<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>OK, devil's advocate here. Every tool humans have developed has changed them, has obliterated certain practices and modes of thinking and generated new ones. The computer is just another tool, a really sophisticated and complex hammer. Some of the consequences of this tool are pretty dire -- the enablement of a post-truth polity, for instance -- but it also creates a potential being in common that is the -- I want to say "cure" but that's not quite it. It's the antithetical action that opens into other possibilities. It can go either way, depending on what people do, and there are a lot of people doing a lot of different things.</div><div><br></div><div>I don't think that our lack of awareness of our dependence on those systems is new. Isn't it always just "the world". And they (the <i>techne</i>) have always shaped us. Isn't that Heidegger's point? If you figure out how to make flint spear tips, you stop throwing rocks and become different. We become aware of it when the computer stops working in the car in the middle of Death Valley, or the operating system goes wacky just before the deadline for a huge project. It's really the same old same old.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It's just that the stakes have risen catastrophically. </span></div><div><br></div><div>I think that's true about sci-fi. It has framed the question of technology in terms of an address to ontology. <br><br>Mike</div><div><br><div>Sent from my iPad</div></div><div><br>On Nov 19, 2016, at 5:54 PM, Jerome Sala <<a href="mailto:jeromesala502@gmail.com">jeromesala502@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------</span><br><span>Murat, your question, as to whether "the computer (and the web and its</span><br><span>consequence) has the ability to expose and criticize the condition it</span><br><span>has created...whether the digital can be 'revealer of is own truth',</span><br><span>brought to mind a book I've been reading - Discognition, by Steven</span><br><span>Shaviro. One of the points Shaviro argues is that, in our everyday</span><br><span>experience, "we're mostly unaware of how deeply our lives depend upon</span><br><span>the functioning of complex, expert systems..." -- we're the fish in</span><br><span>their ocean (McLuhan) (unless they break down). Another aspect we</span><br><span>don't grasp, as your question implies, is that such technological</span><br><span>entities, rather then just being there, inert until we manipulate</span><br><span>them, have an agency of their own: "...if we engineer them, in various</span><br><span>ways, they 'engineer' us as well, nudging us to adapt to their</span><br><span>demands."</span><br><span></span><br><span>I am not sure whether the "digital" can speak its truth (at least in a</span><br><span>language we understand), but Shaviro suggests one way we humans might</span><br><span>begin to see its truth/reality for ourselves - by creating art where</span><br><span>the "material and technological factors are explicitly foregrounded."</span><br><span>His book is about science fiction stories that do this. Perhaps this</span><br><span>is also what I had in mind by the poetic project I wrote about, which</span><br><span>foregrounds digital/corporate cliches that inform us, through the</span><br><span>jargon we speak. In any case, Shaviro's book may offer a clue as to</span><br><span>the great popularity of the SF genre. Often, in allegorical ways, it</span><br><span>acknowledges the agency of the technological (remember the Borg?), and</span><br><span>enables people to start talking about the power of its influence.</span><br><span></span><br><span>On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 3:15 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <<a href="mailto:muratnn@gmail.com">muratnn@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><br><blockquote type="cite"><span>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Hi Jerome, by your question on the nature of "knowing" in poetry, I</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>think you touched a critical point, an issue running throughout the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>discussions and presentations this month.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Knowledge that poetic experience contains or "reveals" does have</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>multiple facets. On the one hand, the knowledge (in some incarnations,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>message/propaganda) may be transactional and implicitly points or</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>leads to action. Some great classics are of that sort, for instance,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Lucretius's On Nature or Virgil's Eclogues, Shakespeare's Henry V and</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>also, in some sense, though a book of "revelation," The Bible, etc.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>The election of Trump last week drove the discussion to the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>transactional side of poetry (art), and rightly so. That is what all</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>the writing invited to be sent to Dispatches for the anthology all</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>about. So are the post cards Craig refers to, as conceptual acts.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>There is another kind of knowledge that poetry "reveals," not</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>necessarily leading to action-- of course, the distinction is somewhat</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>artificial since a poem or work of art contains both simultaneously</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>each time creating a different balance. If one extreme side of this</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>spectrum is propaganda (all nations/cultures/languages have propaganda</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>masterpieces), the other extreme is gnosis-- a knowledge not quite</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>contained in the practicalities of a language, but in its peripheries,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>the often unacknowledged overtones that emanate from words, space,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>etc. (embedded in poesies).</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>It is in terms of this same dilemma (the nature of poetic knowledge)</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>that Heidegger is discussing technology in his essay. On the one hand</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>it is defined as "enframing" nature to exploit it (in terms that</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Francis Bacon asserts as "knowledge is power"). On the other hand, it</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>returns technology to its roots as techne, a making that reveals the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>truth. Their relationship is dialectical.