Jennifer Jennifer sat at home with the rage of a QFN, Quiet Friday Night. She pulled off her frock and went to the talker, no one there, not even a stalker. I laughed, said Jennifer, at the stupid rhyme, not at the crime. Travis nodded; Jennifer remembered he was dead. She tried the MOO too. Alone on the MOO, she wandered for a moment, adjusted her hemline, pulled on her stockings, smoked a cigarette, went to the bathroom, returned to the laptop, checked the email again, saw nothing of interest, some bugs on the side of the screen, another stupid coding post. She felt so stupid. She kicked off her shoe. She felt so stupid. She kicked on her shoe. Friday night TV sucked. Suddenly there would be a noise and then the Net Genii emerged and took her on a magical tool of the World Wide Web. Laugh laugh, the cigarettes weren't that funny. Once she had funny cigarettes and knifed her sister. Her sister died. So much for funny haha, Jennifer mused. Jennifer stopped the muse and hunted IRC, the naughtier the better. She tired of the tables and guys. She tired of her frock on and off and didn't do it with *pussy catcher* and sent email. The email bounced around, hit her on the head. It had plans for Kill-Delete, New-Bot. She screwed with neo-soft.com, kicked off 979 channels, flooded everyone. She changed her tampax, oh how exciting. Oh how boring. Her mother and father fell over with strange trees growing out of their backs. Travis was so stupid. Jennifer drew great circles in the air, arms whirling furiously. She drew more circles and worked a sweat in. She smoked a cigarette, legs draped over the chaise lounge. Jennifer sang, I am here, I'll have a beer. She fell asleep angry. She danced the rock and roll. Her little brother got a sword in his skull. She did ytalk with a stranger, bounced her frock with velocity. Bing bing. The night cracked open with a nap. _________________________________________________________________________ Confluence around these differing orders - All of the below are intertwined; since I'm not a mathematical physicist, _how_ exactly is beyond me. One of the ideas drawn from Bailey is that what he calls intermaths need not _necessarily_ be reduced to steering equations, i.e. universal and governing physical law. This is related to notions of synergy, and artifacts produced from bottom-up parallel pro- cessing - i.e. even simple one-dimensional artificial life forms. So there are two movements at work in this period that can be considered postmod- ern: the first is a classical physics, including statistical approaches, which reifies physical law; the second emphasizes heuristics and massive parallel processing - and that there need not be universal governing equa- tions. The genetic descriptions of Dawson are intermediary, as is the work of Dennett on consciousness. It's difficult to see where traditional philosophy of mathematics fits in here, but I imagine it moving towards heuristics and conventionalism, in spite of ontological confusion between, say, a particle and its defining constants. (My own thinking tends towards neo-platonism in the small.) Do I know what I'm talking about? No. And it's Saturday afternoon. ------------------------------------------------- Intermaths - Bailey (After Thought) - massive localized parallel process- ing - for example, AL research, neural networking - but such processing as _fundamental_ to the organization, epistemology, structure of physical reality Hugh Everett III - universal wave equation - monadic - many-worlds version of QM (developed by Wheeler I think) - top down, absorbing parallel pro- cessing - relate to probability and subsuming structure vis-a-vis calculus of finite differences GUTs (Grand Unified Theories) etc. - reductive, complex Special and General Relativity - manifold-oriented, calculable top-down Seething of intermaths - synergetic effects in the large (semi-autonomous superstructure / culture) - production of autonomous artifacts as a result of low-level parallel processing operations Monolithic approach of Dawson etc. - problematic boundary-condition of memes, genetic determinism ("selfish" gene) Mathematical neo-platonism - Pythagorean ordering of physical reality - particle defined _as equivalent to_ its numerical constants. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- One and Many Let me try putting it this way - there are two socio-cultural movements underway simultaneously - a movement towards unity, and one towards ir- reducible multiplicity. The former is found in the impulse towards Grand Unified Theories, the Gates-Internet and TCP/IP protocols, the conser- vative swing away from postmodernity, and current American imperialist ideology. The latter is found in emergence towards autonomy through para- llel processing, the Internet as communities and coagulations, some cur- rent thinking about the 'society of mind,' and post-structuralist thought. The latter emphasizes local territorializations, micro-politics, and grass-roots; the former is top-down. Bottom-up and top-down have _always_ been considered in this relation - look at the medieval debates on nominalism/universals. The current situa- tion, however, is exacerbated by an inordinately complicated global or- dering and fragmentation, as well as a realization, that even within formal logic and mathematics, there may be no overriding steering-mechan- isms (i.e. the way axiomatics were problematized by Godel, Tarski, etc.). Now this thinking is carried through into both the physical and psycho- analytical domains as well; whatever law there is, holds locally (i.e. among cells in artificial life), and it is the confluence of local con- ditions that produces emergence. Further, emergence may be too complex to be formally described globally - and the local description may carry no hint of the emergent phenomena. I still don't know what I'm talking about. It's later in the afternoon, and I'm closer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jennifer _supra saltus_ Jennifer sat in her chair on a DNS, Domain Name Server, Dead Night Satur- day. Outside the ice-scream truck drove-by shooting. She threw it in the asphalt, driver's cap floating to chocolate sprinkles surface. She took off her frock, did brown with the brown, chugged it down. Ugh Jennifer with a frown. Sugar made her sweet meat. Jennifer walked to the window, thought albatross around her neck. She choked her cunt on the spot, dropped it in the boys' treetop tiptop house. They fought over the hair there. She grew another, lost a father. They are so very stupid she said and lit a cigarette. She always smelled the smell of her. She couldn't stand the sight or the hears, she cut out her eyes and cut off her ears. She grew them back. I am a girl, she said, but Wedekind was dead. She did the DNS for ten IPee's, everything was wet, she bet. It was the code load: "Don't use this software without permission. I'm serious. It's very very bad. This is probably one of the worst forms of Denial-of- Service attacks there is. [...] It's bad." She threw the cat a catnip rag, it lagged, scattered and scampered, disappeared in place without a trace, the route, a beaut. She unlocked, spread her frock. I'm open down below and my ears are shut like a hut, she said. She had a cauldron in her head. This time, she'd see the TV. The phone never rang, bell never tolled, no talk, ntalk, ytalk, why talk at all. A closed ship sailed on her hip, sails unfurled like a curly girl. I'm Jennifer, she said. I'm Jennifer and I'm still Jennifer, she said. Now I'm still Jennifer and I'm Jennifer now and still Jennifer. She somersaulted back into the malted, licked herself dry, sucked herself high, what a good girl am I, she said. And I'm Jenni- fer and Jennifer, she said. And I'm Jennifer, she said, and went to dead in her head, and went to bed. __________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Jennifer had a thought. Honey had a thought. Pip had a thought. Travis had a thought. Lee had a thought. Honey had a thought. Honey had a thought. Tom had a thought. Tiffany had a thought. Tiffany had a thought. Jon had a thought. Alan had a thought. Clara had a thought. Laurie had a thought. Joan had a thought. Alan had a thought. Rose had a thought. Travis had a thought. Joan had a thought. Clara had a thought. Mike had a thought. ______________________________________________________________________ Heaving Neural networking or artificial life, massive parallel processing simul- taneously heaves the line or plane or n-dimensional object, stuttered perhaps across various nodes, no dimensionality at all, but a certain _heaving_ of affect, reiterations over and over again, a throw of the repeatedly loaded dice. One jostles one's neighbors or others at a dis- tance; competition occurs through strange meeting-places elsewhere in time, or space, or level; the whole stutters or shimmers, spattered pools of information, slower eddies eventually taking the form of an animal or perfect piece of information. Spattered pools tend towards chaos; no one can tell what will emerge as the weather turns. The body is integrated, stretched across filters and receptors. The body is a pool seething with genetic generators, self-pro- cessing, hungry for energy and reproduction - the skin, lungs, blood, mind, memory - reiterating, heaving, until local system failure spreads across the coagulation (as if it were a membrane), hairline fractures bringing the whole to a