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Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
language, the economy of the imaginary
interesting text and interesting cleaning up from ELO performance
oil films and films and text about them
the message from the dead
silent meditation on dissolution
The Wake
Clarity.
the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
event-description (please no replies)
Executables
meanderings of landscape
Living Romanticism: Violin and Thunderstorm Duet
oilamina
Songs and Accompaniments (with text)
MM tissue AVATAR Alan PUMP across generation SPLASHED
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Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 03:10:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: language, the economy of the imaginary
language, the economy of the imaginary
more work on language embodiment, this time with machinery, amazing sound,
and text, as if generated on branes and duals, stills and movements: and
everything churning within limited bandwidths controlling both sound and
image. welcome to the economy of the imaginary!
http://www.alansondheim.org/thinking.mp4
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Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2010 09:54:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: interesting text and interesting cleaning up from ELO performance
last night, june 4
chat.txt from ELO performance with Sandy Baldwin
and cleaning up the sites after the performance
http://www.alansondheim.org/chat.txt
http://www.alansondheim.org/cleaningup.mov
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Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:25:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: oil films and films and text about them
oil films and films and text about them
topographic
http://www.alansondheim.org/oilll.mp4
closeup
http://www.alansondheim.org/oill.mp4
geographic
http://www.alansondheim.org/allover.mov
swinging just above the road, oil rigs go by fast & raise
the kings of Israel were anointed in a ceremony in which oil was
smearing them with oil so escape the bullets and whips, dodge the swords
them, smearing them with oil so escape the bullets and whips, dodge the
engine light's on gaslight oil light brakelight too
washington middot oil fat cats vs hugo chavez middot is bush al qaedas
viable by sucking oil out of the ground like a soda straw or a syringe
sucking crude oil out of the ground katrina# s greatest impact appears to
maintained by dynamos driven by steam or coal or oil or hydro held
was frightening - and it was all for the sake of oil - Huntington Beach
was at one point one of the largest producers of oil in the US - and these
grasshoppers - this oil rigs - carrry american flags on it as if it makes
result of oil - well you get the idea - george bush drives the oil which
engine light's on gaslight oil light brakelight too
washington middot oil fat cats vs hugo chavez middot is bush al qaedas
viable by sucking oil out of the ground like a soda straw or a syringe
sucking crude oil out of the ground katrina# s greatest impact appears to
maintained by dynamos driven by steam or coal or oil or hydro held
was frightening - and it was all for the sake of oil - Huntington Beach
was at one point one of the largest producers of oil in the US - and these
grasshoppers - this oil rigs - carrry american flags on it as if it makes
result of oil - well you get the idea - george bush drives the oil which
poured oil luz vowed vow lying rolled rachel roll tidings embraced abode
drawn crazy mid-night oil burned, heat schlieren optics on the rise - you
for the survive of the biome. But oil slicks are highly disruptive of the
so blood urine feces & gas & sand water oil solvent alcohol lymph menses &
and stick their shit-covered pricks in them, smearing them with oil so
swinging just above the road, oil rigs go by fast & raise
shoved up his anal hole an terring into him; oil cums from
spncr optical microscop with oil immrsion objctiv
The oil anus remains frozen glass; flesh has fallen away, backward, into
blue sky and was oil blue upside-down
of sky the blue was and blue oil and
... psychosocial battered pray filtering pat odors oil ... ... to a
in sor do yomile ..well u mean Midnii am naked ..aght oil Oilnd yes i have
a soft sheen of oil where your hands and fingers delicately held
julu spreads big pussy-cunt for bush-man big-cock oil
greetngs from huntington beach oil supply incorporated \n these are not
Bush bodies exploded with burning oil gushers out of every hole.
iraq's oil other outrages these images background reply great wrongs man
pussycunt for bushman bigcock oil blackoil squirt asshole whipped by gnaws
ah! oil ah! odestly ah! autiously
east nor of the west, the oil of which would well-nigh give light though
poured oil luz vowed vow lying rolled rachel roll tidings embraced abode
for oil exploration, increased rates of global warming, etc., the
engine light's on gaslight oil light brakelight too
them, smearing them with oil so escape the bullets and whips, dodge the
structures are oil pumps and attendant machinery
other kind?). The result is the oil crisis and the mess in this gluttonous
washington middot oil fat cats vs hugo chavez middot is bush al qaedas
viable by sucking oil out of the ground like a soda straw or a syringe
sucking crude oil out of the ground katrina# s greatest impact appears to
selves hungered ghosts within the wires depend on coal oil pollution's
maintained by dynamos driven by steam or coal or oil or hydro held
was frightening - and it was all for the sake of oil - Huntington Beach
was at one point one of the largest producers of oil in the US - and these
grasshoppers - this oil rigs - carrry american flags on it as if it makes
could do was destroy his speech. heres an island for you. its reallly oil
He's an oil man and we'd all be oil men if we could.
