RE: [-empyre-] RE: [-empyre-]::An Avatar Manifesto::response to Alan

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

On Fri, 22 Nov 2002, Gregory Little wrote:

> Hmmm, I am confused, I am very familiar with Kristeva's "The Powers of
> Horror, and essay on Abjection", and am not understanding the distinction
> you are making:
> >"By "messy" I'm also referencing Kristeva's notion of the abject as part
> and parcel of the body, and not - Powers of Horror" ?
>
Uncomfortably part of the body/body-ego and withdrawn from it - the source
of disgust, disquiet - I don't have the volume before me, but it's the
earlier part - talking about shit, vomit, etc. - disgust of things of and
not of simultaneously, dead and alive simultaneously - even I think half
willful and half not -

> Is it online?  If so, can you direct us to it?  I would love to see it!
>
I forget where Beehive is, but if you put Beehive & Stelarc in google, I
think it would come up quickly -

> I see, a text based avatar, I think actually a perfectly viable avatar form,
> again, skips over the messiness of vistual representation and forms a pure
> instrument.  Again, is this online?
>
No, these are things I work with on a continuous basis, but not online.
They're small writing programs, about 8-10 of them.

They seem messy to me; they're thwarting in a way. I rewrote part of the
Emacs Doctor program, based on Eliza, so it represents Nikuko - when one
tries to make sense within it, one loses as usual - the boundaries are
where the bones of the program show through -

> >One question - doesn't the tearing-away always occur, the transference-
> >coupling, etc., to a greater or lesser degree? And wouldn't this degree be
> >on the increase? I wonder what happens psychoanalytically for example in a
> >Mud when external forces transform/tire/wound/kill/etc. one's avatar -
> >which in a way is at least acted upon idenpendently. And wouldn't this
> >then get into some sort of game-theory in relation to role-playing, which
> >is not only from within (i.e. projection) but without (i.e. the gamer is
> >acted upon, but only through the mediation of the character)?
>
> Yes, a very valid point, I will concede that the tearing away process is
> part of a continuum, dependent upon both the online environment, and the
> intelligence of the avatar.....from a dumb strap-on at one end of the
> spectrum to an AI form at the other.  And, I suppose that although a dumb
> strap-on may not necessarily tear away from its referent, it can incite
> responses that could act upon the user in corporeal space at a number of
> levels.
>
- the use of "dumb" and "strap-on" here is interesting - implying almost a
mute sexuality at work, but every prosthesis has its weight.

Perhaps within the tearing-away lies a discomfort zone that characterizes
the obsessiveness and fetishization of the other -

Alan