RE: [-empyre-] aLe --> Jorge Luiz Antonio

Lucio Agra <agra@node1.com.br> · Mon, 22 Mar 2004 05:58:41 -0000

At 02:21 14/03/04 -0800, you wrote:
Hi Jim

 Even as in the
western esoteric 'tradition', in which writing into the neoplatonic
'empyrean' is thought to have the power to 'make it so' in this world, our
world, as in the thought of Giordano Bruno, etc. Or as in voodoo, where
change of the doll, the representation, is supposed to cause corresponding
change in the person whom the doll stands for, ie, in both cases there is a
supposed 'essence' and to manipulate or change the 'essence' is supposed to
change the corporeal manifestation, which is a shadow of the 'more real,
more existant' essence.

I think we have a great point here. Something that attracted the attention 
of Ernest Fenollosa when he went to East. The main idea behind his "The 
chinese writing as a medium for poetry" is, precisely, that eastern 
languages were capable to reconnect the concept and the character that 
stands for it. In other words, he noticed the iconic aspect of Chinese 
writing, something that one perceive in the very sign itself. 
Word's  etymology lays at the surface of the sign, he says, an argument 
that was also used by Sergei Eisenstein. Well, this is precisely one of the 
central arguments also in concrete poetry. You can read it back to the 
first manifestoes.

Of course, the 'incantation' or 'spell' in 'magic',
often a verbal or written thing, is associated with 'magic', often
associated with poetry; concrete does not deal so much in that sort of
'magical' written or spoken 'incantation' as in this other sort of
'essentialist' 'magic' that nonetheless also involves a blurring between the
thing and the representation of the thing via contact with or invocation of
a supposed 'essence' that transcends and supercedes the quotidian in its
existence.

Yes, for sure. I think that, in this case, the argument can be traced back 
to Giambattista Vico, whose main idea was that the western thinking had 
forget the magical (be it in words or concepts), calling it superstition. 
Let us not forget that the distinction between signifier and signifiant, 
proposed by Saussure has deep roots in Cartesianism.

I get confused just thinking about it, of course.

So do I. But it is fascinating, thou.
But yes, there's a kind of poetical ambition to fuse the abstract and the
concrete, isn't there, to see the infinite going on before our eyes, as it
were, and I presume that is part of the ambition of concrete as it is, in
some sense, an ambition of most illusionistic art, and most art is
illusionistic.

Yes, it seems Vico identified this desire as a nostalgia for the Adamic 
language.
Or are you referring to something else, Lucio? You refer to an "economic
principle".

By economic principle I mean a principle of self-restraint. This aspect was 
taken from Joao Cabral's poetry.
By the way, as you probably know,
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=17493&pageid=r&mode=ALL&query=concre
te has all sorts of historical material on concrete, including manifestos,
in English--well you would probably instead have links to many of these
documents in Portuguese, or have them on your shelf additionally.

Documents about it are not so frequent in Portuguese. Believe me when I say 
that perhaps

Concrete poetry received more respect outside its own country, than in 
Brazil. Nevertheless there are good sites as Jorge pointed out.

One of the best, I think, though it is in portuguese (nothing that 
Babelfish cannot deal with some misakes) is http://www.artbr.com.br/casa/

It is an exhibition that was held in "Casa das Rosas" a very beautiful 
cultural center that the governor of our state had the great idea to 
extinguish.
People generally associate 'magic' and 'mumbo jumbo', and there's a lot of
that, for sure, in heavy duty essentialism of any kind, whether it's Bruno's
neoplatonism or whatever, but I sense that it is a peripheral, um, component
of concrete, an inessential component, as it were.

Also for sure. I've learned with beautiful Frances Yeat's book that the 
Renaissance "tricks" - later forbidden - constitute our best tradition to 
deal with memory. And of course you know it is in the basis of contemporary 
data bases.

 I mean concrete can also
be approached as a synthesis of the visual and the written, or as a literary
movement with significant political ramifications concerning powerful mass
communication, or as a movement toward sense and clarity and focus in
writing, towards simplicity and elegance in communication, however
deceptively simple the simplicity, as in interface design.

Not ever. Marjorie Perloff  (Radical Artifice) discuss this point in chap. 4
 And also, to me,
or us, involved in the digital as we are, where the word and image and sound
and action become transformed into each other, or are in different relations
with one another than previously was common, we see concrete as an important
'precursor' to our own experimentation with materials and cursors.

Certainly!
Still, it is quite common these days for people to profess a rationalism in
which confusion of the thing and its representation supposedly has no place,
in which such confusion is relegated to superstition, but I wonder how
thorough-going that rationalism is. We are not very rational creatures, it
seems to me, and mumbo jumbo almost inevitably enters through the back door
of our rationalizations to ourselves

Points to Vico!
. It doesn't help that there is a kind
of essentialism almost built into language itself,

Bw: Essentialism is kind of Western nominalist tradition.

Seems to me it has nothing to do with magical powers of word, an idea 
completely oposed to this, in my view.
 whereby we are very
nearly forced to suppose that words have meaning apart from any meaning we
might assign them, independent of what anybody thinks. never medium message
raven, as you say in http://www.geocities.com/agraryk/agrippseng.htm , which
I enjoyed very much!

Thanks a lot! I really appreciate!
That page has very interesting remarks such as "If Ezra Pound sometime
insisted that poetry had to do more with music and plastic arts, instead of
literature, from now on, these predictions are confirmed by the facts."
Also, you say
"A certain Brazilian artist called Helio Oiticica, now progressively getting
an international renown, years after his death, once made an statement about
the singular reality that is lived by countries like mine, where technology
is always something seen in a future horizon. He used to say: "We live from
the adversity" Seems to be a very contradictional affirmation, but it
reflects very accurately the reality which surrounds us in countries like
Brazil. The creativity is something that derives precisely from the limits
imposed to it. And it is just because these limits are exactly what pushes
this same creativity forward."
This is quite remarkable, and I agree wholeheartedly. I have thought
something similar but different, ie, that whatever makes art so improbable
in a particular place usually is in strong relation to what makes it
possible there.

 Definitely!

 Where I live, what makes it so improbable, in part, is the
peripheral nature of art to the society, so that the consequence of art in
the society seems like it could only be, at most, minute, small. And, more
particularly, in the sort of digital poetry I make, where there is a
synthesis of writing and visual and sound and interaction for the Web, this
is not even recognized as poetry among my peers. But, as you and Oiticica
say, "we live from the adversity", ie, the energy of the edges we traverse
give us life or reward. As Clemente and Blake said earlier, "Expect nothing
but poison from stagnant waters." The energies of language seem currently
involved strongly in the transformations of the sign we experience in the
digital brew.

Or, as Pound said (not necessarily referring to Brazil but perhaps to the 
"stagnant waters": Bright brazilians blasting at bastards.

So it is different and the same in Brazil as in Canada this way, it seems,
Lucio.

Solidarity!
It is exciting to hear from you and Clemente and Jorge, Regina, and aLe on
digital poetry, Lucio. I look forward to hearing more from you and the
others on this, our exploration of 'the phenomenological and fantastic in
Brazilian new media'.
ja

Your words, mine! Great conversation
Best
Lucio
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