERNESS ON THE NEAR SIDE OF THE MIRROR I CAN'T LOOK AT YOU _______________________________________________________________ "I CAN'T LOOK AT YOU" BUT I WRITE IN A BABY PLAYPEN CRY IN MY LITTLE PLAYPEN PLAY WITH THE BEADS A BIT WAAAAH WAAAAH AND ALL THE REST I'VE DONE IT FOR YEARS IN FRONT OF YOU BUT NOW I'M BEHIND YOU AND YOU CAN'T HEAR ME YOU CAN'T SEE ME YOU CAN ONLY READ ME YOU CAN ONLY READ ME IF YOU OPEN YOUR EYES LOOK LOOK LOOK I'M ALL ALONE HERE IN THIS SPACE I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT SEE I'VE @CUT MY HEAD OFF YOU'LL FIND IT AT ADDRESS &H IT'S GONE FROM THIS WORLD NOW I PULL MY LEGS OVER MY NECK MY ARMS SURROUND MY LEGS AND I BECOME ALL TOO QUICKLY KNOTTED HELP HELP HELP UNTANGLE ME I DO SAY I DO SAY TO NO ONE YOU'RE NOT HERE DIDN'T I ALREADY SAY THAT I THINK I'LL SIT DOWN MY DRESS WILL GET ALL WET NOW I'LL STAND UP AGAIN I'M ALL ALONE AS I DO SAY I THINK I'LL TAKE A WALK _______________________________________________________________ DO AS I SAY I AM THE SAVIOR OF AMERICA IF YOU READ MY TEXTS YOU WILL KNOW I BRING FORTH FIRES BRING FORTH WINDS AND DROUGHT BRING FORTH TORNADOS FORTH ARE BEING BROUGHT HURRICANES AS WELL THESE I HAVE PROPHECIED IN MAJOR AND MINOR WRITINGS THEY ARE GIVEN IN THE NUMBERS AND LANGUAGES OF THE TEXTS THEY ARE GRAINY OBDURATE INERT IN THE MANNER OF THE REAL SHE SANG VERSES OF SIX SYLLABLES ABOUT EXPOSING HERSELF THE OTHER WAITED BEHIND THE DOOR HITO FUTA MIYO ONE TWO THREE FOUR THOSE DOORS ITSU MUYU NANA FIVE SIX SEVEN TERRIFIC GODDESS YA KOKO-NO TARI EIGHT NINE TEN YA! ECSTASY! MOMO CHI YORODZU 100 1000 10000 FANTASTIC CHARMS! SUN GODDESS PEERED AND SAW THE THING COULDN'T FORGET THE THING IT WAS THERE WITHIN WITHOUT HER TWO WOMEN I'M COMING TO SAVE AMERICA MARK MY LETTERS AND NUMBERS REASONING MADLY ALL THE TEXTS LEAD UP TO THIS PRECIPICE PORTAL CLIFF-EDGE LIP A LIP IS ANOTHER LIP SONGS SPRING FORTH SO DOES MATTER OF ALL SORTS MARK AMERICA SAVE AMERICA I AM ITS SAVIOR THE TWO WOMEN ONE OF THEM I'VE LEARNED FROM THE OTHER HAS LEARNED FROM ME FOLLOW DO AS I SAY I AM DOING __________________________________________________________ Reification and CMC (Reification, the inauthentic objectification of mediated concepts under capitalism.) Working again on the chapter Reification and the Consciousness of the Pro- letariat in Lukacs' History and Class Consciousness, I'm struck how in fact commodity itself is reified, how time and space are rationalized, parceled out by capital, according to the author. Further, this seems re- lated to an ur-state of organic flux. Here's a quote: "Thus time sheds its qualitative, variable, flowing nature; it freezes into an exactly delimited, quantifiable continuum filled with quantifiable 'things' (the reified, mechanically objectified 'performance' of the worker, wholly separated from his total human personality): in short, it becomes space. In this environment where time is transformed into abstract, exactly measurable, physical space, an environment at once the cause and effect of the scientifically and mechanically fragmented and specialized production of the object of labour, the subjects of labour must likewise be rationally fragmented. On the one hand, the objectification of their labour-power into something opposed to their total personality (a process already accomplished with the sale of that labour-power as a commodity) is now made into the permanent ineluctable reality of their daily life. Here, too, the personality can do no more than look on helplessly while its own existence is reduced to an isolated particle and fed into an alien system. On the other hand, the mechanical disintegration of the process of produc- tion into its components also destroys those bonds that had bound individ- uals to a community in the days when production was still 'organic.'" All of this is related to, say, Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Hertz's