result of oil - well you get the idea - george bush drives the oil which
ripe (grain) ly cau oil modes raigh e in o develop reward dismiss, expel
maintained by dynamos driven by steam or coal or oil or hydro held
floating in oil legs spread arms spread
floating in oil legs spread arms spread
unclimbable. wall above pit this room. pool oil one corner pit. an e/w
pencilled tasty food small bottle water oil *mirror *plant bellowing
it's as if the blackness of an oil spill has penetrated my soul, as if
muck muc palli palliat palm oil peacemak perks past
maggot perquisite pomade pacifi obsequi odi oil
pour oil on pourboire pulpar pulp pulpal narcotic nard
numb oil oint opi pacificat adhes adulat relieve remed
black-and-white oil upside-down\ oil\ moaning he room infrared\ disappear
sky and was oil blue upside-down\ the sky was blue and oil\ of sky the
blue was and blue oil and \ moaning he blue light background green light
bigbb oil b aath mayheh kad mips heh friday a your aa traps where i'm
One organism lends itself to another, the fossil life of oil lends
drought he bought up large quantities of olive oil and stored it for
in sor do yomile ..well u mean Midnii am naked ..aght oil Oilnd yes i have
them, smearing them with oil so escape the bullets and whips, dodge the
maintained by dynamos driven by steam or coal or oil or hydro held
was frightening - and it was all for the sake of oil - Huntington Beach
was at one point one of the largest producers of oil in the US - and these
grasshoppers - this oil rigs - carrry american flags on it as if it makes
could do was destroy his speech. heres an island for you. its reallly oil
result of oil - well you get the idea - george bush drives the oil which
floating in oil legs spread arms spread
floating in oil legs spread arms spread
"an oil and wine cellar, many casks, so that it may be pleasant to
blood urine feces gas sand water oil solvent alcohol lymph menses
a soft sheen of oil where your hands and fingers delicately held
blood urine feces gas sand water oil solvent alcohol lymph menses
maintained by dynamos driven by steam or coal or oil or hydro held
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Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 10:45:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: the message from the dead
the message from the dead
the avatar reduced to the emission point or the black hole
the message from the dead
the person transformed into the function and the person-emission
transformed into the spew geometry, the monopole cellular automaton
already the source has disappeared
in the virtual world there is no source, only the phantasm of such
the totalization of the mathesis constructs the fantasm
the totalization of the mathesis constructs the avatar-simulacrum.
nowhere is there the density
nowhere is there the oil only the appearance
the appearance of the oil on the screen indicated nothing
nothing outside the appearance of the visible
might one say that the screen is always the dream-screen
the screen is always the site of the simulacrum
the simulacrum functions only through the perception
it does not function through the chemical or quantum interaction
the virtual world is not the virtual world
the world is not the world
this is not to say that the world is other than the visible
this is not to say that we are not inhabited by death
that we are given the briefest of the glances into the uncanny
that we are given the briefest of moments of the fantasm
just that the world is not the world
this is the message from the dead
http://www.alansondheim.org/thephant.mov
[1;1H [7m UW PICO 5.04 the New Buffer [23;1H [24;1H [23;1H [7m^ [7mG [m
Get the Help [7m^ [7mO WriteOut [7m^ [7mR [m Read the File [7m^ [7mY [m
the Prev Pg [7m^ [7mK [m Cut the Text [7m^ [7mC [m the Cur Pos [24;1H [7m^
[7mX [m the Exit [7m^ [7mJ [m Justify [7m^ [7mW Where is [7m^ [7mV [m the
Next Pg [7m^ [7mU [m UnCut the Text [7m^ [7mT [m To the Spell [3;1H [22;1H
[22;35H [7m[ the New file [1;42H [7m the File: wc [3;1H [22;1H [22;18H
[7m[ the line 1 of 1 (100%), the character 0 of 0 (0%) ] [3;1H [22;1H
[22;18H [7m[ the line 1 of 1 (100%), the character 0 of 0 (0%) ] [3;1H
[1;39H [7mFile: wc Modified [4;1H [5;1H [23;1H [24;1H
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Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:55:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: silent meditation on dissolution
silent meditation on dissolution
title:
silent meditation on dissolution
praxis:
http://www.alansondheim.org/wraithe1.mp4
http://www.alansondheim.org/wraithe2.mp4
http://www.alansondheim.org/wraithe3.mp4
http://www.alansondheim.org/wraithe5.mp4
theory:
think of the world as a debris field
books are a priori modernist monolithic
plot is equivalent to mise en scene
aphorisms define and promulgate thought
fragmented programming languages proliferate
friends without networks are not friends
the universe is incomprehensible
thought and research shape-ride
imminence replaces immanence
difference replaces differance
all construction is deconstruction
immersion is neighborhood-based
definition is situational
grand narratives are replaced by none
ecosystems are replaced by micro-niches
vertebrates give way
past life swallows present life
be on the make or die
information increase is chaotic and blind
the future has already past
we are proliferating splitting and outmoded channels
fucking is too close and too slow
a parent is an afterthought of a child and a mistake
agreement is futile
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Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 15:41:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: The Wake
The Wake
This is the beginning of the Wake of the Real.
