Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.58.0402101547160.12529@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: Codework impossibility of self-reference and decipherment.
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:47:27 -0500 (EST)
Codework impossibility of self-reference and decipherment. a. "There are seven words in this sentence." Which word is the number? b. "This is a sentence." But how would one know? c. "This is written in English." But how would one know? etc. - Self-referentiality possesses a residue; only in mathematics or logic is it 'pure' - the whole relating to the whole. The residue is in relation to an attribute. But then d. "This refers in its entirety to itself." Are we at the juncture of paradox? etc. Using Peirce's distinctions, I'd argue that every painting is first and foremost ikonic and perceived as such - the paint is never transparent. To the extent that codework requires interpretation, examination, it is ikonic as well - one might say that, even in the space of virtuality, it possesses a materialist foundation. The more 'impenetrable' the greater the degree of ikonicity, the greater the appearance of _material._ This appearance is just that, however, appearance, as a change - for example from monospace to justifiable type - will demonstrate. One must consider, of course, the semantic residue of the ikonic - and the interstitial / liminal between the meaning-sememe and the ikonic provides the _content_ of the work; in fact, the meaning-sememe and ikonic-sememe are interwoven, inseparable, and contributory, a somewhat similar situation to the calligraphic. _Meaning_ itself is both attribute (i.e. 'meaning of _cheval_ in French') and calligraphic; totality is reserved for the Absolute which is always problematic ('meaning of Life,' 'meaning of Everything') and ideologically suspect. To the extent that meaning embraces an Absolute, meaning depends on decoding (Bible, Koran, Kwak!); here is the locus of political Power in the Foucauldian sense. Codework simultaneously embraces and problematizes meaning; one might argue that codework is _fallen work,_ fallen by the wayside, as well as the disturbance of the Gnostic Mary Magdalen. Every more or less traditional text is codework with invisible residue; every computer harbors the machinic, the ideology of capital in the construction of its components, the oppression of underdevelopment in its reliance on cheap labor. Every text is Derridian/Foucauldian differance; codework is exemplary of the process of deferral and _rewrite._ Codework, like _wryting,_ is an embodiment within virtual ontologies; wryting disturbs _towards_ the body, desire, language - that language of codework, ruptured by codework. Inner speech as well is self-referential, a decoding of every text spoken within it, before the reader, or among the readers. And nothing fulfills _utterly,_ every Absolute itself is codework, a deferral - hence the psychoanalytical nature of _defuge_ - that decay which comes about through the overuse of pornography or the attempt to begin again and again, a novel left off in the middle. Therefore consumption, the ravenous, is at the heart of _things_ to the extent there is any _meaning_ at all. __