Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1110281940520.25328@panix1.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: On Being Dead / On My Deadwork / My Work is Dead
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:43:31 -0400 (EDT)
On Being Dead / On My Deadwork / My Work is Dead Deadwork is invisible work; deadwork is virtual work. When there is nothing but the image and the memory of the image, there is deadwork. When the producing tribe cannot read, can only reinterpret, there is deadwork. Deadwork does not enter the cycle of capital; it no longer exists; it never has existed. Deadwork is deadly work; it is the death of the producing culture. The culture knows it. The culture is ready for its death. My work is dead. It is not spoken. It is invisible in the building at Eyebeam and disappears as a future anterior online. In the space, it huddles. In the space it hides in cracks in crevices, in the remains of an s/m parlor perhaps, in the remains of a parking garage perhaps, in the remains if a silent film studio perhaps. The building is scarred; my work devolves, unscars, dissolves. It is a shadow on a scar. It is the huddle beneath the cicatrice. If hug is a hut, it is also a huddle, memories huddle. It is the hulk of memories in the huddle, the hull carrying forth the moon into the day. The moon huddles in the wane of day; the moon is a building, is a shadow of a scar. The moon is deadwork; we move into space to bear witness to the shadows. We are the inconceivable of life. We are neither remnant nor residue; we are its remainder. The remainder of life is its divisor. It what occurs after the _cleave._ I have meant to write about the cleave, to devolve it. When the windmill generator cleaves the sky, you say that nothing is cut, nothing disappears, and a pretty picture. But blades cleave hulls of birds and birds die; birds die everywhere. In the cleaving of the birds we do our deadwork. For work to live it must be a word; it must be a spoken word. A spoken word is acknowledged, it is communal. Deadwork is dead language; it participates in the 'might as well,' 'might as well disappear,' 'might as well not be there,' 'might as well collapse the building and the culture that produced it.' The word is a world that inheres to violence; the word cleaves. The word cleaves itself; always suicidal, it is always under erasure, always dis-appearing. It is the appearance of disappearance and that is why words are uncanny, why poetry is uncanny, why a scream cleaves... and is uncanny. My work is dead; it is unreadable, tends towards an uncanny death, begu, the dead soul. It struggles for a home, for the pronunciation of an other, an other mouth. I imagine fingers tracing in the air. I imagine heterogeneity. It disappears; it goes away; it's gone. But my work is dead; it pronounces. It is part of speech, grammar. It is a category and it is not particular. By this it means it will announce, anywhere and anytime. It refuses distinction (beyond the elementary particles) (beyond dark matter); it is always collapsing. The building is always collapsing but the building is a hearth where hearts murmur and beings are born. Deadwork is an opposite; it is always dying. It insists, insists on life (like a young child) (like a brat); it burns for this life. But there isn't much time left and it's dead, yes, and dying. I am Nikuko and I am Jennifer and I am Alan and I am Julu and these are my words and they are _canny._ +++ Nikuko says: The truth is, you're reading dead words on a dead screen, and there's proper names are killed, our dead words spike us in our throats our mouths Jennifer says: dead words in beauty-smoke kyushu honshu incense kamogami smoke, dead words in beauty-smoke kyushu your dead words are your pens and pencils, skin and languages? your dead words are fucked and blank? dead words, these lips hardly move, names are just that, it's the force of my dead words have no comfort, no comfort now, there was a moment, i re- member, your dead words are your love? proper names are killed, our dead words spike us in our throats our mouths Alan says: dead words in beauty-smoke kyushu honshu incense kamogami smoke, dead words in beauty-smoke kyushu your dead words are your pens and pencils, skin and languages? my words my i want to die. try dead words head. bones to old. my lead. words my i want to die. try dead words head. bones to old. my lead. falls This is why existence is a dead word and sex is not; sex starts inside my words my i want to die. try dead words head. bones to old. my lead. words my i want to die. try dead words head. bones to old. my lead. falls This is why existence is a dead word and sex is not; sex starts inside. Julu says: +++