There is a certain style to our world.
The world presents a certain style to us.
Our senses construct a certain style to the world.
The style of the world is the world incomplete.
Instrumentation extended these senses.
We directly observe only limited modalities.
There are modalities inaccessible except through instrumentation.
Instrumentation transforms bandwidths of modalities.
Our senses leave a wake in the world.
Cultures orient wakes.
Wakes possess impermeable cores.
The orientation of wakes constructs meaning.
The construct of meaning founders and is founded on abjection.
Abjection is the irresolute deconstruction of the body.
The body is the site of the construct of meaning.
Meaning and body are a mess.
The world is consistent.
Inconsistency is the result of over- or de-cathecting.
Overcathecting implies the error of inerrancy.
Decathecting implies the fragility of invested domains.
Cathecting wavers between overcathecting and decathecting
Determination wavers between overdetermination and indeterminacy.
Science is the absorption of anomaly by construct.
Construct and meaning are boot-strapped.
Boot-strapping occurs throughout the wake among sentient beings.
No sentience, no wake.
The wake is always already under erasure, disappearance.
The re-mark of the wake is history; the mark of the wake is death.
Always a mark, never a demarcation.
Inscription drowns and coalesces in the wake.
Inscription dwells in sentience.
The disorders of sentience, orders of the real.
The disorders of the real, orders of sentience.
Inscription is never inscribed.
This is the end of the Wake of the Real.
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Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 23:48:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Clarity.
Clarity.
the clarity of darkness:
http://www.alansondheim.org/dark1.mov
http://www.alansondheim.org/dark2.mov
some older texts concerned with virtual worlds - these are still
valuable; they have an 'uncanny' clarity I think I'm lacking at the
moment:
For Nicanor Parra
I came into cyberspace
in order to look at myself. I would
stand aside from myself and from my fingers.
I would look at language in orderly rows
coming from my mouth. A woman would flow
and she would create a thing. I would rush
into familiar words and at times
in the middle of a conversation
I would run into a conversation. A general
would appear carrying swords and knives and
a warrior. The white screen would never
beckon the dark, nor the grey, the color of
death. Colors poured into a vise a carpenter
would build with letters. The first building
was the building with letters. I have traced
you back, computer through computer, tool
behind tool, entire genealogies at work until
the very beginning. Here, I found
hand-axes starting to strike
metal. The metal was a dagger or a knife and I
could hear speech in the dagger, colors
glistened in the knife. Later,
there would be a wheel, and later, a pulley.
On a ceiling a pulley turned where belts
connected steam to tools milling shanks
for motors, electric relays, turned carbon
for telephones and lamps. Someone spoke
beneath the lamp and all was lost. Electrons
rushed in vacuo; things started turning and
memorized the axe into this space. Then,
I would watch this space, looking for signs
of me. I would look at myself and a woman.
Vocks
I want to take up the idea of voice in chats as embodiment again, from a
relatively simplistic viewpoint. The voice, its granularity, is intimate
with the body, produced directly by the reconfiguring of tissue. To the
speaker, it appears unmediated; even language itself streams forth, as if
without impediment or processing. When an avatar represents a player on a
visual chat, there is a split in embodiment; however, the body is adept at
what Polyani calls _tacit knowledge,_ the ability to invest in, cathect
through, an other, implement, terrain, etc. The human organism exists
within a symbolic field with physiological consequences; physiology and
communication are intertwined, as aphasias, etc. demonstrate. So the split
between visual avatar and verbal language, or even visual avatar and writ-
ten/textual language at the bottom or adjacent to the image, is ultimately
no great difficulty, no matter how theorized. The _practical_ element is
something else again, however, with the text covering up the its embedding
space (including the presence of other avatars) in ThePalace for example.
If one wishes in fact to study the _cyborg_ at this point in time, the
avatar itself, as dissemination from the physiological body, constitutes a
dominant site. The avatar is articulated in dialectic among software, par-
ticipant, and communicative space (the give and take of the on line commu-
nity at hand); it is simultaneously organic and machinic, self-operated
and remotely "run." It is susceptible to upgrading, software variants,
etc. And ultimately, it represents, not an exterior shell, but the interi-
ority of the participant's body, morphing according to intention, command,
and drive.