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>I have been on Empyre list for about two years, following it on and</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>off with interest because it presents to me a digital culture that is</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>of great interest to me; but in which I am not directly involved as a</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>practitioner. What struck me most is that, save for important</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>exceptions such as Alan Sondheim and Isak Berbic (and I am sure there</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>are others), the focus of the participants was on what the internet or</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>the computer can do for them, on the computer as a new potent enabler,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>the computer as artistic or political power. As far as I can see,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>little attention was given to it as a revealer of "truth," the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>knowledge of human condition and psyche in a digital technological</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>age.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>In my view, poetry (art) is doomed to die without containing within</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>itself both these knowledge, though the melange may be different in</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>each.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>The underlying focus for me this month has been, that is why I</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>accepted the invitation to moderate, to explore whether the computer</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>(and the web as its consequence) has the ability to expose and</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>criticize the condition it has created, in other words, whether the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>digital can be the "revealer of its own truth." I can not say I have</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>been that successful up to now.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>The primary text for this month is the fifteen minute video clip I</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>referred to in my introductory statement at the beginning of the month</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>in which the film maker Jean Renoir discusses the effect of technology</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>on art (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Mtd6GE_PI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Mtd6GE_PI</a> ). He says that</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>art becomes boring to the extent that that the art maker is in total</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>control of his or her own materials and techniques. He refers to a</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>group of 11th century French tapestries (the Bayeux, the first known</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>ones) where the threads were coarsely spun, the colors were primitive</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>and of a narrow range; but they contained great beauty, revealing the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>strife of their making.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>That is why "Overcoming Technique"--the first two words of my</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>introductory title-- is crucial, whether one finally agrees with</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Renoir or not. In our daily lives with family and children and</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>teaching and grading papers, etc., I hope some of us find time to</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>re-focus on these issues the remaining days of this month. As artists,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>the issues are important for all of us.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Ciao,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Murat</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 9:28 AM, Craig Saper <<a href="mailto:csaper@umbc.edu">csaper@umbc.edu</a>> wrote:</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Relevant to the discussion and the “dispatches” this event might speak to the issue of, what Jerome Sala called in a recent "poetry is a particular way of knowing the mind” …</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>"Post Card Avalanche"</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Join in and send a postcard directly to Trump! Here are the basic instructions to participate:</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>** IMPORTANT - Don't mail your card until NOV. 26th **</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>In the message section, write this simple message: NOT BANNON!</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Throw a post card Avalanche party. Make postcards.</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Address it as follows:</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Donald Trump</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>c/o The Trump Organization</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>725 Fifth Avenue</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>New York, NY 10022</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Affix a stamp - you can use a 35 cent postcard stamp, or a normal letter stamp.</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Take a picture of your postcard that you can share on social media using the hashtag #stopbannon</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Drop it in the mail! We are aiming to get these mailed between Saturday, Nov 26th and Monday, Nov. 28th to create a concentrated avalanche of postcards.”</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>_______________________________________________</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>empyre forum</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span><a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span><a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>_______________________________________________</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>empyre forum</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span><a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span><a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></span><br></blockquote><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>empyre forum</span><br><span><a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a></span><br><span><a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></span></div></blockquote></body></html>