Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1204292335550.29550@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Anorectic Avatars
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:37:57 -0400 (EDT)
Anorectic Avatars My beginning foray into the Anorectic Avatars UnderAcademy discursion: http://www.alansondheim.org/anav.mp4 http://www.alansondheim.org/anav1.png http://www.alansondheim.org/anav2.png http://www.alansondheim.org/anav3.png http://www.alansondheim.org/anav4.png http://www.alansondheim.org/anav5.png http://www.alansondheim.org/anav6.png http://www.alansondheim.org/anav7.png [ The above are related to Christine Wilks' work with avatar bodies; What you're seeing are skins of Julu Twine and environs revealed by the camera's penetrating gaze. ] I keep thinking about the THICKNESS of avatars and their LACK THEREOF since there's nothing there but faces that give the appearance of solidity. If you cut open a HUMAN BEING or other organism, you get solid/liquid/gas, something or other, all the way down or in; if you go inside an AVATAR as such, you see nothing since most likely the faces just face one direction - outward. So a big difference is that when you cut open a real physical organism, you create NEW FACES, since FACES could be defined by WHAT'S VISIBLE. So there are FACES ALL THE WAY DOWN. Does this matter? Probably not, but I think of edibility, what one might eat, and that seems to apply to the latter but not the former. YOU CAN'T EAT A SINGLE FACE THAT FACES JUST ONE DIRECTION OR EVEN A SINGLE FACE THAT FACES TWO DIRECTIONS since faces are sections of two-dimensional space embedded in three-dimensional space, where they NECESSARILY HAVE ZERO VOLUME. Eating and gathering energy in THIS UNIVERSE always implies at least THREE-DIMENSIONAL VOLUME, if not more. So what I'm wondering - is what could we possibly mean by THE THICKNESS OF AVATARS or THE EDIBILITY OF AVATARS, and these are not minor questions or irritations but really FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ALIVE IN THIS UNIVERSE, where we gather energy, devour things, expel other things, transform things - Anyway back to the EDIBILITY OR THICKNESS OF AVATARS - so important because without this, they're at best PROJECTIONS OR REPRESENTATIONS OF SOMETHING ELSE, and we can't have that. So AVATARS ARE ANORECTIC, they DISHUNGER towards anorexia, they remain at zero-thinness or do they? So the question is: WHAT COULD WE MEAN BY THE THICKNESS OF AVATARS, OR THE EDIBILITY OF AVATARS, IF ANYTHING? AND CAN WE GIVE EXAMPLES? AND ARE THESE EXAMPLES - OUR VERY FUTURE, WHICH IS AT STAKE?