It's interesting to watch someone beginning with WorldsChat, moving a
clumsy body around a constantly (and clearly) reconfigured space; there is
always a kinesthetic sense involved, interference for example indicated if
and when one of the figures comes between two others apparently (who
knows?) engaged in whispered conversation. And this occurs with minimal
clues of course. Even the early mouse movements leave one feeling as if
she or he were _propelled_ through the space, tentatively or violently
moving from group to group in blind search. In spite of the fact that (at
least the surface) conversation is reasonably inane, WorldsChat provides
a clear example of future cyborg existence. It's already here, inhabited,
dependent as usual upon consumption, fast machines, and the lucky me who
has access to a T1 line.
It's _money_ all the way.
The Plain
My Gothic grammar states that there is almost no literature available in
the language; most of what one knows stems from the New Testament
translation done by Ulfilas in the fourth century, through sixth century
Italian copies.
In Mandeville, the images of the Khan remain with me, mobile capitals on
mobile plains, nomadic. In the Utgarda-Loki section of the Prose Edda,
Thor turns around, and the castle has disappeared; there's nothing but
the plain.
The plain is the locus of power, the site of a part-object tentatively
connected to Goths, Visigoths, Saxons, the Golden Horde. It's criss-
crossed, temporary. Distance is measured by civilization, the rings of
stationary dwellings, agriculture, surrounding, encroaching on the desert
which proceeds to devour them. As today.
Territories extend indefinitely, carrying nothing with them. Simmel's
stranger glances, walks on. It's always a situation of strangers; reading
Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, there are Goths who are enemies, and a Goth
who buys the house.
Investments are made in the form of the project/production. Imagine the
brightness of the stars in the evening, the fair regularity of the cycles
of weather. One can gallop up and down almost indefinitely. You can hear
the sounds of the horses at a distance. There are always the skitterings
of small mammals in the underbrush. Firelight is the source. There's a
smell of meat. There's the sound of stringed instruments and sometimes
dancing in the distance.
These are the spaces of cyberspace, holes, temporary encrustations, in-
tensities. These are the spaces where fantasms appear, burn into the eyes,
turn inward or outward, disappear once again. Try as I might, these spaces
defy description. They're not nomadicisms in the Deleuze/Guattari sense;
there are no lines of flight. The spaces are self-similar, but _locally_
intense, everywhere, with the currents of micro-ecological niches. You
can't forget the ecology, ever; you can't forget the claims of nations,
colonialisms, geographic economies. Boundaries are always already in flux,
just as they are, say, in the WorldsChat emptied spaces which look some-
thing like enormous boxing rings.
WorldsChat in fact provides an example: _What anchors the avatars to the
simulated ground?_ Nothing, of course, except for programming which
occasionally is faulty, sending figures flying. The screen, not the de-
lineation of planet, is the final arbiter. And the screen is nowhere; it
is the eye, the stain or residue of the gaze.
The screen is naught; the screen carries a sense of boundary, outline.
Outline disappears in the literal maze of links, multiply-connected topo-
logy that always returns to itself, frays at the edges. It's as if culture
is the _objet petit a_ somewhere else; who/what pulls the tongue from the
mouth?
The body is never found. The voices are always at a distance. You can't
see the animals for the underbrush. The animals are stases; they know
where they are. They aren't agents, of anything, anyone. It's not as if
they're "there" either. The "it" is a neutral inscription. It doesn't
mean anything in the sense. It doesn't have any location. Nor does it
move on; there aren't vectors.
But it's not all negative. It's the plain. It's where you can draw figures
or cut them into the grass. It's where they appear as if they're _some-
thing_ in the midst of, that is, between, seasons. They're ignored because
you can only see them from the air. Airplanes haven't been invented yet
but the kids are having a good laugh and you can hear them clear across
the plain.
(There's so _little_ of Gothic left to read/hear. Almost all of it is
translation from the Gospels, as if others are speaking through their
tombs. Colonialization circulates among itself. Logos takes over, hard
inscription. The Bible is the Book. The Book is the Bible. The world goes
flat with forgetting. Each and every world is a plain. Cyberspace is all
the world there is.)
Entering, Rites of Passage, Characteristics
Hey, what's the entrance to the software? The other day I was on Worlds-
Chat and there was this avatar with the signboard on its head reading
n******basher, and I'd never seen anything like that. I tried to blow him
out of the space, but you can't do that; I ended up just getting the hell
out of there as fast as I could. I felt doubly violated, not only because
of the overt racism of the name, but because in general, these things
don't appear in the environmental chats. For one thing, when you log on
as a guest on a MOO, ThePalace, etc., you're given a guest designation -
you've got to do an @request on the former for a character. Because of
this - the simple matter of @request - there's a rite of passage that's
involved, which makes literally all the difference in the world, just as
there is a rite of passage into an email list, as opposed, say, to a Use-
net newsgroup. With that rite comes responsibility, designated or not;
one's acted intentionally, thought about joining, cooperation, even if
one's aim is ultimately very different.
