Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 13:14:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Clot ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The thick mass of clotted texts spews into the muck at the end of the URL road once again... tel Trying 128.143.200.11... Connected to jefferson.village.virginia.edu. Escape character is '^]'. AIX telnet (jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU) jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU login: spoons spoons's Password: Enter terminal type [default is vt100]: /home/spoons % cd ftp.archives/cybermind-digest.archive/internet /home/spoons/ftp.archives/cybermind-digest.archive/internet % ftp panix3.panix.com Connected to panix3.panix.com. 220 panix3.panix.com FTP server (Version wu-2.4(1) Sun May 21 12:42:39 EDT 1995) ready. Name (panix3.panix.com:spoons): sondheim 331 Password required for sondheim. Password: 230 User sondheim logged in. ftp> get an 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for an (74895 bytes). 226 Transfer complete. 76435 bytes received in 1.768 seconds (42.21 Kbytes/s) ftp> bye 221 Goodbye. /home/spoons/ftp.archives/cybermind-digest.archive/internet % chmod 664 an /home/spoons/ftp.archives/cybermind-digest.archive/internet % ls -l an -rw-rw-r-- 1 spoons spoons 74895 Jun 12 02:49 an /home/spoons/ftp.archives/cybermind-digest.archive/internet % cd /home/spoons % cd public_html /home/spoons/public_html % pico internet_txt.html [...] /home/spoons/public_html % logout Connection closed by foreign host. k:17> __________________________________________________________________________ Teaching the Internet Teach them to suck their credit cards for a wild wild ride! Get them fed to the hacker sites as fast as they can type! Have them churn their .sigs in the bot-machines of IRC! Show them the violence of Net cash as they buy P8s on spec! Strip them with Net sex, beguile them with future love and nakedness! Throw them into HotWired to learn the kewlest sounds! Telnet them into gender-change obscurity of MUD ORC-killer options! Make them hop across Gopher, Archie, Jughead, Veronica, oh why bother? Send them to teacher Alan, to find the best new URLs! Weave their warp and woof wiped with World Wide Web! Hold their hands while fingering each and every one! Thrust them into IRC strip-teased, no panty flood protection! Turn them loose on alt.flame.newbie, subject to cursing hordes! Ask them to email Alan with deepest darkest sex and childhood tales! Tell them to traceroute themselves all the way to Unix shelled-out ~home! Beg them to sing another talker tune while gods snoop with delight! Order their home-page cracked, repeated with a thousand frames! Delete them, @toad them, kiss them all with lips of cyber-ruby-red! Transform them into one another, membrane-deep in IRC! Throw them out of home-directory with nowhere left to go! Root them from the root! Toss them in the /bin! Write to their a.db! And rm -r their core! __________________________________________________________________________ Older An Older Mind bewails nations. It hovers dark, interconnected at nodes, sprayed in star-configurations connected across night-twinkling-stars, in- candescent bulbs streaked with blue at magnification 150 just across town. An Older Mind would bend deep in Thought, would stir dark waters into dark and stillborn Action. An Older Mind would enumerate Nations gaunt and hoary, branches of trees rustling the sky stormed into carbon-russet dark- ness. Lightning is sky-crack, cragged break of black porcelain, Older Mind Sim-Symbolic illumination burned into seven-layered blood-stained retinal booking down to bedrock flaked with muscovite. Older Mind is t = 0, is <=refresh> constant, emission into screen-object, sound-object. Older Mind turns at t0 pace, haunted as body heaves thrust onto side; it ponders for No-Reason, is None. None hurtles downward into No-Reason; only nations say split, no capital. _Look elsewhere than you look._ Older Mind shudders sky-bowl swollen, crusted with Sim-Symbolic. Bewail. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 02:15:43 -0400 (EDT) On the Road Back Has this happened to you? David gets in touch with me from the years at Brown University in Rhode Island; I contact Edward, from Cybermind add- ress, from the L.A. years; Julien emails me from those Montreal times off-line; Kathleen from time in Atlanta; others from New York, Ron from Buffalo; Bob from New Haven, now of Prague; they arrive in my Inbox through due solicitation, theirs or mine, a dozen more as well, _this_ life collapses; Ian from Halifax and brother Mark from Victoria; Joanna, daughter, from Los Angeles and Robert from Atlanta; Lee from Texas; & mists swirl time over 30 years 25 cities collapsed into _this_ space of lucky & unlucky enumeration; skin and cloth write bone and cloth; there is Fred from Providence; & Carol Androsky you are still not on line but your friend in NM did in fact connect; now whom or what conflagration lights hair burned into protocol beacon; there is Peter married to my sister in Toronto; what is this return towards what dark earth etc.; what guise or mire etc.; towards what occasion gone askew spirit awry; and towards those who are yet to come thus burn my face into a ground; wail and solicit: STAY FOR THE DURATION. _________________________________________________________________________ Failure to Overwhelm To theorize the Net, analyze it according to one or another model (see below), to examine it without any philosophical presuppositions (an im- possibility), to include or exclude metaphysics: A closed - an academic loop is formed, the placement of a book or article (I try for this my- self), but what occurs beyond this, what reason, what point (reason collapsed to a node)? What can theory _provide_ if it is not, for example, descriptive kinesics, software design philosophy, standardization of protocols, typifications? It remains an augmentation, appendaged to what? Half in and out of the corpus of philosophical discourse, applied philosophy, but towards what ends? What? (Consider _here_ the onset-characteristics of a trumpet tone.) There is of course the theorizing of the virtual - from a phenomenological viewpoint, theory describing _stuff_ on several levels, the _stuffing_ in fact of cyberspace itself, however that term is defined, split, deconst- ructed. Of course there are no conclusions; there are, instead, parallels, analogs, interstitial or liminal displays of language. Statistics appear in sociological analysis, almost always soft. Structures may or may not emerge. Whatever they're made to speak is manufactured. On the other hand, considerations of Being, etc. lend themselves to curious metaphysics. These can go anywhere, routed in roots. This _applied_ theory centers it _on topic,_ a source of decay. What if there's no theory-otherwise? What theory-otherwise would apply? What ghosts enter the maelstrom, alternative selves, ectoplasms, staggered or schizzed personalities inhabiting the same flesh? Theory vis-a-vis topicality _here_ is already abject, a vestige of terri- torialized minor philosophy, slide-rule humans approaching the discarded object, still clothed and canvas-wrapped. Minor philosophy, perhaps in the sense of Deleuze and Guattari, minor literature. Even the psychoanalytics of the space generate ghost shots at a new sub- jectivity - but these things change on an almost daily basis. All this spells ennui, the peculiar analytical burnout where cyberspace theory is concerned, entrance and exit _the doldrums._ It's partly the socio-political atmosphere of "the times," exhaustion as theory becomes mechanism, predictable, unused, negative dialectics. On one hand, arti- culation is all there is; on the other, overwhelming information all the way down/across, well-definition literally ruling, graduating the day. The liminal fails to erupt; the liminal is theorized. ________________________________________________________________________ Left Behind Whine, Shame, Don't Read I'm cannon-fodder. There are times I wish I were dead, times when I find myself left behind in development as others with money or institutional support leap to at the least 32 bit more likely Windows 95 / NT, Solaris Sun and then some. I have no access to VRML, to Java; I can't afford a CD ROM for the 486/33 because the hard-drive has been augmented with ano- ther to bring the machine into the 90s. Yet I have to teach this stuff; I write about it, exhausted. I would love to build a CD Rom around my texts/images; there's no support. I'd love to work with another student like Kayo Matsushita, but I'm almost entirely out of the New School now, except for the computer instruction center. FTP anyone? Without a base, my texts spit into emptiness, carrying