Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.44.0211062219490.720-100000@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: performative happening somewhere else
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 22:20:05 -0500 (EST)
performative happening somewhere else all my colors are garish - i'm ill again - slight fever - headache - chills - forgive me - my dashes - i speed past celine - a realization - there is no performative - the performative doesn't exist - material refractions - that's all - wedding vows - everything - require concrete embodiment - that's how it is - it's all physical states - the state-space of the machine - things changing - state-space to state-space - surface residue on the screen - ascii or otherwise - all sorts of things - words continuing on another level - we've got to be careful here - among the internal matrix of meaning of language and orienting of cognitive domains - and transformations of material strata - i've always written about the political economy of language - the necessity of the scream or demand or cry of the wounded or orgasm or laughter - not necessarily in that order - it's an economy that exfoliates and effuses within its own sememe - its own space and own ontology - epistemologically it wanders like everything else - but that space concretely presents the potential abundance of material operations - it's not that i'm a materialist - in spite of my sore throat and shivering - but that the material world carries on the discredit of language - it's all a mix we pass for intelligence as if writing and theory were an 'however' summarizing the abstract configura- tion of the day - thought is internal/external - panoplies of tendrils among laminanimal - can you imagine - it doesn't reside one way or another - instigated by mental operations hardly to the discredit of the material world - the performative is in the speaking or writing - my fingers on the keys - my vocal cords and enunciations - literally a far cry - i can hardly focus now - but the theory of performativity has to be radically revised - i can assure you - the point it's missing is elsewhere - not even peripheral - not even a 'somewhere else' - i'm hard put to hypothe- size the bridges - mappings of all sorts - internal neural mappings to external manipulations - all machinery - all electronics - is the lever - my eyes are hurting - this goes on and on - the doctors can't do a thing - they keep asking questions - sending me from one to another - keep filling out forms - ===