But on WorldsChat, you can pick any name you want immediately; it's with
you, a sign of terror, just as you can violate within IRC, or a talker
for that matter. True, a talker takes a password, but you can change that
any time - it's your responsibility, not the sysadmin's. And you do that
when you log on, not later. It's the _delay_ then that establishes the
entrance into an email list or a MOO (or ThePalace for that matter) as a
rite - a rite then is something that proffers liminality, that in-between
state framed by inscriptions. The delay designates temporality, trans-
forms short-term into long-term memory, changes occasion into event.
There's also something to be said about the textuality of the delay - the
proper name begins to assert itself, binds itself to the circumscription
of the body, the participant using the software. This is very different
than jumping into chatlines, IRC, or other forms in which identity is
often amorphous, changing momentarily (it is true you can morph in a MOO
of course, but that requires programming, keystrokes beyond a click in
MIRC) - changing in fact in a way that can decathect language from its own
display.
Be that as it may, delays, rites of entrance, inscription, liminal states,
all play a role in the character of these spaces. Not enough attention is
paid, in any of the accounts I've read, to the welcome message and initial
operations required to enter a space - things which are ultimately taken
for granted, forgotten, circumvented, but which nonetheless create in
part the character of the communications framework itself.
As I pointed out elsewhere, then, there are innumerable elements in such
a framework (these are given in no particular order):
1. The player's client software;
2. The program software (including issues of quota, buffering, etc.);
3. The program aura (contacts outside the program);
4. The sysadmins', wizards', or moderators' decisions and powers;
5. Various rites of entrance and exit;
6. Assumed quality and conditions of governance;
7. Assumed quality and conditions of privacy and distinction of public/
private spaces;
8. Ability of the player to transform his or her character on a formal
level (i.e. set descriptions);
9. Ability of the player formally and in terms of individual knowledge,
to transform the environment itself;
10. Async/sync aspects of the environment in relation to each other;
11. Types of speech possible (first-person [ytalk] / third-person [MOO]),
(packaging of emotions/emootions), (paging, telling, yelling, whis-
pering, asking, exclaiming, saying), (echo on / echo disabled), etc.;
12. Types of speech tolerated, use of toading, kill, delete, filtering,
etc.;
13. Issues of network and software lags.
All of these play a role in the quality of communication; the framing of
flaming; the ability to carry on sustained conversations among partici-
pants; the ability to carry on sustained conversations continuing across
various login sessions; the manifestation of desire and sexuality in
various modes of privacy; the manifestation of a certain political econ-
omy in relation to ownership and privatization of spaces, software, and
generic objects; and the very real questioning of the loci of power in
relation to wizards, administrators, server ownership and mandates, and
so forth.
There is much work to be done in regard to these issues, work which lends
itself naturally to creating a phenomenological approach for the consid-
eration of future seamless virtual realities.
Threshold
Living alone in my loft, there is an entire phenomenology of entering and
exiting; the external world literally floods my presence when I _emerge_
into the light. The rite of passage in signing on to a MOO is different;
one is already on-line, and the passage may occur among various
applications, including ytalk, IRC, and so forth.
The threshold in fact occurs with the initial logging-on, a trivial act
in itself. The community then appears, with the secondary log-on in its
entirety; ontologies shimmer, epistemologies crash, and so forth.
It's difficult for an outsider to understand this transformation occurring
with the movement of a few keys. The body remains in place. Nothing floods
the room, and it's the flooding that ordinarily separates interior and
exterior - along with the relative lack of ownership and privacy the ex-
terior occasions (which is more problematic in cyberspace), and so forth.
This is where prosthesis, the uncanny, projection/introjection, and the
like come into play. The user is at home or in the office; the mind is
moving fast-forward elsewhere. It's going to seem useless, artificial,
non-existent. It's going to be incomprehensible from the outside, and so
forth.
The space is dry. Nothing is illuminated. Words crack either darker or
lighter than background, light background flattening the screen, dark
background an illusion of inconceivable depth; Pascal comes to mind, and
so forth.
In dreams real and virtual coalesce, ascii-dreams, livid dreams, maroon
dreams of womb interiors, dreams of classification, conflagration. They
flicker in and out of the preconscious, lists of sexual graphemes and
regions centered around the penis, perineum, anus, nipple. I wake in the
middle of the night, fingers half-inserted, erect, sweated; there are
monsters. The image: cuneiform word-lists, transliterated and translated,
sharp spikes penetrating the body, mouths held open. There are no screams
in cyberspace, not even with Iphone's advent; there is the collusion, the
_substance_ of the computer, and it's this _substance_ as well which
remains untranslatable to those unfamiliar, and so forth.
Circulating among the home pages, one rarely runs into community; language
is pasted onto signboards, even on those refreshable chat sites. Crack the
Web, split it open, and words, neighborhoods seethe forth. I resist this,
this splitting, even the surface, resist the Net; for me, totally succumb-
ing to its narrowed modalities is the sign of death, hungering for too
long too near the screen. But I understand the promise in this hungering
as well, the ability to achieve satiation, find commonality. I have to
remind myself constantly that I'm a freak, that the lure of the threshold
is the lure of paste compared to the flood of the out of doors, and so
forth.
