Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.20.1612132315200.5895@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Arc.hive@tekspost.no
Subject: Work description for Empyre email list
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 23:17:26 -0500 (EST)
Work description for Empyre email list [ http://www.alansondheim.org/atl374.jpg automated university library, Raleigh, NC http://www.alansondheim.org/atl324.jpg mummy, university museum, Atlanta, GA http://www.alansondheim.org/atl360.jpg Raleigh, NC ] [I was one of a number of guests for the empyre email list in November, moderated by Murat Nemet-Nejab. For my intro, I prepared the following, which was extensively edited down. I still think it's a good description of my work for anyone coming to it. I'd change some things now, but will leave it as is. For what it's worth, my segment was with Adeena Karasick, during the election, which derailed the discussion.] My name is Alan Sondheim and I approve this message. I have been working with computers for decades, and specifically with virtual worlds and motion capture for the past fifteen or so. I developed the notion of 'codework' to indicate works in which code is presenced on the surface, but problematic - works in which meaning uneasily inhabits distinctions among 'worlds of the work' and program-spaces. Of course the distinctions themselves are problematic and entangled among many other things, such as the body, abjection, and 'dirt' in the mix. In motion capture, I've worked with altered software and mapping, producing distorted avatars and avatar behaviors. In virtual worlds, I've been working with concepts of gamespace, edgespace, and blankspace; here are some very rough definitions and examples - Gamespace - this is the rule-governed space of any game where 'game' is defined as anything from TAZ to Arctic exploration to chess; one plays within the rules. The rules can be fuzzy, invisible, even non-existent. Edgespace - my term for what occurs at the boundaries/borders of gamespace - where assumed behaviors fall apart, but gamespace still functions as a broken totality, although 'untoward' and contrary behaviors occur. Edgespace includes soft hacks, griefing, permeating in-game barriers, and so forth. Blankspace - here is where it gets interesting - my term for projections and introjections (psychoanalytical terms) for what happens in edgespace. Blankspace is the realm of dreams, fantasms, appearances, ideologies, suturings, and so forth. An example of the above - Gamespace - attempting the clean and proper mapping of the world, Mercator and other projections, GPS, etc. - the 'logic' of the map. Edgespace - the 'reading' of the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the world all the way through, say, 1880; these regions were presented on worldmaps as blanks, often with contradictory delineations of landmass/watermass (i.e. if you follow a shoreline, for example, from the land, it might transform into a shoreline from the sea) - there are 'logical' contradictions, etc., all embedded within the map itself as a sheet of assertion. See http://www.alansondheim.org/north06.jpg . Blankspace - this is what 'fills' edgespace - you get the quaint 'Heere bee dragonnes' placed in edgespaces - think of Mandeville's Travels. http://www.alansondheim.org/nord1.jpg Much of my recent work deals with blankspace: http://www.alansondheim.org/suicide.mp4 for example - this actually occurred; it's a few years old, but hopefully a clear example. All of these terms, regions, are entangled with each other; there are no clear boundaries, no absolute delineations. More recently, I've been think of semiotic splatter - fragmented and chaotic semiosis, and splatter both as control and dissolution. I use this term to indicate that semiosis is never gamespace, never totalized, falls apart, coagulates and clumps; it relates to defuge, the incessant presencing of material which appears more and more stale and derogated. Semiotic splatter is related to strange attractors in chaos theory and leads to the problematic of semiosis (semiotic generation) and coagulative hardening - for example the rise of totalitarianism out of (political, economic) chaos. The semiotic splatter material is at http://www.alansondheim.org/splatter.txt - a good introduction to my work in general. [Much of it is based on the violence done to HRC by Trump's bullying - trying to come to grips with the attack which unfortunately proved successful.] This connects to the idea/l of an absolute dictionary in which each definition is a tautology: 'syzygy = syzygy' for example - but the _effect_ of such definitions goes beyond this (saying an election is 'rigged' over and over again for example, rubs off, derogates, inhabits a projected abject space - and for me relates to a mythical deathdrive; if you have patience, watch the 4-minute http://www.alansondheim.org/losingvoice.mp4 ) Finally, my practice - to write/produce on a daily level; I've been doing daily pieces (text/music/image/video) since 1994, as a continuous meditation - at first, on 'cyberspace,' but now extended elsewhere. The most recent texts are at http://www.alansondheim.org/uf.txt and http://www.alansondheim.org/ug.txt [now uh.txt and ui.txt]