halt. The coagulation sinks loaded into the ground; the residue is the memory of history, itself dissolute, spattered, in competition with the inert decay of universal capital. _________________________________________________________________________ America H$$v$ng N$$r$l n$tw$rk$ng $r $rt$f$c$$l l$f$, m$ss$v$ p$r$ll$l pr$c$ss$ng s$m$l- t$n$$$sly h$$v$s th$ l$n$ $r pl$n$ $r n-d$m$ns$$n$l $bj$ct, st$tt$r$d p$rh$ps $cr$ss v$r$$$s n$d$s, n$ d$m$ns$$n$l$ty $t $ll, b$t $ c$rt$$n _h$$v$ng_ $f $ff$ct, r$$t$r$t$$ns $v$r $nd $v$r $g$$n, $ thr$w $f th$ [...] br$ng$ng th$ wh$l$ t$ $ h$lt. Th$ c$$g$l$t$$n s$nks l$$d$d $nt$ th$ gr$$nd; th$ r$s$d$$ $s th$ m$m$ry $f h$st$ry, $ts$lf d$ss$l$t$, sp$tt$r$d, $n c$mp$t$t$$n w$th th$ $n$rt d$c$y $f $n$v$rs$l c$p$t$l in America. __________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Jennifer sat up and stood down. She raised her frock and cut her panties a slit. "Now I have a small slit," she said to her head. She bent over, and shat a perfect shit, round long like green asparagus, green like long round asparagus. It kept coming and coming. Where have you been, o vege- table. "I will make you pile on the screen," said Jennifer (and panties). Wipe wipe, she cleared a space, smeared apace, on the CRT. "Now it will be me." Asparagus rows grew higher and higher, a small choir. They are my lighthouse and my eyes, said Jennifer, sitting up and lying down. She patted her frock lock. O wayward! Her feet bicycled the air. Her feet bi- cycled tremendously! Whirr! "You are looking at my shit!" cried! Jennifer! Whirr! O! For to take a walk, now I will kill every dog. __________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Attention! Attention! I Jennifer Jennifer is a silicon chip embedded in Clara's brain. No, Clara is a silicon chip embedded in Clara! Attention! Attention! Alan is a silicon chip, Alan has been _installed._ Jennifer is an installation of Alan! I Jennifer No, I Alan is the I Alan am the installation of Clara. Attention! Attention! Jennifer is Clara's brain. Honey, I Honey Honey is an upgrade of Alan! << much confusion prevails >> _______________________________________________________________________ - Fourth Exit in Brooklyn I'm sitting here on the last car of the Number 2-train going from Man- hattan to Brooklyn, and there is a woman, about 30, sitting next to me, slightly dark-skinned, nice figure, and she's reading this now and, hello (she's smiling now, you should see her!) and - this is going to be a post sent out on the Internet - and I could talk, she asks what on earth I'm doing, her eyes are beautiful! Wow! (She says thank you and) - I'm writing this description of stuff and I'm going to send it out on the Internet and everyone will know how smart and beautiful you are - no I don't really know if you're smart (she asks me laughing) but I bet you are (now I FEEL STUPID) - sorry, well, I'm not used to this any more than you are - I'm not sure you're not really in control, oh - oh what's your name? She says Her name is Francis, that's an old-fashioned name? Francis McHenna - are you related to Terence - forget how to spell that - oh never mind, but I got it right, yes? Would you like me to write something for you that everyone will read on the Internet? (We're at Fulton Street.) Hi Mom and Rose and are you sure everyone will read this? Of course, absolutely everyone? And Tom, see you soon from Francis McHenna - Tom's your boy- friend? No, he was, I'm not seeing anyone now. Oh, you're not? Really? Don't you feel ridiculous typing like this? I guess so, but it's going out over the Oh please, you're not going to keep up with this, well I gotta go, bye (we're down near South Ferry so I guess she lives on Staten Island), no, just visiting Mike out there. Oh. Well, the seat's empty and the battery is low and I guess I better go, I get off in another four stops. _________________________________________________________________________ You are Delirious Jennifer Don't let me go on, go on, go on with don't let me. Go on with don't let me cause that will keep me alive, let me, don't let me, delirious Jenni- fer, you pound my chest into breasts, cave my penis in, hollow me out; delirious Jennifer, you won't let me go. If I stop writing well, kill me. If I cease to make sense, kill me. Kill me softly with your Net death. If I cease to be relevant, kill me. If I can no longer function, kill me. If, so many ifs, kill me. Take me, slay me, stay me, take me. If I have nothing to say, kill me. Kill me cause kill me, kill me, delirious Jennifer. Put a bullet in my head, do it fast and do it quick. Get rid of me, delirious Jennifer. I am half dead, half-life. I can't separate you, her, him. I can't separ- ate the slayer from the slain. I can't separate the taker from the taken. Slay me, if I can't speak. Slay me, if I can't write. If I can't separate Travis from Tiffany, if I can't separate Clara from Alan, delirious Jen- nifer, Alan who has a womb and breasts filled with milk. If I can't separ- are you, delirious Jennifer, if I can't. I won't and can't and won't. Kill me softly with your Net death. Filter my address, stab my heart; I am not afraid of death, but am quite afraid of pain; kill me with dull poi- son, with sleepy sleepy ecstasy, crack, heroin, spiked special k or alco- hol, but kill me sweetness, do me in, sweetness. I won't forget you sweet- ness, will forgive you, sweetness, if I can't remember, sweetness, if I can't think another thought worthwhile, delirious Jennifer, if I can't think at all if babyboy babygirl falls thud on the floor! on the floor! If I can't motherfather, delirious Jennifer, then kill me! You know the feeling, you do the action, you be the judge, you be the man, I be the woman, I piss milk, wet Jennifer! You be the killer, you be the killed, you be the gun, you be the knife, you penis me! Delirious Jenni- fer, kill my children! Thud, wet! Delirious Jennifer, thud thud! Kill me, I can't think delirious! Jennifer! Stab stab stab! __________________________________________________________________________ What Makes the Semio Tick What a difference ten years makes; I'm (re)reading Marshall Blonsky's On Signs, a collection of works devoted to semiotics - it's thundering out like crazy, violent rain, uncontrollable rain, signifying nothing - and there's such comfort in the essays (de Certeau, de Man, etc.) - the uni- verse is clarified, almost a Ptolemaic reading of things, maternality in the range of circles, differences - as if 'what would be a sign in cyber- space' so clearly references the signified, no problem at all, a leap into or across the virtual - raining harder here than ever before - so that the sememe, swollen and choratic to be sure, nonetheless retains a sense of comforting foreclosure (the charges laid against the _field_ shortly thereafter) - arguing from signs down to the real - Susan Meiselas' pho- tographs in the same book contradicting, providing evidence, labeled 'Figure 1' 'Figure 2' etc. - in fact, unlike those texts labeled postmod- ern, there's a _delight_ in the book, in Eco and Barthes of course as well (both represented) - where is the _delight_ in the current apocalyptic; how long can cynicism, Critique of Cynical Reason, extend itself, as if _tumescent_ - the street's flooded - where are the _signs_ as well (we're out there, mouths open to the elements, speaking, imploring, soaked to the skin) - I remember somewhere in Barthes' The Fashion System, the move from object to description, entity to language - there are all these _moves_ in fact to the plane of signification which is always already virtual - it's there that the anecdotal disappears, the lurid as well - think of anecdote and rumor as _wryting,_ construed in relation to the designation of the proper name - or as obscenity, the problematic of difference, referent - but within language, or the plane of advertising, within difference (and not the difference of general recursion but primitive recursion at best) - there comfort lies, _that maternal_ making the rain disappear, the laptop dry, joy in each and every sign, and enough electricity - surely - to last the night away! ___________________________________________________________________________ The Wondrous Adventure Here is the true love of the Internet: it is the greatest textual _adven- ture_ I have come across! One never knows what to expect; each email is a new dawn, a world of its own, full of introjection and projection, a world of absolute fantasy, where images glimmer just beyond the footlights. It is the world of Melies, of magical transformation, infantile in that re- gard, a world in which wishes come true, and death disappears. It is pos- sible to pop in and out of existence, and existence need not be birth, just as deletion need not be death. It is a world of magic, illusion; it is always something new, and always an adventure! Hypertext on one hand, it is a swollen tumescent world, bursting at the seams - on the other, wherever one is, something is bound to be on the horizon! One never returns to the same place, even with the same texts; the experience is always somehow different - I would say mystical, as texts unfurl beneath one's eyes, disappear into the blackness again while something else emerges! It is the _adventure of one's life_ and there is nothing like it. It makes death go away, and brings the full cloud cons- ciousness of love into play, a love that will transcend my human body. The whole planet