It's a litany of occasions, events, each with their temporal horizons,
subjective projects, relevances, avatars, sublimations, repressions,
identities, political and monetary economies. As I said last night to the
interviewer from NPR (not broadcast), humans will find communicative and
communal possibilities in any ecological niche; there are Iphone and IRC
societies as well as those in MUDs, MOOs, newsgroups, email lists, and so
forth. Communication in this fashion parallels capital and late capital-
ism, extending and expanding through all those devices of -jectivity, hy-
steric embodiment, that I've documented elsewhere. So there are thresholds
and rites of passage, there are communities and projections, there are hy-
sterias and issues of governance/framework/political economy, and there
is a majority off-line public out there, meeting explanation with bewil-
derment, uncomprehending of community external to the obdurate existence
of bodies, trails, buildings, streets, and so forth.
And so forth into the night of the darknet, day of the real, vacillating
among illuminations, uneasy dreams, sexual-depressive twists of the body,
corporate-celebratory twists of the machinic, and so forth.
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Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 17:15:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
http://www.alansondheim.org/flood.mov
http://www.alansondheim.org/flood2.mov
( but it's not the flood that meanders; it's the flood or storm that
spreads and spill, but not meanders; it's the pronoun that follows the
text below * )
( * and see below and http://www.alansondheim.org/flood3.mov
http://www.alansondheim.org/flood4b.mov ** )
sometimes work meanders; environments are unexpected, and analysis follows
suit. visual and theoretical paths meander, as if trajectories were always
second-order at the least: think of spatial acceleration. the speed of
thought moves nothing. everything proceeds as if an apologetics: this
isn't what I meant but isn't it interesting?
then there are the dreams, dream work, as if all screens were breasts, all
leaks, exhalations from the matrix.
the well PUMPED the oil, the man and woman PUMPED each other, the infant
desert was NOURISHED, the ocean and mind were MILKED.
* ** it's the following for example :: http://alansondheim.org/flood3.mov
where simultaneous sit/teleport commands construct an imaginary position
_elsewhere,_ in mid-air or mid-stream - a position viewed either from
avatar or independent camera - a position which answers to its own
transposed topography - breaking the simulacrum of the real - floating the
avatar 'about' deeply unrelated spaces - as if she were controlled there -
so one might ask - where is the mechanism here - the control mechanism -
since 'there' has none - and the original mechanism is elsewhere - out of
touch, out of reach - so here's a meander - an occurrence - something to
take advantage of - leading us out into, in fact, a dream state of sorts -
flying through unknown geographies - and then
the well PUMPED the oil, the man and woman PUMPED each other, the infant
desert was NOURISHED, the ocean and mind were MILKED -
as the next and final image, environment, process, procedure, operation,
installation, performance appeared -
http://www.alansondheim.org/flood4b.mov - perhaps the most 'original' of
all - certainly the most energized - the most possessing a philosophic
diegesis or trajectory - something to say, to be said - for the liquidity
of catastrophe - liquidity of permanent crisis - and its relation to
engendering, to the interior of the body, to the matrix, the breast, to
semen, to the womb, to the infant, to nourishment and nutrition, to the
phenomenology of the swollen, tumescent, distended - to fecundity,
engorgement and the soft flow of the eaten - to suffocation and the last
respiration, to death and the last sight of eyes slowly closing - never to
open again -
- think of the jagged-dance or puppet-marionette-dance, for that's what
happens, that's what's happening - whenever you're there - beneath the
sign of capital (I used to say) - _within_ the sign of capital - not the
here/ there of the Matrix, but effluvia, floundering about, flailing, for
and against our will - 'the soft flow of the eaten - to suffocation and
the last respiration' -
http://www.alansondheim.org/flood.mov
http://www.alansondheim.org/flood2.mov
http://www.alansondheim.org/flood3.mov
http://www.alansondheim.org/flood4b.mov
and 4b yes yes yes, the coming home of the catastrophic, the flooding, the
new world of oil and milk, the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid,
the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
the flooding and milking of liquid and liquid
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Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 06:00:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: event-description (please no replies)
event-description
fast heartbeat, palpitations, shaking, sleeplessness, tossing and turning,
wide-awake, sweating, heavy eyelids, unbearable exhaustion, persistent
urination, dry throat, mucus, sore throat, shoulder pain, slight pain in
ankles, neck pain, slight joint pain in fingers, out of breath, slight
feeling of rigidity, panic, despair, lower back pain > panic attack?
excessive and chronic insomnia?
