Silent Letters
The _lamb_ bleats. His _limbs_ are _benumbed._ They _climbed_ the hill.
_Comb_ your hair. The _tomb_ was opened. Do not _thumb_ your book. A
_dumb_ animal.
A _receipt_ for money. The _debt_ is paid. The _debtor_ _doubted._ A
cunning, _subtle_ fellow. It is _doubtful._
_Psyche_ is the Greek for soul. Take your _psalter_ and choose a _psalm._
His answer was _pshaw!_
ibid.
__
remember
http://www.asondheim.org/combtomb.gif
this is the one of the crenellated towers in the spectrum created
from a comb filter produced by the reading of a nineteenth-century comb
remember it turned three-dimensional with the spectrum
but still retains a relationship to the crystal palace or crystal
cathedral
remember you forgot to remove the coordinates
http://www.asondheim.org/fetremake.jpg
this began as the fetish.jpg remember it was taken from a digital image
made in the miami apartment shooting up from the ground with a flash
azure and i wearing robes this one is me and the robe was parted by
the erection like the tent of abraham was it
that image elsewhere then taken through a floyd-steinberg filter
that changes it into something like photogravure which was then sent
through photoshop
remember at first everything became messier or relatively confused
but then you applied the neon filter which lit up the edges and after
a while the result then was faded
remember you tried different kinds of fading and this one worked
turning it back into an odd three-dimensionality all the the while
you're feeling ill and feverish with a bad allergic attack and more
think it might be the flu in any case you worked through the difference
fade and then intensified the saturation and upped the curves a bit
resulting in this dream of broken lust something like jelinek
might have written in a still image from one of her bleaker novels
--
they were blown apart in spite of their idealism
http://www.asondheim.org/corrug1.jpg
wind and rain corroded such beautiful forms
http://www.asondheim.org/corrug2.jpg
an artist picks up the pieces and tries to draw 'em
http://www.asondheim.org/corrug3.jpg
she breathes deeply moving earth and home
do not be afraid starsavages are small they will burn themselves in
into themselves burning themselves you will find starsavage pump
starsavage
here they are starsavage churned and salvaged savagestar
http://www.asondheim.org/starsavage1.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/starsavage2.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/starsavage3.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/furl.jpg
==
i ii
i have to get another text out there
nothing will survive if this one isn't included
others are behind me this one isn't
this is one that will survive me if i only get it out there
if you read it or not read it if it is included if it is out there
something out there i feel ill today
i feel ill today and have for the past several days
i may not get another one this one must survive out there
no mistake about it out there is really there
no mistake either out there is not in here not at all not at all
ii iii
the world is a world of replete suffering fecundity of pain
not buddhist pain pain pure and simple debilitating pain
pain of utmost savagery we do what we can we contribute
pain could be autonomic no feeling but reaction the organism survives
survives peacefully fighting off the intrusion from within and without
the natural world follows no such leads follows no leads at all
pain is irrelevant to the suffering mind only a signal
if the signal close down mind the organism makes way for others
others and betters if the pain is so intense so furious
we do what we can in this regard of furious pain
the elimination of our species will eliminate one iota of the world's pain
we can do no better we are of the most violent we should know better
destroying everything in our path crawling towards armageddon
animals and plants all the narrows will be open wide and poisoned
our minds are the worlds shit we dig from the earth with furious teeth
with teeth of iron slash flesh from eyes and stomachs in animal fun
how else shall we know what we are made of we alone feel pain
we will survive momentarily no longer that is fine
the faster we go the longer for beginning others
perhaps waiting just around the corner they're already dying
lateness of the hour a bad joke
=
the perfect breast the perfect womb
because i am a fifteen year old boy who yearn for a yen of womanhood i
cannot ever achieve this womanhood i am no even worthy of a kim or
brenda spazz who goes to my school and is so great she wont look at me she
doesnt know what i can do for her i will make her a perfect breast and
perfect womb i learned way before trig class
i can tell you i've been practicing
someday soon i'll get it right i wont need her any longer she is so
perfect bod i will dream of these and wont dream of her shell be sorry
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectbreast.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectwomb.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectwomb2.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectbreast2.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectbreast3.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectwombre1.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectwombre2.jpg
im no done yet
=
Silent
Letters
The His
_lamb_ _limbs_
bleats. are
His _benumbed._
_limbs_ They
are _climbed_
_benumbed._ the
They hill.
_climbed_ The
the _lamb_
hill.
bleats.
_Comb_ was
your opened.
hair. Do
_tomb_ _thumb_
was your
opened. book.
Do A
not _Comb_
_thumb_ your
book. The
A
_tomb_
_dumb_
animal.
_receipt_ _debt_
for is
money. paid.
_debt_ _debtor_
is _doubted._
paid. A
_debtor_ _receipt_
_doubted._ for
cunning,
_subtle_
fellow. cunning,
It _subtle_
_doubtful._
It
_Psyche_ soul.
Greek _psalter_
soul. choose
Take a
_psalter_ _Psyche_
and is
choose the
a Greek
_psalm._
for
answer
_pshaw!_
robes robe
me azure
robe wearing
parted this
erection like
like the
tent of
abraham
wind
rain and
corroded rain
she
breathes she
deeply breathes
moving deeply
earth moving
home
and
do starsavages
afraid they
starsavages will
small themselves
world world
replete of
suffering pain
all
minds dig
worlds earth
iron and
slash stomachs
animal iron
they're already
already dying
im
done
yet
+++
On Code and Codework
Consider a well-defined entity x, and its complement -x. Then x^-x = N,
the null set. Consider a second entity y and -y, y^-y = N. Think Nx and
Ny, the null set relativized to x and y. Consider three separable entities
x, y, z, and take pairs xy, yz, zx. These are symmetrical yx, zy, xz. Let
ab stand for a^b. Then xy, yz, zx are equivalent to null. Let x, y, z
divide a planar region into three regions bordering on each other. Let x@y
represent a line equidistant from the entities x and y. Then x@y, y@z, z@x
all meet at a single point. Divide the plain so that all entities are
grouped in triads; each triad meets in a single point. Divide the plain so
that these single points are grouped in triads and so forth. What branches
are available? Is a single point reached? To operate with x and -x such
that x^-x = N is to operate with discrete entities common to distributive
aristotelian logic. Now consider a second set, X, Y, etc., mapped onto the
first; the mapping may be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one. If the
first, the resulting mapping is reversible. If the second, it is
reversible but the coding itself is not reversible. If the third, the
mapping is not reversible; the result is a set of possibilities, not a
single one. Codes are mappings. There are two types of codes, declarative
and performative. An example of the former is Morse; it is one-to-one, but
all that is produced is equivalence. An example of the second is Perl;
Perl codes procedure. If procedure is coded, then the contents of the
procedure are doubly coded. If a Perl program parses {A} to produce {B}.
then the primary coding is the program which constructs and orders
procedures. The secondary coding is {A} -> {B} which may be considered the
semantic plane of the code. In Eco's A Theory of Semiotics, only a rule
'may properly be called a '_code._' and a rule couples items from one
system with some from another. Eco extends the possibility of code to 'a
set of possible _behavioral responses_ on the part of the destination.
