The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

February 16, 2002


-



notes for upcoming talks w/ miekal and and azure in minneapolis -


in real life one begins with the real and moves through the semantics,
sememe, signified; in virtual life, one begins with the signified, moves
through the sememe, semantics, to the real - analog <> digital <> analog

in virtual life, enunciation is the totality of presence bottlenecked to
the replete on the other side; in real life, enunciation is the residue
and diacritical of presence. in virtual life, intention and presence are
coeval; in real life, they are disparate and bound.

online presence is consciously performative by virtue of the sign; offline
presence is performative by virtue of differentiation from substance
(performance = differentiation)

in real life, one is always already continuous and coextensive; in virtual
life, one is broken, jump-cut, renounced by EOF or kill/delete. virtual
life, like the dream, controls the mise en scene; real life exhausts and
tires in its obdurate or 'idiotic' transformations.

in real life, the granularity of distance; in virtual life, the inertia of
lag. in real life, granularity is stochastic; in virtual life, compression
codecs. in real life, the quantum/subatomic structure of non-distributive
logics and superimposition is technical and distant, with peripheral
effect in the classical/aristotelian life-world; in virtual life, the
protocol level is continuously effected, just beneath the surface of rep-
resentation.

in real life, the inertia and 'rigid designation' of the proper name; in
virtual life, the fluidity and gaps among logins, passwords, avatars, and
names. in virtual life, the digital life of binary oppositions; in real
life, the analog life of gestural superimpositions.

in digital life, there is nothing whatsoever between position or array x
and position or array x+1 - between 0 and 1; the other is foreclosed. in
digital life, there is no truth, only coherent performativities; in the
real, the truth is messy, noisy, analogic, irreducible, fuzzy.

in analog life, wear-and-tear, life-span, half-life, noise; in virtual
life, eternity, the 'clean and proper body.' in analog life, identity; in
virtual life, equivalence.

ii

collaborative projects - open to the world - anyone could write to them.
1. loveandwar: development of a 'novel' in the form of 5 backbones/pages;
these hold html code as well as text. characters and substructures.
2. the yours - open - similar format - 4 pages; one with flash, one with
image, one grey, one white - meandering micro and macro textualities.
3. lost project - open - names and lost objects separated - one writes to
one page 'through' a stuttering ('broken') portal. the lure, the
inescapably lost object.
4. traceroute project - over the millennial hinge - 24 hours - gathering
traceroute logs from all over the world.

inscription machines
linearities - trunk/single-branch structures in 1-2; some cross-referenc-
ing among backbones and projects.
bottom-up governance - anyone could write - the texts were collected in
order.
plural modalities of literature - summarizations, returns to themes,
branchpoints, 'external' content.
non dhtml/dynamic web aesthetic orientation.
almost no rupture, hacking spam.
writing and 'wryting' - enunciation of the body.

iii

wryting: manifestation of the body through bones, backbones, codework.

codework: 'the computer stirring into the text, and the text stirring the
computer.' 'anything combining tokens and syntax to represent a domain.'
the implicate order of text and program.

issues of wryting - impediments to reading - urgency coming through the
noise - modalities of inscription "I" - dissemination across lists,
protocols, etc. - use of catalyst programs -

programs and performative languages - empathetic magic -
date = Sat Feb 16 02:18:44 EST 2002
so that 'date' functions as temporally ikonic - equivalent to its residue/
result

all those tools used at the prompt - potential and unlabeled spaces -
fuzzy decodings -

the reader's production of the text - the resonant text -


_

The circuit-bending page has been updated - check it out - and Skipjack
works on my desktop incredibly well - it's a lean musical looping
instrument that's terrific for live or other audiowork - it doesn't run on
my laptops yet though -

http://www.infin8ty.com/music/bend.asp

http://www.infin8ty.com/progs/skipjack.asp

Anyway the author of these wrote me and I wanted to pass them on - some
of the circuit-bending sound is pretty amazing -

Alan

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