feelings of having-to-do-everything-immediately because of the imminence
of death, mind whirling at high-speed, anguish over dying, anguish over
leaving azure behind, anguish over my father's condition, anguish over our
financial situation, anguish over my joblessness > not depression though -
slight difficulty swallowing, dry mouth, dry scalp, excessive nervousness,
not wanting to go on like this, watching the irreversible slowing-up of my
father, fear of family feuding, feeling trapped, flailing uselessly, teeth
hurting slightly, bad breath, random itches, legs twitching, chapped,
lips, feelings of infinite regret, jealousies of others' careers, slightly
manic - feelings of stupidity, of being tone-deaf, of being unable to do
anything and to do anything of importance, of being forgotten, of being
garbage, of interfering with the lives of others, of interfering with
email lists, of interfering in virtual ad real worlds, of being a blight
on the internet, of being useless and being utterly useless, slight pains
in lower left leg, inability to concentrate > faster, faster -
Fri Jul 9 05:58:40 EDT 2010 all night, all day, all week, all month long
-
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Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 04:39:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Executables
Executables
http://www.alansondheim.org/exe/ - all the files are .exe, executable.
They were made in 2003. One or more will 'stick' to the desktop until
rebooting. None of them have viruses, worms, etc. They're all self-
contained. Some of the images have to be double- or single-clicked on to
start the processes. Some of the processes end by themselves; some just
continue; some of the images themselves differ with each click; some of
the images change with repeated clicking; and so forth. The pieces are
concerned with - maybe 'deal with' - issues of the gaze, language,
reading, sexuality, body, corruption, decay, control, deconstruction,
eroticism. I'm leaving the them up for a while only - if you want them,
download them now. After a while, some of the pieces will move to another
site, and some of the more risque will simply be taken down. The programs
that created these, by the way, were deleted; I wanted the executables to
behave as independent autonomous objects with relatively impermeable
interiors. I don't remember myself how they were made. They were created
with Visual Basic 6, in a flurry of activity over a period of weeks. I've
never been able to take the surface of an image for granted; these pieces
are the result of that failure.
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Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:12:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: meanderings of landscape
meanderings of landscape
landscape displacement remapped
bringing natural beauty from the foothills of the rockies
into the sterile landscape of second life
looped recordings made at roxborough state park, colorado
attached to objects and others in second life
attached to avatar alan dojoji
@who wanders around the abstract and denuded installation
@where hir footprints ./echo and resound in many ways
one might consider this an antiquated form of conceptualism:
map 1 -> map 2 or some such (as if the world were map
(were only map (iff and only if the world were map)))
but think, now, of the natural beauty of a world murmuring
- the transporting of that murmuring into the unnatural
- within the unnatural <--> these are random typologies
(necessarily so) - s.t.
in landmap.mp4 SEE the wandering of Alan Dojoji
HEAR the effluent of the murmuring world *
and in landmaps 2-7 .mp3, HEAR the effluent * -
a NEW aural landscape is created for you by Hir Wandering
and many NEW subtlely different aural landscapes
radio landscapes & you can imagine them
mapped back into the foothills of the rockies
gracefully traced, if you so desire, by Alan Dojoji in the hills
or against the cliffs or overhanging moss and trees -
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/landmap2.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/landmap3.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/landmap4.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/landmap5.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/landmap6.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/landmap7.mp3
http://alansondheim.org/landmap.mp4
* bayou, billabong, branch, confluent, confluent stream, streamlet,
dejecta, dendritic drainage pattern, discharge, tributary, streaming,
exudate, wandering, flooding, meandering, walking, chirping, exudation,
feeder, fork, outbound, outflowing, outgoing, outpouring, outward-bound
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Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:55:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Living Romanticism: Violin and Thunderstorm Duet
Living Romanticism: Violin and Thunderstorm Duet
Violin played under overhang in severe thunderstorm
stopped as lightning moved in:
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/thunders1.mp3
Here's the raw (underrecorded) file - towards the end
after the major strike, there are 'clicks' that seem to be
static discharge in the recording device:
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/staticdischarge.mp3
Earlier preparation for the above, almost musical:
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/thunder2b.mp3
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Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:44:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: oilamina
oilamina
oilamina oil animals lamina oil main mail anal oil lama o in i loam moan
alma ama lamas lamb lame lamp lava la ma la-ma lima mama {concurrent}
{object-oriented} languages - body appearing to breath, creating me -
http://www.alansondheim.org/ oilamina01.jpg - oilamina26.jpg
the body appears to breath, its organs duplicated everywhere, laminated
the texts create me as a laminar manifold, strata and tendrils - plateaus
tion and planetary extinctions. the result is a precarious laminar
insufficient layers, lamina. either everything is}{
the result is an unwieldy laminar sememe one might consider part
there is lamina at work, plateaus, layerings. ontologies and
and gender form lamina or strata weaving across domains, the former an in-
split, shunted into decentered lamina, the wryting is the _said_ of it.
