The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

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on the movement from cdrom directories to videotape
on the movement from computer to television
on the movement from session to venue
of your willing participation as historiographer
of your willing participation as viewer

killing off my videos. they're slewed together, collapsed/wounded from the
desire of the directory, conflation promulgating choice, confusion,
repetition: i'm here in the midst of images - you're there held taut by a
timeline binding you to constancy. what unfolds for you, never unfolded;
unfolding is for the spectacle. combination accrues on combination -
sixteen short works combined into one, two large at the beginning, five
larger at the end: for me, the order is irrelevant, but linearity is
necessary for completion/projection - for the viewer, the order creates
signifiers arraigned in taut transitivity; the diegetic continues across
the invisible razor cuts; the viewer's in a train wreck of blown meaning.
for the venue: open one track/open them all. on the cdrom: the tracks
disseminate; they're partial; they lean against one another; they lean
against the same; they resonate; they remain incomplete; pornography and
desire create loops and projections on the order of f(g(x))=x; everything
circulates towards the elimination of processes; everything is capable of
returning; the body can do anything it has already done; it can do
anything at any speed; it lends itself to you; it is among domains; it
unfolds for you; it unfolds repeatedly; it's there for you; it's a dream-
screen capable of infinite dissemination. in the venue: f(g(x))=0; every-
thing disappears; everything is memory; you are bound to this assignation
in a foreign hotel, foreign affair; nothing continues forever; the product
production is always already gone; you're embedded in an economics of
project projection; you're never there; you're at a loss; it's this kind
of loss. of sharing or communality, none. of the order, discrete and well-
presented with loss, with this kind of loss, as the translation is made,
from computer to video, from video to television, from television to the
televisual. it goes there. it's transformed into art. it's a sheaf among
others. it's the harvest of shame.

"do you know how to speak with a human voice. do you know how to breathe
without breathing. for they live beneath the waters and they drink of the
sky; for they burrow in the earth and elsewhere move at will invisible
through the air. for they are of the voice a u m. if you don't know this,
it makes no difference. you may have made this world, and you may not have
made this world. of you it is said you are world-created. of the voice it
is said, it is world-created. of difference there are many and none."


_

We received a 'mysterious' note from someone at aol.com - it's unclear
what it means, but there is a slight chance we might lose the
listserv.aol.com host. I've written for further information but nothing
has come through. AOL has gone through a lot of changes - not particularly
for the better - and it's unclear what's happening.

Please keep this in mind - we may need to find a new server/host for the
list.

If anyone has access to a listserv that can accommodate us, please let us
know. You can write back-channel. We probably won't need this, but it's
better to be ready for a move if we lose the host.

- Alan

Internet text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
Partial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Trace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
CDROM of collected work 1994-2000/1 available: write sondheim@panix.com