The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

My greatest fears* second part plus a vision


That we will remain unemployed.
That we will become homeless.
That we will huddle screaming in the dark.
That I will not be able to help Azure, so much darkness surrounds me.
That Azure will tire of my despair, depression, regrets, insomnia, age,
obsessiveness, irritability, illness, hysteria, exhaustion.
That I will become a burden to Azure.
That I will be withdrawn from working online as my equipment fails and I
cannot replace it.
That we will not be able to afford healthcare.**
That I will helplessly witness my own desecration.**
That I will die in pain.**

But then there are visions, from today, New Mexico:

http://www.alansondheim.org/thevision1.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/thevision2.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/thevision3.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/thevision4.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/thevision5.jpg

Of which I have not seen before, small miracles (harboring (despair),
nonetheless, small miracles.

**A friend of mine lay in his own filth in a hospital bed, screaming in
pain, before he was taken to a hospice to die.


*My greatest fears


That I will die.
That I will die and not be able to help Azure or others I love, that doom
hangs over everything.
That I will slowly lose the use of my limbs.
That I will be unable to walk and will witness my body splitting off from
me, signaling back, permanently and to no avail.
That there will be nothing to do about this, that it will be both
intolerable and inexorable.
That one day I will notice my piss turning red and that will be the start
of a spiral downward, one that I will see clearly.
That my mind will give out and I won't be able to work with originality.
That I will harbor a tumor which will be other and it will attempt to
welcome me as a friend, through masquerade, fraud, and duplicity.
That I will never see how anything turns out.
That my work will disappear unknown and unappreciated.
That the unity and philosophical force behind my work will not be evident,
that it will appear as if all I did was write scattered thoughts and bad
aphorisms.
That the brilliant excitement of working virtually within the real and
really within the virtual will never be evident as well.
That I will be treated as old and out of date, that my work will always
already have been seen as such.
That my fears will overtake me, and I will never have a pleasant or
peaceful day again.
That my sight will continue to grow worse until I am blind and feeble, and
cannot read or think clearly.
That my tinnitus will increase until I am deaf and no longer can make my
thoughts and feelings, wants and desires, empathies and givings, known to
anyone.
That I will know I am dying and watch the darkness seep down and drown me.
That my mind and body will become a shell of the fear of dying.
That I will not have the time to take pleasure in the small amount of
success I am now having.
That I will notice a sore that will not heal.
That I will find things permanently slipping away.
That forgetfulness and absent mindedness will turn into wooly and
suffocating thought.
That I will be seen as an object of pity or one whose talent remains
unfulfilled.
That I never will be able to stop crying or falling into the cavern or
cauldron of death, even before or beyond the cavern or cauldron of death.
That I will no longer be able to breathe.
That I will no longer be able to play music or sound with the skill I now
possess.
That I will no longer recognize musical instruments as a source of
pleasure or a source of music or sound.
That I will repeat myself without knowing I am repeating myself.
That I will repeat myself as if I were in prison without recompense,
creativity, or originality.
That I will die slowly of cancer, unable to eat, starving myself, slowly
withdrawing from the gaze and concern of others.
That I will not be able to stop this withdrawing.
That I will die in such pain that thought itself will be cauterized.
That I will go insane wondering what Azure sees, even just moments or
seconds, after I am dead.
That I will be forced to continually recognize the absence of spirit and
the absence of care I can no longer give, well before, and up to, the
moment of my death.
That I cannot give my death as a gift to others.
That I will go insane in any case as time approaches a limit veering ever
closer no matter what I do and how I live and think.
That I will be lost in remedies that never work and never will work.
That my death will foretell at the last moment of consciousness the
meaninglessness of my life and the life of others, no matter how much
meaning appears to be shored up elsewhere, elsewise.
That my thinking and my work will be treated as without worthy of
consideration.
That my thinking and my work will be treated as of another and older
generation already receding into the past.
That my thinking and work will not be thought of as current or relevant to
the work and thinking of others.
That I will observe myself transformed into substance, losing sentience,
mumbling without response.
That my limbs and thoughts will become, without my knowledge, phantom
limbs and thoughts.
That I will be too old to learn anything new.
That my learning will be repetitive, as if it were learning something new
every time, but in reality only endlessly, uselessly, repeating.
That my deepest fears are always already in a state of hopeless realiza-
tion.
That I will die already having the fullest knowledge, not of death, but of
dying, and that this knowledge is contributory towards my death through
unfathomable darkness and depression.
That I will be destroyed.
That I will die a violent and painful death.
That pain will invade my consciousness and I will beg for death.
That I will never go beyond the suffering of the world.
That every little thing will continue to reveal its suffering to me.
That I will never see how things come out.
That I will die.

from presenting Julu Twine for image imaginary

some images from talk with Sunflower Aichi

http://www.alansondheim.org/ still pngs
(The motion on the ground floor of the installation is stopped for
the most part; the movement is particle emissions only. That way,
moire and other effects are the result solely of avatar movement -
nothing else occurs. The sky is still buzzing as ever.)

I was in IM mode with you -
No, I used the other more complex one.
It's sort of difficult for me to figure out what I'm using where -
They're very different.
I think
I think she disappeared with this animation
I can hold a pose if you want or do a slow move
you might be able to capture this? If Not, I'll go slower - at least
she is in one place here
She can hold this position
Ok, I'll try something else. The best thing I think is to capture her
while she's moving
and if you do a few images, one should come out ok
Is this useful?
What do you mean?
I can go outside into the sky and teleport you
so I should keep on typing - hold on
sometimes when I type you have the face and everything is still,
sometimes not - is this better
is this more useful when I type?
abababababababababababababababababa
babbbabababababababababababababababab
ababbjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
I'm tying to try and hold it still!
it's odd doing this....
I'm not sure what sort of poem she should type....
hold on
I can add text heh
fairly distorted...
perhaps useful?
hold on - is there anything you want specifically?
what?
I haven't done that, generally she moves too quickly
will do -
should I move around the space?
ok sorry
in a minute - I like this particular movement
these few are, yes
they're still from motion capture manipulation - they just came out
this way
I'll go towards other movements now
this is about maximum speed - it depends on yor computer speed as well
this installation also take a LOT of processing which is a problem
this was pretty empty when I began -
is there anything else now?
yes, the other one I perform with
yes, hold on. I can log out and come back in with the other identity.