is thinking, breathing, reading, writing, and in just another half-century, the tiniest amount of time imaginable, everyone will parti- cipate in brilliant new realities, leaving the plants and animals alone! Nature returns, unseen, and unforeseen, as humans continue their expan- sion of mind into the cosmos, from the great antenna being erected across this very little planet! And now, with every new email, every new acquaintance, the wondrous sun rises just a little higher in this absolutely nighttime sky! ___________________________________________________________________________ Silent Wires, Silent Night My birth will have occurred. My memory will have been on Monday. In this year of no one's lord, 2431. In this year 2431, the holidays will still be observed. In this year 2431, the earth will be abandoned. In this year 2431, Valentine's day will be celebrated by no couples. In this year 2431, there will be no mothers, there will be shadows of men and women with open mouths. In this year 2431, Christmas is for Christians, and there are no Jews. And there are no Christians either, and no Mondays, and no Mondays. Eternal holiday list: The year 2431 is NO leap year New Year's Day is Wed, Jan : 1st:2431 Ash Wednesday is Wed, Feb 12th 2431 St. Valentine's Day is Fri, Feb :14th:2431 Good Friday is Fri, Mar :28th:2431 Easter Sunday is Sun, Mar :30th:2431 Easter Monday is Mon, Mar :31st:2431 All Fool's Day is Tue, Apr 1st 2431 Mother's Day is Sun, May 11th 2431 Whitsunday/Pentecost is Sun, May :18th:2431 Whit Monday is Mon, May :19th:2431 Feast of Corpus Christi is Thu, May :29th:2431 Reformation Day is Fri, Oct 31st 2431 All Saints' Day is Sat, Nov : 1st:2431 Christmas Eve is Wed, Dec 24th 2431 Christmas Day is Thu, Dec :25th:2431 Boxing Day is Fri, Dec :26th:2431 Sylvester is Wed, Dec 31st 2431 January February March April Sun 5 12 19 26 2 9 16 23 2 9 16 23:30: 6 13 20 27 Mon 6 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 3 10 17 24:31: 7 14 21 28 Tue 7 14 21 28 4 11 18 25 4 11 18 25 1 8 15 22 29 Wed : 1: 8 15 22 29 5 12 19 26 5 12 19 26 2 9 16 23 30 Thu 2 9 16 23 30 6 13 20 27 6 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 Fri 3 10 17 24 31 7:14:21 28 7 14 21:28: 4 11 18 25 Sat 4 11 18 25 1 8 15 22 1 8 15 22 29 5 12 19 26 May June July August Sun 4 11:18:25 1 8 15 22 29 6 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 31 Mon 5 12:19:26 2 9 16 23 30 7 14 21 28 4 11 18 25 Tue 6 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 1 8 15 22 29 5 12 19 26 Wed 7 14 21 28 4 11 18 25 2 9 16 23 30 6 13 20 27 Thu 1 8 15 22:29: 5 12 19 26 3 10 17 24 31 7 14 21 28 Fri 2 9 16 23 30 6 13 20 27 4 11 18 25 1 8 15 22 29 Sat 3 10 17 24 31 7 14 21 28 5 12 19 26 2 9 16 23 30 September October November December Sun 7 14 21 28 5 12 19 26 2 9 16 23 30 7 14 21 28 Mon 1 8 15 22 29 6 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 1 8 15 22 29 Tue 2 9 16 23 30 7 14 21 28 4 11 18 25 2 9 16 23 30 Wed 3 10 17 24 1 8 15 22 29 5 12 19 26 3 10 17 24 31 Thu 4 11 18 25 2 9 16 23 30 6 13 20 27 4 11 18:25: Fri 5 12 19 26 3 10 17 24 31 7 14 21 28 5 12 19:26: Sat 6 13 20 27 4 11 18 25 : 1: 8 15 22 29 6 13 20 27 __________________________________________________________________________ Hi! I am Jennifer, also Alan's lover. I am 41 years old and I have long brown hair and I engage in hiking fun. I live in Southeaster Arizona, and the desert there is my favorite place to be. I met Alan when I was on-line in 1994 but we only corresponded for a brief period then. I don't know much about theory, but I have good common sense, and we've had a lot of inter- esting conversations since them. I help keep him "in check," since he's always flying off about something or other. Although you may not realize it, he's actually quite sensitive. I am around 5 9, with small breasts, and rather largish eyes which can throw people off, they're angled oddly. My legs are long and firm, probably from walking. I have no tan line, and you can make of that what you want. Alan and I have been really thick recently, and I've visited him several times this year. Ladies, hands off. I've learned a lot of things that I didn't know before; I'd never been to New York. He's come out here twice; I live in Arivaca, which if you don't know, is near the Buenos Aires Wild- life Refuge down near Mexico. It's hard to get to, but he's flown into Tuscon and I've driven up there to pick him up. I work on the Refuge, which provides some local employment, although we try to keep people off the grounds. We have a terminal there; the whole National Conservation system uses them to connect with one another. There is also a Net connection. We track the various animals in the Refuge, which include deer and other ungulates; we're forced even to have a small hunting season, but we weren't able to get clearance for the land without that. My heart goes out to the animals for that week. There's not much to do in Arivaca, but Tuscon is only an hour away by truck and it's not that difficult to drive into the evening desert. We're near the Saguaro National Monument (both parts) as well, and I must say it's also sad to see the cacti not reproducing like they should be; some say it's the result of air pollutants, but I think something else is interrupting their really complicated cycle, which takes years to come to fruition. I read a lot. I'm not above moving out of here, if Alan and I decide either to go to New York or maybe a third place. We could also keep this place, and move back and forth; it's really cheap, as you can imagine, to live in Arivaca, and I have a small adobe house that's fairly clean. With all the dust around, I don't know how the computers would fare, but you could keep them covered and maybe use photographer's compressed air every once in a while. It's so still out here at night, it's uncanny. You can here the voices from the cafe at the crossroads and it's maybe a half mile away. I usually go there in the evenings. I have a biology degree, believe it or not, from UCLA, and I come from Orange County (California), before it really got built up, so I guess I'm familiar with nature - you may have heard of the Irvine Ranch out there. You know I'm good with horses, and that helps on the Refuge, even though they're not native to the area. I just thought I should introduce myself Hello to everyone, Jennifer (writing from New York) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talk the Walk, Walk the Talk Mr. Right I am watching a talk show about finding "Mr. Right." Should the woman ask a man out or should a man ask a woman out? Should the man answer a person- al or should the man leave a personal? Should a man be a man and should a woman be a woman? Mr. Wrong There are Mr. Wrong accounts including a man covered in Saran Wrap, a sadist, and a ten-most-wanted. There is a book describing what a woman should do. What a Woman Should Do I'm not sure about this but I think it's being fairly passive on the sur- face, in order to _trap_ a man. Do you want _real_ love? Then you need to be _real._ Someone comes on and says if you are desperate you will never find Mr. Right. The secret seems to be to not be desperate if you are des- perate. If you're starving, pretend your stomach is full. Everyone is Talking at Once Everyone is talking at once. There are two books competing with each oth- er. "Take the risk of being real." The words "real" and "really" seem to be in love with each other. Is it real? One of the Books is Called Finding True Love. This is _real_ love as opposed to _false love._ Grand Passion: Two friends of mine in New York, one 49, one 54, no longer want Grand Passion. Therefore they do not want Real Love. (Actually this doesn't hold but it _comes through in further elucidation._ Cyberspace _All bets are off._ There are no rules except those of syntax. People stumble over one another. Because whatever happens almost always begins with virtual subjectivity, there is a different form of intentionality at work, right from the start - one found primarily in the _nightclub:_ Cyber-Intention The nightclub exists in the maw of absolute darkness. What appears, ap- pears by virtue of the artificial, desire, artificial desire (which is not to say, not real). The nightclub is the _locus of intention_ - I reveal precisely what I want you to see; half in and half out of the shadows, a nipple appears, almost invisible, controlled (uncontrolled, disparate, dissolute). In Cyberspace, words take on an ontic status, which I define as _wryting,_ displaying/splaying/playing packets from one to another. Packet Display Packet display: Virtual subjectivity as textual production. Elsewhere I talk about _hysteric embodiment,_ the wryting as tropological, splayed for deconstruction - an other other emerges. (This is not subtextual, but a skittering across and through surfaces.) What I intend to give you may not be what you read in/of me. The "me" may or may not be present at all. Mr. Ms. Fuzzy We're all fuzzy here, the extrusion of probabilities, construed in and through the judgement of the other. The real is as problematic as post- modernism's hyper-constructions of it. The world - which is all that is the _case_ (Wittgenstein, my emphasis), is literally the _case_ of _a_ world, not only construct, but also judgement. (See various possible worlds arguments from the 1980s.) Just as Mr. Right may not be _right,_ so identity, beginning here vis-a-vis virtuality - but extending also into physical reality - _may be such always by virtue of negotiation,_ and continuous negotiation at that. I Pass I pass then to a future of such negotiation, remarking on the constant labor necessary to maintain illusions, no matter how true, false, fuzzy. And I End And I end this, with the end of the talkshow (those liminal moments when raw capital exerts itself, effortlessly, without the labor necessary to maintain illusions, no matter how false), and the beginning of the evening news, always already televisiual, digitial, a presence to which I will shortly _abandon myself_ ... __________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer The Internet Text is around 1800 pages at this point, over 50 files. It's become burdensome, a weight, of which this is part; its own world, of which this is an intermediary colophon; an extension, of which this is a breath; and a fantasm of theoretical production. Its size _enables_ texts of which this is an example, playing the part against the whole, or a part within the theatrical, a fall guy or woman, a sidekick or slap. Just as Jennifer occupies a certain position vis-a-vis both hypertext and virtu- ality; just as the 'configuration texts' occupy parallel positions in relationship to the conceptualization of software (i.e. texts which play or report through software as MOOtexts, Unixtexts, talkertexts) - so positionality plays in the form of lightning through the sememe: semantic chaos coupled with strange attractors. Positionality is interstitial play, construct, exploiting the liminal, inhabiting the marginal. Positionality occurs in parallel worlds, this and _that other,_ both the hypostatized real and the apparently seamless virtual reality of a postulated future. The impetus is this filling/fulfilling of the theoretical - playing the wager throughout, devolving that very positionality - in fact, problemat- izing sight/site/citation, all of which are critical to Net development and production. In this sense, the text/s, as singular, always exhausts itself, defuges, sputters at the edges; given the death of the author, it's hir sickness or the _quickening_ of birth which returns to itself, empty, cauterized, _speaking everything_ through a certain flux. What is everything is not totality; what is totality is formulaic, captured in File Text XYZ, exposed in File Text ABC, recuperated in DEF, given the voice of an avatar in GHI, and explicated or laid to rest in the future JKL. So there is the _sickness,_ not death, of the author in the very long run, but this is irrelevant, as long as production or archiving continue; as long as the wagers are made; as long as Jennifer remains here, breathing softly in my ear, whispering "enough, Alan ..., enough ..." _________________________________________________________________________ /burnout and Opal/ embellished in slashes because it's periodic, a recurrence of the thicken- ing of virtuality into soup or mush, real-life escaped air, addiction down the road. I'm burned out on the lists at the moment - their interiors tend to reconfigure in familiar patterns - the letters still occupy their pos- itions one after another on the screen - partaking of sufficient spectral contrast - different nanometer ranges - the eyes lures them in, or the ear in some cases - lots of filter processing, neural networking - finally it emerges - _the ear,_ _the Net_ - as if the Net were _paint,_ I a _painter_ - this relationship garnered towards a _unique substance_... _the life_ remains greyed out, hysteric phonecalls, incandescent body- writhes, the air here gets damp at night, storms coming in - far too fam- iliar, this weather - for no pay bitterness, shoving the letter where it ought to be - and then over 120 megabytes on Cybermind, not to mention Fop-l, Image, E-conf - did we say all that worthwhile, bond together that much, rolled through thick and thin over hackers festooned with Wired covers, dawn of the new millennium - have we done anything _tending_ the millennium? (what could that possibly mean?) - two and a half years of _tending-towards_ - _everything_ needing tending - the computer, RAM, interfaces, upgrading, operating systems, administrations, MOOs, site-bans, security-measures, home-pages - substance rolls out of the screen - _implodes_ in real life - archives jumbling among the cyber-waves - it's a vacuum in here [goes out- side for a second can't breathe] - comes back in - can't breathe - /me feels he's losing it \ :feels he's losing it \ depending on ; feels he's losing it / the application - .emote feels he's losing it / Cybermind alone has over 60,000 pages - late-night sweats, hallucinations - just along for the ride - want to walk into a wall of flesh - or at least out of a doorway that's not made of iron-bars-downstairs-432-Dean- Street-Brooklyn-NY-USA-11217 - my breasts have turned to jelly - there's wires in them - radio-squeeze nipple-play - crying this morning and in such a form could have shorted out keys m-y keys i keys e-y-e - note the _case_ - capital punishment - send your pictures your skin to the address above - debris, incunabula of a proffered age - "Tonight so we did go, and too with us was Elizabeth Barrett Browning. When we were come near unto the hospital, I went aside for Thomas Chat- terton Jupiter Zeus. In the cathedral, the wind and the trees sang a ves- per song. And I prayed for quite a long time, little prayers and long prayers for the goodness of us all. Peter Paul Rubens did grunt Amen at in-between times. "Now I hear the mamma say, 'I wonder where Opal is.' She has forgets. I'm still under the bed where she did put me, quite a time ago. And all this nice long time, light is come to here from the lamp on the kitchen table - light enough so I can print prints. I am happy. I think I better crawl out now, and go into the bed for sleeps." ( The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow, The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whitely, with biography and afterword by Benjamin Hoff. I do most strongly recommend this book, which is as near to a miracle of writing as I have seen. ) __________________________________________________________________________ Property and Questions Simple on the Surface - Property as verb, not as noun: "Property is the individual's recognized right to dispose over a partic- ular object. Like other rights, the right called property involves more than a relation between a person and a thing. It involves a relation be- tween the proprietor and other individuals who, through the former's prerogative, are excluded from disposing over the object in question. "The relation also involves the representatives of government, who, on the one hand, share the restrictions placed on the private non-proprietors and, on the other, are concerned with maintaining the existing property relations. Thus in addition to being a legal and social institution, pro- perty is a political phenomenon. "Strong property develops in a societal order which is so balanced that the holders of property can dispose over 'their' objects with a maximum of freedom. Weak property develops in a societal order that is not so balan- ced." [...] "The concepts of mobile and immobile property present obvious difficul- ties, but they have great advantages for our inquiry." Quoted from Karl Wittfogel's Oriental Despotism, A Comparative Study of Total Power, these passages lend themselves to a series of questions: What constitutes disposal of property in cyberspace? What, in fact, con- stitutes property _here?_ Is all such property, intellectual property? Is all property in cyberspace mobile? Modular? Is all property in cyberspace _an act,_ resulting in a _file_ subject to further acts, by either the proprietor, or those permitted by the pro- prietor? (This would constitute the _setting of permissions of a file,_ such as chmod - necessary even for Web pages.) _Is a file an act?_ (Note: Is a file in fact a _negotiation_ with access and interface? The ontology of information remains inordinately problematic, as the diamat Soviet philosophers discovered, having to resort to a reflection theory that conjured up various idealities. Further, if files is assigned, and the chmod/chown commands imply that, are files always _intellectual?_ Finally, it should be noted that even, say, MOO identity, is retained in a player's log somewhere; the right-to-a-name, its properness and propriety, could be considered property as well.) Finally: Is there anything in cyberspace _that is not property_ in one or another form - in fact, _that is not intellectual property,_ or an _act?_ ________________________________________________________________________ All My Uunames empowerment uslitho compuchat convolve commspec duck straylight nha gra falstaff wolfe tml metro-net hope siotech satan fighter candy deli itcnet1 rdb suzys jcainc parousia bwen sdale cliplaw tusrifny ravinomics jupiter lions-wing dcisun mollusk clotho neuromancer apteryx essert mel maddog clarchitects clmultimedia londonfischer dongrn netcomsv atari nova powermail tcbdata perun hpi genesis fesny argos yarcomm nams2 perform ramnet njn ubellent warwick echo mydog kc2yu upaya absol cius crayola sci goo brann dont waena jmtunix softport thetis sss-gw emc treebranch server galaxy999 sjluucp salinasgroup amnumsoc strand tminet pubmedia cyb stone cemetery brownstone bottomer wbsg oli uslynx nn teamdnet cyberia trangy chesler wa2oga major prcs lamp comstat orb bicny salty rbsis dolphy wildlife girisuci NYMSYS mtgany midnite eastnet icphost stam10 gbs homer __________________________________________________________________________ My History of the Net, by Jennifer Jennifer has a most beautiful day today. Today the air is just so. Today the air is neither warm nor cold nor lukewarm nor cool. Today I swim in perfect air. Today I wear my frock! It is beautiful because I find the old-man-shard. I am walking down the path and there is ocotillo and I stumble and there is the old-man-shard! It is Mimbres I am sure and not an animal. Because you are air-temperature and you are annealing. Because it hardens in your hand and lasts forever. Because you make the sound of charcoal burning with your hand and a smoke and a fissure and a furrow. Jennifer is clear glass, and spun. She spins a most beautiful and annoy- ing. Bushy creosote spreads from the center of the frock. It is twelve twelve thousand and twelve years old-man-shard, linking lovely Jennifer- belly! Just then a baby Jennifer just like Jennifer then! Because you are exactly the air-temperature alloy of perfection! Jennifer has a most beautiful day today and will take a lovely walk. You will buy things. I will hug and kiss you! __________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer I will put a flower on my head And I will get into my bed And I will be dead I will lead me to the slaughter Up from the attic rafter Down to the cleansing water Lost I will never be Nor kissed slavishly Nor sung eternally For I will put a rose upon my face And I will lie down in my lace And I will leave you in this place Not for nothing, calls in winter Birds in summer, called hereafter _______________________________________________________________________ I'm too depressed to write "I'm too depressed to write" _______________________________________________________________________ Jennifer-production I'm too depressed to write "I'm too depressed to write "I'm too depressed to write"" _paste_ ___________________________________________________________________________ text Utterly brilliant utterly blindingly white Utterly brilliantly blindingly white Amazingly brilliant utterly white Brilliantly amazingly white Utterly white Bright bright white Very Bright white Bright white Very white White Off-white Very off-white Abject white White with the slightest shade of grey White with grey in it Grey-white Very light grey Very grey-white White-grey Light grey Utterly extremely white-grey Grey with white in it Grey with the slightest shade of white Abject grey Very off-grey Off-grey Grey Very grey Utterly grey Extremely greyish Grey with the slightest shade of black Grey with black in it Grey-black Dark grey Blackish-grey Utterly extremely grey-black Very grey black Very dark grey Black grey Grey-blackish Very grey-blackish Black with grey in it Black with the slightest shade of grey Abject black Very off-black Off-black Black Very black Dark black Very dark black Dark dark black Utterly dark black Utterly dark dark black Despondently amazingly black Amazingly despondent utterly black Utterly despondent utterly darkest black _________________________________________________________________________ when it is so black, so unutterably black, then I see my eyes' blood and when it is so silent so unutterably silent, then I hear my hearts' beat and when I read you here, so unutterably absent, then I see my selfs' flesh, bone, here, and mysteries _________________________________________________________________________ Depression and Cyberspace (I admit immediately to the bias and half-truths here. I admit totally to its emptiness. I admit everything.*) Waking up this morning, again close to tears, a numb weight upon me. I had to check the terminal first; the black background was a pool seeping into the woodwork of the loft, and the letters barely held their own - as if something were trying to be said. More and more I am acutely aware of the blankness of the screen, its impenetrability; all my close relationships _through_ it have been at physical distances of at least five hundred miles. These distances _do_ matter; they're both safe and dangerous. Be- cause of them, I can't make sense of the words. The words dissolve, turn into unrecognizable shapes, stop the speech they represent. I know I'm in a deep depression because of the envelope. I received some mail today asking me to resubscribe to a narratology journal and I threw the envelope in a trash can and suddenly I felt for the envelope and its miserable life, its _carriage_ which lasted at best a day or two; every- thing began murmuring about discard and this time tears did come. It's a symptom - projection and collapse lending themselves to misrecognition at the beck and call of the _thing_ dragging the soul down, dismembering the flesh on the way. Cyberspace is filled with depressives; look at alt.bitterness, alt.angst, all the medical/psychological groups. The miserable Research email list has turned into academic psychologists' pride and joy, with every other post detailing another on-line therapy or ethical issue. And there are serious depressives on every email list I'm on. I think the Web might be an exception; people are using it more and more as an art orgasm or im- pulse buying catalog, and the Websters I know are more outgoing and upbeat than their darknet hacker counterparts. The depression stems from within the mind, thwarted, impossibly reconfig- ured. It leads to suicide, dysfunction. I don't think cyberspace helps much, and can in fact be part of the problem. All the self-help groups, therapy email lists, fun stuff to do, occurs in the domain of a violent self-negation of the body; even Net sex with its accompanying hysterical embodiment reduces to the null state after orgasm - the screen again re- asserts itself, one is left in the cold, the voice at the other end of the line, the text on the terminal - go dead. It's not for nothing that the computer is called a terminal, that we use terminals on the Internet. Because these are the _endpoints_ - one can't go any farther. They're the blunt sensory input and output nubs of the hole. The gap between them and the user is irreducible. Think again of the blackness seeping from the text, filling the crevices of the room, filling my holes, my crack, my mouth (for depression also has a sadistic sexual component), spreading the joyless body into immobility. The projections, introjections, fantasies - the uncanny, the imaginary - inchoate - all of these motilities intersect in coagulations of part-ob- jects, fragments, narrative bits and pieces, images awash in their own dissolution. They're in the mind. They're wetware artifacts. _For nothing can change the epistemological status of the screen_ which remains _precisely_ situated in relation to the user. Even virtual reality exists within a limited epistemology. The farther the user reaches, the greater the terminal flatness, which remains in dialectic with the user's narcissism. Sooner or later there is a collapse; "smart users" sense the fissures immediately, tell-tale signs that the other is not Other but gen- erated text, images, constructs - easily deleted, morphed, transformed, digested. This is related to the _speed_ of cyberspace relationships - a velocity- function which has often been noted. (Where's Virilio when we actually do need him?) One penetrates immediately to the _heart of the matter,_ but it is the beat of one's own heart; the text - every text, my text, _drools_ with needs, desires. I wonder in this regard if my experience of the five hundred mile radius is unique - if in fact it's not _safer_ to project over larger distances, form relationships where meetings require considerable planning and ex- pense. Because things nearer are riskier, just like the voice on the other end of the phone is riskier than neutral-density typing where one appears to be giving everything away, and is in fact giving nothing. It's the _privacy_ of depression also that is driving this account - cry- ing over an envelope, for example, is something one wouldn't do in front of anyone. In fact, _presence_ itself, care, might obviate the act alto- gether; depression feeds on solitude, strengthens itself with the feeling that it is, after all, a comfortable state of absolute annihilation where things couldn't get any worse - where the body is paste, substance, thing, for no one at all. And from _this_ state, depression is ready to go out and face the world; the chemicals have changed in the body, things are al- ready churning rapidly downhill. In cyberspace, though, public and private are one - in issues ranging from virtual subjectivity to intellectual property. Or if not one, at least un- der contestation; interior and exterior are fuzzy, clouded. So depression can grow here in the midst of community; it can call for deliberate misun- derstandings and flames (look at the alt. groups again); it can grow here as a result of the inertness of the terminal; it depends on the fact that the terminal is just that - _the end._ (It can grow because it can look at itself _as if there were an other,_ recognizing the bleakness of the space it's in - that there's nothing other than this bleakness in fact.) It takes all I can do to type this. There is little relief at the end of the road. Elsewhere in the Internet Text, I've talked about neurosis and psychosis and their relationships as well, to cyberspace and things CMC. For _this_ realm, all of these internal states - these states that are not, perhaps, primarily chemical in their instantiation - intermingle, lose their (somewhat) categorical status. They become fuzzy; they are headed off by the fierceness of projections, confusions, Net sex and vir- tuality itself. I recognize by the way that I am, like a good schizophrenic, filling the void here. I recognize that I have no conclusions, that the explanation is overly simplistic, coming up against that same wall, that gap that refuses liminality, the distance, _physical distance_ between the user and the screen. But I also claim that this is literally obdurate, a primitive, just as membership (and this is non-membership) is a primitive in naive set theory. It is a primitive like pure heroin with no cut or lace; it feels so good but it is killer and depressive, and molds your life into something unrecognizable, and you watch yourself going down and all about it, and may enjoy it in the under-taking. (*That this is one part of the story. That there is more to it. That I would be depressed anyway. That this is throwing out the road for the cart and the cart for the horse. That this just isn't true. That I will be any- thing you want me to be. That anytime.