nothing with them. I sleep worse at night than ever. Surely there must be a place for this crap. I've given up on conferences. I see names of everyone I know at conferences but I can't participate - no monies for travel, equipment, nothing but stress and meager hope that I can keep typing away. Type is the cheapest medium. If I could I would: buy a CD ROM drive, external, plus burner, load up on NT and linux, pay for a local home-page website. Even that is difficult; the damn text I wrote is at 3.5 megs, and with the indices and graphics it's already close to 5. I read Wired again and everything in it is _the gear,_ _killer,_ at the least, _cool,_ and way the hell out of reach. I'm ashamed - not from cri- tique for the magazine - but from my inability to participate. My ideas are as good as anyone's! But I'm left behind. And if I'm in this position, there are millions worse off, who find the split between the promise and premise of the Net, and THEIR reality grow- ing daily, in spite of the cost of Pentiums dropping. As the Net moves more and more in the direction of manageriality (something I predicted de- cades ago, big deal), it becomes increasingly seamless, upper-middle to upper-class, a long distance from the anarchist poverty of medieval ori- ginary hacking. The fetish section of Wired shows expensive and SEAMLESS objects, not to be dismantled, rewired, turned into something. No assembly language in the absence of assembly... And I'm back here fiddling with a 486/25 trying to get the config.sys to speed things up, the tiniest bit, trying to keep the damn battery from dying once and for all. I am turning grey, the color of buildings and streets, disappearing into liminality, crevices, invisible to one and all. Animals are already taking over the loft; I hear them in the walls, out of reach. Radiation is the order of the day. My whole life is here! Insects crawl across my skin. If I die my cat may starve. How much longer can I pay the cost of my ac- counts? No one wants to read text or theory any longer. My graphics rely on primitive forms of manipulation. Disease is just around the corner; I can see the floor faintly glowing of its own accord in the middle of this or any other night. Claws reach between the keys. Sleep itself is a night- mare; that's all that happens for hours. I nap several times a day. Mela- tonin no longer works. I've stopped dealing with cholesterol. I need a low calorie diet so I can live another fifty years because I want to see how Courtney turns out. In my spare time I read the Iliad. I know this: _Something is wrong with the book._ The Hittites knew these guys; they were just a little to the west, on the shore there. I think the Achaeans were too. As with Iran's Yima, one wants to know - how did the names get that way? And so many, and so long after the fact? Tonight I'll close my eyes and once again await the spears, muscles torn from their sockets, always that originary wound - it just takes one, it always have. And back then and now, among them, I won't be left behind. ________________________________________________________________________ Tiffany dense entanglement of fluid, you-know-language, aural, i course thru u, i u, Tiffany course thru alan, Tiffanyalan, breath floods, clitoral, eyes stained by u, u lay me out, lance, skin, nipples, on Menstrual Table, you-know-language Obvious exits: out to Living Quarters - 2nd Floor You see lance, skin, Menstrual Table, Tiffanyalan, you-know-language, nipples, clitoral, anal, aural, and envelope here. There is new activity on the following list: "I have been ruined by women. You say, "I have been ruined by women." You say, "Women are the bane of me." You say, "If it weren't for women, I would have been more successful." You say, "Women!" Alan jumps out of the way of women. Alan jumps way out of the way! Clara says, "I have been ruined by you." Clara says, "You're always blaming others for your own faults." Clara says, "Look who's playing the oppressed!" Clara says, "Go to hell!" Tiffany says: "There's been this sudden rage." Alan says: "Rage is all the rage." Tiffany doesn't find that funny. Tiffany doesn't find any of this funny. Tiffany says go to hell. Alan goes to hell. @quit ________________________________________________________________________ KILL KILL: t=1 You think you're doing the same thing with your cock splits, labia pier- cings, holes in your nipples, taking it a step further - but there's no- where to go with the body, something you haven't learned cause you haven't been there, never could be, t=0 stop with this fucking crap - you can't move cause you haven't got the energy, energy's gone, sapped out just like MOVE MOVE: Decent normal. the Who smashed their instruments into What haven't you heard? What is it you can't do? Take a bite out of his cheek? That scar was there long be- fore you were born. It's repetitive shit at this point, only with addres- ses. You can't believe the hole in the addresses. The links are there for you to fall into lined with money. Your hole is lined with money. It's all that the whereabouts. Cobain had it fucking right, shoot up. There's total CONTROL CONTROL: Didn't live then don't live now. control assholes. You don't see a damn thing. If you did you'd shoot up shoot to kill do anything avoid the pain avoid the plague. There's nothing to do but Program gets you nowhere. It's so much establishment now it's no longer establishment. Drill your eyes out, fuck face, fuck your face hole, it's all over now, it never was never began, t=0 way before you came along DRAG DRAG: You cut a hole in two. dragging time with you. What it is is forward, you are the forward. You are the forward you are the forward. You are the forward you are the forward. You are the forward you are the forward. You are the forward you are the forward. You are the forward you are the forward. You are the forward you are the forward. You are the forward you are the forward. You are the forward you are the forward. __________________________________________________________________________ - Lies and Deceit At the end of a Pete Townsend piece the character asks whatever happened to "all that beautiful hippy shit"? During the 60s and 70s humanity wit- nessed the last evil, last terror, last goodness, last era of redemption. Since then language has foreclosed upon itself, truth has problematized, and the resulting cynicism is nothing more than the self-guarding of a civilization under siege. The difference between Janis Joplin and Lydia Lunch is one between the sung body and the body of song, between inhabi- tation and construction. In the digital era, construct replaces essence, and without essence there is no truth in the midst of well-defined form- ulas - only what works and what doesn't work, presaged decades ago by situational ethics. This is the pivot of the world against which lies and deceit become part of the order of the day, not in difference from truth, but in truth's deference. Hippy shit was based on possibility; when pos- sibility becomes (software) upgrade, the loss is too subtle to register, lost itself in quantification. This is not the classical _reign of num- ber,_ but the _rain of number,_ statistics for its own sake, flooding and constructing what passes for and thereby becomes the real. _Nothing_ is left out, and that is the extent of the loss, to the fullest extent of the law, justice notwithstanding. __________________________________________________________________________ - BINGO When is the theory thing the right thing to say? I've seen both men and women theorists dressed like whores. Wire-rimmed glasses, severe cloth- ing, black like gallerists, sharp in-group out-group eye-dividers, on the lookout for hungry grad students sucking up to foetid stumps, _tendenz,_ bigtime scholastic etiquettes. After a while (raise your skirt drop your pants kiss my ass) the presentation debate hardly matters; conference-aura sickens, little boy and girl grads running into artist bedroom hotel enc- laves where the answers literally lie. What I've _scene._ Learning art and theory proper in artschool theoryschool, learning to _en- compass/express_ within permissivity: what _gives._ Mentors harden, hunker down with sullen heavy-lidded sexpressions themselves. The game is a game complete with _hothouse,_ keeping pure sterile coterie from wolves of ex- perience and debate outside the premises. So when is theory the _right thing,_ what definitions, protocols, define the slight raising of filter barriers, enough to let the poor thing _in_? ______________________________________________________________________ Cottonworld, America's Future By Jersey City Sue Fifteen children have died falling from sliding boards across a nation of three hundred million, oh heavens, let us