mechan- ics, and any system which portends a rational underpinning of a concrete real. Reification for example is intimately bound in Lukacs to capitalism and commodity; before that, "organic" production implies a flux, not of measurement itself, but of boundary and self. (Kristeva's "borderline personality" would have no place here.) The possibility that self is on one hand a coagulation of disparate debris/part-objects, and on the other, an emanation within communicative regimes, is inconceivable. And one wants to save the concept of reification - as well as critique it. Because the concept is useful, referencing the objectifying of concept and thought as commodity, and this works well with thinking through or about the Net or CMC in general. On the other hand, it has to be weakened in its relation to capital as the inauthentic mediation among authenticities, since this analysis will no longer hold, and never did. Production and power are always intimate; it is not a question so much of capital as it is of bureaucracy, technology, and the appearance of the stranger in the city (Simmel). Yet we should be careful; for example, what is the relationship between Net politics, grass-roots politics, and geopolitics? It's not just a matter of demographics and/or communicative strategies - it's also an ontological issue, an issue of the performativity and believability of language in relatively foreclosed domains (thus Lukacs, instead of ex- ample, quotes Marx, Lenin, and so forth). Finally, one might want to consider whether there is "anything" _beyond_ reification on-line - whether or not _beyond_ implies a spatial or psy- chological metaphoricity. It is the "anything" that worries me, in this realm in which everything is ultimately file, string, binary - in which, in other words, everything is constituted. What happens to authenticity in an arena totalized by constitution - in a period of thinking that, first, there is no totality, and second, that everything deconstructs into part- objects? This is still the central question of the Net - and one in which Lukacs might prove useful. __________________________________________________________________________ Beautiful Look of /usr/X11R6/bin/resize in panix7: Beautiful possibilities of screens and consoles, beautiful possibilities of looking and peering, beautiful wondering across mouse and keyboard, beautiful colors and monitorings, beautiful seeings and hearings, beau- tiful touchings and scentings, beautiful holdings and huggings, beautiful rows and columns, beautiful consonants and vowels, beautiful teachings and learnings, beautiful commandings and obeyings, beautiful TERMCAP and beautiful TERMCAP='vt100|vt100-am|dec vt100 (w/advanced video): :am:bs:ms:xn:xo: :co#80:it#8:li#25:vt#3: :@8=\EOM:DO=\E[%dB:K1=\EOq:K2=\EOr:K3=\EOs:K4=\EOp:K5=\EOn: :LE=\E[%dD:RA=\E[?7l:RI=\E[%dC:SA=\E[?7h:UP=\E[%dA: :ac=``aaffggjjkkllmmnnooppqqrrssttuuvvwwxxyyzz{{||}}~~: :ae=^O:as=^N:bl=^G:cb=\E[1K:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[J: :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:do=^J: :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :eA=\E(B\E)0:ho=\E[H:k0=\EOy:k1=\EOP:k2=\EOQ:k3=\EOR: :k4=\EOS:k5=\EOt:k6=\EOu:k7=\EOv:k8=\EOl:k9=\EOw:k;=\EOx: :kb=^H:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=: :ku=\EOA:le=^H:mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m: :nd=\E[C:r2=\E>\E[?3l\E[?4l\E[?5l\E[?7h\E[?8h:rc=\E8: :..sa=\E[0%?%p1%p6%|%t;1%;%?%p2%t;4%;%?%p1%p3%|%t;7%;% ?%p4%t;5%;m%?%p9%t\016%e\017%;: :sc=\E7:se=\E[m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:ue=\E[m: :up=\E[A:us=\E[4m:'; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; :chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant chant; __________________________________________________________________ (This end of this file.) . --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl