Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.44.0211260058100.4743-100000@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: periodic note
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 00:58:25 -0500 (EST)
=== Internet Philosophy and Psychology - 11/26/02 (last was 08/02/02) My recent work has been dealing with sexuality, terror, death, windows onto worlds, the confluence of subtropical nature with subsumption neural architectures. I have also been working on a series of 3D animations (mixed with real-life video), pieces exploring the same themes in extreme or extended spaces. An extended video, Trilby, was produced; more recent videos include a Scan series, and Alberta.mov. (All available reduced on cdrom.) === This is a somewhat periodic notice describing my Internet Text, available on the Net, and sent in the form of texts to various lists. The URLs are http://www.asondheim.org and http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/ which is partially mirrored at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html. See http://www.asondheim.org/portal/ for new video/imagework; please note this is for over-18/ The changing nature of the email lists, Cybermind and Wryting, to which almost all of the texts are sent individually, hides the full body of the work; readers may not be aware of the continuity among them. The writing may appear fragmented, created piecemeal, splintered from a non-existent whole. On my end, the whole is evident, the texts extended into the lists, partial or transitional objects. So this (periodic) notice is an attempt to recuperate the work as total- ity, restrain its diaphanous existence. Below is an updated introduction. ----- The "Internet Text" currently constitutes around 100 files, or 10,000 printed pages. It began in 1994, and has continued as an extended meditation on cyberspace, expanding into 'wild theory' and literatures, symptomologies of the edge. Almost all of the text is in the form of short- or long-waves. The former are the individual sections, written in a variety of styles, at times referencing other writers/theorists. The sections are interrelated; on occasion emanations are used, avatars of philosophical or psychological import. These also create and problematize narrative substructures within the work as a whole. Such are Susan Graham, Julu, Alan, Jennifer, Azure, and Nikuko in particular. The long-waves are fuzzy thematics bearing on such issues as death, sexuality, virtual embodiment, the "granularity of the real," physical reality, computer languages, and protocols. The waves weave throughout the text; the resulting splits and convergences owe something to phenomenology, programming, deconstruction, linguistics, philosophy and prehistory, as well as the domains of online worlds in relation to everyday realities. Overall, I'm concerned with virtual-real subjectivity and its manifesta- tions. I continue working on a cdrom of the last eight years of my work (Archive), as well as a series of 3d animation and other videos, some of which are on cdrom. I have used MUDS, MOOS, talkers, perl, d/html, qbasic, linux, emacs, vi, CuSeeMe, etc., my work tending towards embodied writing, texts which act and engage beyond traditional reading practices. Some of these emerge out of performative language - soft-tech such as computer programs which _do_ things; some emerge out of interferences with these programs, or conversa- tions using internet applications that are activated one way or another. And some of the work stems from collaboration, particularly video, sound, and flash pieces. There is no binarism in the texts, no series of definitive statements. Virtuality is considered beyond the text- and web-scapes prevalent now. The various issues of embodiment that will arrive with full-real VR are already in embryonic existence, permitting the theorizing of present and future sites, "spaces," nodes, and modalities of body/speech/community. The texts are roughly in the order written; the last-entered at the moment is mq. They may be read in any order, and distributed in any medium; please credit me. I would appreciate in return any comments you may have. For information on the availability of cdroms containing the text and other materials (graphics, video, sound, articles, books), see the appen- ded notice below. You can find my collaborative projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm and my conference activities at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk - both as a result of my virtual writer-in-residence with the Trace online writing community. See also: .echo, Alt-X, e-book and publish-on-demand, 2002 Being on Line, Net Subjectivity (anthology), Lusitania, 1997 New Observations Magazine #120 (anthology), Cultures of Cyberspace, 1998 The Case of the Real, Pote and Poets Press, 1998 Jennifer, Nominative Press Collective, 1997 Alan Sondheim 718-857-3671 or 718-813-3285 (US) 432 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11217 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CDROM Offering: Alan Sondheim : Collected and Newly-Released Work: Archive 4.5: This includes all the texts from 1994- present, a number of older articles, several books, a great number of images, some short video, etc. Archive is continuously updated. There is also sound-work and some programming. I think of this as the "basic" cd-rom; if you have an earlier copy, you might want to update. $ 12.00 including shipping. Other cdroms include new video/sound/image/text - please contact me for details.