make them us safer with cotton wadding all the way down. Oh heavens, let us protect the poor little chil- dren from putting their heads through crib bars, they make them from cot- ton too, to protect the little cotton heads! You can't be too careful in this beloved country. Cords on sweatpants have become tangled in the midst of little playing children as airbags just don't help absolutely everyone riding on car roofs for free rides down country lanes, cottonworld car roofs for cottonheads freebie riders on high. Open elevator doors beckon freakily when cottonheads step up a step, trip trip bang their little cottonheads against metal wallplates now turned cotton. Outside Jersey City Sue straps one on, bullets flying everywhere, cotton- heads splat splattered against cotton pavement where little knees won't ever scrape again. _________________________________________________________________________ - Paul, Sail On If I gather up, will you bury me, will you bury me if I gather up Your ambergris, your bronze helmet, your amber, your bronze Swollen by river's wake by cavern opening cavern awakened by the river's swell Motivated by gutted reeds cut stuttered clay, read in gorgeous monuments gone motivated If I lie with you, will you lie with me, if I lay with you will you lay with me Near the pregnant cow near the gutted horse near the emptied house by the coward's prayer Through the dim dark night by the knight's despair by the armor there If I wash for you by the river's edge and I wash for you by the same edge of the river Where down the river there is a gathering of knights and women, I think they are celebrating Telipinu at the moment Yes, I will lie with you, I will lay with you, I will sacrifice, you will sacrifice Your horse, your cow, yourself, against my golden hair, my eyes of blue Sparkling in the waters pooling by the marshes, waters sprinkled with blood, swollen with whitened Bones you have slaughtered, your bones you have slaughtered While I, while I I'm leaving for Telipinu. __________________________________________________________________________ Reviewing By Country Here are the results of reviewing FOP-L and Cybermind by country. Note that the country spread is greater per user for Cybermind (36 against 14) and that in both cases, the resulting curve, organized by demographic rank, would approach that of an exponential. It would be wonderful if we could extend our member-bases so that Italy, for example, would have more than one representative or exponent - actually neither, but an _index_ at the least. So the spread of the demographics, for the most part, is an illusion... In FOP-L, 7 countries are represented by one person, or 50%; in Cybermind, 17, or 47%, almost the same. Let us expand each of these ten-fold, let us build tentative networks, bases, world-wide, let the lists embed them- selves in multiculturalisms, let us see what emerges at the dawn of the millennium... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- FOP-L (Fiction-of-Philosophy) * * Country Subscribers * ------- ----------- * Australia 11 * Canada 6 * Finland 1 * Germany 3 * Great Britain 6 * Italy 1 * Japan 1 * Norway 1 * South Africa 1 * Spain 1 * Sweden 2 * Taiwan 1 * USA 103 * ??? 8 * * Total number of "concealed" subscribers: 1 * Total number of users subscribed to the list: 146 (non-"concealed" only) * Total number of countries represented: 14 (non-"concealed" only) * Total number of local node users on the list: 0 (non-"concealed" only) * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cybermind * * Country Subscribers * ------- ----------- * Argentina 3 * Australia 13 * Austria 2 * Belgium 1 * Brazil 2 * Canada 18 * Costa Rica 1 * Czech Republic 1 * Denmark 1 * El Salvador 1 * Finland 3 * France 5 * Germany 10 * Great Britain 14 * Greece 1 * Hongkong 1 * Iceland 1 * India 1 * Indonesia 1 * Israel 1 * Italy 5 * Japan 3 * Korea 3 * Netherlands 2 * New Zealand 1 * Norway 5 * Portugal 2 * Russia 1 * Singapore 2 * South Africa 1 * Spain 1 * Sweden 5 * Switzerland 3 * Taiwan 1 * USA 188 * Uruguay 1 * * Total number of "concealed" subscribers: 4 * Total number of users subscribed to the list: 305 (non-"concealed" only) * Total number of countries represented: 36 (non-"concealed" only) * Total number of local node users on the list: 0 (non-"concealed" only) * ______________________________________________________________________________ - Sunny Side, _Up_ Friends! What behooves us to read and reread the following words, in an indefinite attempt to forward the understanding, I speak of course of Vasily Rozanov: "But ... it is _thence_ that 'our passions' arise!!?? These are, indeed, 'protuberances of the sun' (torches, eruptions from the body of the sun). And the sun itself, is not it subject to 'passions'? Verily, 'there are spots even on the sun.' Christ alone is spotless. But our lovely sun is a bit of a 'sinner': it burns and warms, it burns and heats; it burns--and in springtime when it 'grows bigger,' when it not only warms, but begins to excite the blood, all animals start conceiving. The strength of the sun, the 'sin' of the sun, passes into animals. Everything grows stout, all bellies grow big. The earth itself wants seed ..." And this is the _same_ Vasily Rozanov, of whom Nicolas Berdyaev says, in his Dream and Reality: "He constantly provoked the charge of naked shame- lessness, and many find him unspeakably shocking, or even disgusting." Now both Berdyaev and Rozanov, I am sure, would desire the presence of the Sun as well as the Son, not to confuse the two, which only occurs perhaps in English or among those with a well-developed sense of sin and degrada- tion. The spottiness subverts any form of Christian purity, to be sure, a point upon which Rozanov and Berdyaev part company, with the split accom- plishing the glow of the newborn or the presence of _something_ swollen, birth or other member of the human race. To which one might reply, use a laptop as required, awaken to the Sun within you, never mind the bollocks. Or even more to the presence of _that_ point, construct a guarantee that your digital will be worn, in the midst of your other digits, out-of-doors, _jogging_ as well as _surfing,_ through cyberspace. Otherwise, one is a pale shadow of... absolutely no- thing visible or invisible, the only Shades present being those which are, in one form or another, _drawn._ ___________________________________________________________________________ The Eternal Philosophy "He would say, if not me for myself, who is for myself? And when I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" (Hillel, in Pirke Avot.) "THE GREATEST EXPERIENCE "I should first have liked to be other people in order to know what I was not. Then I understood that I had already been the others and this was easy. My greatest experience would be to be the other of the others: and the other of the others was I." (Clarice Lispector, The Foreign Legion.) ___________________________________________________________________________ - dawn* cancers flooding the body in part or in full, tumors attacking one or ano- ther organ, membrane-spreads of _illnesses of the surface,_ attacks on bodies non-virtual of all ages, genders,** there are millenarian warnings as the human tide heats up, microbes ap- proach with landing-gear erect, this is serious as insecure bodies escape to the cybersphere, sloughed skin dragging them back, we are close to degeneracy genes gone bad in polluted air not responding to antibiotics lost, no longer fortification bunker against molecular transformations, lost, in other worlds, the air itself, wires clean wires with electrons, cloyed filaments, carbon dark against smoothed electron emissions, tunneling, run around the sync clock, skin a sin or shame a dark shadow, no longer named but ceased symbolic, so we slough skins, our poisons trail behind us, so our membranes turn translucent, troubled, and there were no tomorrow --- *dawn's brilliance cuts the eyes' retinal spoils, dwelling and source of disease, scoured in the heat of day **so many I known have been cut down in the dawn of life, suppurations suddenly appearing in the half-year past, portending uneasy crawl towards overpopulations, extinctions*** ***for real, the theory appears simplistic, pollution, extinctions, ozone, desire, capital, technology, spills, desertification, violence for real for sure**** **** __________________________________________________________________________ plum dumplings (oola, can you imagine?) cutting through the sickly-sweet smell of plum dumplings, warm like an infant's slushy bowel movement overflowing the swollen sac of diapers half-off the tiny distended body, the knife separates the luscious sweet crust from itself, purple sweetness of bruises on breasts engorged with blood and milk, my stomach beginning the processes of slow decay, swirl of brown sweet liquid syrup sugars against flaccid skin, inverted anal flesh waiting for your clotted tongue, so tumescent bodies fill all space all time, so close to vomiting I drink my own slew back down and down again, queasy, lurching through sweet churning fluids, heated, spewing, I spread your bowels wet with plum-time odors, drown myself in sweet brown-violet molasses for you and me, oozing between diarrhea lips, torn plum bits soaking through purple hazy days ________________________________________________________________________ - Getting it Right I just got a "student's edition" of Matlab, a matrix/mathematics program, second-hand, loaded it in DOS, started programming, walking myself through it. The program below, with only two "real" active lines is typical. Lear- ning the syntax, getting it right, k, j, as one-place vectors, for examp- le, was difficult, the format attempting to reach the same odd limits of analysis as transcendental sine nestings pile error on error, inscribing the machinic itself in the midst of the plot. The plot is never _right,_ chaos creeping in quickly from the center to the edge. But what if the semi-colon is omitted? In _this_ language, nothing more than immediate calculation. Everything has its place. The real difficulty was the shape of the equations themselves, this being somewhat program-dependent. The slightest change sends things violently off in the wrong direction: such as my attempt to send out a message _exactly_ at the summer solstice a few minutes ago, at 10:22 PM NY time, only to find out it went, not to the lists, but to a wrong address I inadvertently entered, the presence of an "l" instead of "t" alias in the address line... % Nested Sin Function k = [1]; j = [1]; n = 1; u = 'Nested Sin Function, plot j,k' z = input('number of operations '); q = input('constant, p=1 '); r = input('constant, p-1 '); s = input('constant for -sin(), 1 '); t = input('constant for +sin(), 1 '); while n < z j(n+1) = sin(k(n))*q - sin(j(n))*s; k(n+1) = sin(j(n))*r + sin(k(n))*t; n = n+1; end plot(j,k,'+w') __________________________________________________________________________ - Some Early history of Cybermind and FOP-L I found this, without a date, by Michael Current. He and I began talking about doing a list together; I believe he made the first proposal since he writes elsewhere in the letter "As to the list I was proposing" but I'm not positive. It's probably from late May, 1994. Anyway - "As for the proposed list itself, it can pretty much be whatever the mod- erators decide to frame it as. The moderators would be allowed to draft the description that goes in the "info" file on the list. My thought was that this would be a place a.) to discuss work devoted to, or relevant to, the philosophical, etc, issues related to the impact of cyberspace on subjectivization (or, as I prefer human becoming); b.) discuss these same issues in more general terms; and b.[sic]) provide a palace to share work- in-progress (this would especially involve student work, a great deal of which is now focusing on cyber-issues. Thesis-net and a couple of other lists have tried to perform this function, but don't seem to have succee- ded, despite what looked to be a fair amount of interest.) So I guess that would mean general conversation, conversation focused around specific theorists/texts (perhaps some group readings from time to time), and dis- cussion/critique of works-in-progress. "I know this is vague, but I just made it up :) and it is late at night." Earlier, he talks about the politics of Thinknet (I don't feel comfortable reproducing this), and the possibility of running Cybermind there; this rapidly dissolved, however, and we moved to Spoons. Both were on world. std.com in Boston. We moved from there later on to the virginia.edu - I don't think Michael was alive at the time. We ended up, after that, on aol.com where we are now. FOP-L originated between me and someone else at Spoons; we both wanted to run a Blanchot list, but I wanted to run something on my own. After argu- ing and realizing I didn't want to do another "proper name" list in any case, I ended up with Fiction-of-Philosophy, which I still think of as a terrible title. (Michael was running Deleuze-Guattari at the time, by the way.) The two lists have always been related; both drew from Future Cul- ture, the list I met Michael on, Cybermind more so. FOP-L moved from Spoons to Purdue, of course. Around February 1995, I brought FOP-L down, unsubbed everyone and asked them to resub, out of a lot of neurotic pain I was going through at the time, in relation to some people who were dom- inating the list and attacking me as well. They left, didn't come back; there were all sorts of negative feelings on everyone's part, and FOP-L was crippled for a long time after that. Since then, however, it's run a lot smoother and with more of a focus than Cybermind. What occasioned all of this was finding a batch of printed-out posts I no longer have on-line, but which I thought might be of interest... __________________________________________________________________________ - The Orders of Faith Without knowing sufficient mathematics or detailing, it nonetheless seems reasonable that a certain mathesis of the interior of the CPU and math co-processor could be examined - that is, their limits - by, first of all, repeated iterations/recursions of theoretically transcendent nested func- tions, and second of all, applying fast fourier transforms to the result- ing vectors, in order to extract "resonances" from the relatively chaotic series, which may or may not be strange or other attractors in the ideal realm, but which constitutes, in any case, attractors within the limita- tions of calculation, say up to the limit of sixteen decimal places, which may be rather quickly reached in practice, as terms pile upon terms. In regard to this, I have constituted such a program, which parallels another investigation I made years ago on a programmable calculator, searching out limits by a simple enlargement of the tangent function graphed and magni- as the angle approached pi/2. It is interesting to note that the IEEE sta- ndards include two strange limits, INF for infinity, and NaN, not-a-num- ber, evident for example with 0/0 or INF/INF. But what, in fact, is the point of all of this, if not to point out the limitations of the real in the process of constructing its own deconstruction? The _grid_ or _grit_ of the virtual is revealed as everything disordered becomes ordered, and cyberworlds exhaust themselves, shudder, move to further upgrading. __________________________________________________________________________ - Talk TV What's strange, coincidence? All these people from TV shows who talk and talk on late-night, they're not what they seem. Well what are they. Well, they're not the cartoonists, department-store clerks, salesmen, they appear to be. You said that already, well then who are they? Well, they all seem to be actors. They all seem to be actors? All of them? All of them, with their infinity of duties, occupations, families, relations, boyfriends, girlfriends, all of them have this in common, as if the entire space were projected onto an odd singularity, or as if a black hole named "acting" absorbed all poss- ible attributions and entities? Yes, exactly, although I am not certain of this, it seems to be a foregone conclusion - all of them, on these late- night television shows which appear to feature individuals from all walks of life, all and all, totalities everywhere - all of them are, in fact, actors, by which I mean actress as well, a generic absorbing all genders, races, creeds, religions, in relation to a process of what can only be construed as make-believe, role-playing. But this is surely what happens anyway, everyday? Not with an audience, camera, script, director, producer, gaffer, secretary, electrician, fol- low-focus, talent scout, continuity person, cameraperson, and ingenues waiting in the wings. Not with rehearsals, loopings, laugh-tracks, warm- ups, walk-throughs, run-throughs, action, we're on, we're off, let's take a lunch. This isn't what happens at all! Consider this, in fact, a lucky, lucky find! A find? Yes, if there is this coincidence, there must be more! Let us move carefully across this old terrain of ours; it appears entirely dif- ferent now, and may take us even farther, to things we haven't heard, as of yet, rumor or innuendo... ________________________________________________________________________ Justice There is no justice in this world! That is, because justice is never _of_ or _in_ the world, nor is it a horizon of the world, nor of community, nor of the subject. Then one can never be just? One can act accordingly, as if justice were a past that still encompasses the present. This is the dream, the opium, the simulacrum, abstraction, but without it, irrigation disap- pears and selves dissolve, as if they had once existed. __________________________________________________________________________ - Who? Tell me! Who are the doctors in cyberspace? Where are the farmers in cyberspace? Who are the plumbers in cyberspace? Who are the lawyers in cyberspace? Where is the hospital in cyberspace? Where are the playgrounds in cyberspace? When are there funerals in cyberspace? Who are the firemen in cyberspace? Where are the village councils in cyberspace? Where are there wars in cyberspace? Where are there births in cyberspace? Troll-questions all, asked by troglodytes beneath bridges, chthonic dwarf-peoples huddled in mountain-masses, and all of import as human- kind resurrects itself _here_ as if there were no differential, as if the nuclear family remained the world-over model of proper behavior, etiquette, and as if all the departed were _dear._ _________________________________________________________________________ - Mouth Your mouth is not your own, James, said Madame Lun, and you must remember this at all times. You carry your mouth with you, but it is our mouth now, designed for our pleasure pure, for our needs, our words, our thoughts. It must be tended carefully, kept clean and lipsticked, with bright, sullen, and bruised thick red paste, for our mark upon you. It must be opened wide when we desire such, closed for our desires as well, filled by us, never by you, never for your needs. Forget your needs; you have no more use of them, nor do we. Forget your mouth; it is gone, you will never speak again. Your mouth is not your own, Clara, said Sir Clovis, and you must remember this at all times. You are its guardian; it belongs to us, as if it were skin sutured to your own, gaping wide for our needs and pleasures. It is our skin now, burnished to swollen purple with thin lipsticks, gleaming like sullen bronze. It must only say what we desire it to say, cry and murmur with our cries, salivate with our memories of flesh distended be- yond your wildest dreams. Forget your mouth; it is gone, you will never speak again. _________________________________________________________________________ - Servo Servation Sieh, die Maschine: See, the machine: wie sie sich waelzt and raecht how it wallows and wreaks revenge, und uns entstellt und schwaecht. distorts and weakens us. Hat sie aus uns auch Kraft, Though it has strength from us, sie, ohne Leidenschaft, let it, dispassionate, treibe und diene. drive and serve. (From Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, I, 18, trans. Norton.) Pre-cybernetic, serve/servo in English, that is, following, slave, one pitched in relation to the other, two translucent, bound - as well as mas- ter/slave, a division between them, space of liminality. I wouldn't say in-formal, but some might, _there._ In any case (where the world is), this dis-passion or implication of non-cyborg, naught, as if fallen. Alterity is _bound_ to the subaltern of the _thing,_ here, Kristevan Thing centered on depression, absorption, our strength sapped, flaccid. Thus Part I the history of Occidental thought, Part II through de Mettrie, human-machine run like, because is, clockwork. Let it _go,_ viral in the world, bacter- iophage articulated, particulate. The matrix, granularity, of the world, constructs alliance, allegiance; _nothing_ happens in the separation ex- cept the nineteenth century. _________________________________________________________________________ Insomnia ..."the weariness concerns existence itself." ..."in weariness existence is like the reminder of a commandment to exist, with all the seriousness and harshness of an unrevokable contract." "Fatigue - even, and above all, the fatigue that is unthinkingly termed physical - presents itself first as a stiffening, a numbness, a way of curling up into oneself." "Fatigue is not just the cause of the letting go, it is the slackening itself." "But, if fatigue is a condemnation to being, it is also a stiffening, a withering up, a breaking with the sources of life." "To be weary is to be weary of being." "Wakefulness is anonymous. It is not that there is _my_ vigilance in the night; in insomnia it is the night itself that watches. It watches. In this anonymous nightwatch where I am completely exposed to being all the thoughts which occupy my insomnia are suspended on _nothing._ They have no support. I am, one might say, the object rather than the subject of an anonymous thought." (From Levinas, Existence and Existents, trans. Lingis.) Insomnia is the _condition_ of cyberspace, which never sleeps, exhausts itself repeatedly as packets are spit out, posts abandoned, software decays in archeological strata covered by useless upgrades: Cyberspace itself is a _tel._ Insomnia _flattens_ and even nausea is withered, use- less within it. About to partake of a journey, the traveler remains awake the night be- fore, and the night before that, and before that; letters meld into one another, each part of an equivalence that jostles the hole, shatters re- dundancy for no purpose. He imagines the doubled vector of the planes he must take; they crash repeatedly in his mind, the silver hulls turned microtomes, slicing tissue into gradients, body-slivers falling and des- iccated in dried-up space. Matter doesn't matter; things are soundless, as in cartoons. There are no survivors. Bodies _drift._ There are no survivors in cyberspace, which nauseates, the space of the insomniac. Tireless, fingers no longer type so much as _stutter_ repeat- edly, striking _out_ at keys. Posts disappear into a void like comb- space, raking the body incapable of bleeding. The planes fall over and over again from the sky. _There are no planes._ Nothing sails. "It will fly," one might say of a piece of software. It's going to run a bit, create a bit of a stir. Its days are numbered; the difference is, they're accounted for. The unknown has disappeared, replaced by paste. _________________________________________________________________________ Wash your Quotes Honey says, "I don't rail against a non-existent God. I rail against his believers." Honey rails and rails. Honey says I don't rail against a non-existent God; I rail against his believers. Alan rails and rails. Honey says, "I don't rail against a non-existent God." I rail against his believers. Honey doesn't rail and Alan rails. Honey says I don't rail against a non-existent God. "I rail against his believers." Alan doesn't rail and Honey rails. _________________________________________________________________________ - Suspense Story The first thing that comes to mind on this airplane is _poise._ Suspended perfectly in mid-air, the lozenge hangs as energy input equals output, nothing is lost, residuals go into uptake. It is perfect. It is the Net itself, without its safety, _held._ The obdurate real folds/falls away, that real which is capable of harboring a cuneiform tablet for millennia without difficulty. Cutting into the stone, it remains. Cutting into the Net, it remains, driven by power, accessible by power, communication al- ways already mediated, layers of mediation, dragging the archeological along with it. Even if hard-drives remain inviolate, isolated, retaining their magnetic domains, their very readability is not based on transla- tion, but the presence of peripherals, guiding heavily formatted and ar- ticulated heads across the substrate. Nothing is there to be _seen in other words,_ the cuneiform _scene in other words_ absent, of a _grit_ that would destroy, cauterize, the delicate surface of the disk. It's in freefall. Think of it as elevator constantly accelerating, Eins- tein's elevator in fact, the movement in space equivalent to gravitation- al pull. But isolated, an internalized system at odds with itself, the airplane thus _static,_ the drink remaining on the traytop, not even a momentary spillage. The hurtling airplane: it's as if _the world were real._ As on the Net, as though the letters were carved, _there,_ all a question or pleasure of mimicry. It's not at all simulacrum but reson- ance between one and another or among others. ii. To some extent it's a question of _mechanism._ Histories of video, audio, and computation all emphasize an initial reliance on mechanical power and translation, increasingly absorbed within the electronic; a second move- ment of course is from analog to digital, all the way down. It is this second movement that separates the world from itself, turns the noisiness, say, speech, into regulated and well-defined instantiations. The clarity of potential wells is not a characteristic of the natural disorder of things; the world is a messy place, with half-hearted and somewhat ineff- ectual attempts at isolation. Compare this to the clean and proper zeros and ones of speech turned telephony, the all-or-nothing transmission of packets; Iphone reverses the process somewhat by extrapolating between packets that haven't arrived, lost on the run - the world morphs into itself, sutures over, and the listener may be aware of nothing at all. _________________________________________________________________________ Li-gmimmic Dimmemmim- a-d mhe Themmimamim- mf mhe I-mem-em Abmmmacm: The I-mem-em im cm-midemed i- melamim- mm mamimmm mhemmiem mf la-gmage dimmemmim-. Theme le-d mhezmelmem mmmamdm a- mmemall zmdel mmmemmi-g mmmmlamim-m, mmademmmmem, a-d zigmamim-m, a- ammmmach mhich mecm-cemmmalimem mhe Nem i- memzm mf flmmm, mmmmmmem, himmmmiem, a-d izmedize-mm. While mhe I-mem-em immelf im a cmllmcamim- mf clie-m-memmem mech-mlmgiem mham ame -mm -ecemmamilm izmleze-med mimh mhe maze mmmmcmmmem (eme- TCP/IP (1) im mf lizimed mmeme-ce), mheme ame eleze-mm mham ame mme- mm a-almmim, mham cmmmm mmadimim-al bmm-damiem, a-d mham ame mmmcemmible i- facm mm a mhemmemical li-gmimmicm mf la-gmage cha-ge, accmlmmmamim-, a-d mmheamal. Cmli- Re-fmem demcmibem a -mzbem mf mce-amimm fmm mmch mma-mfmmzamim-m, mmze mf mhich gm back mm -i-emee-mh-ce-mmmm mhi-ki-g. I- a-m came, mheme a-d mmhemm ca- be mmed fmm mhemmimi-g eleze-mm mf mhe Nem mham mmhemmime gm m-demecmed mm ame demcmibed mmmelm mhmmmgh mhe-mze-mlmgical ammmmachem. [See Re-fmem, 1987; Hmddem, 1990.] I mill gime emazmlem mf mheme mce-amimm a-d mheim mmefml-emm i- mhemmimi-g mhe Nem. I az -mm mf cmmmme mmmchi-g fmm mheim memimm i- I-dm-Emmmmea- mm mmhem mmmdiem, almhmmgh zm m-demmma-di-g mf mhez ham cmze fmmz mmch mead- i-g. 1. Takemmem: O-e dmzai- im mmbjecmed mm a-mmhem bm cm-mmemm, a-d mhe lam- mem zam izmmme -em mma-damdm. A- emazmle im mhe Nemmcame makemmem mf Mmma- ic (a-d fmm mham zammem, Nemcmmimem); eamlm Web accmm-mm mmeme-med mhe la- mmem am mhe mmizamm bmmmmem. (2) The makemmem im accmzma-ied bm cm-mi-med demelmmze-m mf Nemmcame (mee belmm), i-mm fmmmhem emme-mim-m mf hmzl, Jama, a-d -mm melemhm-m. (3) Thim ca- be cm-midemed a _memlaceze-m zmdel_ i- a -emmmmk _cmme._ Takemmem memmlmm i- _cmlm-imamim-_ mham mhe- mma-mfmmzm i-mm melf-cmlm-i- mamim-, a mmmcemm demcmibed bm Fma-m Fa-m-. [See Fa-m-, The Wmemched mf mhe Eammh.] I- melf-cmlm-imamim-, almm mefemmed mm am mhe zmmh mf a -a- mim-al limemammme m-dem mhe mig- mf ezmime, mhe cmlm-imed i-mmmjecm mhe malmem mf mhe cmlm-imem. Thmm Mmmaic ham had mm zake cm-cemmim-m mm mhe cm-mi-med gmmmmh mf Nemmcame a-d imm dmzi-a-ce; a-d mhmm mhe mamimmm cmzzemcial BBS-memmicem (4) mmch am Cmzmmmemme, AOL, Pmmdigm, emc. hame had mm mcmazble mm "camch mm." Takemmem m- IRC, mm gime a-mmhem emazmle, ca- mefem mm cha--el makemmem, (5) a-d if -em mech-immem ame demelmmed, mhem'me mecmded a-d izmleze-med i- mhe mamimmm mam mmmgmazm. 2. La-gmage diffmmim- mhmmmgh memceimed mmmemimm mech-mlmgm izmmmmed fmmz mmmmide. A Himmime dmcmze-m m- hmmme-mmai-i-g mmem Mima--ia- memzm, fmm emazmle. [See Gmm-em, 1990.] Bamic I-mem-em memzm ame mfme- bmmmmmed bm mmhem la-gmagem dimecmlm, jmmm am Qmebec _jmmal_ mmelled "meeke-d" "mmi- ce--e" i- mmze kem memmm mf mhe 60m. The izmmmm mf mech-mlmgm mccmmm i- a -mzbem mf ameam - fmmz Jama ammlemm izmmmmed i-mm hmze memzi-alm, mm mhe IRC mam mmmgmazm ze-mim-ed i- #1. A mmmm-g i-mma-ce mf mhim im mhe cm-mi-mmmm cmmmm-femmilimamim- mf MOOm, mimh mmmgmazzi-g m- m-e MOO mmmmed mm a-mmhem. (6) A-mmhem emazmle im mhamemame/fmeemame immelf, mhich im a limemal izmmmm; mi-m fmgme gmem fmmz a mi-gle mmmgmaz mm "mi-m-fmgme-like" clie-mm. Im becmzem a clamm memz - jmmm am, fmm mmze memmle "limmmemm" mefemm mm mhe mmmalimm mf ezail limmm, -mm jmmm mhmme ezmlmmi-g limmmemm mmfmmame. (7) (La-gmage diffmmim- ca- be emmmezelm cmzmlem. Diffmmim- ca- be lmcalimed a-d i- melamim- mm mhe Nem zam i-clmde mmhem cmzzm-icamim-m zmdalimiem mmch am mhe melemhm-e, mmi-med zammem, m-ailzail, a-d face mm face cm-- macm. Thi-k mf hacki-g cimcmimm mhich mme all mmmmm mf cm-macm, i-clmdi-g hacki-g cm-feme-cem, 2600 zagami-e a-d 2600 -emmgmmmmm, emc. Theme zmdali- miem ca- be mee- i- melamim- mm Fidm-em, (8) am mell am lmcal bmllemi-- bmamd mmfmmame, damaba-km, cham emcha-ge, a-d i--hmmme ezail. All mf mhim im demcmibable bm mhe "mame mf adma-ce" zmdel demcmibed bm Re-fmem i- Amchaemlmgm a-d La-gmage. Ra-dmz lmcalimed zmmeze-m (fmm emazmle, famzemm' childme- memmli-g -eam mheim mame-mm) memmlmm, mhmmmgh mmicklm i-cmeami-g mmmmlamim- de-mimm, i- midemmmead cmlmmmal i-flme-ce - mimhmmm zigmamim-, makemmem, emc. Thim zmdel mmmkm mell mimh mhe zmdalimiem ze-mim-ed abmme, all mf mhich cmmld be cm-midemed mmemamime m- a "-eighbmmhmmd" zmdel.) 3. Theme ame almm _ammm-mzmmm_ mm i-mem-al mma-mfmmzamim-m mhich almamm mccmm i- a memiem mf mmemm mm _mlameamm._ Bema-memmim-m mf mmfmmame ame mhe mizmlemm emazmle, mm decizal-i-cmeze-mal i-demi-g mf cm-mi-mmmm mm- gmadi-g. (I'z mmimi-g mhim i- Picm 2.5 fmm emazmle.) (9) Bema-memmim-m mfme- memmlmm i- zajmm cha-gem, a-d mhe i-megemm ame mememmed fmm bamic zajmm cha-gem (Nemmcame 1.0, 2.0, emc.). Thim -mzbemi-g dmem gm back, I belieme, mm Wimmge-mmei-'m Tmacmammm a-d mhe Pmi-cimia Mamhezamica mf Rmmmell a-d Whimehead; mheme zam be eamliem a-mecede-mm. Plameamm "mlmmgh" mff i-mm _zi-mm mmemm,_ mhich ame mfme- cmeamed mm fim mmfmmame bmgm. Theme mmemm zam be -mmhi-g zmme mha- mamchem i-mm mhe mmfm- mame, mm mhem zam be i-megmamed i-mm a -em bema memmim-. Ummallm, mhem ame meleamed befmme mhe -em memmim-, hmmemem, mmzemizem mimh a mam-i-g. Them ca- be a- I-mem-em fmmz mf mecall; I'me mee- mhim fmmz Pamel Cmmmim i- megamd mm mhe MOO cmme (10), fmm emazmle. I cm-midem mhe zi-mm mmemm a fmmz mf _accmemim-,_ mhe mlmm gmmmmh a-d zammmi-g mf a bema memmim- befmme imm aba-dm-ze-m fmm mhe -emm mlameam. 4. Re-fmem demcmibem a mmmcemm mf ezmime cmllamme mhich im cmimical fmm m-demmma-di-g mhe Nem. The bmm-damm megim-m mf a- ezmime ame almamm mimem mf cm-memmamim-; mhem almm memmeme-m mhe mhe-mze-mlmgical hmmimm- mf mhe Omhem am mddm mimh mhe cmme, mhich ca- be cm-ceimed mf am "mhe cimil." A- ezmime zam mmem-emme-d, hmmemem, i- mhich came, mhe bmm-damm megim-m ammlm mmemmmme mm mhe cmme; am mhe maze mize, mhem zam begi- defi-i-g mhezmelmem am ammm-mzmmm, mmi-g mhe mmmlm a-d la-gmagem mf mhe cmme. The cmme begi-m mm memmeam fmmz mhe memimhemal mm-e, a-d mhe bmm-damm megim-m zmme i- mm a lizimed emme-m, becmzi-g i-deme-de-m a-d mfme- a-amchic. Thim mmmcemm (mhich I hame elabmmamed m- abmme) chamacmemimem mm mmze emme-m mhe bmeak- dmm-m mf mhe Rmza- ezmime a-d mhe USSR; i- bmmh camem, a-amchm ham zea-m a mmmblezamimamim- mf emimmemme a-d mhemmmic (bmmh i-memmelamed) am mell am la-gmage immelf. (I mme "a-amchm" i- mhe me-me mf cm-fmmed lmcal mmle, mfme- chiefmai--mmga-imed, a-d mfme- i- a mmame mf cmzmemimim- mimh mmhem lmcal gmmmmm.) If me lmmk am mhe Nem mme-1989, fmm mhe zmmm mamm im im mzall, mmga-imed (mhe RFCm (11) mlami-g a zajmm a-d cmimical mmle), a-d, i- mmime mf mhe Wmmz mf 1988, (12) melamimelm macific. The demelmmze-m mf mhe Web mmmk mhim Nem bm mmmmmime; mhe Web ca- be cm-midemed a- i-mmmmim- mm zigmamim- mf -em mma-damdm (hmzl, .gif (13), emc.) acmmmm mhe mldem Nem (mimhi- mhich mma-damdm mmch am .gif meme melamimelm mell-defi-ed i- lizimed dmzai-m). ___________________________________________________________________________ - Text-Based My brother, who is involved with geomatics, and I, have been discussing the Net, in particular text-based applications. I find that MOOs, etc., as well as email lists, Usenet, are hardly mentioned in the media, of course, at this point - all attention going to the Web. I find also that the commercialization almost inherent in the Web mitigates against it being a domain for textual interchange, at least at this point in time; while email can be embedded in html, etc., the tendency is towards cor- porate feedback, and this colors everything. I also find a "boytoy" attitude which is critiqued in the Wired_Women book that has just ap- peared. My brother on the other hand feels that there is ample room for both text and graphics applications, that the commercialization doesn't necessarily seep down into the textual, that the move towards graphics will allow for greater participation and wider demographics overall, in the long run. Both of us feel that the Net is in an early process of development, that no one is sure where things are going. We talked about the NC, network computer, and he's more optimistic than I am. I feel that the NC will require at the least an auxiliary hard-drive in order to protect any sort of data from Net-hacking, and that this requirement, and others, already leads the NC in the direction of a PC-"povera," that won't work as well as the PC itself, since all the components will be user-add-ons. He feels that a lot of the use of the NC would be family-oriented, that children, for example, might well keep their drawings on-line for sending and further manipulation - in which case, the hard-drives, etc. might be un- necessary. He also pointed out that a strong use of the NC would be in intranet applications, where information would be company-based, and could be centrally stored. I begin to wonder whether the history of the Net is not overwhelming me, since it relates to the anarcho-new left radicalism of the 1960s, out of which came books as well, Levy's Hackers being a prime example. For me, it has always been more or less open-channel, simultaneously hacked and pro- tected, but a domain whose objectivity could claim to be, in part, ab- sorbed by subjectivity, a domain aligned with _speaking_ as well as with _writing,_ and therefore paradoxically, with _body_ from the very beginn- ing. For someone else, coming later to technology and techne, it is al- ready and always already display, spectacle, permitting the _insertion_ of the subject, much as Lacan's langue permits the insertion of the _I_ as shifter which then resonates/constructs the _same._ (Thus in a crude sense the Net as _culture_ as opposed to the Net as _nature._ In Virtual Geography, Wark already speaks of the topography of information and in- formation vectors as "third nature"...) The latter representation stresses the Net-inert, so to speak, the given and pregiven, even in the midst of upgrade, which is also given and pre- given. The former emphasizes the process itself, including upgrading as a series of plateaus and transformations. The latter fits neatly into a corporate model, and the former, into one that is more or less knowledge- based. In fact, the old distinction of entertainment/information paths for Net development (by "old" I mean no more, say, than three years) leads to these differences as well, entertainment appealing to the libidinal energy driving or inherent in capital, and information relating to the very _problematic_ of thought, thinking, text on or off the Net... Five years from now, this will all be history, like radicality itself, which has already dissolved on one hand in its own problematic, and on the other in its fetishization within _Wired_ and the Web. _________________________________________________________________________ - Telegraph/Report Archetypes, cultural constants, are always messy, the symbolic never sits still. The 1980s were the period of the symbolic and its analysis, and world-wide, traditional societies everywhere were concerned with hardening the frontiers or margins between red ochre and the occidental use of la- tex. Discussion in New York, Paris, and Tokyo stressed that modern man is modern woman and man, that for a few years, we too seemed to have our myths and then, suddenly, it turned out that they weren't myths at all, but decompositions under the aegis of the postmodern. Since one never dat- ed by virtue of STDs, pre- and postmodern interpenetrated, and what began as myths in what began as tribal turned out to be occasions. Stepping fur- ther, back into _it_ backed up, occasions _were,_ by virtue of definition (which was always already problematic) since it wasn't clear that signifi- ers were constituted by difference (I say "no!") or in fact constituted difference (I say "yes!"). What _was_ clear was that _something_ was emer- ging, the substrate of the construct of _something._ As with a wounded li- chen, something leaks - spores, effluvia, detritus, flows - no longer _prone_ to definition, flat on the ill-defined back, constituted now by bed-sores, exhaustion, an account of Joey's machine which simultaneously ran everything and nothing in the world. Now, at the millennium, everyone has gone back inside, of which is there none, no one; inversion _does_ the order of the day... __________________________________________________________________________ - Internet Text Index The following is the index for my Internet Text, found at http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html The file names are on the right-hand side. Please note that the files contain much more than these subjects; index refers to larger individual texts or ser- ies of texts interwoven through one or more files. You may want to "read around" a particular text for further material. ASCII Unconscious - d.txt Addiction - Net1.txt Addiction - Net6.txt Addiction - Net7.txt Addiction - r.txt Addiction and Epidemiology - Net11.txt Address, Protocol, Recognition - Net1.txt Address, Protocol, Recognition - Revisited - q.txt Agni Purana and Avatars - am Akkadian Resonances - ah Artificial Intelligence - Fantasm Artificial Intelligence - f.txt Artificial Life - f.txt Artificial Life - h.txt Available and Sustainable CMC - Uncanny Avatar and Mask - Blood Avatars - Fantasm Avatars - Past Avatars - ah Avatars - l.txt Avatars - m.txt Avatars, Agni Purana - am Beauty in Cyberspace - Net7.txt Being Thought - g.txt Bibliography for Linguistic Dispersion Article - am Bitterness - a.txt Body Parts - o.txt Bones, Gristle, Articulation of the Net - p.txt Bots - s.txt Burnout on the Net - f.txt CMC, Available and Sustainable - Uncanny Cadre-L - Net8.txt Chats, and Extended Sensory Modalities, Future - Past Clara - Net3.txt Clara Hielo Internet - Net9.txt Clara: The Desert Letter - Net5.txt Communication Beyond Communication - t.txt Community - an Community - b.txt Compilation - r.txt Componentiality - Uncanny Contamination - Net10.txt Cybercafes - Uncanny Cybermind Demographics - ap Cybermind Early History - ap Cybermind Manifesto - Net11.txt Cyberspace Conference - Weather Cyberspace, Tabletspace - ah Cyborgia - p.txt Cyborgia - r.txt Damnation of Memory - am Darknet - p.txt Death - Net13.txt Death - ah Death Texts - Net3.txt Death Texts - Net5.txt Death Texts - Net8.txt Death and Mourning - Net11.txt Death in Cyberspace - Fantasm Death of Michael Current - Net8.txt Defuge Essays (Exhaustion, Disinvestment, Psychoanalytics) - g.txt Demographics - p.txt Depression - k.txt Depression and Rhetoric of the Surface - am Depression in Cyberspace - m.txt Desert - p.txt Diagonistics - Fantasm Digital Domain - Net4.txt Directions in Cyberspace - Past Disappointment - Net6.txt Disconnections - n.txt Dissolving - u.txt Distributed Representation, Emergence - r.txt Dreaming in/of Cyberspace - i.txt Early History of FOP-L and Cybermind - ap EcoNet texts - an Ecologies of the Net - p.txt Email Lists - Fantasm Email Lists - Future - i.txt Emergence - Submergence - Uncanny Emergence - q.txt Emergence - t.txt Emergence, Distributed Representation - r.txt Entering, Rites of Passage on Chat Applications - Past Epitaph in Cyberspace - Blood Ethics and Ontology of Cyberspace - Net14.txt Evil - a.txt Exhaustion - s.txt FOP-L Early History - ap First and Last Writings - ah Flaming - a.txt Flexibility - Uncanny Fop Demographics - ap Fractal Persona - m.txt Frame, Frameworks - e.txt Frameworks of CMC - t.txt Frontier Model of the Internet - Uncanny Frontiers of the Net - g.txt Fucking - u.txt Future - Blood Future - Net11.txt Future - Net12.txt Future - m.txt Future Culture - b.txt Future of Email Lists - i.txt Future of the Net - o.txt Future of the Net - p.txt GUI - t.txt Gender - t.txt Geodesics - Past Ghosts - Net14.txt Ghosts on the Net - Net12.txt Ghosts on the Net - a.txt Ghosts on the Net and Elsewhere - e.txt Glossary of Terms - Net14.txt Gristle - Net13.txt Gristle - p.txt Haunting of the Males - Net14.txt Heart of Darkness - Disquiet/Net Communication - Net6.txt Hegel - Blood Heidegger - l.txt Heterosexuality - Net11.txt High ASCII - Net9.txt Hittite Resonances - ah Home on the Net - q.txt Honey Dialogs - Net1.txt Hypertext - f.txt Hypertext - p.txt Hysteria as Driver - Net2.txt IRC - Weather IRC - ah IRC Bans, Phenomenology - am IRC Net Sex - Weather Identity, Fluid and Otherwise - k.txt Images - j.txt Imaginary - j.txt Inert, Obdurate - Net13.txt Insomnia - Net11.txt Intellectual Labor - Net7.txt Interfaces, GUI - t.txt Interim Technical Reports on MOO etc. - s.txt Internet Events - Net12.txt Internet Text Description - n.txt and elsewhere Inventions - Weather Irresolution of Communication - Net2.txt Joan Novel - Net2.txt LOL - Net2.txt LPMUD - an LPMUD - l.txt LPMUD - n.txt Labia - l.txt Lag - e.txt Lag on the Net - Texts - an Laughing Out Loud - Net2.txt Life, Definitions - h.txt Linguistic Dispersion and the Theorization of the Internet - ah Linguistic Dispersion, Bibliography - am Lip - l.txt List-Ownership - am Listdeath - am Listdeath Continued from am - an Loneliness - u.txt and elsewhere Love in Cyberspace - m.txt Love on the Internet - Net2.txt Loving Honey - Net1.txt Loving Honey - Net13.txt MOO - Fantasm MOO - Uncanny MOO - Weather MOO - h.txt MOO - k.txt MOO - m.txt MOO - s.txt MOO Suicide - ah MOO Technical Reports - s.txt MOO Wizards - s.txt MUD - l.txt Makefile Phenomenology - Weather Mandeville - Uncanny Mandeville and Medieval Texts in Relation to CMC - k.txt Mass - Thickness - see also Gristle - Weather Materials for Analysis - k.txt Measure Geometries - Net1.txt Measure Geometries - Net3.txt Measure Geometries - Net5.txt Michael Current - Net8.txt Migrations, Populations, and Internet Theorization - ah Modeling, Body, Virtuality - t.txt Modernization - Uncanny Modification of Semantic Regimes - m.txt Monsters - Net14.txt Names in Cyberspace, Proper Names - Fantasm Narrative and the Net - Uncanny Natyasastra and Avatars - Weather Net Demographics - p.txt Net Ecologies - p.txt Net Home - q.txt Net Lag - an Net Love - c.txt Net Sacrifice (Horse Sacrifice) - f.txt Net Sentience - f.txt Net Sex - Fantasm Net Sex - Net11.txt Net Sex - Net14.txt Net Sex - Outline - Weather Net Sex - Past Net Sex - c.txt Net Sex - k.txt Net Sex - l.txt Net Sex - n.txt Net Sex - o.txt Net Sex - p.txt Net Sex, Third Sex, ASCII Unconscious - d.txt Neurosis as the Fundamental Condition of CMC - Weather Noise - Blood Obdurate, Inert - Net13.txt Ontologies of the Virtual - Net7.txt Ontology - Net12.txt Order, Ordering - r.txt Ornament - ah Outline and Partial Summary, Having Reached a Plateau - u.txt Outline of the Work - Net5.txt Ownership on the Internet - am Pain in Cyberspace - c.txt Passing as a Jew - Net7.txt Past, Time - Past Pattern - q.txt Performativity of Cyberspace Messages - g.txt Performativity of Cyberspace Messages - h.txt Persona - m.txt Perversions on the Net - a.txt Plain and Plateau Model of the Net - Past Political Economy of the Net - Net4.txt Popularity of the Net - Net12.txt Populations, Migrations, and Internet Theorization - ah Postmodernism - k.txt Proper Names in Cyberspace - Fantasm Prosthesis - o.txt Protocol Suites - Net11.txt Psychosis - Net3.txt Psychosis - Net7.txt Psychosis - m.txt Psychotopography - j.txt Qbasic Programs - Net7.txt Qbasic Star Program - Net10.txt Queer Cyberspatiality - g.txt QuickCam - am REWRITE and Writing - Net10.txt Representation - t.txt Resistance on the Net - a.txt Resonances and Signals - j.txt Rhetoric - b.txt Rites of Passage on Chat Appications - Past Roots - g.txt Rules of Writing - Net11.txt Rumor and the Net - an Sacrifice and the Net - f.txt Scars - Net12.txt Screen Phenomena - Net3.txt Seduction in Cyberspace - ah Sensory Modalities (Smell, Taste) and the Net - an Sentience on the Net - f.txt Settlement Phenomenology on the Internet - am Sex - See Net Sex, Third Sex Shape-Riding - Net13.txt Shape-Riding - Net14.txt Skin - f.txt Socrates, etc. - i.txt Softdrive Exhibition - Net5.txt Speculum - j.txt Speech - Net10.txt State of the Art, Art of the State - ah State of the Net - p.txt Submergence, Emergence - Uncanny Suicide on the MOO - ah Sumerian Resonances - ah Summary so far - Net4.txt Tabletspace, Cyberspace - ah Talker (Phaedra Talker) - s.txt Talker - n.txt Talker - t.txt Tar File Phenomenology - Weather Taxonomy of Performativity in CMC - g.txt Teaching Internet - Fantasm Teaching the Internet - ap Technical Notes - p.txt Telephone History/Sociology and the Internet - am Texts with Angela Hunter - k.txt Texts with Kim McGlynn - l.txt Texts with Kim McGlynn - m.txt Texts with Kim McGlynn - n.txt Textuality - c.txt The Future - Net3.txt Theoretical Work in the Internet Texts - j.txt Theorization of the Internet - ah Theory Outline from Structure of Reality - t.txt Third Sex - d.txt Third Sex - e.txt Tiffany - n.txt and elsewhere Touch, Sensory Issues - e.txt Travis - Net12.txt Travis - Net4.txt Travis - Net9.txt Trolling texts - an Truth - o.txt Uncanny - Fantasm and elsewhere Unix - s.txt Upgrading - ap Upgrading - q.txt User - ah Virtual Bodies - k.txt Virtual Ontologies - Net7.txt Virtuality and Spaces - s.txt Voice on the Net - Past Voices - Net7.txt Voyeurism on and off the Net - Blood Voyeurism on the Net texts - an Web Inversion - Net3.txt Wittgenstein - Net4.txt Wizards of MOO etc. - s.txt Wounded Machines - Fantasm Writing for the EcoNet - an Wryting - m.txt Wryting - n.txt Wryting - p.txt Wryting, Definition, etc. - o.txt Ytalk - Past Ytalk - l.txt Ytalk - n.txt t = 0 - ap The Index The Index I posted yesterday is a guide to the long-waveforms that inhabit the 1200 or so sections that constitute the Internet Text as a whole. Wri- ting it gave me the opportunity to see what was manifest in the work over the past two years, and what was hidden, articulated beneath the surface, submerged. Gender, for example, appears as a concern everywhere, yet it is not the focus of a particular group of texts; likewise, software and the Web are discussed throughout, but not as titled subject-matter. Software and gender form lamina or strata weaving across domains, the former an in- dex of totality producing differentiation within the machinic, and the la- tter, an index of differentiation producing totality within the organic. Interwoven, the Internet Text extrudes from the Cyborg realm, the produc- tion of continuous investment, interweaving, neurosis. There are numerous references to writers such as Kristeva, Derrida, Irigaray, etc., yet none of these have their own listings in the Index; again, they're interwoven presences. The _thickness_ of the text is exhausting; even with the index, the forty- some files must be searched for interior references. No one will ever read this mass; it's clotted, puerile-puellile, monstrous. At night, words spew against violated-fabric flesh, organ-receptors flooded by leaked vowels, torn open by consonants, dammed by punctuation. There is no end to it; the hole remains a mobius strip sutured and stripped at every grapheme, demar- cation, inscription. It is a gone world of perversion, inverted, sensing itself senseless. It rides me. It continues. __________________________________________________________________________ Spring-Time Smiles My name is Semantha. Sometimes with my eyes very very closed, I could see the daemons. They were almost transparent, their skin all pink like the inside of a baby's mouth, and sometimes clothed quite in gossamer white dresses that shimmered as they flew about. I was wonderfully in love with them, then, and I knew just by closing my eyes, I could return to my home away from all cares and sorrows. Sometimes they would whisper the sweetest nothings to me, and sometimes they would playfully tug at my own tired garments, pulling them aside and frolicking in the folds and plains of skin revealed to their tiny eyes. It was then that they would tell of beauty and truth, or the beauty and truth of ideal forms, how like my body and pleasant smile were to both. I would swoon with the joy of it, and soon the daemons became my lifelong compan- ions, the very dearest to my heart, even unto this very day. I began this thinking of telling you of my recent afflictions, but in fact I have none to speak or even whisper of, in this world curtained towards all delight. With their blond hair and lovely blue eyes, the daemons have protected and befriended me; what need have I of human companionship in a world al- ready so full of love. The wires sing to me, yes they do. 2 The blinding light regaled us during our noonday stroll, which unobtrus- ively extended itself into the shadows of the setting sun. The blurs, blots, spikey spears, lozenges of the world criss-crossed our paths, pen- umbral, umbral daemons flitting about, strewn wherever light decreased, dancing and laughter increased, the bygones bygone of the sadly everyday. A little girl with a pink frock skipped gaily by, her hoop a whirl of commotion as she skillfully guided it along the bridal path. Salary-men glided slowly in the distance, bowlers perched in unison upon well-coiffed heads and shoulders. A light breeze carried white doves hovering in the languid sky, close to the shade of a darker blue. It was time for once- again dreaming, the loveliness of the day melding into the sweet and sil- ent pathos of the night. The daemons made a bee-line for the water. Olivia, in _Olivia,_ says, "I was with her, beside her, for ever close to her, in that infinitely lovely, infinitely distant star, which shed its mingled rays of sorrow, affection, and renouncement on the dark cold world below." Cornford says, well said, "Being derived from a vanished group, the _moira_ is necessarily shadowy, negative, unreal. The _daemon_ (_genius_) of a per- son, on the other hand, retains the element of beneficient power." I will read and learn you beauty beauty! Your words pour over me, flutter- ing daemons like fairy-wraiths caress the rosy-hued dawn! ___________________________________________________________________________