This is performativity. In codework, primary and secondary coding are
entangled. Entanglement may be considered noise in the system. With noise,
the null set N is blurred across fuzzy sets with parasitic inputs; x^-x
and x^y may be and usually are ill-defined. It is this ill-definition -
which functions for example in current definitions of words like 'freedom'
- that tends towards political economy. Political, because culture and the
social are at stake in relation to the definition which is always already
under contestation, and economy, because there are limited resources and
examples for any particular definition. With codework, meaning itself is
problematized as a result of entanglement. In Eco, it is the code which
reaches a destination, not the message. The decoding of the message may or
may not be equivalent to the source. Noise is always already present and
is considered within the channel. This is the T-model of the parasite
described by Serres. Eco states "When a code apportions the elements of a
conveying system to the elements of a conveyed system, the former becomes
the expression of the latter, and the latter becomes the content of the
former. A sign-function arises when an expression is correlated to a
content, both the correlated elements being the functives of such a
correlation.' Code is a collocation or system (not necessarily the same)
of processes; processes are performative; both are temporally-embedded. A
mapping f(x) = y is not temporally-embedded; thus the mapping of the even
numbers onto the number system may be considered an ideality which _is,_
regardless of temporal processes. The structure is given all-at-once
within the formula (and its proof); its proof is a carrying-out of the
truth-value, or a revealing of the truth-value, of the structure. There
are mappings which are systemic, i.e. structure-dependent, and there are
mappings which are non-systemic or purely heuristic, such as randomly
assigning letters in a message to a triple number (page/line/letter-
position) originating from a particular edition of a particular book. In
all of these instances, of course, terms like 'system' and 'assign' are
themselves fuzzy; nevertheless there's a tremendous difference between the
anecdotal and the structural, and there are practical differences in the
ensuing codes and their employment. Peter Gardenfors, in Conceptual Space,
The Geometry of Thought, considers 'conceptual spaces' which are related
to tessellation of the plane. This reminds one of Peirce's simplest mathe-
matics, which is also related to Venn diagrams; in all of these, sets of
entities and concepts in the life-world are mapped into other spaces which
may or may not reflect thinking processes. Geometry is always bound by its
spatial representations; there is no reason to think, at all, that the
mind necessarily works through spatial or any representation for that
matter. Representation is always coded; Sebeok, in Approaches to Animal
Communication, 'Semiotics and Ethology,' points out that the 'model
suggested here entails a communication unit in which a relatively small
amount of energy or matter in an animal (a) the source, brings about a
relatively large redistribution of energy or matter in another animal (or
in another part of the same animal), (b) the destination, and postulates
(c) a channel through which the participants are capable of establishing
and sustaining contact. Maturana somewhere talks about such communication
as the mutual orienting of cognitive domains. Sebeok states that 'Every
source requires a transmitter which serves to reorganize, by a process
called encoding, the messages it produces into a form that can be
understood by the destination. The source and the destination are
therefore said to fully, or at least partially, share (d) a code, which
may be defined as that set of transformation rules whereby messages can be
converted from one representation to another.' As long as one sticks to
transformation rules, code is always procedural. Sebeok states that 'The
string generated by an application of a set of such rules is (e) a
message, which may thus be considered an ordered selection from a
conventional set of signs.' I think that 'ordered' is problematic as well,
since there is clearly a qualitative difference between book-ordering as
described above, and a set of rules based on mathesis. Where does the
arbitrary come in? One might say - and this is an important principle -
that the content of a code itself is directly correlated to its
arbitrariness. In this sense, the measure of a code is related to the
entropy of information within the process of encoding. The greater the
degree of the arbitrary, the more difficult to break, the greater the
entropy and therefore the greater the degree of information within it.
This is not on the level of the double-level of the code, i.e. the content
it operates upon, if there is such content (as in the Perl example above),
but within encoding itself. Every encoding is an encoding of encoding; if
the encoding is fully realized by the product of the code, then its
semantic content / information is low. If Morse encodes a message, more
than likely the message may be decoded based only on the distribution of
letters. The Morse content is low. If a book is used, the decoding is
increasingly difficult and the content of the code is high. This is also
related to issues of redundancy vis-a-vis Shannon and Weaver. Note that a
message and its destination are irrevocably ruptured; there is no
guarantee that an equivalence is attained on any level. Code operates more
often than not on an ontological plane disassociated, or associated by
intention only, with both its source and its decoding; there is no
guarantee that the source and the message-at-its-destination have anything
in common. There is no guarantee of the coherency of the practice of
coding in a particular case, no guarantee of one-to-one or one-to-many or
many-to-one, no guarantee of a zero-parasite-demographics - no guarantee
that the channel, in fact, has not been derailed altogether, as often
happens with bacteriophages. Bateson, in Bateson and Ruesch, Communica-
tion, The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, states 'codification must, in the
nature of the case, be systematic. Whatever objects or events or ideas
internal to the individual represent certain external objects or events,
there must be a systematic relationship between the internal and the
external, otherwise the information would not be useful.' Today one can
say, 'otherwise the information might not be useful,' since it is
precisely in the breakdown of systematic relationships that innovation
emerges.' But meaning may be produced even out of tautology. For example,
propositional logic may be 'derived' from the Sheffer stroke, 'not both A
and B'; it can also be derived from its dual, 'neither A nor B.' What can
we say about these? Only that they represent, as processes or _cullings_
of particular bounded universes, an unbinding/unbounding - 'neither A nor
B' points elsewhere altogether, and 'not both A and B' points either
elsewhere or towards an underpinning of union. At the heart of this
reduction of propositional logic, is a tendency towards dispersion,
towards wandering, the nomadic, even though the symbols within the
calculus proper are completely mute. The Sheffer stroke and its dual, by
the way, are related as well to the processes of inscription with which
this essay began - for what is x^-x, than an _inscription_ of an entity, a
process of coding (and all coding is inscription of one form or another)
the real for the purposes of comprehension, a process that produces, not
only meaning, but _all the meaning there is._ There is no outside to the
sememe, just as there is no landscape without a viewpoint. In this sense
we are bounded, and bound to be bounded. I want to acknowledge and take
responsibility for interpretations here which are necessarily shallow and
possibly misrepresentations as well; this is true in particular of
Gardenfors' book which is complex, and which I have just begun. I have
found the concept of conceptual spaces of use here, as a way of thinking
through code, process, representation, sememe, Eco's planes of expression
and content, etc.; but I do not yet understand it within Gardenfors'
theory. I have also completely neglected what I think is most necessary, a
detailed typology of codes, taking for example temporality into and out of
account in various ways. I cannot see how one can proceed without a deep
reading of Eco's 'Theory of Codes' which is the major section of A Theory
of Semiotics. In the same book, Eco develops a typology of sign production
which is quite useful. Other references might be Barthes' S/Z (although I
constantly find his poeticizing beautiful and problematic), and a quite
useful early book, Symbol Formation, An Organismic-Developmental Approach
to Language and the Expression of Thought, Werner and Kaplan, Wiley, 1963.
Finally, it is clear from all of the above that at best one can sketch a
_discursive field,_ complete with intensifications themselves representing
concepts; this is similar to a loosely-structured Wittgensteinian family
of usages. 'Code,' like 'game,' is always a strategy and a wager from a
theoretical viewpoint, and like much such viewpoints, everything and
nothing is at stake. One would hope for a future of usefulness, politics,
and aesthetics to emerge; the danger, in relation to 'codework' itself, is
that a style develops, and that the uneasy underpinnings - which at least
for me are the most interesting aspects of it - eventually disappear,
absorbed back into issues of genre, etc. Code, like the processes of
postmodernity, is always in a state of renewal, whether or not the 'type'
or 'concept' remains, and at stake within this renewal is our interpreta-
tion of the world itself - our actions and our 'reading' of being and
beings. Wittgenstein's 'silence' at the end of the Tractatus is code's
success, not failure; it is the always already of the always already, but
not its foundation.
