Re: [-empyre-] digital sublime

[David Loughton <david@gallere.com.au>]

I can understand why someone, so deeply embedded into, and dependent 
upon, an empirical/binary knowledge data base needed to come to grips 
with reality (concrete or virtual), can think they have struck a 
world shattering revelation about Walking amongst STUFF and the 
workings of changing one's awareness.

From what I can gather, Natalie Jeremijenko is only illustrating 
something very basic and fundamental about human psychology said in 
such a way as to confound every one into thinking it is so profound. 
It makes me wonder why something so simple is presented the way it 
is. Maybe she is trying to prove she is capable of 256 bit addressing 
while thinking the rest of us are still 128 bit addressing.

Try this for size

Because I was fucking around with STUFF, I got burnt. From this I 
engineered the following...

---

Something happens (I put my hand into a flame and got burnt) = 0

Onto which I place an interpretation (not good) = 0

From which I adopt a fixed way of being about putting my hand into a 
flame (I wont do that again) = 0

Which cause me to react in a fix way of being when next I am near fire. = 0

For the rest of my life there is now no need for me to go through any 
process of appreciation about fire as I now have a fixed way of being 
(ROM) that covers this situation. I am now totally convinced that 
close contact with fire is not in my best interest no matter what any 
one says. I have knowledge (empirical/binary data) of the reality 
concerning fire

And the next time I get burnt the cycle starts again (it would have 
to be an accident because I now have a fixed way of being [a node] 
about this situation which will prevent me being burnt again) -

Something happens (I put my hand into a flame and get burnt)

Onto which I place a reenforcing interpretation (still not good) 
etc... Now I am more than ever convinced that I should never, never, 
never do that again. Or as Natalie puts 'it forces release of 
information as structures of knowledge'. The binary/empirical 'if 
true' condition reply works - a reference to history that 
intellectuals/academics (as opposed to what artists do) rely upon as 
the ultimate proof of reality.

The end result is a fixed way of being, in this case it is a 
conversation for 'no possibility' about putting my hand into a fire. 
(The 'if true' result of 0+0+0+0 [see above] is 0, or negative)

A fixed way of being is nothing more than a conversational paradigm 
developed out of moving about the environment (fucking around with 
STUFF called fire) which has created (like what artists do) an 
interpretation of this event, which is filed away into the 
subconscious (ROM) (or as Natalie puts it  'repressed or latent 
zone') as an 'if true' strictly binary short string of code, where 
now nothing exist except as a conversation of no possibility.

Now the question is 'how do I convince myself to put my hand into the 
fire (to retrieve an artwork worth 10 million dollars, say) now that 
I have a very fixed way of being about not putting my hand into fire?

This is something humans can do but machines can't (not yet anyway, 
not until we get true AI). What humans can do is by pass (ignore) the 
interpretation (fixed way of being) and 'write' another'if true' 
condition that was not there before which will cause another 
'animation' of putting your hand into the fire.

However, there is something else that humans can do that machines 
will never ever be able to do, not even the most sophisticated and 
advanced AI machines of the future. And that is, imagine a future 
that is built out of an inspiration for a better human condition 
which will cause action to bring this future into being (existence). 
And to do that you will need an understanding of the ontology of 
humanness - the being of humans being, not computers, the Net, or VR. 
Computers and the Net can not create 'being' for themselves as theirs 
is fixed.

For those that (as opposed to 'who') intellectualise, lacking 
inspiration (for the future of the human condition), the past becomes 
the present which in turn becomes the only possibility for their 
future. In other words, they perform a reality check by looking at 
the past for evidence of true or false before continuing. For someone 
with an inspired future for the human condition born out what is 
possible but yet does not exist, the intellectual/empirical rational 
mode is a conversation for no possibility beyond the possibility for 
doing nothing more than more of the same. Booorrrring!

> "For the first time I have discovered a new reality
Only for you Natalie Jeremijenko, all there is is You and the rest of 
the universe in a relationship that can only be added to, which is 
different to mine. In Zen this 'discovery' or a reality is called an 
enlightenment (you knew that) , the 'new reality' is not new it has 
always been there but without your awareness of it (without your 
cognitive relationship - it has always been there with you, but 
without you being in its presence).

> which is not within myself, but within the world,
Read previous paragraph

> I found a Caminhando {Walking}, an inner itinerary outside of myself.
All we have here is a shift in moving back and forth (a 'Walking') 
between foreground / background - between the duality of me and my 
limited but expanding awareness of the universe, a shift between 
being and not being in the presence of.

> Before, the Bicho {Animal} emerged within me, it spurted out like an 
> obsessive explosion - though all my senses. Now for the first time, 
> withh the Caminhando- it is the opposite. 
Sounds to me like a shift from childhood to adult

> I perceive the totality of the world as a unique, global rhythm, 
> which extends from Mozart to the gestures of beach football."  (also 
> quoted in "Force Fields")
'I perceive the totality of the world'? I doubt that completely. In 
Zen terms of awareness and enlightenment about you and your world 
(reality) relationship, you 'have not yet reached Buddhahood'. There 
is still more not yet revealed about the world that goes way, way 
beyond the understanding the 'global rhythm'. (Hey man, dig the 
vibes).

> I have been in a meditation about inscape for a long time: the 
> notion of a constellated dynamic of ontologic and epistomelogic 
> orchestrations, an interior topography, within and outside the self, 
> on the borders of the mixed realities. Why modes of digital 
> representation make a kind of participatory mirror, a new rendering 
> of something we are becoming, something we can't even really see 
> yet. That's the digital sublime..
It was also the sublime of 60,000+ year old cave paintings. It's 
nothing new, as they say: 'The more things change the more they stay 
the same'. And by the way, that's not meditation, it's contemplation. 
To get beyond your collection of binary data and your system of data 
processing you will need to practice meditation.

Thanks Christina, thanks Natalie for being a contribution to my 
understanding, and for making me aware of my need to invent a new 
possibility for myself in being human beyond what I have just said to 
be 1 or 0.

Cheers

David Loughton
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Art History -

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future.
The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that 
no longer exists.
Eric Hoffer

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