**) (**That this is a dream of you. That this is your dream. That I will con- tinue to dream. That you, I, construct the dream. That it is a construct. That it is the space of misrecognition. That our eyes and ears are sewn shut. That our holes are sewn shut too.) _________________________________________________________________________ I don't mean what I say. I'm in no condition to assign meaning to these words. These words are meaningless to me. Words mean nothing to me. Pay no attention to what I am saying because I have no idea what I am saying. These lines mean nothing to me because they are meaningless. To mean something, meaning has to have a frame to hang on. These lines have nothing to hang on. I have lost the ability to assign frames to meaning or meaning to frames. I don't know what I'm saying. _________________________________________________________________________ Every morning when I wake up, all I can think about is my death. I was strangled by an Italian party girl in 1979. ________________________________________________________________________ From a Film: What you see is what you get. Subscribe to the fullness of the imaginary. She enjoyed exhibiting herself before men; it was her politics. She was twisted beyond recognition by the pretense of desire. Nothing was left but the eternal come-on, left unrewarded but economically viable. Her limits were table-dancing and turning the occasional trick. The wrestling scene was exhausting and humiliating, but full of competitive spirit. The girls eventually became her best friends for life. Always this division between in and out of the business. Care was always on guard against the presence of males on the periphery. Her own sex was private and masturbatory, open to anonymous cinematic eyes. The film thing was dreary and all too intimate on an uncomfortable level. She would never turn out for the street. Males were parasites one way or another in this business. Both her arms were broken by an angry pimp who just couldn't believe it. She had never been abused and enjoyed the life and the money. She worried about the security of it all, and had even given up her habit. __________________________________________________________________________ Hacking Breakdown The recent hack into the Panix ISP consisted of a flood of spoofed email addresses sent to the server; requests for acknowledgement were never re- turned. This attack is similar to flooding a telephone switchboard, or blocking the doors to an office; its illegality is questionable, since nothing was internally violated - i.e. private property was never in ques- tion. The use of spoofed addresses may constitute a form of counterfeit- ing, however. This is _external,_ against the doors or firewalls of an ISP. An _inter- nal_ attack is potentially more serious; the office-space is broken into, files examined, taken, redistributed. The break-in can occur from within or without; in any case, it's a violation against the person, given pro- perty rights. Viruses and worms are other forms of internal hacking; they don't nece- ssarily corrupt or examine particular files, but flood, take over the controls. In this sense, they're somewhat external - they're not stealing data, but prohibiting its access. But they're also internal, since they're doing it within other files or portions of the machines under attack. On the other hand, there are viruses that rewrite files, disks, overrun everything; these are destructive of intellectual property, and a viola- tion against the person. (See Fah-Chun Cheong, Internet Agents - Spiders, Wanderers, Brokers, and Bots.) Another internal hack rewrites software towards self-destruct; fork-bombs on MOOs are an example of this, as are, perhaps, the old ASCII-bombs in email (now disabled). A third form of hacking is borderline, and occurs _within_ software, with- out damaging it. I would put Wizard snooping and IRC flooding here. This form quickly takes on game-like aspects at times; on IRC, users throw one another off channels. (See volt.irc or venom.irc software.) A fourth form of hacking attacks the physical Net itself, tapping into phone and fiber optic cables, parasitically latching onto microwave tran- smissions, etc. And other forms would be further and further withdrawn from the intricacies of the Net itself, working on the configurations of telecommunications as a whole. This taxonomy, such as it is, could be extended in any number of direc- tions; any help would be appreciated. ________________________________________________________________________ Dawkins If one can talk about genetic determinism and competition, an intension into Darwinian depths, then one can also consider - instead of this to- tality - the problem of a _bad gene._ Consider a genetic mutation detri-- mental to the survival of an organism - for example, a cancer-producing artifact in the DNA. The competition then becomes internal, among the genetic population; the body harbors the war, and either reproduces or not (death is irrelevant after reproduction). Now consider, instead of this mutation, an _external agent,_ which may or may not be viral, bacterial, or otherwise environmental (physical or men- tal stressing of an organism). Then the competition occurs between the genetically-driven organism, and that part of the organism which has been modified. The warfare has epistemologically crossed the genetic boundary. I would argue that, beyond the physiological and neurophysiological, in- terpenetrating them, there are cultural/superstructural forces at work. And that these forces, taking off from negation against a purified repro- ducibility (i.e. sleeping with the first heterosexual partner on hand), create not only detours, but autonomous detours. The genetic disposition, driving the organism, is one of a number of partial-drives, the others countenanced by factors on other levels, and intersecting. The ontological status of "factors" is what's in question. I don't believe they're reducible to genetic productions, since they interact with the real in ways that are still problematic. For example, mathematics has a clear but complex relationship to particle physics, whether or not _our_ mathematics could be crudely described as a (genetic) attempt to find a grounds/nesting-place for our existence _here_ is a space-time we have hardly designed. On the other hand, the genetic disposition is transcendent and determines, I believe, large-scale aspects of socio-cultural behavior all the way up and down. It's simply not the totality - which is composed of at least three elements altogether - a genetic determinism; a "matrix" of physical reality; and all other superstructural (socio-cultural/environmental) components (this can be extended in all sorts of directions). I think of Dawkins' theory, as best I understand, as a form of modernist reduction - the same applies to memes, to the extent that, beyond obvious examples (i.e. Mickey Mouse), it gets increasingly difficult to isolate either an idea or concept - or what constitutes them. If memetics is to be preserved as reasonably accurate description of the mental universe, it would have to be combined with a _fluid mechanics_ vis-a-vis Irigaray's description (in terms of the feminine). As it is, the meme seems related to the monad - oddly inert. I recognize the above arguments are full of holes, but where? Is Dawkins operating in a biological-mechanistic vacuum? At first I believed impli- citly in his theory; now, it seems extremely limited. ________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Through the Cloth I'd loko tho fool of thot, yoor fongors probong onto mo throogh tho wot cloth. I'd posh my onos ogoonst tho cloth, yoo tongoong mo throogh ot... I'd sock yoor onos os o tony broost, tosto tho mosk ond brown throogh ot, sock ot ond yoor pontoos onto my mooth ond wot wot foco... my clot throstong op, yoo coold probo mo woth yoor noso... I'd do thot, I'd poll tho pontoos toght ogoonst yoo, op onto yoor crock - yoo'd soo tho clot ootlonod ogoonst thom. Yoo'd bo tood op toght; I'd photogroph yoor cont throogh tho cloth, yoor ossholo stoonong ot, yoor clot stroonong ogoonst ot... I hovo my porood -- thoro woold bo rod on tho pontoos for