Re: [-empyre-] Academic Aggression

[Christian McCrea <saccharinmetric@gmail.com>]

Christina,

Thank you - you've congealed some ideas for me, and opened up a worm
cannery in others! I hope my original post didn't seem defensive or
critical of empyre - I think in general, from my short time lurking, 
that discussions here are conducted with a great degree of continual
analysis-of-the-frame and if someone's emotions begin to offend
others, its quickly sorted out and examined rather than derided and
inflammatory. That said, I'm fascinated by styles of academic debate
that could correlate to a gameplay analogue; so I'm 'looking' for
trouble as I set out on this investigation. Again, thanks - you've
provided some great directions for fruitful dialogues in this area.

Some thoughts generated, rather than responses:

> Of the problems and opportunities  that -empyre- faces, one of the more
> subtle is the submerged but persistent resist  between the ethos of the
> academic debate and the etiquette of a dinner party. 

Etiquette is interesting between academics - theres an undertone of
career advancement to a lot of discussion between academics working in
related fields. "Is this person more well known than me?" is a
subtextual gesture I've seen emerge a few times. There's respect given
to higher-publishing-ratio writers, certainly.

> Though an independent artist (without current university
> affiliation) I grew up in an academic family.  Accustomed since salad days
> to the sparring styles of academia,  nonetheless I don¹t find the tendance (
> ( in the French sense of the word, the direction) of -empyre- towards an
> academic game space although it can be that at times.

Perhaps my interests and fascinations are symptomatic of my late
arrival into academia; both parents were activists/anarchists who
warned me off ever being an academic (in the same breath as
'policeman'). And perhaps film studies (the departments in which I
mostly find myself engaging) have a peculiar social stratasphere.

> That movement, to post, from amongst the lurking, seems to be
> often provoked by debates over semantic differences.

Brilliant... a 'movement' to post. I'm interested in gesture, through
a 'pataphysical reading of movements and intents. 'pataphysics in the
sense that the poesis of a gesture or intent is far more interesting
than investigating the topography of a thing - falling in love with
its state of exception, its lineaments - and declaring them to be
prior to histories, readings, matrixes. So I'm trying to build an
theory that observes movements and emotions first when it studies
virtual spaces. Movements to post, inspirations to interact with the
group to occupy or create a stance on semantic debates is quite
wonderful.

> This exchange between contrasting motives and styles of posts helps makes
> empyre's form and content lively and worth being archived as the portrait of
> an age.

Absolutely; the torsions of empyre's form are what I'm fascinated by,
the surfaces of egos, the untiny chatter about a new cultural movement
- because these moments generate great meaning in how ideas are
discussed; the gestures which describe them.

>  Yet I think this is
> important, the fact that people around the world care enough about this
> conversation to contribute even when it is quite inconvenient because of
> language barriers. That means a lot to me

It is always good to see dual-language posts, and see a pun or a
clinamenic meaning in two languages, or have a critical point seem to
have a stronger formation of argument in a language you don't know -
it points out the fallacies of your own empire-built language and
reminds you to be able to move across dialects and spaces.


-Christian