occasion. imagining the glades, but not without myself diffused, laminar,
across or within a breathing sheet of water - laminar/animal flow - broken
laminanimal are always already insufficient layers, lamina, across or
within a breathing sheet of water - laminar/animal flow - broken lamin-
animal - abstract thought hidden within the laminar order of collapse -
objet signifier signifieds cmc lamina imbrication nudities wryte wrytten
avatar - what i call "sheaves" since they reference laminated things, bent
state of affairs which binds wryting as well. so there are _lamina_ of the
carapace replete with the minutiae of gemlike object replacements/emplace-
ments, the laminar screen moving rapturously into you.
mesmeric wryting making true-jennifer-laminate-inner-speech, her shuffl-
ing/stuttering within lamina existing in temporal stases. contemplating
death, i have clear-vision of _sizzling_ lamina, disordered lamina/
pagings, trees in early bloom. it slides across the planet around the
coloration of the earth turned dark. and i have seen the threads.
jennifer, alan, julu, nikuko, are lamina established by networks; they
gather together across membranes - moisture; i am transported - across
lamina, fallen through tubes - vacances -
the great lamina of the stars sway back and forth -
she sways back and forth on the laminar plane - in tune -
with the rhythms of the universe -
the laminar plane and stars -
- laminanimal -
- laminanimal -
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Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:35:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Songs and Accompaniments (with text)
Songs and Accompaniments
Azure's new song:
creatures - solo -- creaturesv - w/violin -- creaturesvv - w/violin mod --
creaturesvvv - w/violin mod
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/creatures.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/creaturesv.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/creaturesvv.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/creaturesvvv.mp3
Murmur (Creatures)
Creatures neath the surface/ murmur among themselves
Softly mewling in silt/ tender touching/ lovely
Many eyes wide open/ to stirrings of the surface
But remaining in the depths/ everything blurs smoothly
Some come with memories/ of others offered/ bartered
What could be given then/ but creatures warm and floating
Turning and mourning/ turns mourning and turning
Many eyes shyly close in comfort/ and close comfort
Many sights to see/ and many seas are sleeping
Many creatures slipping/ many mourning/ drowning
Creatures neath the surface/ murmur among themselves
Softly mewling in silt/ tender touching/ lovely
Many eyes wide open/ to stirrings of the surface
But remaining in the depths/ everything blurs smoothly
Some come with memories/ of others offered/ bartered
What could be given then/ but creatures warm and floating
Turning and mourning/ turns mourning and turning
Many eyes shyly close in comfort/ and close comfort
Many sights to see/ and many seas are sleeping
Many creatures slipping/ many mourning/ drowning
Azure's dark robe:
darkrobevv - w/violin -- darkrobevvv - w/violin
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/darkrobevv.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/darkrobevvv.mp3
muteute - violin solo
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/muteute.mp3
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Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2010 21:40:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: MM tissue AVATAR Alan PUMP across generation SPLASHED
MM tissue AVATAR Alan PUMP across generation SPLASHED
COASTAL BASIN Dojoji mess mess Dojoji BASIN COASTAL SPLASHED generation
across PUMP Alan AVATAR tissue MM PUMP verb MF operated FF flesh
striations moment lubrication walks by AVATAR plaque FLUSH FLUSH plaque
AVATAR by walks lubrication moment striations flesh FF operated MF verb
PUMP MM tissue AVATAR Alan PUMP across generation SPLASHED COASTAL BASIN
Dojoji mess mess Dojoji BASIN COASTAL SPLASHED generation across PUMP Alan
AVATAR
FF nerve PUMP nerve nerve PUMP nerve verb PUMP nerve striations nerve
split nerve verb connect striations verb tissue split verb tissue connect
striations tissue generation split generation machine connect generation
operated tissue generation by generation generation by machine machine
Julu operated machine Twine Julu operated Twine Twine operated Twine Alan
by Twine Dojoji Julu Alan not Twine Alan moment Dojoji Alan FLUSH not Alan
FLUSH moment Dojoji FLUSH FLUSH not NOISE fills moment NOISE SPLASHED
FLUSH NOISE BASIN NOISE NOISE BASIN fills fills coastal SPLASHED fills
AVATAR coastal SPLASHED AVATAR AVATAR SPLASHED AVATAR walks BASIN AVATAR
into coastal walks midst AVATAR walks mess into walks across midst into
across mess into across across midst gravel plaque mess gravel flesh
across gravel oozed gravel gravel oozed plaque plaque through flesh plaque
COASTAL through flesh COASTAL COASTAL flesh COASTAL AVATAR oozed COASTAL
moment through AVATAR lubrication COASTAL AVATAR MF AVATAR AVATAR PUMP
lubrication moment PUMP MF moment FM PUMP lubrication FM PUMP MF FM MM
PUMP FM PUMP FM FM PUMP PUMP PUMP FF MM PUMP PUMP FF MM PUMP PUMP MM PUMP
PUMP FF PUMP
http://www.alansondheim.org/organmachine.mp4
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