yoo to sock -- I'm so wot, so closo to commong... I'd lovo thot, lovo yoo to com ond sport ogoonst tho pontoos. I'd sock onythong yoo pot on thom; I'd bo o mooth jost on tho othor sodo of tho cloth - tho only movomont yoo coold do woold bo to poss, monstrooto, shot o lottlo... I'd bo on control, my mooth tokong whotovor yoo hovo to govo mo... thon I'll com now, sportong my monstrool floods, somo poss, somo brown from my onos -- toko ot oll onto yoo... I'm ondor yoor control, ot con go to yoo, no ploco olso, jost mo moonong ond commong onto yoor mooth... Thot's wondorfol... I wooldn't lot go, yoo'd bo throshong on tho bod, oot of control, I'd bo wot woth yoor floods, lookong ot yoo, yoo wooldn't bo oblo to movo ontol I ontood yoo... Yoo'd bo tronsportod... I como, yoor thong, yoo wotchong, no rostroont, ovorythong possoblo oxposod... __________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer This would be a new dream. There was a quiz contest and it was like Jeopardy and there was a dark-haired woman answering the question. And the question was something she couldn't answer. But it was a charity and she was given the answer anyway and she lay down on the floor and she stood up and that was the end of the question-and-answer period. But it was the in-between moment, the moment she got up, and tried to say something to the moderator or the host or the master of ceremonies, as if to say, like me; and he indicated to her, or replied, or whispered, that she was asking too much. She had a pale face and was in her late thirties and had beautiful long straight black hair. She walked in a black dress in front of him and to the right. That was the end of it, the stage, the audience, the bright lights, the failure, the inability to be liked, the reward, the lying down, the standing up. She had very red lips and black eyebrows. And when I woke I _knew_ this had to do with things cyberspatial, that there was a computer at the heart of it, but where exactly was unclear. So the computer could be placed at the heart of the question, or the answer; or the computer could be the moderator, or the woman herself; or within the audience or the lighting system which made the stage so very luminous almost glowing with the brilliance of board and steel, glittery nights remembered until and throughout the waking hours. The computer was not with the woman with the black hair and eyebrows and very red lips and very pale skin. And the terminal was there as the murmur of the world (Lingis) was there, and present and neither in the background nor foreground, but somehow aligned with the mechanism or the membrane which contained the whole. But the machine itself was not there. And I do not know where the machine was, but it was not within me doing the dreaming (Sartre) but somewhere was. Nor was it a woman or with a woman or a possession of or by the woman. And it was lovely, but with that nagging feeling when to be liked is too much, and one must go on and accept the responsibility of being not so well liked, even disliked, and that is a condition of being. It is a con- dition of being that brings the dreams about in the first place, the dreams of discomfort and ennui, the dreams of dark turnings. Almost never is there light on the stage, so the light on the stage is, in its way, a comfort. Between comfort and discomfort, there is only further exhaustion. The woman wakes up somewhere else. She has won the prize. She is very dis- liked. Everyone always thinks everyone always is so modern and a prize. __________________________________________________________________________ Virtual Subjectivity in Descartes, Principles IX and X, in Principles of Philosophy: Principle IX. _That corporeal substance, when distinguished from its quantity, is con- fusedly conceived as something incorporeal._ Although however, some express themselves otherwise on this subject, I cannot think that they regard it otherwise than as I have just said; for when they distinguish substance from extension or quantity, they either mean nothing by the word substance, or they merely form in their minds a confused idea of incorporeal substance which they falsely attribute to corporeal, and leave to extension, which they nevertheless call an acci- dent, that true idea of this corporeal substance, and thus it is easy to see that their words are not in harmony with their thoughts. Principle X. _What space or internal place is._ Space or internal place and the corporeal substance which is contained in it, are not different otherwise than in the mode of which they are con- ceived of by us. For, in truth, the same extension in length, breadth, and depth, which constitutes space, constitutes body; and the difference be- tween them consists only in the fact that in body we consider extension as particular and conceive it to change just as body changes; in space, on the contrary, we attribute to extension a generic unity, so that after having removed from a certain space the body which occupied it, we do not suppose that we have also removed the extension of that space, because it appears to us that the same extension remains so long as it is of the same magnitude and figure, and preserves the same position in relation to cer- tain other bodies, whereby we determine this space. (Translation Haldane and Ross.) __________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer, ThE nEw MaChInE Swollen, tumescent, pubescent, distended, gaping maw's software hardware upgrade, fabrik-machine hard at work churning into soft soiled soil, rim- job architecture transformation plugged in, turned-out: I await with gap- ing arms, broad wide smile, teeth sparkling clean: Here you come! :connects the tiniest little wire to the tiniest little wire! :caresses the tiniest little jumper just so! here and there! :runs hir finger just along the rim of the tiniest little floppy drive! Now towards evening, Machine sleeps humming quietly. What morning will bring, my testing-noon, testing-room, new parts inserted! Each machine a cyborg ready to happen up! My Sisters, I Write the Birthing of a New Machine! (This Phrase Coming Several Hours After the Last.) Nervously I Pace Elsewhere; in the Early Noon, I will Carefully Approach the Towering Box, Listen to its Needy Fanning Hummmm. (This Phrase Much Later.) Tiny Lights Will Say What All is Right or Wrong: I will Type: CONNECT!!!! Hi! I'm still here, still waiting. It takes time to _Cure_ a new machine, cyborg-caulking hardening in place, cleaning up the scarps and skimpers. (Much much later!!!!) Tomorrow will always be the dawn of a new day. (The sun fixes in the sky. It stays the same place forever. Earth heats up and gets cold. Jennifer moves towards the center where everything evens out and there are new microbes. But there's also a huge crystal and Jennifer sneezes and the little crack flies apart.) Hi! I'm the New-Machine-Soul ready for Insertion! My Little Crack Flies Apart! Hi Jennifer!!!! (MuCh MuCh MuCh LaTeR!!!! THE END!!!!) ___________________________________________________________________________ All the Love and Quiet Nights You Want Here speaking mouth speaking mouth pillar of cloud pillar of cloud pillar of fire pillar of fire sucking mouth sucking mouth shitting hole shitting hole pissing hole pissing hole leaking vowel leaking vowel dripping man dripping man cumming woman cumming woman O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O speaking mouth O pissing hole O shitting hole O leaking vowel O sucking mouth O cumming woman O dripping man O pillar of fire O pillar of cloud O O O O O O O O O O cumming woman dripping man leaking vowel pissing hole shitting hole sucking mouth pillar of fire pillar of cloud speaking mouth 2.82 Pleasure Does one lose the pleasure of talking on-line? Is this related to the lim- itations of typing, to physically not wanting to engage in the labor, or does it refer to something more fundamental, the feeling that the screen is always barrier? I find myself less and less able to converse on MOOs and talkers - that if I begin, I must prepare for at least an hour's worth of typing. I again tired of fictitious names, solo sex, the _silence_ in the room. And it gets harder to read of others' pain (in CMC expressed freely), or type my own - the exchanges after a while fall flat, collapse. It's as if no one can help another, as if kind words must exchange silence for sound, as if - as if - nothing... But I think it's really the typing, this typing for years on end, replac- ing chat itself; a kind of musicality is lost. Fingers begin to hurt, the back and shoulders become uncomfortable, and sometimes there are visual migraine flashes as the screen sets in. There's no languor; even lurking requires the labor of reading, hanging onto the diegesis. There's no si- lent presence, in other words - being with someone, side by side, without speech or other interruption. Instead, one talks and talks, in order to create presence or its ghost; silence becomes non-existence, disappear- ance. Think of ytalk when lag sets in, the constant and pathetic "hello, hello, are you there, are you able to read this, hello hello?" until the text of the other, the other itself, reappears, and everything's wonder- ful, the wound's sutured, and so forth and so on. Sometimes I'd type during the lag or unavoidable crash, beginning with talk's continuation, descending quickly into nonsense "so maybe we should meet in April hello? hello? ah oh eeel