===
i've got nothing
i've got nothing
v'ir tbg abguvat
v'ir tbg abguvat
qvg qvg
qvg qnj qnj qnj qnj qvg
qvg qvg qvg qnj
qvg
qnj qnj qvg
qnj qnj qnj
qnj
qnj qvg
qnj qnj qnj
qnj
qvg qvg qvg qvg
qvg qvg
qnj qvg
qnj qnj qvg
qvg qvg qvg qnj qvg qnj
n'aj lty stymnsl
n'aj lty stymnsl
iny iny
iny ifb ifb ifb ifb iny
iny iny iny ifb
iny
ifb ifb iny
ifb ifb ifb
ifb
ifb iny
ifb ifb ifb
ifb
iny iny iny iny
iny iny
ifb iny
ifb ifb iny
iny iny iny ifb iny ifb
j'wf hpu opuijoh
j'wf hpu opuijoh
eju eju
eju ebx ebx ebx ebx eju
eju eju eju ebx
eju
ebx ebx eju
ebx ebx ebx
ebx
ebx eju
ebx ebx ebx
ebx
eju eju eju eju
eju eju
ebx eju
ebx ebx eju
eju eju eju ebx eju ebx
j'jj jjj jjjjjjj
j'jj jjj jjjjjjj
j'jj jjj jjjjjjj
j'jj jjj jjjjjjj
jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj jjj jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj jjj
jjj
jjj jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj
jjj
jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj
jjj
jjj jjj jjj jjj
jjj jjj
jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj jjj jjj jjj
===
Code and Codework ii, coding, encoding, confusion
Coding is a process, aptly named; the field is open or let us consider it
open, a dispersion in which goals are paramount but may not exist as the
program wends its way into momentary stasis, occasional completion. It is
the traditional 'death of the author' given open-source; it is never-
ending; like a markov chain, it is determined in part by what came before,
it may move elsewhere, cancel, disappear. Input is remote, disparate; is
the objective, whether of a command, line, subroutine, routine, program,
module, language. The objective is the focus on whatever is at-hand, and
whatever is at-hand, the input, is encoded. Encoding is parasitic on both
code and object - on code, as a process or operation, and on object, as
transformable entity, within and without which code is entangled, inhered.
A code constructs code; an encoder is all input; we have spoken elsewhere
about the relationship of output to input; what is encoder output is
already lost in transmission, has fled elsewhere. Perhaps _I code,_ and
perhaps _it encodes,_ thereby lies all the difference, the distinction
among con/structures, con/structions. In part codework is self-devouring,
between or among coding and encoding, part operation and part residue;
part symptom, the expressivity of disease; and part the struggle, what
appears as struggle, what is not struggle or is inauthentic struggle, of
the origin, originary content, to retain its sememe, in spite of all
filtering, or magnified and not diminished by such filtering. These terms
and my use of them are of course arbitrary; one might use encoding to
reference the act of program-creation and coding that which operates on
input, with all the phenomenology of input already indicated. I choose a
distinction between these words in order to articulate a distinction
within the field; otherwise we are off again into unnecessary obscurity.
As for the _element_ of a code, there is a sign or sign-function, there is
a process drawn from tables or closed lexicons. As for the _element_ of
encoding, there is none; an input may, in relation to the encoding
program, be fit (in the sense of harmonization) or not; in a sense it does
not matter, as encoding is matterless, codeless, just as coding is
mattered, albeit the ideality or cyberneticization of matter. Again it is
a difference which makes all the difference, as in Spencer Brown. One
might also say that coding is the creation of a detemporalized structure
by means of temporal operations (on the part of humans or otherwise), and
that encoding is the detemporalized operation (detemporalized by virtue of
the black-box) on input, creating a temporal difference between input and
output, t1 and t2, different in every (parametric) way. But this is
somewhat sophistry; certainly a program is a detemporalized structure. But
wait, for the input and output are there to-be-used; they exist most
likely within the matrix of the human; they are _employed._ The employment
of a program - and a program may devour itself or other programs - is also
temporalized, but the program itself, unused, a series of commands and
other materials, is only a static articulation. Nevertheless, the static
articulation may be always in the process of constant self- or other-
revision, and time moves on. Let us say then that coding is the operation
on code and the production of an articulation, and that encoding is the
operation on input, within which code is irrelevant - even if code is
foregrounded, even if code crashes, the input is destroyed, garbage in /
garbage out on any level. The difference is subtle, but perhaps there. One
might like encoding then to Husserlian internal time-consciousness, and
coding to formal and linear (parallel or non, clocked or variable, etc.)
time. Or the other way around. Or the meeting of the two, as code may be
input, code may be encoded, code may code. Still, we might say this, that
encoding is the _disappearance of the code,_ and coding, its _promulga-
tion._ Entanglement occurs at all levels of operation. DNA encodes, but
encodes what? Itself, input/output material blind to DNA/RNA? DNA codes or
encodes DNA as well. Tacit knowledge (Polyani) resolves nothing, but plays
a role: use a screwdriver long enough, and it disappears from the hand -
all that remains is the interaction with the screw. Too much is made of
code, coding, encoding, decoding; not enough is made of the disappearance
of code - not as universal subtext of capital, but as a necessary corre-
late to our functioning in the world.
==
a hole in space in the earth
in the mapping of the earth
falling through the mapping into the bingham copper mine crater
"earthole where map opens to illumin immunim borrowing bereath the
earth coding replaced by its coded absence bingham human-crater
"
" earthole
earthole where map opens to illumin immunim borrowing bereath the earth
coding replaced by its coded absence
bingham human-crater"
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/earthole.jpg
==
"repeated thee sugar"
"repeated thee sugar given occasion embarrass
"lady circumstances
"reply perhaps south
"
"food may considered horses, difficult know independence sandwich
"need.
"
"studied worthy least reference news whos? next use evil wine friend
"hearing. teach somewhere his, idea grave dare hat, need companion
"length. not mother person know across, taste street convenient, tying
"may few. did gym as. allowed person person dare surprise."
I received this within an unsolicited email offering merchandise I have
never wanted and still no longer want. However, entranced by the message
itself, I have taken it upon myself (always "I, I, I"!) to _mean_ and
_intend_ the words quoted. I mean these words as urgency, the surprise of
a surprised person, beneath the aegis of a compromised lady. It is no
longer random, if it ever was. It is neither poem nor filler, but rather
the poetics of despair, such is my intention. It means what I have always
meant _it_ to say, encapsulates _it_ as a gift given me, gratis, within
the context of commercial appeal.
So I offer my poem, my urgency: "repeated thee sugar" -
repeated thee sugar
repeated thee sugar given occasion embarrass
lady circumstances
reply perhaps south
food may considered horses, difficult know independence sandwich
need.
studied worthy least reference news whos? next use evil wine friend
hearing. teach somewhere his, idea grave dare hat, need companion
length. not mother person know across, taste street convenient, tying
may few. did gym as. allowed person person dare surprise.
===
hollywood fallthrough
hollywood fallthrough yes it was earlier we crawled to the bottom of the
sign the signifier heard us there were scuttlings and exhaustion holding
us in vertical enthrall hollywood is always hollywood fallthrough scraping
the tinsel to expose the tinsel in this case - was that baruch? -
exposing, what, the digital mensuration of the real as it explodes in our
eyes / as it explodes
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/hollyfall.jpg
< get http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ >
you poetics list are my shame
you imitationpoetics list are my embarrassment
syndicate list i turn my eyes away from you
you wryting list make me feel guilty
cyberculture list i am abashed and bashful
arc_hive list you make me blush and fall to pieces
you webartery list makes me tremble
o-o list i come apart before you
you cybermind list turn me shy and foolish
netbehaviour list i am so very ashamed
=
Silent Letters
The _lamb_ bleats. His _limbs_ are _benumbed._ They _climbed_ the hill.
_Comb_ your hair. The _tomb_ was opened. Do not _thumb_ your book. A
_dumb_ animal.
A _receipt_ for money. The _debt_ is paid. The _debtor_ _doubted._ A
cunning, _subtle_ fellow. It is _doubtful._
_Psyche_ is the Greek for soul. Take your _psalter_ and choose a _psalm._
His answer was _pshaw!_
ibid.
__
remember
http://www.asondheim.org/combtomb.gif
this is the one of the crenellated towers in the spectrum created
from a comb filter produced by the reading of a nineteenth-century comb
remember it turned three-dimensional with the spectrum
but still retains a relationship to the crystal palace or crystal
cathedral
remember you forgot to remove the coordinates
http://www.asondheim.org/fetremake.jpg
this began as the fetish.jpg remember it was taken from a digital image
made in the miami apartment shooting up from the ground with a flash
azure and i wearing robes this one is me and the robe was parted by
the erection like the tent of abraham was it
that image elsewhere then taken through a floyd-steinberg filter
that changes it into something like photogravure which was then sent
through photoshop
remember at first everything became messier or relatively confused
but then you applied the neon filter which lit up the edges and after
a while the result then was faded
remember you tried different kinds of fading and this one worked
turning it back into an odd three-dimensionality all the the while
you're feeling ill and feverish with a bad allergic attack and more
think it might be the flu in any case you worked through the difference
fade and then intensified the saturation and upped the curves a bit
resulting in this dream of broken lust something like jelinek
might have written in a still image from one of her bleaker novels
--
they were blown apart in spite of their idealism
http://www.asondheim.org/corrug1.jpg
wind and rain corroded such beautiful forms
http://www.asondheim.org/corrug2.jpg
an artist picks up the pieces and tries to draw 'em
http://www.asondheim.org/corrug3.jpg
she breathes deeply moving earth and home
do not be afraid starsavages are small they will burn themselves in
into themselves burning themselves you will find starsavage pump
starsavage
here they are starsavage churned and salvaged savagestar
http://www.asondheim.org/starsavage1.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/starsavage2.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/starsavage3.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/furl.jpg
==
i ii
i have to get another text out there
nothing will survive if this one isn't included
others are behind me this one isn't
this is one that will survive me if i only get it out there
if you read it or not read it if it is included if it is out there
something out there i feel ill today
i feel ill today and have for the past several days
i may not get another one this one must survive out there
no mistake about it out there is really there
no mistake either out there is not in here not at all not at all
ii iii
the world is a world of replete suffering fecundity of pain
not buddhist pain pain pure and simple debilitating pain
pain of utmost savagery we do what we can we contribute
pain could be autonomic no feeling but reaction the organism survives
survives peacefully fighting off the intrusion from within and without
the natural world follows no such leads follows no leads at all
pain is irrelevant to the suffering mind only a signal
if the signal close down mind the organism makes way for others
others and betters if the pain is so intense so furious
we do what we can in this regard of furious pain
the elimination of our species will eliminate one iota of the world's pain
we can do no better we are of the most violent we should know better
destroying everything in our path crawling towards armageddon
animals and plants all the narrows will be open wide and poisoned
our minds are the worlds shit we dig from the earth with furious teeth
with teeth of iron slash flesh from eyes and stomachs in animal fun
how else shall we know what we are made of we alone feel pain
we will survive momentarily no longer that is fine
the faster we go the longer for beginning others
perhaps waiting just around the corner they're already dying
lateness of the hour a bad joke
=
the perfect breast the perfect womb
because i am a fifteen year old boy who yearn for a yen of womanhood i
cannot ever achieve this womanhood i am no even worthy of a kim or
brenda spazz who goes to my school and is so great she wont look at me she
doesnt know what i can do for her i will make her a perfect breast and
perfect womb i learned way before trig class
i can tell you i've been practicing
someday soon i'll get it right i wont need her any longer she is so
perfect bod i will dream of these and wont dream of her shell be sorry
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectbreast.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectwomb.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectwomb2.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectbreast2.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectbreast3.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectwombre1.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/perfectwombre2.jpg
im no done yet
=
Silent
Letters
The His
_lamb_ _limbs_
bleats. are
His _benumbed._
_limbs_ They
are _climbed_
_benumbed._ the
They hill.
_climbed_ The
the _lamb_
hill.
bleats.
_Comb_ was
your opened.
hair. Do
_tomb_ _thumb_
was your
opened. book.
Do A
not _Comb_
_thumb_ your
book. The
A
_tomb_
_dumb_
animal.
_receipt_ _debt_
for is
money. paid.
_debt_ _debtor_
is _doubted._
paid. A
_debtor_ _receipt_
_doubted._ for
cunning,
_subtle_
fellow. cunning,
It _subtle_
_doubtful._
It
_Psyche_ soul.
Greek _psalter_
soul. choose
Take a
_psalter_ _Psyche_
and is
choose the
a Greek
_psalm._
for
answer
_pshaw!_
robes robe
me azure
robe wearing
parted this
erection like
like the
tent of
abraham
wind
rain and
corroded rain
she
breathes she
deeply breathes
moving deeply
earth moving
home
and
do starsavages
afraid they
starsavages will
small themselves
world world
replete of
suffering pain
all
minds dig
worlds earth
iron and
slash stomachs
animal iron
they're already
already dying
im
done
yet
+++
On Code and Codework
Consider a well-defined entity x, and its complement -x. Then x^-x = N,
the null set. Consider a second entity y and -y, y^-y = N. Think Nx and
Ny, the null set relativized to x and y. Consider three separable entities
x, y, z, and take pairs xy, yz, zx. These are symmetrical yx, zy, xz. Let
ab stand for a^b. Then xy, yz, zx are equivalent to null. Let x, y, z
divide a planar region into three regions bordering on each other. Let x@y
represent a line equidistant from the entities x and y. Then x@y, y@z, z@x
all meet at a single point. Divide the plain so that all entities are
grouped in triads; each triad meets in a single point. Divide the plain so
that these single points are grouped in triads and so forth. What branches
are available? Is a single point reached? To operate with x and -x such
that x^-x = N is to operate with discrete entities common to distributive
aristotelian logic. Now consider a second set, X, Y, etc., mapped onto the
first; the mapping may be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one. If the
first, the resulting mapping is reversible. If the second, it is
reversible but the coding itself is not reversible. If the third, the
mapping is not reversible; the result is a set of possibilities, not a
single one. Codes are mappings. There are two types of codes, declarative
and performative. An example of the former is Morse; it is one-to-one, but
all that is produced is equivalence. An example of the second is Perl;
Perl codes procedure. If procedure is coded, then the contents of the
procedure are doubly coded. If a Perl program parses {A} to produce {B}.
then the primary coding is the program which constructs and orders
procedures. The secondary coding is {A} -> {B} which may be considered the
semantic plane of the code. In Eco's A Theory of Semiotics, only a rule
'may properly be called a '_code._' and a rule couples items from one
system with some from another. Eco extends the possibility of code to 'a
set of possible _behavioral responses_ on the part of the destination.
This is performativity. In codework, primary and secondary coding are
entangled. Entanglement may be considered noise in the system. With noise,
the null set N is blurred across fuzzy sets with parasitic inputs; x^-x
and x^y may be and usually are ill-defined. It is this ill-definition -
which functions for example in current definitions of words like 'freedom'
- that tends towards political economy. Political, because culture and the
social are at stake in relation to the definition which is always already
under contestation, and economy, because there are limited resources and
examples for any particular definition. With codework, meaning itself is
problematized as a result of entanglement. In Eco, it is the code which
reaches a destination, not the message. The decoding of the message may or
may not be equivalent to the source. Noise is always already present and
is considered within the channel. This is the T-model of the parasite
described by Serres. Eco states "When a code apportions the elements of a
conveying system to the elements of a conveyed system, the former becomes
the expression of the latter, and the latter becomes the content of the
former. A sign-function arises when an expression is correlated to a
content, both the correlated elements being the functives of such a
correlation.' Code is a collocation or system (not necessarily the same)
of processes; processes are performative; both are temporally-embedded. A
mapping f(x) = y is not temporally-embedded; thus the mapping of the even
numbers onto the number system may be considered an ideality which _is,_
regardless of temporal processes. The structure is given all-at-once
within the formula (and its proof); its proof is a carrying-out of the
truth-value, or a revealing of the truth-value, of the structure. There
are mappings which are systemic, i.e. structure-dependent, and there are
mappings which are non-systemic or purely heuristic, such as randomly
assigning letters in a message to a triple number (page/line/letter-
position) originating from a particular edition of a particular book. In
all of these instances, of course, terms like 'system' and 'assign' are
themselves fuzzy; nevertheless there's a tremendous difference between the
anecdotal and the structural, and there are practical differences in the
ensuing codes and their employment. Peter Gardenfors, in Conceptual Space,
The Geometry of Thought, considers 'conceptual spaces' which are related
to tessellation of the plane. This reminds one of Peirce's simplest mathe-
matics, which is also related to Venn diagrams; in all of these, sets of
entities and concepts in the life-world are mapped into other spaces which
may or may not reflect thinking processes. Geometry is always bound by its
spatial representations; there is no reason to think, at all, that the
mind necessarily works through spatial or any representation for that
matter. Representation is always coded; Sebeok, in Approaches to Animal
Communication, 'Semiotics and Ethology,' points out that the 'model
suggested here entails a communication unit in which a relatively small
amount of energy or matter in an animal (a) the source, brings about a
relatively large redistribution of energy or matter in another animal (or
in another part of the same animal), (b) the destination, and postulates
(c) a channel through which the participants are capable of establishing
and sustaining contact. Maturana somewhere talks about such communication
as the mutual orienting of cognitive domains. Sebeok states that 'Every
source requires a transmitter which serves to reorganize, by a process
called encoding, the messages it produces into a form that can be
understood by the destination. The source and the destination are
therefore said to fully, or at least partially, share (d) a code, which
may be defined as that set of transformation rules whereby messages can be
converted from one representation to another.' As long as one sticks to
transformation rules, code is always procedural. Sebeok states that 'The
string generated by an application of a set of such rules is (e) a
message, which may thus be considered an ordered selection from a
conventional set of signs.' I think that 'ordered' is problematic as well,
since there is clearly a qualitative difference between book-ordering as
described above, and a set of rules based on mathesis. Where does the
arbitrary come in? One might say - and this is an important principle -
that the content of a code itself is directly correlated to its
arbitrariness. In this sense, the measure of a code is related to the
entropy of information within the process of encoding. The greater the
degree of the arbitrary, the more difficult to break, the greater the
entropy and therefore the greater the degree of information within it.
This is not on the level of the double-level of the code, i.e. the content
it operates upon, if there is such content (as in the Perl example above),
but within encoding itself. Every encoding is an encoding of encoding; if
the encoding is fully realized by the product of the code, then its
semantic content / information is low. If Morse encodes a message, more
than likely the message may be decoded based only on the distribution of
letters. The Morse content is low. If a book is used, the decoding is
increasingly difficult and the content of the code is high. This is also
related to issues of redundancy vis-a-vis Shannon and Weaver. Note that a
message and its destination are irrevocably ruptured; there is no
guarantee that an equivalence is attained on any level. Code operates more
often than not on an ontological plane disassociated, or associated by
intention only, with both its source and its decoding; there is no
guarantee that the source and the message-at-its-destination have anything
in common. There is no guarantee of the coherency of the practice of
coding in a particular case, no guarantee of one-to-one or one-to-many or
many-to-one, no guarantee of a zero-parasite-demographics - no guarantee
that the channel, in fact, has not been derailed altogether, as often
happens with bacteriophages. Bateson, in Bateson and Ruesch, Communica-
tion, The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, states 'codification must, in the
nature of the case, be systematic. Whatever objects or events or ideas
internal to the individual represent certain external objects or events,
there must be a systematic relationship between the internal and the
external, otherwise the information would not be useful.' Today one can
say, 'otherwise the information might not be useful,' since it is
precisely in the breakdown of systematic relationships that innovation
emerges.' But meaning may be produced even out of tautology. For example,
propositional logic may be 'derived' from the Sheffer stroke, 'not both A
and B'; it can also be derived from its dual, 'neither A nor B.' What can
we say about these? Only that they represent, as processes or _cullings_
of particular bounded universes, an unbinding/unbounding - 'neither A nor
B' points elsewhere altogether, and 'not both A and B' points either
elsewhere or towards an underpinning of union. At the heart of this
reduction of propositional logic, is a tendency towards dispersion,
towards wandering, the nomadic, even though the symbols within the
calculus proper are completely mute. The Sheffer stroke and its dual, by
the way, are related as well to the processes of inscription with which
this essay began - for what is x^-x, than an _inscription_ of an entity, a
process of coding (and all coding is inscription of one form or another)
the real for the purposes of comprehension, a process that produces, not
only meaning, but _all the meaning there is._ There is no outside to the
sememe, just as there is no landscape without a viewpoint. In this sense
we are bounded, and bound to be bounded. I want to acknowledge and take
responsibility for interpretations here which are necessarily shallow and
possibly misrepresentations as well; this is true in particular of
Gardenfors' book which is complex, and which I have just begun. I have
found the concept of conceptual spaces of use here, as a way of thinking
through code, process, representation, sememe, Eco's planes of expression
and content, etc.; but I do not yet understand it within Gardenfors'
theory. I have also completely neglected what I think is most necessary, a
detailed typology of codes, taking for example temporality into and out of
account in various ways. I cannot see how one can proceed without a deep
reading of Eco's 'Theory of Codes' which is the major section of A Theory
of Semiotics. In the same book, Eco develops a typology of sign production
which is quite useful. Other references might be Barthes' S/Z (although I
constantly find his poeticizing beautiful and problematic), and a quite
useful early book, Symbol Formation, An Organismic-Developmental Approach
to Language and the Expression of Thought, Werner and Kaplan, Wiley, 1963.
Finally, it is clear from all of the above that at best one can sketch a
_discursive field,_ complete with intensifications themselves representing
concepts; this is similar to a loosely-structured Wittgensteinian family
of usages. 'Code,' like 'game,' is always a strategy and a wager from a
theoretical viewpoint, and like much such viewpoints, everything and
nothing is at stake. One would hope for a future of usefulness, politics,
and aesthetics to emerge; the danger, in relation to 'codework' itself, is
that a style develops, and that the uneasy underpinnings - which at least
for me are the most interesting aspects of it - eventually disappear,
absorbed back into issues of genre, etc. Code, like the processes of
postmodernity, is always in a state of renewal, whether or not the 'type'
or 'concept' remains, and at stake within this renewal is our interpreta-
tion of the world itself - our actions and our 'reading' of being and
beings. Wittgenstein's 'silence' at the end of the Tractatus is code's
success, not failure; it is the always already of the always already, but
not its foundation.
===
i've got nothing
i've got nothing
v'ir tbg abguvat
v'ir tbg abguvat
qvg qvg
qvg qnj qnj qnj qnj qvg
qvg qvg qvg qnj
qvg
qnj qnj qvg
qnj qnj qnj
qnj
qnj qvg
qnj qnj qnj
qnj
qvg qvg qvg qvg
qvg qvg
qnj qvg
qnj qnj qvg
qvg qvg qvg qnj qvg qnj
n'aj lty stymnsl
n'aj lty stymnsl
iny iny
iny ifb ifb ifb ifb iny
iny iny iny ifb
iny
ifb ifb iny
ifb ifb ifb
ifb
ifb iny
ifb ifb ifb
ifb
iny iny iny iny
iny iny
ifb iny
ifb ifb iny
iny iny iny ifb iny ifb
j'wf hpu opuijoh
j'wf hpu opuijoh
eju eju
eju ebx ebx ebx ebx eju
eju eju eju ebx
eju
ebx ebx eju
ebx ebx ebx
ebx
ebx eju
ebx ebx ebx
ebx
eju eju eju eju
eju eju
ebx eju
ebx ebx eju
eju eju eju ebx eju ebx
j'jj jjj jjjjjjj
j'jj jjj jjjjjjj
j'jj jjj jjjjjjj
j'jj jjj jjjjjjj
jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj jjj jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj jjj
jjj
jjj jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj
jjj
jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj
jjj
jjj jjj jjj jjj
jjj jjj
jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj
jjj jjj jjj jjj jjj jjj
===
Code and Codework ii, coding, encoding, confusion
Coding is a process, aptly named; the field is open or let us consider it
open, a dispersion in which goals are paramount but may not exist as the
program wends its way into momentary stasis, occasional completion. It is
the traditional 'death of the author' given open-source; it is never-
ending; like a markov chain, it is determined in part by what came before,
it may move elsewhere, cancel, disappear. Input is remote, disparate; is
the objective, whether of a command, line, subroutine, routine, program,
module, language. The objective is the focus on whatever is at-hand, and
whatever is at-hand, the input, is encoded. Encoding is parasitic on both
code and object - on code, as a process or operation, and on object, as
transformable entity, within and without which code is entangled, inhered.
A code constructs code; an encoder is all input; we have spoken elsewhere
about the relationship of output to input; what is encoder output is
already lost in transmission, has fled elsewhere. Perhaps _I code,_ and
perhaps _it encodes,_ thereby lies all the difference, the distinction
among con/structures, con/structions. In part codework is self-devouring,
between or among coding and encoding, part operation and part residue;
part symptom, the expressivity of disease; and part the struggle, what
appears as struggle, what is not struggle or is inauthentic struggle, of
the origin, originary content, to retain its sememe, in spite of all
filtering, or magnified and not diminished by such filtering. These terms
and my use of them are of course arbitrary; one might use encoding to
reference the act of program-creation and coding that which operates on
input, with all the phenomenology of input already indicated. I choose a
distinction between these words in order to articulate a distinction
within the field; otherwise we are off again into unnecessary obscurity.
As for the _element_ of a code, there is a sign or sign-function, there is
a process drawn from tables or closed lexicons. As for the _element_ of
encoding, there is none; an input may, in relation to the encoding
program, be fit (in the sense of harmonization) or not; in a sense it does
not matter, as encoding is matterless, codeless, just as coding is
mattered, albeit the ideality or cyberneticization of matter. Again it is
a difference which makes all the difference, as in Spencer Brown. One
might also say that coding is the creation of a detemporalized structure
by means of temporal operations (on the part of humans or otherwise), and
that encoding is the detemporalized operation (detemporalized by virtue of
the black-box) on input, creating a temporal difference between input and
output, t1 and t2, different in every (parametric) way. But this is
somewhat sophistry; certainly a program is a detemporalized structure. But
wait, for the input and output are there to-be-used; they exist most
likely within the matrix of the human; they are _employed._ The employment
of a program - and a program may devour itself or other programs - is also
temporalized, but the program itself, unused, a series of commands and
other materials, is only a static articulation. Nevertheless, the static
articulation may be always in the process of constant self- or other-
revision, and time moves on. Let us say then that coding is the operation
on code and the production of an articulation, and that encoding is the
operation on input, within which code is irrelevant - even if code is
foregrounded, even if code crashes, the input is destroyed, garbage in /
garbage out on any level. The difference is subtle, but perhaps there. One
might like encoding then to Husserlian internal time-consciousness, and
coding to formal and linear (parallel or non, clocked or variable, etc.)
time. Or the other way around. Or the meeting of the two, as code may be
input, code may be encoded, code may code. Still, we might say this, that
encoding is the _disappearance of the code,_ and coding, its _promulga-
tion._ Entanglement occurs at all levels of operation. DNA encodes, but
encodes what? Itself, input/output material blind to DNA/RNA? DNA codes or
encodes DNA as well. Tacit knowledge (Polyani) resolves nothing, but plays
a role: use a screwdriver long enough, and it disappears from the hand -
all that remains is the interaction with the screw. Too much is made of
code, coding, encoding, decoding; not enough is made of the disappearance
of code - not as universal subtext of capital, but as a necessary corre-
late to our functioning in the world.
==
a hole in space in the earth
in the mapping of the earth
falling through the mapping into the bingham copper mine crater
"earthole where map opens to illumin immunim borrowing bereath the
earth coding replaced by its coded absence bingham human-crater
"
" earthole
earthole where map opens to illumin immunim borrowing bereath the earth
coding replaced by its coded absence
bingham human-crater"
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/earthole.jpg
==
"repeated thee sugar"
"repeated thee sugar given occasion embarrass
"lady circumstances
"reply perhaps south
"
"food may considered horses, difficult know independence sandwich
"need.
"
"studied worthy least reference news whos? next use evil wine friend
"hearing. teach somewhere his, idea grave dare hat, need companion
"length. not mother person know across, taste street convenient, tying
"may few. did gym as. allowed person person dare surprise."
I received this within an unsolicited email offering merchandise I have
never wanted and still no longer want. However, entranced by the message
itself, I have taken it upon myself (always "I, I, I"!) to _mean_ and
_intend_ the words quoted. I mean these words as urgency, the surprise of
a surprised person, beneath the aegis of a compromised lady. It is no
longer random, if it ever was. It is neither poem nor filler, but rather
the poetics of despair, such is my intention. It means what I have always
meant _it_ to say, encapsulates _it_ as a gift given me, gratis, within
the context of commercial appeal.
So I offer my poem, my urgency: "repeated thee sugar" -
repeated thee sugar
repeated thee sugar given occasion embarrass
lady circumstances
reply perhaps south
food may considered horses, difficult know independence sandwich
need.
studied worthy least reference news whos? next use evil wine friend
hearing. teach somewhere his, idea grave dare hat, need companion
length. not mother person know across, taste street convenient, tying
may few. did gym as. allowed person person dare surprise.
===
hollywood fallthrough
hollywood fallthrough yes it was earlier we crawled to the bottom of the
sign the signifier heard us there were scuttlings and exhaustion holding
us in vertical enthrall hollywood is always hollywood fallthrough scraping
the tinsel to expose the tinsel in this case - was that baruch? -
exposing, what, the digital mensuration of the real as it explodes in our
eyes / as it explodes
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/hollyfall.jpg
< get http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ >
you poetics list are my shame
you imitationpoetics list are my embarrassment
syndicate list i turn my eyes away from you
you wryting list make me feel guilty
cyberculture list i am abashed and bashful
arc_hive list you make me blush and fall to pieces
you webartery list makes me tremble
o-o list i come apart before you
you cybermind list turn me shy and foolish
netbehaviour list i am so very ashamed
=
i am that i am
double versions sink / \ collandroid i
double versions sink / \ collandroid ii
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/coll.mov
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/coll.mp4
you i foolishfoolish you you foolishfoolish foolishfoolish you am
embarrassmentmy foolishfoolish embarrassmentmy i foolishfoolish shamemy
foolishfoolish embarrassmentmy you embarrassmentmy my my my
embarrassmentmy from abashedand embarrassmentmy me shamemy abashedand turn
embarrassmentmy abashedand my my my abashedand feel from abashedand feel
turn embarrassmentmy feel eyes foolishfoolish my me away turn from i you
away turn you to from you to me you to away my to makes feel to makes
embarrassmentmy away shy me away am away blush pieces makes blush list
list blush list am to list am to pieces trembleme makes am my list am you
am fall shamemy am fall abashedand trembleme am abashedand you pieces
abashedand you list shamemy are pieces shamemy i trembleme you
embarrassmentmy i ooo i my you i are you you are embarrassmentmy shamemy
are you abashedand my from you my i you embarrassmentmy my my you
embarrassmentmy you you you from you embarrassmentmy from you my from
embarrassmentmy are from from away you from you my eyes you my away
embarrassmentmy you guiltyfeel me my from feel you guiltyfeel from from
guiltyfeel make you away make me eyes from feel eyes make from eyes blush
make eyes you guiltyfeel away blush you guiltyfeel blush guiltyfeel away
make guiltyfeel me from me guiltyfeel from you you from blush guiltyfeel
from me guiltyfeel make me me blush blush me to you list to you you
guiltyfeel me fall blush me shy me me fall make you fall shy blush shy
list makes fall i makes fall i make you bashful shy you makes list you am
you fall am makes shy makes foolishfoolish pieces makes foolishfoolish
pieces bashful i you i am makes i foolishfoolish i am bashful makes
trembleme foolishfoolish am am i ooo i i am
-
for my mother, who died five years ago today
* Module Products.PlacelessTranslationService.PatchStringIO,
, in new_publish "hello"
Products.PlacelessTranslationService.PlacelessTranslationService,
, in translate "can"
Products.PlacelessTranslationService.PlacelessTranslationService,
, in translate "you"
Products.PlacelessTranslationService.PlacelessTranslationService,
, in getCatalogsForTranslation "hear"
Products.PlacelessTranslationService.PlacelessTranslationService,
, in negotiate_language "me"
* Module Products.PlacelessTranslationService.Negotiator, ,
in negotiate "bonjour
* Module Products.PlacelessTranslationService.Negotiator, ,
in _negotiate "entendez"
* Module Products.PlacelessTranslationService.Negotiator, ,
in getLangPrefs "vous"
* Module Products.PlacelessTranslationService.Negotiator, ,
in getAccepted "aidez-moi"
* "acceptez-vous"
teart "i wanted to enter this before but the site was down. i got in by
logging backwards but couldn't save the file. the file was saved as a
placeholder i can't erase. the new file is teart which is what the old
file would have been. it's another moment or movement of a mathematical
object. i want to read what i can into these objects. i want to create
emotions with mathematical objects. this is the emotion of forlorness and
hysteria encapsulated. i know what you're saying but nothing's impossible.
this is the object of the darkest possibility. five years ago today my
mother died. i woke up forlorn."
teart
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/teart.mov
teart1
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/pushed1.jpg
teart2
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/pushed2.jpg
teart3
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/pushed3.jpg
teart4
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/blade.jpg
teart5
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/blade2.jpg
teart6
http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/curl.jpg
_
AN ONLY KID!
only zuzim. father kid! An For bought, A came, two ate
the kid, cat And The a bit cat, Which dog, Then stick, beat zuzim, came
burned fire, water, an drank quenched ox, slaughterer, killed of death,
angel slew Who blest He! destroyed Holy be
g, Which bit the cat, ate kid, The father b zuzim. An And ught, F nly kid!
Then came a stick, beat d r tw an slaughterer, killed x, drank water,
quenched fire, burned f death, slew Wh angel yed
AN ONLY KID!
An only kid!
An only kid!
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
A cat came,
And ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
Then came a dog,
And bit the cat,
Which ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim,
An only kid!
An only kid!
Then came a stick,
And beat the dog,
Which bit the cat,
Which ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
Then came a fire,
And burned the stick,
Which beat the dog,
Which bit the cat,
Which ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
Then came the water,
And quenched the fire,
Which burned the stick,
Which beat the dog,
Which bit the cat,
Which ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
Then came an ox,
And drank the water,
Which quenched the fire,
Which burned the stick,
Which beat the dog,
Which bit the cat,
Which ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
Then came the slaughterer,
And killed the ox,
Which drank the water,
Which quenched the fire,
Which burned the stick,
Which beat the dog,
Which bit the cat,
Which ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
The came the angel of death,
And slew the slaughterer,
Who killed the ox,
Which drank the water,
Which quenched the fire,
Which burned the stick,
Which beat the dog,
Which bit the cat,
Which ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
Then came the Holy One, blest be He!
And destroyed the angel of death,
Who slew the slaughterer,
Who killed the ox,
Which drank the water,
Which quenched the fire,
Which burned the stick,
Which beat the dog,
Which bit the cat,
Which ate the kid,
The father bought,
For two zuzim.
An only kid!
An only kid!
-- From the Safer Haggadah, translated Rosenau, 1905
-
Aphoristic Essay on Analog and Digital Orders
The digital: by 'digital' I mean 'discrete.' By 'digital' I mean
'systemic,' characterized by systematization, parameterization.
The analog appears continuous; the digital appears discrete, broken.
In everyday life, the digital is the result of an intervention.
An intervention is a mapping. Every mapping, unless a mapping of itself
('ikonic'), leaves something out.
The intervention requires the setting of a standard raster. A raster is a
filtering of a quantity, almost always with discrete steps. Think of a
raster as a 'screening,' creating elements out of a continuous bandwidth,
then quantifying those elements.
The elements are ordered. The raster sorts the continuous fabric of the
real into separable categories.
