Re: [-empyre-] Accidents (was for example)

["Joel Weishaus" <weishaus@pdx.edu>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "eugenie" <eugenies@onetel.net.uk>
To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:10 AM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Accidents (was for example)


> all,
>
> more than likely i'm having a little moment of panic over semantics here,
> but jim's suggestion that....
>
> > a gesture, for instance, if it is remembered, is
> > remembered via some inscription of it somewhere (or multiple places) in
the
> > body. Whether we want to call it writing or inscription or coding or
> > whatever, doesn't matter. Aspects of the gesture are coded in the body
as
> > information, in some way that makes them memorable, ie, recallable, ie,
> > decipherable later on as the gesture. Readable later on as the gesture.
> >
> > In other words, the information is coded in a language that is
inscribable
> > and, later, decipherable or readable, amenable to interpretation
according
> > to some rules regarding the language.
>
> .... seems to reduce gesture - and embodied perception more generally - to
a
> sort of call-and-response activity linked to a relatively limited
repertoire
> of codes - a definitional framework that aims not just to construct the
body
> but to prescribe 'every possible signifying and countersignifying move as
a
> selection from a repertoire of possible permutations on a limited set of
> predetermined terms'
>
> .... that last little bit is lifted from Brian Massumi's 'Parables for the
> Virtual', and i'm roping him in here because he argues much more
eloquently
> than i do against frameworks which propose a determinitive structure (i.e.
a
> code) first, and movement or gesture second. these sort of models leave no
> room for change - qualitative material transformation. in other words they
> suggest that embodiedness itself is historically static and the only
things
> that change are the codes/inscriptions that make it legible.
>
> > the human perceptual crevice is only a sliver of temporal and spatial
> > phenomenon
>
> i'd agree - and given this it seems a bit optimistic to suggest that
sensory
> information is coded and readable like any other language

Well it isn't, it's a chemical language which we don't yet fully understand.
More interesting is the transformative mechanism as the code reformats into
natural languages. The creative gesture. Again, there are terms but yet
little understanding. As for "embodiedness (look how "died" is embedded
here!) itself is historically static," there is no stasis in nature, only
continuous flux within a normative spectrum. At bottom, codes are only
energetic beeps.
I don't like Massumi's "determinative structure," however, as the normative
is beyond what we can determine.

-Joel