sljdfljdslwler.... damnllkjdfl" - echoing like an obscene Narcissus splashed wet with spit's reflection. If my fingers begin their round of pain, I want them flashing on guitar, tied behind my back, inserted, waved in the air, cupping water's resis- tance, running on piccolo or ch'in. Or want them writing _this_ text, that is, the doing of something left, shit-like, behind (heh, body shudders to a halt, hey keep going: "ah oh eeel sljdfljdslwler.... damnllkjdfl") - the realm of the fertilizer-senses... There's no stillness; it's always _this,_ and _this_ is now at 3.7 mega- bytes of ascii, all those ytalks, talkers, MOOs, MUDs, IRCs, POWWOWs, Havens, talks, ntalks, emails, fingers worn to the bone, all the bones uncanny, all the bodies ghosts, all the ghosts lurking, all the lurking disappearances... one long ellipsis... Talk talk talk ....................................................... __________________________________________________________________________ Drives: What Happened and Nature The C: drive was on the original drive; D: and E: were placed on the sec- ond physical drive. F: and G: were added later for interlink and an I: drive was used for a portable CD-ROM. A new drive was added, and the C: drive was moved to it. The original C: drive was then erased. The D: and E: drives were added on the new C: drive as subsets and the second phys- ical drive was reformatted and named the D: drive. The D: drive from the C: drive was placed back on the new D: drive. The original C: drive was now renamed the E: drive and reformatted and the E: drive on the new C: drive was placed back on the new E: drive. The CD-ROM was placed on the X: drive. The F: drive and G: drive were left as is and through my objections the CD-ROM was placed on the I: drive after the portable CD-ROM drive was erased from the I: drive. Finally the original A: drive was moved to the new machine as the A: drive. Drive management was removed. In CMC-space where no one knows your name, your drives can be driven. The C: drive is the ur-drive; it is the source of all things, relying on the quiet floppy A: boot disk if all else fails. The frailty of the floppy is the final arbiter; there is nothing beyond it except for the free-wheeling style of the hacker reconfiguring as you go. The hacker _has_ the informa- tion. But the information can be anywhere, looping through the boot files, organizing the machine. Computer memory is passive; it can be written and rewritten, but exists as orderly and specifiable connections, very unlike the mind (in spite of the fact that excitation of specific areas of the cortex will call up specific memories). Machine memory is also modular and removable; it travels exactly from computer to computer, as in some dreams of humanity's future. It flows and floods; being passive, however, it has no thought, no operations. It is done-to. It controls the doing, but it is nonetheless done-to. It feeds into and out of the machine; the two are symbiotic. Nothing runs unless it runs into and out of a world; the do the slow dance of chora and control. Nothing runs unless it runs in and out a world. _________________________________________________________________________ Plezz Raoul Vaneigem, The Book of Pleasures: "Putting intense pleasure first prepares for the end of separate thought." Upgrading pleasurably, the external model disabled still and too lazy to download-o 32-bit, I turn black and white quickcam-o onto the screen- saver. Now I tend-o to run around here in underpants if dressed at all; o o o o it gives the body-o a cleaner space to glide-o, and then when what? My white image, band-o across the middle skirting on the screen, maybe I'll wear a skirt-o, dance and prance-o? Who's to know-o, o o o o, maybe I'll naked self-o just everywhere! Heh-o. So to be sure-o, its glassy- like, glass-o, just me and me image where the comp-o once sat-o. What could be nicer? My arms-o move operat-o, here-o and there-o, swish wish! You can't follow them-o for the blurrrrr-o. Huge waves of light gray-o dance across the glass-o me! My mouth-o opens and closes with delight-o with the sync-o! Sometimes in and sometimes out-o, o o o o! You can only imagine! Gaping maw-o, maw-maw-o, swallows screen-o hole-o, o o o o! Now I'm in me-o! There's nothing ought to look at-o! o o o o! So much delay I am where I was-o! And I'll be where I am-o! So much of it to swallow! __________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Pop-Up-Tips-For-Today You can always delete these messages by placing your icon against the mouse which follows passages within your body unless saved in a folder in Documents/Accessories. Click here <-X-> for further information. Click here <-X-> to cancel further pop-up help. _________________________________________________________________________ VoyHir I'm speaking at a conference on voyeurism this Friday, here in NY, in con- junction with a show dealing with the subject at Franklin Furnace. The panelists were given several questions to respond to - below are the ques- tions (except for one dealing with funding the arts) and outline of re- sponses. Meanwhile, since I think of voyeurism as _not_ polar to exhibitionism (in the same way that masochism isn't polar to sadism), locating such on the Net becomes difficult. There are numerous consensual exhibitionist acti- vities of all sorts (I've engaged in them, both text and image), on a variety of applications ranging from CuSeeMe through IRC, IRC/dcc, MOOs, MUDs, talker, etc. Their consensual nature transforms them into something other than a voyeurism based on _prying,_ _secrecy_ - for example, a glance into a neighbor's window, and what that might reveal (of course there is also a dialectic involved here - the neighbor's recognition that _someone is watching_). So I'm hard-pressed to discover what would constitute Net voyeurism; the semi-private CuSeeMe sites I've been to have been closed, or private, or empty, for example. Wizard or God snooping on various Net apps. would ap- ply, as would the reading of Net sex texts illicitly (and probably ille- gally) sent out to email lists, newsgroups, and the like. At this point, I'm at a loss, which is part of the content of the presen- tation. I will talk somewhat about the consensual side of things, hint at the possibilities of hacking into text and image, and describe the kinds of empowerment that Net sexuality (or other forms of exhibitionist behav- ior) might entail... Here are the three questions, then, and just the hint of an outline of a response - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Dominant/Passive Sex Performance: Does the gender of the person practicing voyeurism affect his or her stereotypical dominant or passive role? Is reversing the power of the gaze possible. In CMC, there is, within the boundaries of consensual activity, an empow- erment of both sexes to enact/re-enact any and every position. Voyeur = "person practicing voyeurism" 2. Voyeurism and Perversion/Pleasure Syndrome: Does taboo bind perversion and pleasure together? How does the 'primal scene' establish our perspec- tive? There need not always be a primal scene. If one considers _text_ as the taboo of the physical, then there is an hysteric embodiment, reading- through, that results in a _wryting_ the body, always constitution/re- constitution. The trajectory of increasing-physical: exchange leading to actual, not virtual meetings. 3. Voyeurism on the Internet: Is viewing explicit sexual material on the Internet voyeurism, since the Internet is considered public space? Con- versely, is the Internet the tool by which our Big Brother will watch our most intimate transactions? a. Darknet not public space. b. Other spaces not public space. c. Huge amounts of available material isn't the same as exhibitionism/ voyeurism: Public: i Theaters on MOOs and in IRC or talkers ii Use of public reflectors in CuSeeMe iii Exchange of stories etc. in newsgroups Private: i Ytalk ii Private rooms, whisper, page, in MOOs, talkers, etc. iii /msg or dcc on IRC iv Private reflectors, Iphone, etc. d. Quality of sex and transgression: Playing with perversion Pushing the other or being pushed to the limit (Breaking down of marriages; first orgasm, cyberorgasm, etc.) e. Two points: i Voyeurism and exhibitionism are not polar opposites or inversions. ii Voyeurism involves an opening/illicit, spying, etc. A. This may occur through hacking/snooping, but it's rare. B. Becoming-other, taking over someone else's account f. Big Brother (note the gender here), no; self-policing yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In real-life, I've had few voyeuristic experiences. There was a woman who, years ago, would undress and stand naked in the window across the street from me (not here). When I came into the apartment, I would glance out; if she were there, I began trembling... A woman and I in Copenhagan, making love in an empty apartment (no furni- ture), a man in an alcove above, another building, watching. In the show, all of these feelings and intense sensations get confused for the most part with pornographic display. I think the secrecy is critical; it couples with transgression, and the possibilities of a whole world of subterranean desire, just beneath one's fingers, on the shutter of a cam- era, peering behind a curtain, displaying oneself as if one were uncon- scious of others opening, openings... _________________________________________________________________________