The raster is standardized so that information may be transmitted and
received through coherent channels, by means of a coherent transmitter and
receiver.
The standardization of the raster is a _protocol._ The protocol must be
agreed upon by both sender and receiver.
In everyday life, the establishment of a raster and protocol requires
energy and communication. Raster and protocol must be communicated.
After raster and protocol are established, the parceled semantic content,
coded by raster, may be communicated.
Coding and community establishes raster and protocol. Encoding codes an
object from analog to digital.
From the viewpoint of the digital, the analog is forgotten; the process is
irreversible.
A digital parcelling is accurate only to the limits of a particular and
conventionally-established tolerance. The tolerance, more often than not,
is tied to economy. In general, the greater the capital available, the
lesser the tolerance.
The analog possesses no tolerance. The analog is _there._
The digital is never _there._ The digital is always process, in-process.
If the digital is indexical, 'pointing towards' a mapping of the contin-
uum, the analog _is_ that scale. The analog is ikonic, the digital is
indexical.
The distinction between the digital and its referents or domains is onto-
logical; the distinction between analog and its domain is epistemological.
At zero tolerance -'no room for error' - and an infinitely-fine raster,
the digital is equivalent to the analog. The map, in other words, is
exactly equivalent to the thing itself.
The thing itself is equivalent to the thing itself; this is identity.
At infinite tolerance - infinite error permitted - and infinitely-coarse
raster, the digital is equivalent to a kind of _mark._
A mark totalizes 'its' demarcated.
A mark is an _instance._
There are numerous 'real worlds' of nearly-decomposable systems. (Herbert
Simon) The world of everyday life appears continuous; it is only in
dreams, for example, one encounters jump-cuts - sudden shifts of place and
time. This continuous world appears analogic.
The world of symbols and signs - the world of languaging and inscription -
appears discontinuous, syntactic, and digital, characterized by discrete
moments and entities.
The filmworld (Christian Metz) appears an entanglement of languaging and
continuities. Because film is an operable subject (i.e. a subject whose
discursive field is somewhat definable), the entanglement tends towards
polarities, interpretations, interpenetrations, etc. Frames are digital;
the diegesis is analog (continuous story), and digital (semiotics of
narrative); the psychoanalytics are digital (continuous processing of the
subject-viewer).
Neurophysiology implies, not only entanglements of digital (neural
firings) and analog (potentials), but the problematizing of the analog/
digital split on ontological/epistemic grounds. The domains are both
inseparable and problematized; the distinction is useless.
The same is true on the level of 'fundamental' physics, at least as far as
current research goes; there are quantum processes that involve discrete
levels, and there are continuums; there is the breakdown of space-time at
small distances/times, and so forth. If the world is information 'all the
way down,' the coding at this level is again neither analog nor digital.
In other words, mental and fundamental physical events and processes
abjure any clear distinction between analog and digital, to the extent
that the phenomenology of both is inappropriate. If there is a 'book of
nature,' there is as of yet specific syntactics.
One is always searching for the syntactics, however; it is by means of
coding and encoding that the universe is grasped.
The analog slips through the fingers. The world slips through the fingers.
Any element of a raster is independent of any other element. Any element
may be transformed without transforming any other element. Truth values
within the digital are problematic. The digital is cleanly separable,
breakable. The digital is clean.
Any element of the analogic real is interconnected and inseparable. The
transformation of any element alters any other element. Truth values are
inherent. The application of truth values is digital. The analogic is a
membrane. The analogic is dirty, inseparable, unbreakable.
The dirty analogic problematizes its symbolic. The clean digital is
already symbolic.
The digital _object_ is analogic.
The analogic _representation_ is digital.
Ghosts are embedded within the analogic. Ghosts are excluded from the
digital.
Absence or exclusion from the digital is equivalent to non-existence from
the viewpoint of the digital. Ghosts are existence and existents within
the analogic.
The digital envelops the act of differentiation; the analog envelops
integration. The analog smoothes what the digital disrupts.
The digital requires a place to stand. The digital requires an origin. The
analog of Cartesian coordinates is countermanded by the discrete and
arbitrary location of the origin.
The digital draws a distinction; the analog erases it.
To draw a distinction is the construct a potential well, within which the
distinction functions, in spite of the corrosion of the world.
To erase a distinction is to corrode it, to sublimate it to the analogic
real, the plasmatic world.
The plasmatic world is the heated world in which distinctions last less
time than the processes required to convey information. The plasmatic
world, a theoretical construct, is necessarily inoperable. The world of
the landscape - without a _preferred viewpoint_ - is such a world.
The cold-world is the world of the permanence and transformations of
distinctions. The cold-world is a world of potential wells, in which signs
convey, remain - in which structures remain intact, in which semantic
content flows through structures.
The digital quantifies the analog.
The digital carries a price-tag.
Coding, by its very nature, is digital, that is to say, discrete.
Never, 'above,' as 'below,' but 'as above,' apparent 'as below.' Metaphor
and metonymy are always already tropes, within the digital.
The signifier does not _reference_ the signified; it _creates_ it from the
analogic. The creation of a signifier re-inscribes the signified
elsewhere; as in Saussure's example, the signifier never operates 'within'
the real, but within a _chain of signifiers,_ a hermeneutics on the plane
of the Other, which inauthentically appears to create the 'Originary'
plane, i.e. Creation.
To create by speech ('and the Lord said') is always already to embody the
creation as _inscription._ Inscription separates the inscribed and thereby
created entity from its complement, the inscribed world external to the
inscribed and created entity.
The totality of inscriptions necessarily forms a _coherent and closed
system,_ since the system is, after all, created by humans or other
organisms, and their cultures.
Somewhere von Foerster characterizes organism by _negation._ Negation is
the first speech act. Negation is the primary speech act, 'not this, not
that' - 'avoid that - that is dangerous' - 'do not go there.'
To negate is to inscribe. To negate is to create. The creation of an
entity is always a carving-away. The creation of an entity implies a
reduction relative to that entity.
The digital is the carving-away of what is deemed extraneous. The digital
saws into the extraneous, which is its residue.
The residue is the residue of the analog; the residue is parasitic, noise.
The digital is noiseless, absolute silence.
The analog is absolute noise.
The circle of signifiers washes against mental impressions. The image of
something is always already a construct (Sartre), rule-bound, but the
image of the image is analogic.
If something is an analog of something else, both suffer from similar
noise. Both suffer from similarity.
If something is a representation of something else, both draw structures
from each other.
The analog is unstructured; the digital is structured.
The analog is communality, use-value. The digital is community, exchange-
value. Exchange may be direct or indirect, transitive. Exchange may be
based on apparent equivalence, on agreement, on contract. Exchange binds
entity to entity. Exchange defines entity. Exchange defines entity in
relation to (by virtue of) entity.
Analogic use-value is imminent and immanent. Digital exchange-value is
distanced, defined. Analog is subject; digital is object. The object of
digital is subject to analog. Exchange replaces use. The subject of analog
is object to digital. Exchange replaces use.
Digital is always already a presumed contamination of the real. The
presumption is always already false.
The analog is always already a presumed healing or suturing of the real.
The presumption is always already false.
Without the digital, communication would be impossible. The ideality of
the feral world is equivalent to the world under erasure.
To throw away the scaffold is to retain it. To retain everything, releases
everything.
"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen." (Wittgen-
stein) - is already lost.
_